eath made a nearer approach he acknowledged the falsity of these
pretences, and owned the robbery in the manner in which he had been
charged therewith. Being asked how a man in his circumstances, being
under no necessities, but on the contrary, in a way very likely to do
well, came to be guilty of so unaccountable an act as the knocking down
a poor man and taking away his coat, he said that though he was in a
fair way of living, and had a very careful and industrious wife, yet for
some time past, he had been disturbed in his mind, and that the morning
he committed the robbery he took the club out of his own house, being an
instrument made use of by his wife in the trade of a silk-throwster, and
from a sudden impulse of mind attacked the man in the manner which had
been sworn against him.

He appeared to be a person of no vicious principles, had been guilty of
very few enormous crimes, except drinking to excess sometimes, and that
but seldom. The sin which most troubled him was (his ordinary practice)
as a gardener, in spending the Lord's day mostly in hard work, viz., in
packing up things for Monday's market. He was very penitent for the
offence which he had committed; he attended the service of chapel daily,
prayed constantly and fervently in the place of his confinement, and
suffered death with much serenity and resolution; averring with his last
breath, that it was the first and last act which he had ever committed,
being at the time of death about thirty-seven years old.

The second of these malefactors, John Foster, was the son of a very poor
man, who yet did his utmost to give his son all the education that was
in his power; and finding he was resolved to do nothing else, sent him
with a very honest gentleman to sea. He continued there about seven
years, and as he met with no remarkable accidents in the voyages he made
himself, my readers may perhaps not be displeased if I mention a very
singular one which befell his master. His ship having the misfortune to
fall into the hands of the French, they plundered it of everything that
was in the least degree valuable, and then left him, with thirty-five
men, to the mercy of the waves. In this distressed condition, he with
much difficulty made the shore of Newfoundland, and had nothing to
subsist on but biscuit and a little water. Knowing it was no purpose to
ask those who were settled there for provisions without money or
effects, he landed himself and eighteen men, and