with a lie in his mouth.  He said, indeed, he had been guilty of a multitude of heinous sins and offences for which God did with great justice bring him unto that ignominious end.  Yet he persisted in his declaration of innocence as to housebreaking, in which he affirmed he had never been at all concerned; and with the strongest asservations to this purpose, he suffered death at Tyburn, the fourteenth of March, 1725, being then about thirty-nine years old, in company with Jones, Barton, Gates and Swift, of whose behaviour under sentence we shall have occasion to speak by and by.

The Life of JOHN BARTON, a Robber, Highwayman and Housebreaker

Education is often thought a trouble by persons in their junior years, who heartily repent of their neglect of it in the more advanced seasons of their lives.  This person, John Barton, who is to be the subject of our discourse, was born at London, of parents capable enough of affording him tolerable education, which they were also willing to bestow upon him, if he had been just enough to have applied himself while at school.  But he, instead of that, raked about with boys of his own age, without the least consideration of the expense his parents were at, idled away his time, and forgot what little he learned almost as soon as he had acquired it.

It is a long time before parents perceive that in their children which is evident to everyone else; however, Barton’s father soon saw no good was to be done with him at school; upon which he took him away, and placed him apprentice with a butcher.  There he continued for some time, behaving to the well-liking of his master; yet even then he was so much out of humour with work that he associated himself with some idle young fellows who afterwards drew him into those illegal acts which proved fatal to his reputation and his life.  However, he did make a shift to pass through the time of his apprenticeship with a tolerable character, and was afterwards, through the kindness of his friends, set up as a butcher; in which business he succeeded so well as to acquire money enough thereby to have kept his family very well, if he could have been contented with the fruits of his honest labour.  But his old companions, who by this time were become perfectly versed in those felonious arts by which money is seemingly so easy to be attained, were continually soliciting him to take their method of life, assuring him that there was not half so much danger as was generally apprehended, and that if he had but resolution enough to behave gallantly, he need not fear any adventure whatsoever.