How he came by his liberty again I cannot take upon me to say; all that appears from my papers is that he made a very ill use of it as soon as he obtained it, returning immediately to the commission of those crimes for which he had before forfeited it.  At length turning housebreaker he was committed for feloniously stealing five pounds out of the house of John Spence, for which fact, at the sessions following, a bill of indictment was found against him, and he was thereupon arraigned.

At first he insisted that overtures had been made in order to procure discoveries from him, and therefore he desired that he might be admitted an evidence.  The Court informed him that they would enter into no altercations with a prisoner at the bar; that he had heard the nature of the charge preferred against him; and that now they could hear nothing from him unless he pleaded guilty or not guilty.  He persisted obstinately in his first demand, and in consequence thereof obstinately refused to plead.  Whereupon he was told from the Bench that such behaviour was not a proper method to excite the mercy of the Court, that it was not in their power to comply in any degree with what he desired, but that on the contrary they should proceed to pass sentence upon him as a mute, by which be would be subjected to a much greater and more grievous punishment than if he were found guilty of the crime of which he was accused.  All this made no impression upon the criminal; he said he could but die, and the manner in which he died was indifferent to him.  And so sentence, as is usual in such cases, was pronounced upon him, and he was ordered to be carried back and put into the press.  But when he had carried it so far, and found there was no avoiding that cruel fortune which was appointed for such obstinate persons as himself, he desired time till the next morning to consider his plea, which being permitted him, he that time pleaded guilty.

While under sentence of death something very extraordinary occurred in relation to this malefactor.  It seems that one Mrs. Dawson had a parcel of plate, consisting of two silver tankards, two silver mugs, a silver cup and a punch ladle, seven pounds sixteen shillings in money, and a great quantity of papers of considerable value, stolen out of her house.  She suspected one Eleanor Reddey, and caused her to be apprehended, who thereupon confessed that she opened the door of her mistress’s house in the night-time and let in one William Read; that she saw him take away the plate and watched, in the meantime, to observe if anyone came.  Upon this confession she herself was convicted, but no evidence appearing against William Read, who was tried with her, he was acquitted.

After she received sentence of death she declared herself absolutely innocent of the fact for which she was to die, affirming that as soon as she was taken up some neighbours persuaded her to make such a confession, and to charge William Read with stealing the things, assuring her that if she did so, she would preserve herself by coming a witness against him.  Being a silly timorous creature in herself, and terrified by their suggesting that if she did not take the method they proposed, somebody would infallibly swear against her, she with much ado assented; and being carried before Justice Jackson, made and signed such a confession as is before mentioned.