ened me, and I grew audacious to the last degree; and
the more so because I had carried it on so long, and had never been
taken; for, in a word, my new partner in wickedness and I went on
together so long, without being ever detected, that we not only grew
bold, but we grew rich, and we had at one time one-and-twenty gold
watches in our hands.

I remember that one day being a little more serious than ordinary, and
finding I had so good a stock beforehand as I had, for I had near #200
in money for my share, it came strongly into my mind, no doubt from
some kind spirit, if such there be, that at first poverty excited me,
and my distresses drove me to these dreadful shifts; so seeing those
distresses were now relieved, and I could also get something towards a
maintenance by working, and had so good a bank to support me, why
should I now not leave off, as they say, while I was well? that I could
not expect to go always free; and if I was once surprised, and
miscarried, I was undone.

This was doubtless the happy minute, when, if I had hearkened to the
blessed hint, from whatsoever had it came, I had still a cast for an
easy life. But my fate was otherwise determined; the busy devil that
so industriously drew me in had too fast hold of me to let me go back;
but as poverty brought me into the mire, so avarice kept me in, till
there was no going back. As to the arguments which my reason dictated
for persuading me to lay down, avarice stepped in and said, 'Go on, go
on; you have had very good luck; go on till you have gotten four or
five hundred pounds, and they you shall leave off, and then you may
live easy without working at all.'

Thus I, that was once in the devil's clutches, was held fast there as
with a charm, and had no power to go without the circle, till I was
engulfed in labyrinths of trouble too great to get out at all.

However, these thoughts left some impression upon me, and made me act
with some more caution than before, and more than my directors used for
themselves. My comrade, as I called her, but rather she should have
been called my teacher, with another of her scholars, was the first in
the misfortune; for, happening to be upon the hunt for purchase, they
made an attempt upon a linen-draper in Cheapside, but were snapped by a
hawk's-eyed journeyman, and seized with two pieces of cambric, which
were taken also upon them.

This was enough to lodge them both in Newgate, where they had the
misfortune