William Russell was descended from persons of honourable family and unblemished reputation.  In his youth he had received a tolerable education, which even in his misfortunes rendered him more civilized than any of his companions.  He was a young fellow of tolerable good sense, ready wit, and great courage; he always spoke frankly of the wickedness of his own life and acknowledged that sensual pleasures were only what he aimed at in the course of life he led; yet he had never been able to reap any satisfaction in them, but had been always miserable in his own mind, from the time he pursued those base methods of gaining money.  His father being gone over to Ireland, and he left at liberty to pursue what methods he thought best, evil women and bad company soon prevailed with him to fall into those methods which afterwards led him to the gallows.

Robert Crouch, the second of these criminals, was born at Dunstable, of very honest parents who afforded him as good an education as it was in their power to give; and then, upon his own inclination to follow the business of a butcher, bound him to one in Newgate Market, with whom he served his time.  But as soon as he was out of it he addicted himself to gaming, drinking and whoring, and all the other vices which are so natural to abandoned young fellows in low life.  Dalton, who was an evidence against him, was one of the chief persons of his gang, and specially persuaded Crouch to join with him, though he had very little occasion to fall into such ways of getting money, since his father was a man in very good circumstances, who designed to set his son in his trade in a short time, having not the least suspicion that this melancholy accident would intervene.

William Holden, the third of these unhappy persons, was born of very mean parents, had little education, and had followed no particular trade, but had sometimes gone to sea, and at other times driven a hackney coach; so that throughout the whole course of his life he had been continually plunged in the grossest debaucheries, whereby he became ripe for such practices as he and his associates afterwards went upon.

It does not appear, from the papers that I have, that any of these criminals had followed that infamous course of life for above a year, when Dalton, to save his own life, surrendered and made a confession by which these and the rest of ms associates were quickly apprehended and committed dose prisoners to Newgate.  At the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey they were all indicted for assaulting one Martha Hide on the highway, and taking from her a broad-cloth coat, value forty shillings; a looking-glass, value thirty shillings; a woman’s nightgown; and other goods, to the value of thirty shillings more.  To prove this charge James Dalton was produced, who swore that about nine o’clock at night himself and the prisoners overtook the prosecutor, Martha Hide, in Fleet Street; and observing that she had a bundle they resolved to