He was quickly secured and committed to Wood Street Compter,[35] where he expressed very little concern at what had happened, laughing and giving himself abundance of airs, such as by no means became a man in his condition.  On his commitment to Newgate, he seemed not to abate the least of that vivacity which was natural to his temper, and as he had too much mistaken vice for the characteristic of a fine gentleman, so nothing appeared to him so great a testimony of gallantry and courage as behaving intrepidly while death was so near its approach.  He therefore entertained all who conversed with him in the prison, and all who visited him from without, with the history of his amours and the favours that had been bestowed on him by a multitude of fine ladies.  Nay, his vanity and impudence was so great as to mention some of their names, and especially to asperse two ladies who lived near Cheapside Conduit.[36] But there is great reason to believe that part of this was put on to make his madness more probable at his trial, where he behaved very oddly, and when he received sentence of death, took snuff at the bar, and put on abundance of airs that were even ridiculous anywhere, and shocking and scandalous upon so melancholy an occasion.

After sentence, his carriage under his confinement altered not so much as one would have expected; he offering to lay wagers that he should never be hanged, notwithstanding his sentence, for he was resolved not to die like a dog on a string, when he had it in his power always to go out of the world a nobler way, by which he meant either a knife or opium, which were the two methods by one of which he resolved to prevent his fate.  But when he found that all his pretences of madness were like to produce nothing, and that he was in danger of dying in every respect like a brute, he laid aside much of his ill-timed gaiety, and began to think of preparing for death after another manner.

These gentlemen who assisted him while in Newgate, were so kind as to offer to make up a considerable sum of money, if it could have been of any use; but finding that neither that nor their interest could do anything to save him, they frankly acquainted him therewith and begged him not to delude himself with false hopes.  All the while he was in Newgate, a little boy whom he had by Mrs. Maycock, continued with him, and lay constantly in his bosom.  He manifested the utmost tenderness and concern for that poor child, who by his rashness had been deprived of his mother, and whom the Law would, by its just sentence, now likewise deprive of its father.  Being told that Mr. Bryan, Mrs. Maycock’s brother on Tower Hill was dead, merely through concern at his sister’s misfortunes and the deplorable end that followed them, Stanley clapped his hands together and cried, What, more death still?  Sure I am the most unfortunate wretch that was ever born.