On his return into England he had still a desire towards the same sensual enjoyments, was ever coveting debauches of drink, accompanied with the conversation of lewd women; but caring little for labour, and finding no honest employment to support these expenses into which his lusts obliged him to run, he therefore abandoned all thoughts of honesty, and took to thieving as the proper method of supporting him in his pleasures.  When this resolution was once taken, it was no difficult thing to find companions to engage with him, houses to receive him, and women to caress him.  On the contrary, it seemed difficult for him to choose out of the number offered, and as soon as he had made the choice, he and his associates fell immediately into the practice of that miserable trade they had chosen.

How long they continued to practice it before they fell into the hands of Justice, I am not able to say, but from several circumstances it seems probable that there was no long time intervening; for Price, in company with Sparks and James Cliff, attempted the house of the Duke of Leeds, and thrusting up the sash-window James Cliff was put into the parlour and handed out some things to Price and Sparks.  But it seems they were seen by Mr. Best, and upon their being apprehended, Cliff confessed the whole affair, owned that it was concerted between them, and that himself handed out the things to his companions, Price and Sparks.

At the ensuing sessions, Price was tried for that offence, and upon the evidence of Mr. Best, the confession of James Cliff, and Benjamin Bealin deposing that he himself, at the time of his being apprehended, acknowledged that he had been in company with Cliff and Sparks, the jury found him guilty, as they did Cliff also, upon his own confession.  Under sentence he seemed to have a just sense of his preceding wicked life, and was under no small apprehensions concerning his repentance, since it was forced and not voluntary.  However, the Ordinary having satisfied his scruples of this sort, as far as he was able, recommended it to him without oppressing his conscience with curious fears and unnecessary scruples, to apply himself to prayer and other duties of a dying man.  To this he seemed inclinable enough, but complained that James Cliff, who was in the condemned hold, prevented both him and the rest of the criminals from their duty, by extravagant speeches, wild and profane expressions, raving after the woman he had conversed with, and abusing everybody who came near him, which partly arose from the temper of that unhappy person, and was also owing to indisposition of body, as all the while he lay in the hole he was labouring under a high fever.  Another great misfortune to Price, in the condition in which he was, consisted in his incapacity to supply the want of ministers through his incapacity of reading; however, he endeavoured to make up for it as well as he could by attending constantly at chapel, and not only behaving gravely at prayers, but listening attentively at sermon, by which means he constantly brought away a great part, and sometimes lost very little out of his memory of what he heard there.