ped they would give no credit to any
spurious accounts which might be published of him; because whatever he
thought might be necessary for them to know, he had digested in a paper
which he had delivered the Sunday before he died, in order to be
communicated to the public. He added, that since he had been in the
cart, he had been informed that one Phelps had been committed to Newgate
for a robbery mentioned by him in his paper. He said, as he was a dying
man, he knew nothing of Phelps, and that he was not in any manner
whatsoever concerned in that robbery for which he had been apprehended.
He then put the rope about his neck, and submitted to his death with
great resolution, being then about twenty years of age, and the day he
suffered the 26th of July, 1722.

The Paper delivered by the above mentioned criminal the day before his
execution.

I, Thomas Wilson, desire it may be known that I was in a horse-way
that lies between Highgate and Hornsey, where meeting a man and a
woman, they enquired the way to Upper Holloway. We directed them
across the fields; meantime we drank two pints of ale to hearten us,
then followed them, and robbed them of two shillings and some half
pence, the woman's apron, her hat and coloured handkerchief. We left
them without misusing them, though there were thoughts of doing it.
My companion that robbed with me is gone to Holland upon hearing I
was taken up, though I should not have impeached him, but his
friends lived in Holland. Another robbery we committed was by a barn
in the footpath near Pancras Church of a hat and tie-wig, and cane,
and some goods he was carrying, but we heard he had a considerable
sum of money about him; but he ran away and I ran after him, but I
being drunk he escaped, and I was glad to get off safe. We robbed
two other men near Copenhagen House of a coat and waistcoat. I
committed many street robberies about Lincoln's Inn. For these and
for all other sins, I pray God and Man to pardon me, especially for
shooting the pistol off before Justice Perry, at my friend's
adversary, and am very glad I did not kill him.

The Lives of ROBERT WILKINSON and JAMES LINCOLN, Murderers and Footpads

Robert Wilkinson, like abundance of other unhappy young men, contracted
in his youth a liking to idleness, and an aversion to all sorts of work
and labour, and applied himself for a livelihood hardly to an