expect no mercy in St. Clement's parish, for the butchers there on the back on 't would face me, and with their cleavers soon bring me down on my marrow bones. You may believe I soon hastened thence; but by this time being fainty and nigh spent, I put forward, and seeing a light near the Savoy Gate, I was resolved not to make light of the opportunity, but called for a hearty dram of Luther and Calvin, that is, Mum and Geneva, mixed; but having fasted so long before, it soon got into my noddle, and ere I had gone twenty steps, it had so entirely stranded my reason, that by the time I came to Half-Moon Street end, it gave a new exchange to my senses, and made me quite lunatic. "However, after a little rest I stole down George Passage into Oaf Alley in York Buildings, and thence (though a vile man) into Villiers Street, and so into the Strand again, where having gone a little way, Hefford's Harp, at the sign of the Irish Harp, put me a-jumping and dancing to that degree that I could not forbear making a somerset or two before Northumberland House. I thought once of taking the Windsor coach for myself, John Sheppard, by the name of Crook, but fearing to be hooked in before my journey's end, I slept in Hedge Lane, where two harlots were up in the boughs, it seems, branching out their respects to one another, through their windows, and people beginning to gather thereabout, I ran pell-mell to Piccadilly, where meeting by mere chance a baker's cart going to Turnham Green, I being not mealy-mouthed, nor the man being crusty, I wheeled out of town. "I did call at Hammersmith, having no occasion directly. I shall stay two or three days in that neighbourhood, so if you direct a letter for Mr. Sligh Bolt, to be left with Mrs. Tabitha Skymmington, at Cheesewick, its safety will bear water by any boat, and come current with the tide to, dear Bob, yours from the top of Newgate to the bottom, J. SHEPPARD. "P. S.-If you see Blueskin, tell him I am well, and hope he received my last. I would write by the post if I durst, but it would be certainly postponed if I did, and it would be stranger, too, to trust a line by a stranger, who might palm upon us both, and never deliver it to hand. "I send this by a waterman (I dare trust), who is very merry upon me, and says he would not be in my jacket. We shall conclude with what has been often observed by nfany persons to Sheppard, viz., that it was very imprudent in him to take shelter in the city, or the adjacent parts of it, after his escape from the condemned hold; and withal to commit a capital offence almost within sight of Newgate, when his life and all was in such danger. His reply was general, viz., that it was his fate; but being asked a peculiar reason for his not taking a longer route than the city and the neighbouring parts, pleaded poverty as his excuse for confinement within those limits; at the same time urging that had he been master at that time of five pounds, England should not have been the place of his residence, having a good trade in his hands to live in any populated part of the world. A NARRATIVE of ALL THE ROBBERIES, ESCAPES, &c. of JOHN SHEPPARD A S my unhappy life and actions have afforded matter of much amusement to the world; and various pamphlets, papers, and pictures relating thereunto are gone abroad, most or all of them misrepresenting my affairs; 't is necessary that I should say something for myself, and set certain intricate matters in a true light; every subject, how unfortunate or unworthy soever, having the liberty of publishing his case. And it will be no small satisfaction to me to think that I have thoroughly purged my conscience before I leave the world, and made reparation to the many persons injured by me, as far as is in my poor power. If my birth, parentage, or education will prove of service or satisfaction to mankind, I was born in Stepney parish, the year Queen Anne came to the crown; my father a carpenter by trade, and an honest, industrious man by character, and my mother bore and deserved the same. She, being left a widow in the early part of my life, continued the business, and kept myself, together with another unfortunate son, and a daughter, at Mr. Garrett's school, near Great St. Helen's, in Bishopsgate parish, till Mr. Kneebone, a woollen draper in the Strand, an acquaintance, regarding the slender circumstances of our family, took me under his care, and improved |