person was ever
present with, or privy to any of the robberies he had committed; and
having thus far discharged his conscience, he suffered on the 28th of
July, 1721, in the twenty-fourth year of his age.

The Life of JOHN WINSHIP, Highwayman and Footpad

That idleness in which youths are suffered to live in this kingdom till
they are grown to that size at which they are usually put apprentice (a
space of time in which they are much better employed, in many other
countries of Europe) too often creates an inaptitude to work and allows
them opportunity of entering into paths which have a fatal termination.

John Winship, of whom we are now to treat, was born of parents in
tolerable circumstances in the parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. They
gave him an education rather superior to his condition, and treated him
with an indulgence by which his future life became unhappy. At about
fourteen, they placed him as an apprentice with a carpenter, to which
trade he himself had a liking. His master used him as well as he could
have expected or wished, yet that inclination to idleness and loitering
which he had contracted while a boy, made him incapable of pursuing his
business with tolerable application. The particular accident by which he
was determined to leave it shall be the next point in our relation.

It happened that returning one day from work, he took notice of a young
woman standing at a door in a street not far distant from that in which
his master lived. He was then about seventeen, and imagining love to be
a very fine thing, thought fit, without further enquiry, to make this
young woman the object of his affection. The next evening he took
occasion to speak to her, and this acquaintance soon improving into
frequent appointments, naturally led Winship into much greater expenses
than he was able to support. This had two consequences equally fatal to
this unhappy young man, for in the first place he left his master and
his trade, and took to driving of coaches and like methods, to get his
bread; but all the ways he could think of, proving unable to supply his
expenses, he went next upon the road, and raised daily contributions in
as illegal a manner as they were spent at night, in all the excesses of
vice.

It is impossible to give either a particular or exact account of the
robberies he committed, because he was always very reserved, even after
conviction, in speaking as to these points.

However, he is