At the place of execution, Clark was extremely careful to inform the people that he was so far from having any malice against the woman whom he murdered that he really had a love for her. A report, too, of his having designed to sell the young girl he had brought out of the country into Virginia had weight enough with him to occasion his solemn denying of it at the tree, though he acknowledged at the same time that he had resolved to leave her. He declared also, to prevent any aspersions on some young men who had been his companions, that no person was ever present with, or privy to any of the robberies he had committed; and having thus far discharged his conscience, he suffered on the 28th of July, 1721, in the twenty-fourth year of his age. The Life of JOHN WINSHIP, Highwayman and Footpad That idleness in which youths are suffered to live in this kingdom till they are grown to that size at which they are usually put apprentice (a space of time in which they are much better employed, in many other countries of Europe) too often creates an inaptitude to work and allows them opportunity of entering into paths which have a fatal termination. John Winship, of whom we are now to treat, was born of parents in tolerable circumstances in the parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. They gave him an education rather superior to his condition, and treated him with an indulgence by which his future life became unhappy. At about fourteen, they placed him as an apprentice with a carpenter, to which trade he himself had a liking. His master used him as well as he could have expected or wished, yet that inclination to idleness and loitering which he had contracted while a boy, made him incapable of pursuing his business with tolerable application. The particular accident by which he was determined to leave it shall be the next point in our relation. It happened that returning one day from work, he took notice of a young woman standing at a door in a street not far distant from that in which his master lived. He was then about seventeen, and imagining love to be a very fine thing, thought fit, without further enquiry, to make this young woman the object of his affection. The next evening he took occasion to speak to her, and this acquaintance soon improving into frequent appointments, naturally led Winship into much greater expenses than he was able to support. This had two consequences equally fatal to this unhappy young man, for in the first place he left his master and his trade, and took to driving of coaches and like methods, to get his bread; but all the ways he could think of, proving unable to supply his expenses, he went next upon the road, and raised daily contributions in as illegal a manner as they were spent at night, in all the excesses of vice. It is impossible to give either a particular or exact account of the robberies he committed, because he was always very reserved, even after conviction, in speaking as to these points.