With Stephen Bunce, Dick Low, and others, he broke into the shop of a baker named Clare, at Hackney, soon after midnight. They proceeded at once to the bakehouse, where they surprised the journeyman and apprentice at work, and, tying them neck and heels, threw them into the kneading-trough. One stood guard over them with a drawn sword, while the others went upstairs to rob the house.
THE ROBBERY AT THE HACKNEY BAKER'S.
The elderly Mr. Clare was awakened from sleep and bidden disclose where his money lay, but he stoutly refused, in spite of all their threats, until Hall seized a little girl, the baker's granddaughter. "D——n me!" he said, "if I won't bake the child in a pie and eat it, if the old rogue won't be civil."
Mr. Clare seems to have been alarmed by this extravagant threat. Perhaps the flaming "F" for felon, or "T" for thief, on Hall's cheek, made him appear exceptionally terrible. At any rate, Mr. Clare then revealed his hoard of gold, which amounted to between seventy and eighty guineas; and with that, very satisfied, the midnight band departed.
Although this daring raid was naturally the subject of much excited comment, the robbers were not captured, and they were presently bold enough to break into the house of a man named Saunders, a chairman in the same locality. Saunders was informed that Hall was one of the thieves, and, knowing him well by sight, he pursued him and his gang at three o'clock in the morning, accompanied by a watchman. The gang fired at their pursuers, and the watchman fell, wounded in the thigh. Hall escaped altogether, and although some of his accomplices were captured, they were acquitted, from lack of sufficient evidence.
In 1705 Hall was again in trouble, under the alias of "Price," but was acquitted on the charge of housebreaking then brought against him. He was similarly fortunate in October 1706, when he was charged in company with Arthur Chambers with being concerned in stealing a handkerchief. Such a trivial theft would seem hardly to need collaboration.
Later on, he was again in custody, but meanly obtained his liberty by turning evidence against two accomplices.
Finally, in 1707 he was arrested with his old pals, Stephen Bunce and Dick Low, for a burglary committed at the house of Captain Guyon, near Stepney. All three were convicted, and suffered in company at Tyburn, on December 7th, 1707.