bloody and cruel than men; their advice is always not to fpare if we are pursued; they get drunk with us, and are common to us all; and yet, if they can get any thing by it, are fure to be our betrayers. Now, as I am a dying man, fomething I have done which may be of good ufe to the publick. I have left with an honest man (and indeed the only honeft man I was ever acquainted with) the names of all my wicked brethren, the prefent places of their abode, with a fhort account of the chief crimes they have committed; in many of which I have been their accomplice, and heard the rest from their own mouths; I have likewife fet down the names of those we call our fetters, of the wicked houfes we frequent, and of those who receive and buy our ftolen goods. I have folemnly charged this honeft man, and have received his promife upon oath, that whenever he hears of any rogue to be tried for robbing, or house-breaking, he will look into his lift, and, if he finds the name there of the thief concerned, to fend the whole paper to the government. Of this I here give my companions fair and publick warning, and hope they will take it.. In the paper abovementioned, which I left with my friend, I have alfo fet down the names of feveral gentlemen who have been robbed in Dublin ftreets for three years paft: I have told the circumftances of thofe robberis; and hewn plainly that nothing but the want of common courage was the caufe of their misfortune. I have therefore defired my friend, that, whenever any gentleman happens, to be robbed in the streets, he will get that relation printed and published with the first letters of thofe gentlemen's names, who, by their own want of bravery, are likely to be the caufe of all the mifchief of that kind, which may happen for the future. I cannot leave the world without a fhort defcription of that kind of life, which I have led for fome year's paft; and is exactly the fame with the rest of our wicked brethren. Although we are generally fo corrupted from our childhood, as to have no fenfe of goodness: yet fomething heavy always hangs upon us, I know not what it is, that we are never eafy till we are half drunk among our whores and companions; nor fleep found, unlefs we drink longer than we can stand. If we go abroad in the day, a wife man wouldeafily find us to be rogues by our faces, we have fuch a fufpicious, fearful, and constrained countenance; often turning back, and flinking through narrow lanes and alleys. I have never failed of knowing a brother thief by his looks, though I never faw him before. Every man among us keeps his particular whore, who is, however, common to us all, when we have a mind to change. When we have got a booty, if it be in money, we divide it equally among our companions, and foon fquander it away on our vices, in those houses that receive us; for the mafter and mistrefs, and the very tapfter, go fnacks; and befides B 3 befides make us pay triple reckonings. If our plunder be plate, watches, rings, fnuffboxes, and the like; we have cuftomers in all quarters of the town to take them off. I have feen a tankard worth fifteen pounds fold, to a fellow in ftreet, for twenty fhillings; and a gold watch for thirty. I have fet down his name, and that of feveral others in the paper already mentioned. We have fetters watching in corners, and by dead walls, to give us notice when a gentleman goes by; efpecially if he be any thing in drink. I believe in my confcience, that, if an account were made of a thousand pounds in ftolen goods, confidering the low rates we fell them at, the bribes we must give for concealment, the extortions of ale. houfe reckonings, and other neceffary charges, there would not remain fifty pounds clear to be divided among the robbers. And out of this we muft find cloaths for our whores, befides treating them from morning to night; who in requital reward us with nothing but treachery and the pox. For when our money is gone, they are every moment threatning to inform against us, if we will not go out and fook for more. If any thing in this world be like hell, as I have heard it defcribed by our clergy, the trueft picture of it must be in the back room of one of our ale-houses at midnight; where a crew of robbers and their whores are met together after a booty, and are beginning to grow drunk; from which time, until they are paft their fenfes, is fuch a continued horrible noife of curfing, blafphemy, lewdnefs, fcurrility, and brutish behaviour, fuch roaring and confufion, fuch a clutter of mugs and pots at each other's beads; that Bedlam, in comparison, is a fober and orderly place. At laft, they all tumble from their ftools and benches, and fleep away the reft of the night; and generally the landlord or his wife, or fome other whore, who has a stronger head than the reft, picks their pockets before they wake. The misfortune is, that we can never be eafy till we are drunk; and our drunkenness constantly exposes us to be more easily betrayed and taken. This is a fhort picture of the life I have led; which is more miferable than that of the poorest labourer who works for four pence a day; and yet cuftom is fo ftrong, that I am confident, if I could make my escape at the foot of the gallows, I fhould be following the fame courfe this very evening. So that, upon the whole, we ought to be looked upon as the common enemies of mankind; whofe intereft it is to root us out like wolves and other mischievous vermin, against which no fair play is required. If I have done fervice to men in what I have faid, I fhall hope I have done service to God; and that will be better than a filly fpeech made for me, full of whining and canting, which I utterly defpife, and have B 4 never |