castle, where my
father purchased two horses of a young man, paying for them with three
forged notes, purporting to be Bank of Englanders of fifty pounds each,
and got the young man to change another of the like amount; he at that
time appeared as a respectable dealer, and I as his son, as I really was.

'As soon as we had got the horses, we conveyed them to one of the places
of call belonging to our gang, of which there were several. There they
were delivered into the hands of one of our companions, who speedily sold
them in a distant part of the country. The sum which they fetched--for
the gang kept very regular accounts--formed an important item on the next
day of sharing, of which there were twelve in the year. The young man,
whom my father had paid for the horses with his smashing notes, was soon
in trouble about them, and ran some risk, as I have heard, of being
executed; but he bore a good character, told a plain story, and, above
all, had friends, and was admitted to bail; to one of his friends he
described my father and myself. This person happened to be at an inn in
Yorkshire, where my father, disguised as a Quaker, attempted to pass a
forged note. The note was shown to this individual, who pronounced it a
forgery, it being exactly similar to those for which the young man had
been in trouble, and which he had seen. My father, however, being
supposed a respectable man, because he was dressed as a Quaker--the very
reason, by-the-by, why anybody who knew aught of the Quakers would have
suspected him to be a rogue--would have been let go, had I not made my
appearance, dressed as his footboy. The friend of the young man looked
at my eye, and seized hold of my father, who made a desperate resistance,
I assisting him, as in duty bound. Being, however, overpowered by
numbers, he bade me by a look, and a word or two in Latin, to make myself
scarce. Though my heart was fit to break, I obeyed my father, who was
speedily committed. I followed him to the county town in which he was
lodged, where shortly after I saw him tried, convicted, and condemned. I
then, having made friends with the jailor's wife, visited him in his
cell, where I found him very much cast down. He said, that my mother had
appeared to him in a dream, and talked to him about a resurrection and
Christ Jesus; there was a Bible before him, and he told me the chaplain
had just been praying with him. He reproached himself much, saying, he
was afra