William Nevison was born at Pomfret, in Yorkshire, about the year 1639, and his parents, being in good circumstances, conferred upon him a decent education. He remained at school until he was about thirteen years of age. During that period, his expanding talents promised a luxuriant harvest; but the general bent of his future character, and the ruling motive of all his actions, were exhibited at that period. He commenced his depredations by stealing a silver spoon from his own father. The too indulgent parent, instead of chastising him for the crime, transferred the unpleasant work to the schoolmaster. The father who resigns authority over his own children may expect either to lose them altogether, or to have his heart grieved and his family dishonored by their conduct. The schoolmaster having punished young Nevison for the theft, he spent a sleepless night in meditating revenge. He knew that the pedagogue had a favorite horse, which grazed in an adjacent paddock. William rose early in the morning, moved quietly into his father’s closet, stole his keys, and supplied himself with cash to the amount of ten pounds; then, taking a saddle and bridle from his father’s stable, he hastened to the paddock in which the schoolmaster’s horse was accustomed to feed; and, having saddled and bridled the animal, with all haste rode towards London. About a mile or two from the capital, he cut the throat of the poor horse, for fear of detection. Arrived in London, he changed his name and clothes, and then hired himself to a brewer. Although circumstances compelled him to be for a while industrious, in order to obtain the necessaries of life, his mind was always upon the stretch to invent some more expeditious mode of acquiring money than the slow return of annual pay; accordingly he often, ineffectually, attempted to rob his master. One evening, however, the clerk happening to use his bottle too freely, Nevison followed him into the counting-house, and, while he was enjoying a recruiting nap, stole the keys of the desks, and relieved them of their burden, to the amount of about two hundred pounds. Without waiting to discover whether the clerk or the servant would be blamed for the cash, he sailed for Holland. But change of climate had no effect in changing his nature. Through his instigation, the daughter of a respectable citizen robbed her father of a large sum of money, and a quantity of jewels, and eloped with the Englishman. They were pursued, taken, and committed to prison. Thus detected, Nevison would certainly have finished a short but villanous career in a foreign land, had he not fortunately effected his escape.