As it is not to be denied that it is a singular blessing to a nation
where no persecution is ever raised against persons for their religion,
so I am confident that the late Free Thinking principles (as they have
been called) have by their being spread amongst the vulgar, contributed
greatly to the many frauds and villainies which have been so much
complained of within these thirty years, and not a little to encouraging
men in obtaining a subsistence and the gratification of their pleasures
by rapines committed upon others rather than live in a laborious state
of life, in which, perhaps, both their birth and circumstances concurred
to fix them.
Thomas Reeves was a very remarkable as well as very unfortunate instance
of that depravity in moral principles of which I have been speaking. By
his friends he was bred a tinman, his father, who was of that
profession, taking him as an apprentice but using him with the most
indulgent fondness and never suffering him to want anything which was in
his power to procure for him, flattered himself with the hopes of his
becoming a good and happy man. It happened very unfortunately for Reeves
that he fell, when young, into the acquaintance of some sceptical
persons who made a jest of all religion and treated both its precepts
and its mysteries as inventions subservient to priestcraft. Such notions
are too easily imbibed by those who are desirous to indulge their
vicious inclinations, and Reeves being of this stamp, greedily listened
to all discourses of such a nature.
Amongst some of these companions who had cheated him out of his
religion, he found some also inclined to practise the same freedom they
taught, encouraged both by precept and example. Tom soon became the most
conspicuous of the gang. His boldness and activity preferred him
generally to be a leader in their adventures, and he had such good luck,
in several of his first attempts, that he picked up as much as
maintained him in that extravagant and superfluous manner of life in
which he most of all delighted. One John Hartly was his constant
companion in his debauches, and generally speaking an assistant in his
crimes. Both of them in the evening of the ninth of March, 1722,
attacked one Roger Worebington, near Shoreditch, as he was going across
the fields on some business. Hartly gave him a blow on the head with his
pistol, after which Reeves bid him stand, and whistling, four more of
the gang came up, seized him, and knocked him down. They stripped him
stark naked and carried away all his clothes, tying him hand and foot in
a cruel manner and leaving him in a ditch hard by. However he was
relieved, and Reeves and Hartly being soon after taken, they were both
tried and convicted for this fact.
After the passing sentence, Reeves behaved himself with much
indifference, his own principles stuck by him, and he had so far
satisfied himself by considering the necessity of dying, and coined a
new religion of his own, that he never believed the soul in any danger,
but had very extensive notions of the mercy of God, which he thought was
too great to punish with eternal misery those souls which He had
created. This criminal was, indeed, of a very odd temper, for sometimes
he would both pray and read to the rest of the prisoners, and at other
times he would talk loosely and divert them from their duty, often
making enquiries as to curious points, and to be informed whether the
soul went immediately into bliss or torment, or whether, as some
Christians taught, they went through an intermediate state? All which he
spoke of with an unconcernedness scarce to be conceived, and as it were
rather out of curiosity than that he thought himself in any danger of
eternal punishment hereafter.
Hartly, on the other hand, was a fellow of a much softer disposition,
showed very great fear, and looked in great confusion at the approach of
death. He got six persons dressed in white to go to the Royal Chapel and
petition for a pardon, he being to marry one of them in case it had been
procured, but they failed in the attempt, and he appeared less sensible
than ever when he found that death was not to be evaded.
At the place of execution, Reeves not only preserved that resolution
with which he had hitherto borne up against his misfortunes, but when
the mob pushed down one of the horses that drew the cart, and it leaning
sideways so that Reeves was thereby half hanged, to ease himself of his
misery he sprung over at once and finished the execution.
Hartly wept and lamented exceedingly his miserable condition, and the
populace much pitied him, for he was not twenty years of age at the time
he died; but Reeves was about twenty-eight years of age, when he
suffered, which was at the same time with John Thomson, before
mentioned.