th some particular marks, they sent for a constable
and some persons to assist him, who caused all the young fellows
instantly to be separated and searched one by one; on which the marked
crown was found in Robert Perkin's pocket, and he was thereupon
immediately carried before a Justice, who committed him to Newgate. The
sessions coming on soon after, and the case being plain, he was cast
and ordered for transportation, having time enough, however, before he
was shipped, to consider the melancholy circumstances into which his
ill-conduct had reduced him, and to think of what was fitting for him to
do in the present sad state he was in. At first nothing ran in his head
but the cruelties which he had met with from his family, but as the time
of his departure drew nearer he meditated how to gain the captain's
favour, and to escape some hardships in the voyage.

Robin had the good luck to make himself tolerably easy in the ship. His
natural good nature and obliging temper prevailing so far on the captain
of the vessel that he gave him all the liberty and afforded him whatever
indulgence it was in his power to permit with safety. But our young
traveller had much worse luck when he came on shore at Jamaica, where he
was immediately sold to a planter for ten pounds, and his trade of baker
being of little use there, his master put him upon much the same labour
as he did his negroes, Robin's constitution was really incapable of
great fatigue; his master, therefore, finding in the end that nothing
would make him work, sold him to another, who put him upon his own
employment of baking, building an oven on purpose. But whether this
master really used him cruelly or whether his idle inclinations made him
think all labour cruel usage, is hard to say, but however it was, Bob
ran away from this master and got on board a ship which carried him to
Carolina, from whence he said he travelled to Maryland and shipped
himself there, in a vessel for England. After being taken by the
Spaniards, and enduring many other great hardships, he at last with much
difficulty got home, as is too frequently the practice of these unhappy
wretches who are ready to return from tolerable plenty to the gallows.

After his arrival in England, he wrought for near two years together at
his own business, and had the settled intention to live honestly and
forsake that disorderly state of life which had involved him in such
calamities; but the fear he was continual