[62] A well-known tavern in Old Bailey.

   [63] This was the Poultry Compter.

   [64] Her name was really Statham.

   [65] See page 418.

   [66] Soon after burial his body was disinterred and the head
        and body separated.  Wild’s skull and the skeleton of his trunk
        were exhibited publicly as late as 1860.

The Life of JOHN LITTLE, a Housebreaker and Thief

The papers which I have in relation to this malefactor speak nothing with regard to his parents and education.  The first thing that I with concerning him is his being at sea, where he was at the time my Lord Torrington, then Sir George Byng, went up the Mediterranean, as also in my Lord Cobham’s expedition to Vigo; and in these expeditions he got such a knack of plundering that he could never bring himself afterwards to thinking it was a sin to plunder anybody.  This wicked principle he did not fail to put in practice by stealing everything he could lay his hands on, when he afterwards went into Sweden in a merchant-ship.  Indeed, there is too common a case for men who have been inured to robbing and maltreating an enemy, now and then to receive the same talents at home, and make free with the subjects of their own Sovereign as they did with those of the enemy.  Weak minds sometimes do not really so well apprehend the difference, but thieve under little apprehension of sin, provided they can escape the gallows; others of better understanding acquire such an appetite to rapine that they are not afterwards able to lay it aside; so that I cannot help observing that it would be more prudent for officers to encourage their men to do their duty against the enemy from generous motives of serving their country and vindicating its rights, rather than proposing the hopes of gain, and the reward arising from destroying those unhappy wretches who fall under their power.  But enough of this, and perhaps too much here; let us return again to him of whom we are now speaking.

When he came home into England, he fell into bad company, particularly of John Bewle, alias Hanley, and one Belcher, who it is to be supposed inclined him by idle discourse first to look upon robbing as a very entertaining employment, in which they met with abundance of pleasure, and might, with a little care, avoid all the danger.  This was language very likely to work upon Little’s disposition, who had a great inclination to all sorts of debauchery, and no sort of religious principles to check him.  Over above all this he was unhappily married to a woman of the same ways of living, one who got her bread by walking the streets and picking of pockets.  Therefore, instead of persuading her husband to quit such company as she saw him inclined to follow, on the contrary she encouraged, prompted and offered her assistance in the expedition she knew they were going about.

Thus Little’s road to destruction lay open for him to rush into without any let or the least check upon his vicious inclinations.