Stephen Burnet, alias Barnet, alias Barnham, which was his true name, was a child when he died, and a thief almost from his cradle.  His parents, who were people of worth, sent him to school with a design, doubtless, that he should have acquired some good there; but Stephen made use of that time to visit a master of his own choosing, the celebrated Mr. Jonathan Wild, at whose levy he was a pretty constant attendant and while an infant he was a most assiduous companion and assistant to the famous Blueskin.

My readers may be perhaps inquisitive how an infant of eight years old could in any way assist a person of Blueskin’s profession.  For their information, then, perhaps for their security, I must inform them that while Blueskin and one of his companions bought a pair of stockings, or two or three pairs of gloves in a large Shop, Stephen used to creep on all fours under the counter, and march off with goods perhaps to the value of ten, twelve, or twenty pounds.  But, alas, he was not the youngest of Mr. Wild’s scholars.  I myself have seen a boy of six years old tried at the Old Bailey for stealing the rings of an oyster women’s fingers as she sat asleep by her tub, and after his being acquitted by the compassion of the jury, Jonathan took him from the bar, and carrying him back upon the leads, lifted him up in his arms, and turning to the spectators, said, Here’s a cock of the game for you, of my own breeding up.

But to return to Barnham.  His friends no sooner found out the villainy of his inclinations, but they took all methods imaginable to wean him from his vices.  They corrected him severely; they offered him any encouragements on his showing the least visible sign of amendment, they put him to seven several trades upon liking.  But all this was to no purpose, nothing could persuade him to forsake his old trade, which following with indefatigable industry, he made a shift to reach the gallows of an old offender, at almost nineteen years of age.

After he, Featherby, Vaux and Levee became acquainted, they suffered no time to be lost in perpetrating such facts as were most likely to supply them with money, roving abroad almost every night, in quest of adventures and returning very seldom without some considerable prey.  Perhaps my readers may be inquisitive as to what became of all this money.  Why, really, it was spent in drink, gaming and in whores, three articles which ran so high amongst these knight-errants in low life that Barnham and two more found a way to lavish an hundred and twenty pounds on them in three weeks.