and were gone aboard a ship, not caring to remain any longer in Holland.  They conducted their prisoner to the Stadt House Prison in Rotterdam, and then went to the Brill, where the ship on board which his companions were, not being cleared out, they surprised them also, and having handcuffed them, sent them under a strong guard to Rotterdam, where they put them in the same place with their old associate Blewit.  We shall now therefore take an opportunity of speaking of each of them, and acquainting the reader with those steps by which they arose to that unparalleled pitch of wickedness which rendered them alike the wonder and detestation of all the sober part of mankind.

Emanuel Dickenson was the son of a very worthy person, whose memory I shall be very careful not to stain upon this occasion.  The lad was ever wild and ungovernable in his temper, and being left a child at his father’s death, himself, his brother, and several sisters were thrown all upon the hands of their mother, who was utterly unable to support them in those extravagancies to which they were inclined.  Whereupon they unfortunately addicted themselves to such evil courses as to them seemed likely to provide such a supply of money as might enable them to take such licentious pleasures as were suitable to their vicious inclinations.  The natural consequence of which was that they all fell under misfortunes, especially Emanuel of whom we are speaking, who addicted himself to picking of pockets, and such kind of facts for a considerable space.  At last, attempting to snatch a gentleman’s hat off in the Strand, he was seized with it in his hand, and committed to Newgate, and at the next sessions convicted and ordered for transportation.  But his mother applying at Court for a pardon, and setting forth the merit of his father, procured his discharge.  The only use he made of this was to associate himself with his old companions, who by degrees led him into greater villainies than any he had till that time been concerned in; and at last falling under the direction of Burnworth, he was with the rest drawn into the murder of Ball.  After this he followed Blewit’s advice, and not thinking himself safe even in Holland, he and Berry (as has been said) were actually on ship board, in order to their departure.

Thomas Berry was a beggar, if not a thief, from his cradle, descended from parents in the most wretched circumstances, who being incapable of giving him an honest education suffered him on the contrary to idle about the streets, and to get into such gangs of thieves and pickpockets as taught him from his infancy the arts of diving (as they in their cant call it).  And as he grew in years they still brought him on to a greater proficiency in such evil practices, in which however he did not always meet with impunity; for besides getting into the little prisons about town, and being whipped several times at the houses of correction, he had also been thrice in Newgate,