had the least hand in the robbery which was sworn
against him. And as he made no scruple of acknowledging a multitude of
other crimes, his denial of this gained some belief, more especially
when Barton confessed that himself with two or three others were the
persons who committed the robbery on the woman who swore against this
criminal. It must be acknowledged that there was no appearance of any
sinister motive, at least in Barton, to take upon himself a crime of
which otherwise he would never have been accused; and the behaviour of
Swift was at first of such a nature that it is not easy to conceive why,
when all hopes of safety were lost, and he was full of acknowledgment as
to the justice of his sentence for the many other evil deeds he had
done, he should yet obdurately persist in denying this, if there had
been no truth at all in his allegations.

As this fellow had neither natural courage, nor had acquired any
religious principles from his education, there is no wonder to be made
that he behaved himself so poorly in the last moments of his life; in
which terror, confusion, and self-condemnation wrought so strongly as to
make the ignominy of the halter the least dreadful part of his
execution.

[Illustration: A CONDEMNED MAN DRAWN ON A SLEDGE TO TYBURN

(_From the Newgate Calendar_)]

The day on which the three last-mentioned persons, together with Yates
or Gates, _alias_ Vulcan, a deer-stealer, and Benjamin Jones (for house
breaking) were to have been executed, these miserable persons framed to
themselves the most absurd project of preserving their lives that could
possibly have entered into the heads of men; for getting, by some means
or other, an iron crow into the hold, they therewith dug out a
prodigious quantity of rubbish and some stones, which it is hardly
credible could have been removed with so small assistance as they had.
With these they blocked up the door of the condemned hold so effectually
that there was no possibility of getting it open by any force whatsoever
on the outside. The keepers endeavoured to make them sensible of the
folly of their undertaking, in hopes they would thereby be induced to
prevent any firing upon them; which was all that those who had the
custody of them were now capable of doing, to bring them to submission.
The Ordinary also joined in dissuading them from thus misspending the
last moments of their lives, which were through the mercy of the Law
extended to them for a bet