a weaver, yet he seldom or
never worked at it, but went on at this rate, from one crime to another,
until he at last arrived at those which brought him to the ignominious
end, and thereby rendered him a subject for our memoirs.

At twelve years old, he took up the trade of housebreaking, to which he
applied himself very closely, for the last six years of his life.
Hampstead, Highgate, Hackney, and other villages round the town were the
places which he generally made choice of to play his tricks in, and as
people are much more ingenious in wickedness than ever they are in the
pursuit of honest employments, so by degrees he became (even while a
boy) the most dexterous housebreaker of his time; insomuch that as is
usual amongst those unhappy people, the gang commended him so much, that
believing himself some great person, he went on with an air of
confidence, in the commission of a multitude of burglaries, in and about
the streets of this metropolis.

Young as he was at that time, he plunged himself, as it were with
industry, into all manner of lusts, wickedness and illegal pleasures,
which, as it wasted all he acquired by the thefts he committed, so it
injured his health and damaged his understanding to such a degree that
when he came to die, he could scarce be looked on as a rational
creature.

The offence which proved fatal to him was the breaking into the house of
Mr. Samuel Smith, in the night-time, on the 31st of May, 1729, with an
intent to steal. At his trial the prosecutor swore that between the
hours of eleven and one of the dock of the night laid in the indictment
he was called up by his neighbours, and found that his window was broken
open; whereupon, searching about very narrowly, he at last found the
prisoner got up the chimney, and landing on the pole whereon the
pothooks hung. In his defence the prisoner told the Court that meeting
with a person who said he lodged in the prosecutor's house, and it being
late, he accepted the man's proposition to lie with him; thereupon his
new acquaintance carried him to Mr. Smith's, let him in, and then ran
away, so that he had never seen or heard of him since. This relation
being every way improbable and ridiculous, the jury very readily found
him guilty of the fact, and he with the rest, on the last day of the
sessions received sentence of death accordingly.

While he lay in the cells, his behaviour was as stupid in all outward
appearance as ever had appeared in any