This kind of discourse served, as my readers must know, to keep Wild safe in his employment for many years, while not a step he took, but trod on felony, nor a farthing did he obtain but what deserved the gallows.  Two great things there were which contributed to his preservation, and they were these.  The great readiness the Government always shows in detecting persons guilty of capital offences; in which case we know ’tis common to offer not only pardon, but rewards to persons guilty, provided they make discoveries; and this Jonathan was so sensible of that he did not only screen himself behind the lenity of the Supreme Power, but made use of it also as a sort of authority, and behaved himself with a very presuming air.  And taking upon him the character of a sort of minister of Justice, this assumed character of his, however ill-founded, proved of great advantage to him in the course of his life.  The other point, which, as I have said, contributed to keep him from any prosecutions on the score of these illegal and unwarrantable actions, was the great willingness of people who had been robbed to recover their goods, and who, provided for a small matter they could regain things for a considerable worth, were so far from taking pains to bring the offenders to justice that they thought the premium a cheap price to get off.

Thus by the rigour of the magistrate, and the lenity of the subject, Jonathan claimed constant employment, and according as wicked persons behaved, they were either trussed up to satisfy the just vengeance of the one, or protected and encouraged, that by bringing the goods they stole he might be enabled to satisfy the demands of the other.  And thus we see the policy of a mean and scandalous thief-taker, conducted with as much prudence, caution, and necessary courage, as the measures taken by even the greatest persons upon earth; nor perhaps is there, in all history, an instance of a man who thus openly dallied with the laws, and played with capital punishment.

As I am persuaded my readers will take a pleasure in the relation of Jonathan’s maxims of policy, I shall be a little more particular in relation to them than otherwise I should have been, considering that in this work I do not propose to treat of the actions of a single person, but to consider the villainies committed throughout the space of a dozen years, such especially as have reached to public notice by bringing the authors of them to the gallows.  But Mr. Wild being a man of such eminence as to value himself in his life-time on his superiority to meaner rogues; so I am willing to distinguish him now he is dead, by showing a greater complaisance in recording his history than that of any other hero in this way whatsoever.