In this distressed condition he was glad to return home again to his
friends, imploring their charity, and that, forgetting what was passed,
they would be so kind as to relieve him and put him in some method of
providing for himself. Natural affection pleading for him,
notwithstanding all his failings they took him home again, and soon
after put him as a boy on board a corn vessel which traded to Holland
and France; but the swearing, quarrelling and fighting of the sailors so
frightened him, being then very young and unable to cope with them, that
on his return he again implored the tenderness of his relations to
permit his staying in England upon any terms, promising to live in a
most sober and regular manner, provided that he might get his bread by
hard labour at home, and not be exposed to the injuries of wind and
weather and the abuses of seamen more boisterous than both. They again
complied and put him to another trade, but work, it seems, was a thing
no shape could reconcile to him, and so he ran away from thence, too,
and once more put himself for a livelihood upon the contrivance of his
own brain.

He went immediately to his old employment and old haunt, Moorfields,
where as long as he had any money he played at cards, skittles, etc.,
with the chiefs of those villainous gangs that haunt the place; and when
reduced to the want both of money and clothes, he attempted to pick
pockets, or by playing with the lads for farthings to recruit himself.
But pocket-picking was a trade in which he had very ill-luck, for taking
a wig out of a gentleman's pocket at the drawing of the state
lottery,[37] the man suffered him totally to take it out, then seized
him and cried out _Pickpocket._ The boy immediately dropped it, and
giving it a little kick with his foot protected his innocence which
induced a good-natured person there present to stand so far his friend
that he suffered no deeper that bout. But a month after, being taken in
the same manner, and delivered over to the mob, they handled him with
such cruelty as scarce to leave him life, though he often upon his knees
begged them to carry him before a Justice and let him be committed to
Newgate. But the mob were not so to be prevailed on, and this severity,
as he said, cured him effectually of that method of thieving.

But in the course of his rambling life, becoming acquainted with two
young fellows, whose names were Garraway and Sly, they invited him to go
with them