especially some
whom I wish well; I will not name them, but hope, if they see this,
they will take it to themselves. I die in charity with all men,
forgiving and hoping to be forgiven myself, through the merits of my
blessed Saviour Jesus Christ.

He died on the 21st of November, 1729, being thirty-one years of age.

FOOTNOTES:

[87] This may mean that they dropped themselves into the
cess-pit and made their way out through another opening.

[88] Spa Fields, Clerkenwell, was a notorious spot for footpads.

[89] See pages 121, 122.

[90] This was at the south-west corner of Bloomsbury Square.

The Lives of WILLIAM ROGERS, a Thief; WILLIAM SIMPSON, a Horse-dealer;
and ROBERT OLIVER, _alias_ WILLIAM JOHNSON, a Thief

The first of these persons was descended from very mean parents, who
had, however, given him a tolerable education, so far as to qualify him
by reading and writing for any ordinary kind of business, to which they
intended to breed him on his coming to a fit age. They put him out
apprentice to a shoemaker, with whom he lived out his time, with the
approbation of his master and all who knew him. Afterwards he married a
wife and worked for some time honestly as a journeyman at his trade,
being exceedingly fond of his new wife. But she being a woman who liked
living in a better state than he could afford by what he gained at his
work, and he being desirous to live more at home, and yet maintain her
plentifully too, at last came to picking and thieving; and being
detected in stealing some shoes out of a shop, he was for that crime
transported.

In Maryland and Virginia he continued some time working at his trade
with masters there, who gave him great encouragement, so that he might
have lived very happily there, if he had not been desirous of coming to
England. His mind ran continually on his wife. It was for her sake that
he at first had fallen into these practices, and to enjoy her
conversation was almost the only thing which tempted him to return home.

On his arrival here, it was no doubt with the greatest uneasiness that
he heard his wife, as soon as ever he went abroad, cohabited with
another man and could never afterwards be brought to see him, or give
him any assistance, no not when he was under his last and great
misfortunes. Her unkindness afflicted the unhappy man so much that he
grew careless of his safety, and thereby became speedily apprehended,