God is his precedent, and men shall see
His mercy goe beyond severity."
JOHN CLAVEL.
That I may neither brave another's blame
Through wronge suspicions, nor yet act ye same
At any time hereafter, but prove true:—
Loe! to be knowne, you have my face at viewe.
He was reprieved, as the newsmonger tells us, but that was not sufficient. He must not merely escape the death-sentence, but be set free. To that end he wrote in October 1627, in prison, the curious pamphlet, largely in verse, styled the Recantation of an Ill-led Life, and published in the following year. He does not forget to style himself, on the title-page, "Gentleman," and has even a Latin tag; perhaps, you know, as evidence of his gentility. Yet he grovels through many pages in so abject a style no man of spirit could endure. Whether he was so thorough-paced a highwayman as he tearfully declares himself to have been is, of course, not to be resolved by us, at this interval of time; but, according to his own showing, he was not only an adept, but deep in the counsels of the high-toby gloaks and a past-master in all their devices. These, with the hope of a pardon, he proceeds to betray, at much length, in his "recantation," which he describes as "A discouerie of the Highway Law. With Vehement dissuasions to all (in that kind) offenders. As also Many cautelous Admonitions and full Instructions, how to know, shun, and apprehend a Theefe. Most Necessarie for all honest Trauellers to per'use, obserue, and Practise." This travellers' handy handbook was "Approued by the King's most Excellent Maiestie, and published by his expresse Command," by one Robert Meighen.