ut this mask upon his villainy, but on the contrary gave way to
his wild and debauched temper, and committed a thousand extravagancies,
which soon created suspicions, and occasioned his being apprehended on
suspicion of a robbery. This clearly being made out at the ensuing
assizes, he was thereupon convicted, pardoned, and transported. But he
soon found a way to return into England, and grew one of the most daring
and mischievous robbers that ever infested the road.

The multitude of his robberies made his person so well known that it is
wonderful he should so long escape, especially considering the roughness
and cruelty of his temper, he never using anybody well, firing upon any
who attempted to ride away from him, and beating and abusing those who
submitted to him. He drew in, as has been said before, his brother
James, and deserting him when pursued and in danger, he was the occasion
of his death. It was also suspected that Shrimpton and he were the
persons who committed those robberies for which Knowland and Westwood
were executed. However it were, he continued for a considerable space
after the two Shrimptons and he robbed together, committing sometimes
nine or ten robberies in one night, until they were all three
apprehended, and William Shrimpton became an evidence against them.

Ferdinando Shrimpton, the other malefactor, was a person well educated,
though his father was one of the greatest highwaymen in England. He [the
father] lived at Bristol, and behaved in outward appearance so well that
he was never suspected, but unluckily one evening some constables coming
into an inn hastily to apprehend another person, his guilty heart making
him afraid that they were come in search of nobody but himself, he
thereupon immediately drew a pistol and shot one of them dead, for which
murder being convicted, he readily confessed his former offences, and
after his execution for the aforesaid crime, was hung in chains.

As for this unhappy man, his son, he had been bred to no trade, but
after his father's death served as a foot-soldier in the Guards and
eked out his pay by taking the same steps which his father had done
before him. Never any fellow was of a bolder and of a more audacious
spirit than he, and after he had once associated himself with Drummond,
they quickly forced William Shrimpton, who was Ferdinando's cousin, to
commit one or two facts with him, and afterwards he would never suffer
him to be quiet.

On Houn