[18] See page 59.
The Life of JOHN THOMSON, a thief, Highwayman, etc.
John Thomson was born at Carlisle, but was brought with his friends to
London. They, it seems, were persons of no substance, and took little
care of their son's education, suffering him, while a lad, to go often
to such houses as were frequented by ill-people, and such as took
dishonest methods to get money. Such are seldom very dose in their
discourse when they meet and junket together, and Thomson, then a boy,
was so much pleased with their jovial manner of life, eating well and
drinking hard, that he had ever a bias that way, even when he was
otherways employed, till he was fifteen years old, leading such an idle
and debauched life that, as he himself expressed it, he had never heard
of or read a Bible or other good book throughout all that space.
A friend of his was then so kind as to put him out apprentice to a
weaver, and he might have had some chance of coming into the world in an
honest and reputable way, but he had not continued with his master any
long time before he listed himself in the sea service, during the Wars
in the late Queen's time, and served on board a squadron which was sent
up the Baltic to join the Danes. This cold country, with other hardships
he endured, made him so out of humour with a sailor's life that though
he behaved himself tolerably well when on board, yet he resolved never
to engage in the same state, if once discharged and safe on shore.
Upon his coming back to England, he went to work at his trade of a
weaver, and being for a while very sensible of the miseries he had run
through on board the man-of-war, he became highly pleased with the quiet
and easy way in which he got his bread by his business, thinking,
however, that there was no way so proper to settle him as by marrying,
which accordingly he did. But he was so unfortunate that though his wife
was a very honest woman, yet the money he got not being sufficient to
maintain them, he was even obliged to take to the sea again for a
subsistence, and continued on board several ships in the Straits and
Mediterranean for a very considerable space, during which he was so
fortunate as to serve once on board an enterprising captain, who in less
than a year's space, took nineteen prizes to a very considerable value.
And as they were returning from their cruise, they took a French East
India ship on the coast of that kingdom, whose cargo was computed at no
less than a hundred thousand pounds sterling. Thomson might certainly,
if he would, have saved money enough to have put himself into a
creditable method of life as many of his shipmates had done, and so well
did the captain improve his own good fortune that on his return he
retired into the country, where he purchased an estate of fifteen
hundred pounds _per annum._
But Thomson being much altered from the usual bent of his temper by his
being long accustomed at sea to blood and plunder, so when he returned
home, instead of returning to an honest way of living, he endeavoured to
procure money at the same rate by land which he had done at sea, and for
that purpose associated himself with persons of a like disposition, and
in their company did abundance of mischief. At last he and one of his
associates passing over Smithfield between twelve and one in the
morning, on the second of March, they perceived one George Currey going
across that place very much in drink. Him they attacked, though at first
they pretended to lead him safe home, drawing him to a proper place out
of hearing of the houses, where they took from him a shirt, a wig and a
hat, in doing which they knocked him down, stamped upon his breast, and
in other respects used him very cruelly. Being apprehended soon after
this fact, he was for it tried and convicted.
In the space between that and his death, he behaved himself very
penitently, and desired with great earnestness that his wife would
retire into the country to her friends, and learn by his unhappy example
that nothing but an honest industry could procure the blessing of God.
This he assiduously begged for her in his prayers, imploring her at the
same time that he gave her this advice, to be careful of her young son
she had then at her breast, not only as to his education, but also that
he might never know his father's unhappy end, for that would but damp
his spirits, and perhaps force him upon ill-courses when he grew up,
from an apprehension that people might distrust his honesty and not
employ him. He professed himself much afflicted at the past follies of
his life, and with an outward appearance of true penitence, died on the
fourth of May, 1722, in the thirty-third year of his age, at Tyburn.