of a
weaver, and being for a while very sensible of the miseries he had run
through on board the man-of-war, he became highly pleased with the quiet
and easy way in which he got his bread by his business, thinking,
however, that there was no way so proper to settle him as by marrying,
which accordingly he did. But he was so unfortunate that though his wife
was a very honest woman, yet the money he got not being sufficient to
maintain them, he was even obliged to take to the sea again for a
subsistence, and continued on board several ships in the Straits and
Mediterranean for a very considerable space, during which he was so
fortunate as to serve once on board an enterprising captain, who in less
than a year's space, took nineteen prizes to a very considerable value.
And as they were returning from their cruise, they took a French East
India ship on the coast of that kingdom, whose cargo was computed at no
less than a hundred thousand pounds sterling. Thomson might certainly,
if he would, have saved money enough to have put himself into a
creditable method of life as many of his shipmates had done, and so well
did the captain improve his own good fortune that on his return he
retired into the country, where he purchased an estate of fifteen
hundred pounds _per annum._

But Thomson being much altered from the usual bent of his temper by his
being long accustomed at sea to blood and plunder, so when he returned
home, instead of returning to an honest way of living, he endeavoured to
procure money at the same rate by land which he had done at sea, and for
that purpose associated himself with persons of a like disposition, and
in their company did abundance of mischief. At last he and one of his
associates passing over Smithfield between twelve and one in the
morning, on the second of March, they perceived one George Currey going
across that place very much in drink. Him they attacked, though at first
they pretended to lead him safe home, drawing him to a proper place out
of hearing of the houses, where they took from him a shirt, a wig and a
hat, in doing which they knocked him down, stamped upon his breast, and
in other respects used him very cruelly. Being apprehended soon after
this fact, he was for it tried and convicted.

In the space between that and his death, he behaved himself very
penitently, and desired with great earnestness that his wife would
retire into the country to her friends, and learn by his unhappy e