By this time his father had received some intelligence of his way of living, and out of tenderness of its consequences, wrote to him assuring him of forgiveness for all that was past, if he would come down into the country and live honestly.  Such undeserved tenderness had some weight even with our criminal himself, and he at last began to frame his mind to comply with the request of so good a father.  Accordingly, down he came, and for a little space, behaved himself honestly and as he should do; but his old distemper, laziness quickly came in his way, and finding money not to come in so fast as he would have it, he began to think of his old practice again, and prepared himself once more to sally out upon his illegal adventures.  For this purpose taking with him a little mare of his brothers, for at that time he had no horse proper for the designs he went on, forth he rode in search of prey.

Wales was the place he first visited, and after riding up and down for a good while without meeting with any purchase worth taking, he at last unluckily stumbled upon a poor old man in Flintshire, who had one foot already in the grave.  From him he took a silver watch, worth about five pounds, and five shillings in money, which was all the poor man had, and making thereupon the greatest haste he could out of the country, he got clear away before it was discovered.  After this he came again to London, where what little money he had he lavished away upon women of the town.

It was not long before want overtook him again, upon which he determined to visit Yorkshire, in hopes of raising some considerable booty there.  All the way down, according to his common practice, he bilked the public-houses, and at last arriving at Doncaster, began to set heartily about the work for which he came down.  On a market day, he robbed an old farmer of forty shillings and a pair of silver buckles, taking his horse also from him, which, when he had ridden about fifteen miles across country, he turned loose.  He rambled from thence on foot, as well as he could, in order to get into his native country of Shropshire, where after the commission of a multitude of such actions, none of which afforded him any great booty, he arrived.

His father took him home again, and he lived for eleven months tolerably honest.  However, to keep his hand in use, he now and then stole a shoulder of mutton, a joint which he particularly loved; but sometimes to please his father he would work a little, though it always went much against the grain.  At last he quarrelled with his wife, and thereupon threatened to go away again, which very quickly after he did, turning his course, notwithstanding his former ill-success into Yorkshire once more.  He was at several of the races in that county, and having no particular business at any place, did nothing but course the country round, pilfering and stealing whatever came in his way; insomuch that at one inn, finding nothing else to lay his hands on, he stole the people’s sheets off the bed he lay in, and marched off in the morning so early, that he was out of danger before they perceived the theft.