The Life of WILLIAM HOLLIS, a Thief and an Housebreaker
This unhappy lad was born in Portugal, while the English army served there in the late war. His father was drum-major of a regiment, but had not wherewith to give his child anything but food, for intending to bring him up a soldier, he perhaps thought learning an unnecessary thing to one of that profession. During the first years of his life the poor boy was a constant campaigner, being transported wherever the regiment removed, with the same care and conveniency as the kettle [drum] and knapsack, the only thing besides himself which make up the drum-major's equipage. When he grew big, he got, it seems, on board a man-of-war in the squadron that sailed up the Mediterranean. This was a proper university for one who had been bred in such a school; so that there is no wonder he became so great a proficient in all sorts of wickedness, gaming, drinking, and whoring, which appear not to such poor creatures as sins, but as the pleasures of life, about which they ought to spend their whole care; and, indeed, how should it be otherwise, where they know nothing that better deserves it.
When he came home to England his father dying, he was totally destitute, except what care his mother-in-law was pleased to take of him, which was, indeed, a great deal, if he would have been in any degree obedient to her instructions. But instead of that he looked upon all restraints on his liberty as the greatest evil that could befall him. Wherefore, leaving his mother's house, he abandoned himself to procuring money at any rate to support those lewd pleasures to which he had addicted himself.
It happened that he lodged near one John Mattison, a working silversmith, into whose house he got, and stole from thence no less than one hundred and forty silver buckles, the goods of one Samuel Ashmelly. For this offence he was apprehended, and committed to Newgate; at the next sessions he was tried, and on the evidence of the prosecutor, which was very full and direct, he was convicted, and having no friends, he laid aside all hopes of life, and endeavoured as far as poor capacity would give him leave to improve himself in the knowledge of the Christian Faith, and in preparing for that death to which his follies and his crimes had brought him. The Ordinary, in the account he gives of his death, says that he was extremely stupid, a thing no ways improbable considering the wretched manner in which he had spent the years of his childhood and his youth. However, at last either his insensibility or having satisfied himself with the little evil there is in death compared with living in misery and want, furnished him with so much calmness that he suffered with greater appearance of courage than could have been expected from him. Just before he died he stood up in the cart, and turning himself to the spectators, said, Good people, I am very young, but have been very wicked. It is true I have had no education, but I might have laboured hard and lived well for all that; but gaming and ill-company were my ruin. The Law hath justly brought me where I am, and I hope such young men as see my untimely fate will avoid the paths which lead unto it. Good people, pray for our departing souls, as we do, that God may give you all more grace than to follow us thither. He suffered with the malefactors before-mentioned, being at the time of his execution between seventeen and eighteen years old.
The Life of THOMAS SMITH, a Highwayman
There is a certain commendable tenderness in human nature towards all who are under misfortunes, and this tenderness is in proportion to the magnitude of those evils which we suppose the pitied person to labour under. If we extend our compassion to relieving their necessities, and feeling a regret for those miseries which they undergo, we undoubtedly discharge the duties of humanity according to the scheme both of natural religion and the laws laid down in the Gospel. Perhaps no object ever merited it from juster motives than this poor man, who is the subject of the following pages. His parents were people in tolerable circumstances in Southwark; his father was snatched from him by death, while he was yet a child, but his mother, as far as she was able, was very careful that he should not pass his younger days without instruction, and an uncle he then had, being pleased with the docile temper of the youth, was at some expense also about his education. By this means he came to read and write tolerably well, and gained some little knowledge of the Latin tongue; and having a peculiar sweetness in his behaviour, it won very much upon his relations, and encouraged them to treat him with great indulgence.
But unfortunately for him, by the time he grew big enough to go out apprentice, or to enter upon any other method of living, his friends suddenly dropped off, and, by their death becoming in great want of money, he was forced to resign all the golden hopes he had formed and for the sake of present subsistance submit to becoming footman to a gentleman, who was, however, a very good and kind master to him, till in about a year's time he died also, and poor Smith was again left at his wits' end. However, out of this trouble he was relieved by an Irish gentleman, who took him into his service, and carried him over with him to Dublin. There he met with abundance of temptations to fall into that loose and lascivious course of life which prevails more in that city, perhaps, than in any other in Europe. But he had so much grace at that time as to resist it, and after a stay there of twenty months, returned into England again, where he came into the service of a third master, no less indulgent to him than the two former had been. In this last service an odd accident befell him, in which, though I neither believe myself, nor incline to impose on my readers that there was anything supernatural in the case of it, yet I fancy the oddness of the thing may, under the story I am going to tell, prove not disagreeable.
In a journey which Thomas had made into Herefordshire, with his first master, he had contracted there an acquaintance with a young woman, daughter to a farmer, in tolerable circumstances. This girl without saying anything to the man, fell it seems desperately in love with him, and about three months after he left the country, died. One night after his coming to live with this last master, he fancied he saw her in a dream, that she stood for some time by his bedside, and at last said, Thomas, a month or two hence you will be in danger of a fever, and when that is over of a greater misfortune. Have a care, you have hitherto always behaved as an honest man; do not let either poverty or misfortunes tempt you to become otherwise; and having so said, she withdrew. In the morning the fellow was prodigiously confounded, yet made no discovery of what had happened to any but the person who lay with him, though the thing made a very strong impression on his spirits, and might perhaps contribute not a little to his falling ill about the time predicted by the phantom he had seen.