Some little time before he joined with Timms and his other companion in this robbery, he had the misfortune of having his leg bit by a dog at Windsor, where he was quartered.  Having no friends, and but a small allowance to subsist on, he fell under great miseries there, and on his return to Town, those who had formerly employed him in glass-grinding, taking distaste at his rude and wicked behaviour, refused to have anything more to do with him.  He readily gave way to the solicitations of Timms, who, as he declared, first proposed their going upon the highway, a crime which hitherto had not entered into Perry’s head.  However, he yielded too readily thereto, and with the persons who had shared in his crimes, came to share an ignominious and untimely death.

While under sentence, he applied himself with great seriousness and attention both to the public devotions of the chapel and to what was privately read to them in the place of their confinement, so that though he was very illiterate, he was far from being obstinate, and though he wanted the advantages of education, he was not deficient in grace, so we may therefore hope he might obtain mercy.

Edward Brown, the last of these unfortunate criminals, drew his first breath in the city of Oxford, and by the care of his parents, attained to a tolerable degree of knowledge in the Christian faith, as also in writing, reading and whatsoever was necessary in that station of life which his parents designed for him.  Being arrived at an age proper to be put out an apprentice, they placed him with a glass-grinder, to whom he served an apprenticeship faithfully, and to his good liking when out of time.  He worked hard as a journeyman, married a wife, and lived in reputation and credit for some small space; but falling unluckily into loose company, he gave himself up entirely to drinking, and running after bad women, which soon ruined him in the country and obliged him to come up to London for the sake of subsistance.  How long he had been there, or of what standing his acquaintance was with the other two criminals, I cannot take upon me to say, only he in general was a fellow of greater openness in his behaviour than any of the criminals before mentioned.  He said that they had all taken their cups pretty freely together, and had spent every farthing that they had amongst them; it was then resolved to go upon the highway for a supply, but he could not say who was the proposer of the scheme; that he himself had a sword and cane, and the rest truncheons, when they attacked Mr. Sells.  He [Sells] gave them at two several times, seventeen shillings, and when they pressed for still more, said he had but eighteen pence about him, and begged they would let him have that to come to town with, which he said they agreed to, and did not offer him any ill-usage whatsoever.