recruit his stock by methods
just as honest as those by which he lost it.

The soldiers that at that time were placed on the road, passed for a
great security amongst people in town, but those who had occasion to
pass that way found no great benefit from their protection, for
robberies were as frequent as ever, and the ill-usage of persons when
robbed more so, because the rogues thought themselves in greater danger
of being taken, and therefore bound or disabled those they plundered,
for fear of their pursuing them.

For a fact of this kind it was that Shaw came to his death, for one
Philip Pots, being robbed on horseback by several footpads and knocked
off his horse near the tile kilns by Pancras, and wounded in several
places of his body with his own sword, which one of the villains had
taken from him, some persons who passed by soon after took him up, and
carried him to the Pinder of Wakefield.[17] There, on the Monday
following (this accident happening on Saturday night) he in great
agonies expired. For this murder and another robbery between Highgate
and Kentish Town, Shaw was taken up and soon after convicted. At first
he denied all knowledge of the murder, but when his death grew near, he
did acknowledge being privy to it, though he persisted in saying he had
no hand in its commission.

At the time he was under condemnation, the afore-mentioned John Smith,
William Colthouse, and Jonah Burgess were in the same condition. They
formed a conspiracy for breaking out of the place where they were
confined and to force an escape against all those who should oppose
them. For this purpose they had procured pistols, but their plot being
discovered, Burgess in great rage, cut his own throat and pretended that
Shaw designed to have dispatched himself with one of the pistols. But
Shaw, himself, absolutely denied this, and affirmed on the contrary that
when Burgess said his enemies should never have the satisfaction (as
they had bragged they would have) of placing themselves upon Holborn
Bridge, to see him go by Tyburn, he (Shaw) exhorted him never to think
of self-murder, and by that means give his enemies a double revenge in
destroying both body and soul.

As Shaw had formerly declared his wife's ill-conduct had been the first
occasion of his falling into those courses which had proved so fatal to
him, he still retained so great an antipathy to her on that account, as
not to be able to pardon her, even in the last moment