arged. At which time, somebody there present asking how long
time might be given him before they should see him again at the Old
Bailey, a gentleman made answer in about three sessions, in which time
it seems he guessed very right, for the third session from thence, Blake
was indeed brought to the Bar.

For no sooner were his feet at liberty but his hands were employed in
robbing, and having picked up Jack Shepherd for a companion, they went
out together to search for prey in the fields. Near the half-way house
to Hampstead they met with one Pargiter, a man pretty much in liquor,
whom immediately Blake knocked down into the ditch, where he must have
inevitably perished if John Shepherd had not kept his head above the mud
with great difficulty. For this fact, the next sessions after it
happened the two brothers Brightwell in the Guards were tried, and if a
number of men had not sworn them to have been upon duty at the time the
robbery was committed, they had certainly been convicted, the evidence
of the prosecutor being direct and full. Through the grief of this the
elder Brightwell died a week after he was released from his confinement,
and so did not live to see his innocence fully cleared by the confession
of Blake.

A very short space after this, Blake and his companion Shepherd
committed the burglary together in the house of Mr. Kneebone, where
Shepherd getting into the house, let in Blake at the back door and
stripped the house of a considerable value. For this, both Shepherd and
he were apprehended, and the sessions before Blake was convicted his
companion received sentence of death; but at the time Blake was taken
up, he had made his escape out of the condemned hold.

He behaved with great impudence at his trial, and when he found nothing
would save him, he took the advantage of Jonathan Wild coming to speak
with him, to cut the said Wild's throat, making a large gash from the
ear beyond the windpipe.[47] Of this wound Wild languished a long time,
and happy had it been for him if Blake's wound had proved fatal, for
then Jonathan had escaped death by a more dishonourable wound in the
throat than that of a penknife; but the number of his crimes and the
spleen of his enemies procured him a worse fate. Whatever Wild might
deserve of others, he seems to have merited better usage from this
Blake, for while he continued a prisoner in the Compter, Jonathan was at
the expense of curing his wound, allowing him three shil