ed himself with much courage, and yet
with great penitence. He denied part of the charge, viz., that he was
willingly one of the pirates, but as to the other facts, he confessed
them with very little alteration. He averred that the course of his life
had been very wicked and debauched, for which he expressed much sorrow,
and to the day of his death behaved himself with all outward mark of
true repentance. At the place of execution, he was asked whether he had
not advised the burning of the _Perry_ galley, with Captain King and the
chief mate on board. He averred that he did not in any shape whatsoever
either propose or agree to an act of such a sort. Then, after some
private devotions, he submitted to his sentence, and was turned off on
the 16th day of May, 1729, being then about fifty years of age.

The Life of JEPTHAH BIGG, an Incendiary, and Writer of Threatening
Letters

I have already taken notice in the life of Bryan Smith[85] of the Act of
Parliament on which the proceedings against these letter-writers are
grounded. One would be surprised that after more examples than one of
that kind, people should yet be found so foolish as well as wicked as to
carry on so desperate an enterprise, in which there is scarce any
probability of meeting with success; yet this unfortunate person of whom
we are now to speak, who was descended of mean parents, careful however
of giving him a very good education, fell upon this project, put into
his head by being a little out of business, and so in one moment
cancelled all his former honesty and industry, and hazarded a life which
soon after became forfeited.

His friends had put him out apprentice to a gunstock maker, to which he
served out his time honestly and with a good character. Afterwards he
continued to work at his business with several masters and tolerable
reputation, until about a year before the time of his death, when he was
out of work, by reason he had disobliged two or three persons for whom
he had wrought, and had also been guilty of some extravagancies which
had brought him into narrow circumstances. These straits it is to be
supposed put him upon the fatal project of writing a letter to Mr.
Nathaniel Newman, senior, a man of a very good fortune, threatening him
that unless he sent the sum of eighty-five guineas to such a place, he
would murder him and his wife, with other bloody and barbarous
expressions. This not having its effect, he wrote him a second l