gibbet at Tyburn and Hounslow appeared to
have been plundered of its charnel spoil to enrich the adjoining
cabinet, so well was it stored with skulls and bones, all purporting to
be the relics of highwaymen famous in their day. Halters, each of which
had fulfilled its destiny, formed the attraction of the next
compartment; while a fourth was occupied by an array of implements of
housebreaking almost innumerable, and utterly indescribable. All these
interesting objects were carefully arranged, classed, and, as we have
said, labelled by the thief-taker. From this singular collection
Trenchard turned to regard its possessor, who was standing at a little
distance from him, still engaged in earnest discourse with his
attendant, and, as he contemplated his ruthless countenance, on which
duplicity and malignity had set their strongest seals, he could not help
calling to mind all he had heard of Jonathan's perfidiousness to his
employers, and deeply regretting that he had placed himself in the power
of so unscrupulous a miscreant.

Jonathan Wild, at this time, was on the high-road to the greatness which
he subsequently, and not long afterwards, obtained. He was fast rising
to an eminence that no one of his nefarious profession ever reached
before him, nor, it is to be hoped, will ever reach again. He was the
Napoleon of knavery, and established an uncontrolled empire over all the
practitioners of crime. This was no light conquest; nor was it a
government easily maintained. Resolution, severity, subtlety, were
required for it; and these were qualities which Jonathan possessed in an
extraordinary degree. The danger or difficulty of an exploit never
appalled him. What his head conceived his hand executed. Professing to
stand between the robber and the robbed, he himself plundered both. He
it was who formed the grand design of a robber corporation, of which he
should be the sole head and director, with the right of delivering those
who concealed their booty, or refused to share it with him, to the
gallows. He divided London into districts; appointed a gang to each
district; and a leader to each gang, whom he held responsible to
himself. The country was partitioned in a similar manner. Those whom he
retained about his person, or placed in offices of trust, were for the
most part convicted felons, who, having returned from transportation
before their term had expired, constituted, in his opinion, the safest
agents, inasmuch as they c