Amongst the numbers of unhappy wretches who perish at the gallows, most
pity seems due to those who, pressed by want and necessity, commit in
the bitter exigence of starving, some illegal act purely to support
life. But this is a very scarce case, and such a one as I cannot in
strictness presume to say that I have hitherto met with in all the loads
of papers I have turned over to this purpose, though as the best motive
to excite compassion, and consequently to obtain mercy, it is made very
often a pretence.
Joseph Middleton was the son of a very poor, though honest, labouring
man in the county of Kent, near Deptford, who did all that was in his
power to bring up his children. This unfortunate son was taken off his
hand by an uncle, a gardener, who brought up the boy to his own
business, and consequently to labour hard enough, which would, to an
understanding person, appear no such very great hardship where a man had
continually been inured to it even from his cradle, and had neither
capacity nor the least probability of attaining anything better. Yet
such an intolerable thing did it seem to Middleton that he resolved at
any cost to be rid of it, and to purchase an easier way of spending his
days.
In order to this, he very wisely chose to go aboard a man-of-war then
bound for the Baltic. He was in himself a stupid, clumsy fellow, and the
officers and seamen in the ship treated him so harshly, the fatigue he
went through was so great, and the coldness of the climate so pinching
to him, that he who so impatiently wished to be rid of the country work,
now wished as earnestly to return thereto. Therefore, when on the return
of Sir John Norris, the ship he was in was paid off and discharged, he
was in an ecstacy of joy thereat, and immediately went down again to
settle hard to labour as he had done before, experience having convinced
him that there were many more hardships sustained in one short ramble
than in a staid though laborious life.
In order, as is the common phrase, to settle in the world, he married a
poor woman, by whom he had two children, and thereby made her as unhappy
as himself; what he was able to earn by his hands falling much short of
what was necessary to keep house in the way he lived, this reduced him
to such narrowness of circumstances that he was obliged (as he would
have it believed) to take illegal methods for support.
His own blockish and dastardly temper, as it had prevented his ever
doing good in any honest way, so it as effectually put it out of his
power to acquire anything considerable by the rapine he committed; for
as he wanted spirit to go into a place where there was immediate danger,
so his companions, who did the act while he scouted about to see if
anybody was coming, and to give them notice, when they divided the booty
gave him just what they thought fit, and keep the rest to themselves. He
had gone on in this miserable way for a considerable space, and yet was
able to acquire very little, his wants being very near as great while he
robbed every night, as they were when he laboured every day, so that in
the exchange he got nothing but danger into the bargain.
At last, he was apprehended for breaking into the house of John de Pais
and Joseph Gomeroon, and taking there jewels and other things to a
great value, though his innocence in not entering the place would
sufficiently excuse him, for he pleaded at his trial that he was so far
from breaking the house that he was not so much as on the ground of the
prosecutor when it was broke, but on the contrary, as appeared by their
own evidence, on the other side of the way. But it being very fully
proved by the evidence that Joseph Middleton belonged to the gang, that
he waited there only to give them an intelligence, and shared in the
money they took, the jury found him guilty.
While he lay under conviction, he did his utmost to understand what was
necessary for him to do in order to salvation. He applied himself with
the utmost diligence to praying God to instruct him and enlighten his
understanding, that he might be able to improve by his sufferings and
reap a benefit from the chastisements of his Maker. In this frame of
mind he continued with great steadiness and calmness till the time of
his execution, at which he showed some fear and confusion, as the sight
of such a death is apt to create even in the stoutest and best prepared
breast. This Joseph Middleton, at the time of his exit, was in about the
fortieth year of his age.