William Colthouse was born in Yorkshire, had a very good education for a
person of his rank and especially with regard to religious principles,
of which he retained a knowledge seldom to be met with among the lower
class of people; but he was so unhappy as to imbibe in his youth strange
notions in regard to civil government, hereditary rights having been
much magnified in the latter end of the late Queen's reign. William
amongst others was violent attached thereto, and fancied it was a very
meritorious thing to profess his sentiments, notwithstanding they were
directly opposite to those of persons then in power. Some declarations
of this sort occasioned his being confined in Newgate, and prosecuted
for speaking seditious words in the beginning of King George the First's
reign. His Newgate acquaintances taught him quickly their arts of
living, and he was no sooner at liberty than he put them into execution,
he and his brother living like gentlemen on their expeditions on the
road; till unfortunately committing a robbery on Hounslow Heath
together, they were both closely pursued, the other taken, and William
narrowly escaped by creeping into a hollow tree.
After the execution of his brother, Colthouse being terribly affected
therewith, retired to Oxford, and there worked as a journeyman joiner,
determining with himself to live honestly for the future, and not by a
habit of ill-actions go the same way as one so nearly related to him had
done before. But as his brother's death in time grew out of his
remembrance, so his evil inclinations again took place, and he came up
to London with a full purpose of getting money at an easier rate than
working.
Soon after his arrival his Jacobite principles brought him into a great
fray at an alehouse in Tothill Fields, Westminster, where some soldiers
were drinking, and who on some disrespectful words said of the Prince,
caught up Colthouse and threw him upon a red-hot gridiron, thereby
making a scar on his cheek and under his left eye. By this he came to be
taken for a person who murdered a farmer's son in Philpot Lane, in
Hampshire, when he was charged with which he not only denied, but by
abundance of circumstances rendered it highly probable that he did not
commit it, there being, indeed, no other circumstance which occasioned
that suspicion but the likeness of the scar in his face, which happened
in the manner I told you.
While he lay under condemnation, a report reached his ear that his two
brothers in the country were also said to be highwaymen; he complained
grievously of the common practice that was made by idle people raising
stories to increase the sorrows of families which were so unhappy as to
have any who belonged to them come to such a death as his was to be. As
to his brothers, he declared himself well satisfied that the younger was
a sober and religious lad, and as for the elder, though he might have
been guilty of some extravagance, yet he hoped and believed they were
not of the same kind with those which had brought him to ruin. However,
that he might do all the good which his present sad circumstance would
allow, he wrote the following letter to his brethren in the country.
Dear Brothers,
Though the nearness of my approaching death ought to shut out from
my thoughts all temporal concerns, yet I could not compose my mind
into that quietness with which I hope to pass from this sinful world
into the presence of the Almighty, before I had thus exorted you to
take particular warning from my death, which the intent of the Law
to deter others from wickedness hath decreed to be in a public and
ignominious manner. Amidst the terrors which the frailty of human
nature (shocked with the prospect of so terrible an end) makes my
afflicted heart to feel, even these sorrows are increased, and all
my woes doubled by a story which is spread, I hope without the least
grounds of truth, that ye, as well as I, have lived by taking away
by force the property of others.
Let the said examples of my poor brother, who died by the hand of
Justice, and of me, who now follow him in the same unhappy course,
deter you not only from those flagrant offences which have been so
fatal unto us, but also from those foolish and sinful pleasures in
which it is but too frequent for young persons to indulge
themselves. Remember that I tell you from a sad experience, that the
wages of sin, though in appearance they be sometimes large and what
may promise outward pleasure, yet are they attended with such inward
disquiet as renders it impossible for those to have received them
to enjoy either quiet or ease. Work, then, hard at your employments,
and be assured that sixpence got thereby will afford you more solid
satisfaction than the largest acquisitions at the expense of your
conscience. That God may, by His grace, enable you to follow this my
last advice, and that He may bless your honest labour with plenty
and prosperity is the earnest prayer of your dying brother