The reputation of an honest servant he had acquired from the hog merchant he had formerly lived with, quickly procured him a place with another of the same trade, with him he lived too (as was said) very honestly; and having been trusted with twenty or thirty pounds at a time, was always found very trusty and faithful. But happening, unluckily, to work here with one Pincher, who in the course of his life had been as unhappy as himself, they thereupon grew very intimate together, and being a couple of fellows of very odd tempers, after having got half drunk at the Hampshire Hog, they took it into their heads that there was not in the world two fellows so unhappy as themselves. The subject began when they were maudlin, and as they grew quite drunk, they came to a resolution to go out and beat everybody they met, for being happier than themselves. The first persons they met in this expedition were a poor old man whose name was Dormer and his wife. The woman they abused grossly, and Pincher knocked the man down, though very much in years, Neal afterwards rolling him about, and either took or shook out of his pocket all the money he had, which was but three pence farthing. For this unaccountable action they were both apprehended, tried and convicted, with three other persons, in the November sessions, 1722. But their inhuman behaviour to the old man made such an impression on the Court to their disadvantage, that when the death warrant came down, they two only were appointed for execution.