t firing
pistols or otherwise injuring those whom they attacked, than any set of
fellows who had hitherto disturbed the crown, this wonder will wear off.

It was not above two months that they continued their depredations, but
in that time they had been exceedingly busy, and had committed a
multitude of facts. One gentleman whom they attacked in Lincoln's Inn
Fields, refused to surrender, and drew his sword upon Morris. That young
robber immediately fired his pistol, and the rest coming to his
assistance, the gentleman thought it but prudent to retire, the noise
they made having alarmed the watch and so prevented his losing anything.

After this it became a very common practice with them, as soon as they
stopped anybody, to clap a pistol under their nose, and bid them smell
at it, while one of their companions, with a thousand execrations,
threatened to blow their brains out if they made the least resistance.
As soon as the business of the night was over, they immediately
adjourned to their places of rendezvous at Chick Lane, or to other
houses of the same stamp elsewhere, and without the least consideration
of the hazards they had run, squandered the wages of their villainies
upon such impudent strumpets as for the lucre of a few shillings
prostituted themselves to them in these debaucheries.

Mr. O'Bryan was the hero of this troop of infant robbers; he valued
himself much on never meddling with small matters or committing any
meaner crime than that of the highway. It happened he had a mistress
coming out of the country and he would needs have his companions take
each of them a doxy and go with him as far as Windsor to receive her.
They readily complied, and at Windsor they were all seized and from
thence brought to town, two of their own gang turning evidence, so that
on the clearest proof, they were all three convicted.

Under sentence of death they behaved with great audacity, seemed to
value themselves on the crimes they had committed, caused several
disturbances at chapel and discovered little or no sense of that
miserable condition in which they were. O'Bryan died a Papist, and in
the cart read with great earnestness a book of devotions in that way. He
wrote a letter to his father the day before he died, and also something
which he called verses to his sister, both of which I have subjoined
_verbatim_ that my readers may have the better idea of the capacity of
those poor creatures.

To Mr. Terrance O'Bry