As before stated, he broke with his partner, who retired to a monastery, where, in all probability, he ended his days in penitence and peace. But, in the winter of 1775, Barrington became acquainted with one Lowe, whom he first employed in the useful capacity of receiver of stolen goods, and afterwards went into partnership with. This Lowe was a singular character. Originally he had been a livery-servant, and after that he kept a public-house for some time, when, having saved some money, he turned usurer or money-lender, in which business he accumulated a small fortune, when he assumed the character of a gentleman, and lived in a genteel house near Bloomsbury Square, then a fashionable neighbourhood. Here he passed for a very charitable and benevolent person, and was appointed treasurer or manager of a new hospital for the blind in Kentish Town, in which capacity, it is said, he contrived to become possessed of some five thousand pounds, when he set fire to the institution. Being suspected thereof, he was apprehended at Liverpool, in 1779, when he committed suicide by taking poison, and was buried at a cross-road, in the neighbourhood of Prescott in Lancashire. On forming his partnership with Lowe, it was resolved on between them that Barrington should repair to Court on the Queen’s birthday, disguised as a clergyman, and there endeavour not only to pick the pockets of the company, but, what was a far bolder and more novel attempt, to cut off the diamond stars of the Knights of the Garter, Bath, or Thistle, who on such days generally wore the ribands of their respective orders over their coats. In this enterprise he succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations that could have been formed, either by himself or his partner; for he managed to take a diamond star from a nobleman, and to get away from St. James’s unsuspected. But this prize was too valuable to dispose of in England, and it is said to have been sold to a Dutch Jew, who came over from Holland twice a year on purpose to buy stolen goods, for eight hundred pounds. This haul only whetted his appetite for yet more profitable plunder, and a chance of his skill shortly presented itself. In the course of the winter of 1775, Prince Orloff, a Russian nobleman of the first rank and consequence, visited England. The splendour in which he lived, and the stories of his immense wealth, were frequently noticed and commented on in the public prints, and attention was particularly drawn to a gold snuff-box, set with brilliants, which was one of the many marks of favour showered upon him by Catherine, Empress of Russia, and which was generally valued at the enormous sum of between thirty and forty thousand pounds. This precious trinket excited Barrington’s cupidity in an extraordinary degree, and he determined to exert himself, in order, by some means or other, to get it into his possession.