persons in the prison had been very
civil to him, and one of them presuming thereon, asked him wherein the
great secret of his art of coining lay? Mr. Harpham thanked him for the
kindnesses he had received of him, but said that he should make a very
bad return for the time afforded him by the law of repentance, if he
should leave behind him anything of that kind which might farther
detriment his country. Some instances were also made to him that he
should discover certain persons of that same profession with himself,
who were likely to carry on the same frauds long after his decease. Mr.
Harpham, notwithstanding the answer he had made to the other gentleman,
refused to comply with this request; for he said that the instruments
seized would effectually prevent that, and he would not take away their
lives and ruin their families, when he was sure they were incapacitated
from coining anything for the future. However, that he might discharge
his conscience as far as he could, he wrote several pathetic letters to
the persons concerned; earnestly exhorting them for the sake of
themselves and their families to leave off this wicked employment, and
not hazard their lives and their salvation in any further attempt of
that sort.

Having thus disengaged himself from all worldly concerns, he dedicated
the last moments of his life entirely to the service of God; and having,
received the Sacrament the day before his execution, he was conveyed
the next noon to Tyburn in a sledge, where he was not a little
disturbed, even in the agonies of death, by the tumult and insults the
mob offered to Jonathan Wild, which he complained much of and seemed
very uneasy at. He suffered on the same day with the last mentioned
malefactor, appealing to be about two- or three-and-forty years of age.

The Life of the famous JONATHAN WILD, Thief-Taker

As no person in this collection ever made so much noise as the person we
are now speaking of, so never any man, perhaps, in any condition of life
whatever had so many romantic stories fathered upon him in his life, or
so many fictitious legendary accounts published of him after his death.
It may seem a low kind of affectation to say that the memoirs we are now
giving of Jonathan Wild are founded on certainty and fact; and that
though they are so founded, they are yet more extraordinary than any of
those fabulous relations pushed into the world to get a penny, at the
time of his death, when it was a