FRANCIS JACKSON, AND HIS "RECANTATION"
We know little of this highwayman, however notorious he may have been at the time of his execution, April 14th, 1674. The exceedingly rare tract entitled Jackson's Recantation, gives no trace of his Christian name; nor does it, although professing to be a "Life," tell us when or where he was born, or the position his parents occupied. The tract is by way of an autobiography, but it is couched in such general terms that very few facts are to be extracted from it. It is in this, and in some other particulars, not unlike John Clavel's "Recantation" of forty-seven years earlier; only Jackson writes in ambiguous prose, while the other exercises himself in verse.
The title-page of Jackson's repudiation of his wicked ways may with advantage be given here, as a specimen of the type of chapbook then in vogue.
But although Jackson's own autobiography affords no satisfaction to the enquirer, hungry for facts, and although the Old Bailey Sessions Papers of the period are not preserved, a clue is found to
Jackson's Recantation
OR, THE
LIFE & DEATH
OF THE
NOTORIOUS HIGHWAYMAN
NOW
HANGING in CHAINS
AT
HAMPSTEAD
DELIVERED
To a Friend, a little before Execution; Wherein
is truly discovered the whole Mystery of
that Wicked and Fatal Profession
Of PADDING on the ROAD
