morning at his levee.  Bellamy, who well knew the temper of the man, failed not to pay his court at the time appointed and adjourning to the Baptist Head tavern in the Old Bailey, after drinking a refreshing bottle, he presented Mr. Wild with five guineas, by way of atonement for the offence which he had committed against him.  Jonathan was so well appeased by the intervention of the golden advocates that he promised not only to forgive him, himself, but also to prevail with Mr. Wildgoose to do the same, provided he entered into a bond for the repayment of the ten guineas.  This was a condition easily submitted to by Martin in his present circumstances.  This danger thus got over, he returned to his old profession without running any further hazard of Jonathan’s interruption.

About this time the gang to which he belonged entered upon a new method of housebreaking, which they effected by stealing the keys which fastened the pins in shopkeepers’ window-shutters and thereby removing the greatest difficulty they had of getting in.  This trade they carried on successfully for a good space; though now and then they miscarried in their attempts, particularly at a goldsmith’s shop in Russell Court, where, having got into the shop and being about to remove a show-glass, a man who lay in the shop suddenly started up and presenting a blunderbuss with a great presence of mind told the thieves that he was tender of shedding their blood and therefore advised them to get off as soon as they could.  They took his advice and withdrew accordingly, with great confusion.  But the same night they had, as Mr. Bellamy expresses it, much better luck at a toy-shop not far from the same place, where, entering the house, they found the maid sitting by the fire.  She at first screamed, but they soon made her silent, and then proceeded to carry off the show-glass, with all the boxes that were contained in it.

Not long after this they broke off the padlock from a toy-shop in Swithin’s Alley, in Cornhill.  Not being able afterwards to enter the house they fell to work next upon the thick timber that supports the shutters, and after labouring at it about an hour, forced it off, whereupon all the shutters dropping down at once into the court, made so great a clatter that they doubted not that all the neighbourhood was alarmed, and thought it would be no ill night’s work if, after such an accident, they had the good luck to escape.  Upon which they endeavoured to shift, everyone for himself.  However, seeing nobody alarmed at the noise of the falling of the shutters and that during two hours’ time the watch had never passed that way, they took courage at last:  and returned, entered the house, and putting up the most valuable goods, went off without any molestation.

A multitude of robberies of the same kind he confessed, but as they are narrated in the account we have so often mentioned, it would be a kind of imposition on our readers to transcribe those accounts there.  Wherefore, in the following articles concerning him, we shall make no use at all of any that is to be found there.