LIVES of SIX NOTORIOUS STREET-ROBBERS T is evident from several circumstances which I shall have occasion to mention as we go on, that these six criminals are but a small detachment from that large body of rogues who, though they are of several particular professions in thieving, yet make up one great gang, and act in concert with one another in all parts of the town. Some are already fallen into the hands of justice; and three of the five that were executed last sessions were of this fraternity; and had they been all still loose and at liberty, I understand they had formed a design, to use their own words, that would have startled the whole town. What it was, it seems they have not been ingenuous enough to discover, no, not at the gallows; for they have only given the town a kind of general alarm, and, as it were, bid all honest people have a care, both of themselves and of their houses, intimating that there are still hands enough in the gang to prosecute the villainy they had concerted before, though so many of their leaders have been taken off before it could be made ripe for execution. It is not worth while to make imperfect guesses at what this coup d'éclat, this great attempt, might be, seeing there is no coming at a certainty in that inquiry, unless the inquirer had been a confederate, or that we had a correspondence among them, which infernal honour we cannot pretend to; perhaps a little time may bring it out at the gallows when other crimes receive their reward. In the meantime, it is some surprise to the world that this new society of robbers, more than any that ever went before them, at least in England, have been particularly marked with this infamous character, that they are murderers as well as thieves, and that they have been more bent upon blood than even the worst gangs of rogues among us have usually been. In giving an account of the lives of these six, who as they are singled out for examples by the hand of justice, and have been most notorious, as well for blood as robberies, we need not go back to their original, as to their parents and families; it may expose as well as afflict their relations, if they have any, who perhaps have been no way accessory to their after behaviour, or to the villainies they have been guilty of; but it can be very little help to this present work, or give any light into their story, or be of any use to the reader. Nor is it their lives, or the history of their lives, as men, that is the subject of this tract, but their history as rogues, their lives as street-robbers, housebreakers, thieves, and murderers. This is the subject I am to write upon; and as their lives, however short (for they seem all to be but young in the world, though old in wickedness), offer to our view a vast variety of horrid particulars, we need go no further back for what we call their history, than to their introduction into the wicked trade which they have carried on so long. In our inquiries after their more early performances, we find Blewet to be the most ancient thief; whether he was the oldest man or not does not occur to my memory. His first introduction, it seems, was at the famous College of Newgate; for as all academic learning is acquired gradually, and the most eminent doctors are first entered juniors, sophists, and then rise by just degrees, so in this academy of the devil, his scholars are entered first pickpockets, or divers, then shoplifters, filers, and several of the lowest rate thieves, till, as they improve, they commence graduates, such as footpads, streetrobbers, housebreakers, highwaymen, and murderers ; and so to the gallows, which is the last gradation of their preferment. Blewet had, it seems, gone through all those degrees, and, I am assured, served a full apprenticeship to the first, for that he was no less than seven years a pickpocket, inclusive of one year which he set apart for a particular trade, of flipping gentlemen's swords from their sides. In this he was so successful, that if I may believe a particular person of credit with the late Jonathan Wild, Mr. Blewet had no less than sixteen silver-hilted swords in his custody at one time, and one gold one. Whether Jonathan and he had an understanding together in the managing part of the whole cargo, I cannot answer to that in particular; but that they had in part of it, I have some reason to say there is no doubt of that. As Blewet carried on this trade long before he removed into a higher employment, it may not be amiss to give some particular account of his conduct, and especially of some very nice and narrow escapes he made when he was even at the very brink of being taken. One night in particular, as he was out upon the lay, he observed a grave gentleman walking soberly and slowly along the street, with his hat under his arm, the weather being hot; and having, upon looking narrowly into the matter, found that he had on a silver-hilted sword, for it was necessary to be satisfied in that part before any hazard was run, I say, having found it to be right, he follows - |