How shocking, how horrid soever such a character may be, certain it is that the criminal Neeves, of whom we are now speaking, deserved no better.  His parents, though mean, had not omitted the care of his education so far but that he had learned to read and write, which they thought qualification sufficient for the business in which they intended to breed him, viz., a cane chair-maker, to which employment they put him apprentice.  He did not serve out his time with his master, for having got into an acquaintance with some lewd, debauched persons, he, whose inclination from his youth turned that way, went totally into all their measures, and quitting all thoughts of an honest livelihood, thought of nothing but picking and stealing.

He associated himself with a woman of the same calling, who probably furthered him in all his attempts, in consideration of which he married her, and they were both together in Newgate for their several offences.  In the former part of this volume[83] we have mentioned his becoming a witness against several street-robbers, who were executed upon his evidence; of whom George Gale, alias Kiddy George, Thomas Crowder, James Toon, and John Hornby, denied the commission of those particular facts which he swore upon them, and Richard Nichols (who was a grave sober man) went to death and took it upon his salvation, that he was never concerned either in that act for which he died, or in any other of the same kind during the course of his life.

As the town naturally abhors perjuries which affect men’s lives, and are not very well affected towards evidences even when they do not exceed the truth, so the misfortune of Neeves being a second time apprehended, instead of creating pity, gave the public a general satisfaction.  At the sessions following his confinement he was indicted for privately stealing out of the shop of Charles Lawrence a corduroy coat value thirteen shillings.  In respect of this robbery, the prosecutor deposed that Thomas Neeves, about seven in the evening, came into his shop, he being a salesman, and enquired for a dimity waistcoat; one accordingly was shown him, but they not at all agreeing in the price, Neeves on a sudden turned towards the door, and having with some earnestness cursed the prosecutor, snatched up a coat and ran away.  Upon which Mr. Lawrence followed him, crying out, Stop Thief! which Neeves himself also bawled out as loud as he could until he was taken.  Upon this evidence the jury found him guilty.

Under sentence of death his behaviour was much of a piece with what it was before.  As to his confession, he would make none, saying he would give no occasion for books or ballads to be made about him.  Even in chapel he behaved himself so rudely that he occasioned great disturbance, and put the keepers under a necessity of treating him with more severity than was usual to persons under his miserable condition.  When alone in his cell he expressed great diffidence of the mercy of God, seemed to be in a slate of despair, and though he was often pressed to declare whether depositions he had given against the afore-mentioned street robbers were true or not, he either waived making an answer, or used so much evasion or equivocation that it still remained doubtful whether he swore truth or no.