ebone, which brought him to the gallows. When the fellow came to be
tried Jonathan, indeed, vouchsafed to speak to him, and assured him that
his body should be handsomely interred in a good coffin at his own
expense. This was strange comfort, and such as by no means suited
Blueskin: he insisted peremptorily upon a transportation pardon, which
be said he was sure Jonathan had interest enough to procure him. But
Wild assured him that he had not, and that it was in vain for him to
flatter himself with such hopes, but that he had better dispose himself
to thinking of another life; in order to which, good books and such like
helps should not be wanting.

All this put Blueskin at last into such a passion that though this
discourse happened upon the leads at the Old Bailey; in the presence of
the Court then sitting, Blake could not forbear taking a revenge for
what he took to be an insult on him. And therefore, without ado, he
clapped one hand under Jonathan's chin, and with the other, taking a
sharp knife out of his pocket, cut him a large gash across the throat,
which everybody at the time it was done judged mortal. Jonathan was
carried off, all covered with blood, and though at that time he
professed the greatest resentment for such usage, affirming that he had
done all that lay in his power for the man who had so cruelly designed
against his life; yet when he afterwards came to be under sentence of
death, he regretted prodigiously the escape he had made then from death,
often wishing that the knife of Blake had put an end to his life, rather
than left him to linger out his days till so ignominious a fate befell
him.

But it was not only Blake who had entertained notions of putting him to
death. He had disobliged almost the whole group of villains with whom he
had concern, and there were numbers of them who had taken it into their
heads to deprive him of life. His escapes in the apprehending such
persons were sometimes very narrow; he received wounds in almost every
part of his body, his skull was twice fractured, and his whole
constitution so broken by these accidents and the great fatigue he went
through, that when he fell under the misfortunes which brought him to
his death, he was scarce able to stand upright, and was never in a
condition to go to chapel.

But we have broke a little into the thread of our history, and must
therefore go back in order to trace the causes which brought on
Jonathan's last adventures, and