Their deportment at the place of execution was resolute without obstinacy or impenitence, and the last moments of their lives were full of seriousness, without any marks of timorousness or confusion.  Russell was about twenty-five, Crouch about twenty, and Holden somewhat more than twenty-eight years of age at the time they suffered, which was on Monday, 20th of May, 1728.

The Lives of CHRISTOPHER, alias THOMAS RAWLINS; ISAAC ASHLEY, alias ALSEBY; JOHN ROUDEN, alias HULKS; EDWARD BENSON, alias BROWN, alias BOYSTON; GEORGE GALE, alias KIDDY GEORGE; THOMAS CROWDER; JAMES TOON; JOHN HORNBY; WILLIAM SEFTON; and RICHARD NICHOLS, Thieves, Street-Robbers, Housebreakers, etc.

Although the several criminals whose lives we are now going to relate do not so well tally with one another, they having been of different gangs and dying for various offences, yet as they were all apprehended in consequence of the before-mentioned proclamation, were street-robbers and most of them not unknown to each other, I thought it would be better to speak of them here all at once rather than divide them into several lives.  I have very little to say of any of them worthy the attention of the reader.

To begin, then, with Christopher, alias Thomas Rawlins.  He was the son of very honest parents here in town, who brought him up as well as their circumstances would permit, and when he grew big enough to go out to a trade put him apprentice to a silversmith with whom he served out his time with tolerable reputation.  But being a lad of great gaiety and spirit, having much addicted himself to the company of young fellows of a like disposition, frequented dancing meetings, and taken delight in everything but his business, such inclinations as these easily betrayed him to the commission of the greatest crimes and a certain alertness in his temper made him very acceptable to those debauched young fellows who were his usual companions to such places.  Whether he was at first seduced by the persuasions of others to the committing thefts and robberies, or whether those necessities to which their extravagancies had reduced them put him and his associates on taking such measures for filling their purses, is hard to be determined.  But certain it is that for some time before his being apprehended he had been very busy in committing such exploits and for his courage and dexterity was looked upon as one of the chief of the gang.

Isaac Ashley, who was Rawlins’s companion, and who went commonly amongst them by the nickname of Black Isaac, was a fellow of a very different cast.  His parents were poor people, who had, indeed, taken as much care as was in their power of his education and afterwards provided for him as well as they were able, putting him out to a weaver in Spitalfields.  But he made them a very ill return for all their care and tenderness, proving an obstinate, idle and illiterate