the Court upon that rigour which they were unwilling at any time to practice, and he still continuing obstinate, his thumbs (as is usual in such cases) were tied and strained with pack thread.  This having no effect upon him, the sentence of the press, or as it is sailed in Law, of the Peine Fort et Dure, was read to him in these words:  You shall go to the place from whence you came, and there being stripped naked and laid flat upon your back on the floor, with a napkin about your middle to hide your privy members, and a cloth on your face, then the press is to be laid upon you, with as much weight as, or rather more than you can bear.  You are to have three morsels of barley-bread in twenty-four hours; a draught of water from the next puddle near the gaol, but not running water.  The second day two morsels and the same water, with an increase of weight, and so to the third day until you expire.

This sentence thus passed upon him, and he still continuing contumacious, he was carried down to the stock-house, and the press laid upon him, which he bore for the space of one hour and three minutes, under the weight of three hundred, three quarters, and two pounds [424 lb.].  Whilst he continued under the press, he endeavoured to beat out his brains against the floor, during which time the High Sheriff himself was present, and frequently exhorted him to plead to the indictment.  This at last he consented to do; and being brought up to the Court, after a trial which lasted from eight in the morning until one in the afternoon, on the first day of April, they were all six found guilty of the indictment, and being remanded back to the stock-house, were all chained and stapled down to the floor.

Whilst they were under conviction, the terrors of death did not make any impression upon them; they diverted themselves with repeating jests and stories of various natures, particularly of the manner of their escapes before out of the hands of justice, and the robberies and offences they had committed.  And it being proposed, for the satisfaction of the world, for them to leave the particulars of the several robberies by them committed, Burnworth replied that were he to write all the robberies by him committed, a hundred sheets of paper, write as close as could be, would not contain them.  Notwithstanding what had been alleged by Higgs of his forsaking his companions in the field, it appeared by other evidence that he followed his companions to Ball’s house, and was seen hovering about the house during the time the murder was committed, with a pistol in his hand.

As for Burnworth, after conviction, his behaviour was as ludicrous as ever; and being as I said, a painter’s son, he had some little notion of designing, and therewith diverted himself in sketching his own picture in several forms; particularly as he lay under the press.  This being engraved in copper, was placed in the frontispiece of a sixpenny book which was published of his life, and the rest seemed to fall no way short of him in that silly contempt of death, which with the vulgar passes for resolution.