urth indictment against him for assaulting Mary, the wife
of Joseph Page, and taking from her two shillings and sixpence, but the
three former being all capital, the court did not think proper to try
him upon this.

While he lay under sentence of death he did not discover any signs of
excessive fear, but appeared rather perplexed and confused than
dispirited or dejected. He entertained at first great hopes of a
reprieve, at least in order to be transported, and for obtaining it he
spent a great deal of time writing to several friends who he thought
might be instrumental in procuring it. However, he was far from
neglecting the concerns of his soul, but read daily with much seeming
diligence several little books proper for a man in his condition, and
whenever he attended at chapel behaved with the utmost gravity, praying,
if we may guess from exterior signs, with much fervour and devotion. He
was a man very well acquainted with the principles of the Christian
religion, and was in all appearance better persuaded of the merit and
efficacy of his Saviour's passion than people often are in his
condition.

As to his capacity, it appeared to have been very tolerable in itself,
and to have received many advantages from education. How he acquired
the art of curing smoky chimneys is not very well known, he having been
bred up to no trade whatsoever, but coming into the world with a little
fortune left him by his parents, he lived thereupon with a tolerable
reputation, until the time of his marriage.

When he was first under sentence he was very desirous of having his wife
come to town, and for that purpose wrote her several pressing letters,
to which he received no answer. This gave him great disturbance. He
thereupon wrote to a friend in the country, who lived near her, on whom
also he had a strong dependance, entreating him to go to his wife and
solicit her not absolutely to desert him in his extreme calamity, but to
come up to town with him, in order to make their last efforts for his
preservation. This epistle, however, proved in the main as unsuccessful
as the rest, though it procured him an answer, wherein the person he
wrote to informed him that his wife was extremely lame, insomuch that
she could not put on her own clothes; that her servant was gone; that
she had no money wherewith to defray the expenses of a journey to town,
much less to assist him in his distress. As for himself, his friend
excused his coming by reaso