ay under condemnation, testified a true
sorrow for his sins, though not so just a sense of that for which he
died as he ought to have had, and which might have been reasonably
expected. For as horse-stealing did not appear any very great sin to
him at the time of his committing it, so now, when he was to die for it,
such an obstinate partiality towards ourselves is there naturally
grafted in human nature that he could not forbear complaining of the
severity of the Law, and find fault with its rigour which might have
been avoided. What seemed most of all to afflict him under his
misfortune was that be saw his son and nearest relations forsake him,
and as much as they could shun having anything to do with his affairs.
Of this he complained heavily to the minister of the place, during his
confinement in Newgate, who represented to him how justly this had
befallen him for first slighting his family, and leaving them without
the least tenderness of respect, either to the ties of a husband, or the
duty of a parent; so he began to read his sin in his punishment, and to
frame himself to a due submission to what he had so much merited by his
follies and his crimes.

When he was first brought up to receive sentence, he counterfeited being
dead so exactly that he was brought back again to Newgate, but this
cheat served only to gain a little time; for at the next sessions he was
condemned and ordered for execution, which he suffered on the 27th of
June, 1726, being then between forty and fifty years of age.

The Life of WILLIAM HOLLIS, a Thief and an Housebreaker

This unhappy lad was born in Portugal, while the English army served
there in the late war. His father was drum-major of a regiment, but had
not wherewith to give his child anything but food, for intending to
bring him up a soldier, he perhaps thought learning an unnecessary thing
to one of that profession. During the first years of his life the poor
boy was a constant campaigner, being transported wherever the regiment
removed, with the same care and conveniency as the kettle [drum] and
knapsack, the only thing besides himself which make up the drum-major's
equipage. When he grew big, he got, it seems, on board a man-of-war in
the squadron that sailed up the Mediterranean. This was a proper
university for one who had been bred in such a school; so that there is
no wonder he became so great a proficient in all sorts of wickedness,
gaming, drinking, and whoring,