Barton's greatest unhappiness was his marriage. He was too uxorious, and too solicitous for what concerned his wife, how well so ever she deserved of him; for not enduring to see her work honestly for her bread he would needs support her in an easy state of life, though at the hazard of the gallows. There is, however, little question to be made but that he had learned much in his travels to enable him to carry on his wicked designs with more ease and dexterity, for no thief, perhaps, in any age, managed his undertakings with greater prudence and economy. And having somewhere picked up the story of the Pirate and Alexander the Great, it became one of Will's standing maxims that the only difference between a robber and a conqueror was the value of the prize.
Being one day on the road with a comrade of his, who had served also with him abroad in the Army, and observing a stage coach at a distance, in right of the seniority of his commission as a Knight of the Pad, Barton commanded the other to ride forward in order to reconnoitre. The young fellow obeyed him as submissively as if he had been an aide de camp, and returning, brought him word that the force of the enemy consisted of four beau laden with blunderbusses, two ladies and a footman. Then, quoth Will, we may e'en venture to attack them. Let us make our necessary disposition. I will ride slowly up to them, while you gallop round that hill, and as soon as you come behind the coach, be sure to fire a pistol over it, and leave the rest to me.
Things thus adjusted, each advanced on his attack. Barton no sooner stopped the coach and presented his pistol at one window, than his companion, after firing a brace of balls over the coachman's head, did the like at the other, which so surprised the fine gentlemen within, that without the least resistance they surrendered all they had about them, which amounted to about one hundred pounds, which Barton put up. Come, gentlemen, says he, let us make bold with your fire-arms too, for you see we make more use of them than you. So, seizing a brace of pistols inlaid with silver, and two fine brass blunderbusses, Will and his subaltern rode off.
But alas, Will's luck would not last (as his rogueship used to express it). For, attempting a robbery in Covent Garden, where he was too well known, he was surprised, committed to Newgate and on his conviction ordered to be transported for seven years to his Majesty's Plantations, whither he was accordingly carried.
When he was landed, a planter bought him after the manner of that country, and paid eighteen pounds for him. Barton wanting neither understanding nor address, he soon became the darling of his master, who far from employing him in those laborious works which are usually talked of here, put upon him nothing more than merely supervising his slaves and taking care of them, when business obliged him to be absent.
One would have thought that so easy a state of life, after the toil and miseries such a man as him of whom we are speaking must have run through, would have been pleasing, and that it might have become a means of reclaiming him from those vices so heinous in the sight of God, and for which he had barely escaped the greatest punishment that can be inflicted by man. At first, it indeed made some impressions not very different from these; Barton owning that his master's treatment was such that if a man had not absolutely bent his mind on such courses as necessarily must make him unhappy, he might have enjoyed all he could have hoped for there. Of which he became so sensible that for some time he remained fully satisfied with his condition.
But alas! Content, when its basis rests not upon virtue, like a house founded on a sandy soil is incapable of continuing long. No sooner had Barton leisure and opportunity to recollect home, his friends, and above all his wife, but it soon shocked his repose, and having awhile disturbed and troubled him, it pushed him at last on the unhappy resolution or returning to England, before the expiration of his time for which he was banished. This project rolled for a very considerable space in the fellow's head. Sometimes the desire of seeing his companions, and above all things his wife, made him eager to undertake it; at others, the fear of running upon inevitable death in case of a discovery, and the consideration of the felicity he now had in his power made him timorous, at least, if not unwilling to return.
At last, as is ordinary amongst these unhappy people, the worst opinion prevailed, and finding a method to free himself from his master, and to get aboard a ship, he came back to his dearly beloved London, and to those measures which had already occasioned so great a misfortune, and at last brought him to an ignominious death. On his return, his first care was to seek out his wife, for whom he had a warm and never ceasing affection, and having found her, he went to live with her, taking his old methods of supporting them, though he constantly denied that she was either a partner in the commission, or even so much as in the knowledge of his guilt. But this quickly brought him to Newgate again, and to that fatal end to which he, like some other flagitious creatures of this stamp, seem impatient to arrive; since no warning, no admonition, no escape is sufficient to deter them from those crimes, which they are sensible the laws of their country with Justice have rendered capital.
Barton's return from transportation was sufficient to have brought him to death had he committed nothing besides; but he, whether through necessity, as having no way left of living honestly, or from his own evil inclinations, ventured upon his old trade, and robbing amongst others the Lord Viscount Lisbourn, of the Kingdom of Ireland, and a lady who was with him in the coach, of a silver hilted sword, a snuff-box and about twelve shillings in money, he was for this fact taken, tried and convicted at the Old Bailey.