but should I so satisfy some persons’ importunities as to own also the justice of my present sentence, as arising from the truth of the fact, I should thereby become guilty of the very crime you warn me of, and go out of the world, indeed, in the very act of telling an untruth.  Besides, of what use would it be to me, who have not the least hopes of pardon, to persist in a lie, merely for the sake of deceiving others, who may take my miserable death as a piece of news, and at the same time cheat myself in what is my last and greatest concern?  I beg, therefore, to be troubled no more on this head, but to be left to make my peace with God for those sins which I have really committed, without being pressed to offend Him yet more, by taking upon me that which I really know nothing of.

The Ordinary of Newgate hereupon went into the hold to examine Bird, who lay there in a sick and lamentable condition.  He confirmed all that Hamp had said, declared he never saw him in his life before the night in which they were taken up, acknowledged himself to be a great sinner, and an old offender, that he had been often taken up before for thefts; but as to the present case, he peremptorily insisted on his innocence, and that he knew nothing of it.

At the place of execution, Hamp appeared very composed and with a cheerfulness that is seldom seen in the countenances of persons when they come to the tree, and are on the very verge of death.  He spoke for a few moments to the people saying that he been a grievous sinner, much addicted to women, and much more to drinking; that for these crimes, he thought the Justice of God righteous in bringing him to a shameful death; but as to assaulting the woman in Rag Fair, he again protested his innocence, and declared he never committed any robbery whatsoever, desired the prayers of the people in his last moments, and then applied himself to some short private devotions.  He resigned himself with much calmness to his fate, on Wednesday, the 22nd of December, 1725, at Tyburn, being then in the twenty-fifth year of his age.  Bird confirmed, as well as the craziness of his distempered head would give him leave, the truth of what Hamp had said.

FOOTNOTES: 

   [72] This was in Rosemary Lane, Wellclose Square,
        Whitechapel—­“a place near the Tower of London where old clothes
        and frippery are sold”—­according to Pope.

The Lives of JOHN AUSTIN, a Footpad, JOHN FOSTER, a Housebreaker, and RICHARD SCURRIER, a Shoplifter

Amongst the number of those extraordinary events which may be remarked in the course of these melancholy memoirs of those who have fallen martyrs to sin, and victims to justice, there is scarce anything more remarkable than the finding a man who hath led an honest and reputable life, till he hath attained the summit of life, and then, without abandoning himself to any notorious vices that may be supposed to lead him into rapine and stealth in order to support him, to take himself on a sudden to robbing on the highway, and to finish a painful and industrious life by a violent and shameful death.  Yet this is exactly the case before us.