asked by the ordinary ‘if he was not guilty of Sabbath-breaking’. He acknow-
ledged that he was; and that ‘it was his Original sin’. He went on to give advice to
masters ‘not to be negligent of their Servants, for that was the great part of his
Ruin, and this untimely end’.^169 Others elaborated more fully on the conse-
quences of profaning the Lord’s day, or blamed other bad influences for their
downfall. George Delacore, hanged in 1689 , confessed that though he had been
born a gentleman in Ireland and had been well educated and apprenticed to a
merchant, he had thrown away all those advantages by breaking the sabbath,
developing a ‘habit of Drunkenness and other Debaucheries, insomuch that I
denied my self nothing of sensual Pleasure’, and then fallen in with a man who had
led him to robbing.^170 William Gillet too had served an apprenticeship, but became
‘addicted to a vicious life, for he played on the sabbath in the streets, and was guilty
of swearing and lying, and was ignorant in matters of religion and little sensible of
his sins’.^171 It was a familiar story, largely because it was the ordinary’s story.
Another familiar theme was the story of honest men or women coming to the
City from the more innocent countryside who fell into evil company and
became addicted to the ‘reigning Vices of the Age’.^172 One condemned man
conveniently listed these as ‘Swearing, Cursing, Drunkenness, Lasciviousness,
Sabbath-breaking, Gaming, Neglect of God’s Service, and the like.’^173 By com-
mon consent—even the consent of the hanged, in the ordinary’s version of their
lives—these all led to crime because they eroded religious principles, encour-
aged idleness, and in the end required thievery to sustain them.
Most of those whose biographies and ‘dying speeches’ were cobbled together
by the ordinary agreed that their downfall began in seemingly small ways, that
one fatal step had been followed by others, and so inexorably on. One burglar
with a long list of petty crimes to his name before his conviction and execution
in 1710 claimed, according to the ordinary, to have found by his ‘own woeful ex-
perience, that one sin, wilfully committed, easily draws on another, and that
more; and a Man cannot tell when or where to stop, till it end at last in a sad and
shameful Death’.^174 And what drove them forward to this end, many confessed,
was a taste for luxury and an abandonment to their passions; they delighted
‘more to satisfy their Sinful and unjust Appetites and prevailing Lusts’, one Or-
dinary’s gloss ran, ‘than what Vertue or Morallity prescribed unto them, think-
ing it no Crime to Rob another so they might serve the Cravings of their own
Necessities, which they were only guilty of bringing themselves into’.^17560 Introduction: The Crime Problem(^169) The Last Speech, Confession and Execution of the two Prisoners at Tyburn... 23 May 1684.
(^170) A True Account of the Behaviour, Confession and Last Dying Speeches of the Prisoners that were Executed at
Tyburn... 23 October 1689.
(^171) A True Account of the Behaviour, Confession and Last Dying Speeches of the Criminals that were Executed at
Tyburn... 28 February 1694.
(^172) Ordinary’s Account, 15 December 1710. (^173) Ordinary’s Account, 22 September 1704.
(^174) Ordinary’s Account, 15 December 1710.
(^175) The Behaviour of the Condemned Criminals in Newgate, who were Executed on Friday the 19 th of this Instant
December[ 1684 ].
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