to strangle her, but the fire soon reached his hand and burnt it,
so that he was obliged to let it go again. More faggots were immediately
thrown upon her, and in about three or four hours she was reduced to
ashes.

In the meantime, Billings's irons were put upon him as he was hanging on
the gallows; after which being cut down, he was carried to the gibbet,
about one hundred yards distance, and there hung up in chains.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] The old name for Oxford Street.

The Life of THOMAS BILLINGS, a Murderer.

We have said so much of this malefactor in the foregoing life, yet it
was necessary, in order to preserve the connection of that barbarous
story, to leave the particular consideration of these two assistants in
the murder of Mr. Hayes to particular chapters, and therefore we will
begin with Billings. Mrs. Hayes, some time before her execution,
confidently averred that he was the son both of Mr. Hayes and of
herself, that his father not liking him, he was put out to relations of
hers and took the name of Billings from his godfather. But Mr. Hayes's
relations confidently denying all this, and he himself saying he knew
nothing more than that he called his father a shoemaker in the country,
who some time since was dead. He was put apprentice to a tailor with
whom he served his time, and then came up to London to work
journey-work, which he did in Monmouth Street, lodging at Mr. Hayes's
and believed himself nearly related to his wife, who from the influence
she always maintained over him, drew him to the commission of that
horrid fact.

But the most certain opinion is that he was found in a basket upon the
common, near the place where Mrs. Hayes lived before she married Mr.
Hayes, that he was at that time of his death about twenty-two or
twenty-three years old; whereas it evidently appeared by her own
confession, that she had been married to Mr. Hayes but twenty years and
eight months. He was put out to nurse by the charge of the parish, to
people whose names were Billings, and when he was big enough to go
apprentice, was bound to one Mr. Wetherland, a tailor, to whom the
parish gave forty shillings with him. It is very probable he might be a
natural son of Mrs. Hayes's, born in her rambles (of which we have
hinted) before her marriage, and dropped by her in the place where he
was found.

As to the character of Billings in the country he was always reputed a
sober, honest, industrious young man. Du