Sefton appeared under condemnation to have a very just idea of the wretched state he was in, the necessity there was of preventing, by a thorough repentance, a yet more severe judgment than that under which he then lay.  He acknowledged the crime for which he died, said he had been drawn to the commission of it by the persuasion of a person whom he named, and at the place of execution declared he died sorry for all his sins and in charity with mankind.  He had hardly been turned off a minute before the rope broke and he fell to the ground, but the sheriff’s men laying hold on him, he was soon tied up again and so executed in pursuance of his sentence.

Richard Nichols, as he always behaved with great decency and was of a sober, serious and religious disposition, so he constantly affirmed (though without vehemence or any signs of passion) that he knew nothing of the robbery whereof he stood convicted, but that his life was basely sworn away by Neeves the evidence, without the least grounds whatsoever, he having never associated himself with street-robbers or been concerned in any sort of thieving whatever.  In this he persisted to the time of his death, repeating it and averring it at the place of execution; and, indeed, there is the greatest reason to believe that he spoke nothing but the truth, because Thomas Neeves, the witness, when he came afterwards to die at Tyburn, did acknowledge that he knew nothing of Nichols, nor had ever seen him before his being committed at the Justice’s, and begged that God would pardon his crying sin of perjury and murder in taking the life of an innocent man.

These malefactors suffered on the 20th of May, 1728; Rawlins being twenty-two, Ashley, twenty-six; Rouden, twenty-four; Benson, twenty-four; Gale, seventeen; Crowder, twenty-two; Toon, twenty-five; Hornby, twenty-one; Sefton, twenty-six; and Nichols, forty years of age.

FOOTNOTES: 

   [79] A Portuguese gold coin current in England, worth about 23s.

   [80] See page 463.

The Lives of RICHARD HUGHS and BRYAN MACGUIRE, Highwaymen and Footpads

Idleness, lewd women and bad company are the sum total of those excuses urged by criminals when they come to be punished, even for the most flagrant offences.  With just reason Richard Hughs exclaimed on them all, for from youth upwards he had ever addicted himself to laziness and a dislike to that business to which he was bred, viz., that of a bricklayer.  Following loose women was the thing in which he took most delight, and was probably the occasion of his subsequent misfortunes.  The immediate cause of them was his acquaintance with William Sefton before-mentioned, with whom he joined in a confederacy to rob on the highway, a thing to which his necessities in some measure drove him, since he had squandered all he had in the world on those abandoned women with whom he conversed, and had contracted so bad a reputation that he found it hard to be employed in his business.