ney from Simon Smith, Esq., and which follows in these words:

Mr. Smith.

I desire you to send me twenty guineas by the bearer, without
letting him know what it is for, he is innocent of the contents if
your offer to speak of this to anybody---- My blood and soul, if you
are not dead man before monday morning; and if you don't send the
money, the devil dash my brains out, if I don't shoot you the first
time you stir out of doors, or if I should be taken there are others
that will do your business for you by the first opportunity,
therefore pray fail not ----. Strike me to instant D---- if I am not
as good as my word.

To Mr. Smith in Great George Street over against the Church near
Hanover Square.

He confessed that he knew of the writing and sending this epistle, but
denied that he did it himself, and indeed the indictment set forth that
it was in company with one John Mason, then deceased, that the said
conspiracy was formed. Under sentence of death, he behaved himself very
sillily, laughing and scoffing at his approaching end, and saying to one
of his companions, as the keeper went downstairs before them, _Let us
knock him down and take his keys from him. If one leads to heaven, and
the other to hell, we shall at least have a chance to get the right!_
Yet when death with all its horror stared him in the face, he began to
relent in his behaviour, and to acknowledge the justness of that
sentence which had doomed him to death. At the place of execution he
prayed with great earnestness, confessed he had been a grievous sinner,
and seemed in great confusion in his last moments. He was about twenty
years of age when he died, which was on the 9th of May, 1726, at Tyburn.

The Life of JOHN COTTERELL, a Thief, etc.

The miseries of life are so many, so deep, so sudden, and so
irretrievable, that when we consider them attentively, they ought to
inspire us with the greatest submission towards that Providence which
directs us and fills us with humble sentiments of our own capacities,
which are so weak and incapable to protect us from any of those evils to
which from the vicissitudes of life we are continually exposed.

John Cotterell, the subject of this part of our work, was a person
descended of honest and industrious parents, who were exceedingly
careful in bringing him up as far as they were able, in such a manner as
might enable him to get his bread honestly an