sentence of death he made desperate attempts to obtain a pardon, but in vain, and at last tried to evade the gallows by taking a large dose of laudanum. This also failed, and he was conveyed to Tyburn amidst the execrations of a countless mob of people, who pelted him with stones and dirt all the way. Among other curious facts concerning this arch-villain, it is recorded that when at the acme of his prosperity, Jonathan Wild was ambitious of becoming a freeman of the city of London. His petition to this effect is contained among the records of the Town Clerk’s office, and sets forth that the petitioner “has been at great trouble and charge in apprehending and convicting divers felons for returning from transportation from Oct. 1720 ... that your petitioner has never received any reward or gratuity for such his service, that he is very desirous of becoming a freeman of this honorable city....” The names follow, and include Moll King, John Jones, &c., “who were notorious street robbers.” The petition is endorsed as read Jan. 2nd, 1724, but the result is not stated. Before I close this chapter I must refer briefly to another class of highway robbers--the pirates and rovers who ranged the high seas in the first half of the eighteenth century.[170] In those days there was no efficient ocean police, no perpetual patrolling by war-ships of all nations to prevent and put down piracy as a crime noxious to the whole world. Later, on the ascendancy of the British navy, this duty was more or less its peculiar province; but till then every sea was infested with pirates sailing under various flags. The growth of piracy has been attributed, no doubt with reason, to the narrow policy of Spain with regard to her transatlantic colonies. To baffle this colonial system the European powers long tolerated, even encouraged these reckless filibusters, who did not confine their ravages to the Spanish-American coast, but turned their hands, like nautical Ishmaels, against all the world. The mischief thus done was incalculable. One notorious rover, Captain Roberts, took four hundred sail. They were as clever in obtaining information as to the movements of rich prizes on the seas as were highwaymen concerning the traffic along the highroads. They were particularly cunning in avoiding war-ships, and knew exactly where to run for supplies. As Captain Johnson tells us, speaking of the West Indies in the opening pages of his ‘History of Pirates,’ “they have been so formidable and numerous that they have interrupted the trade of Europe in those parts; and our English merchants in particular have suffered more by their depredations than by the united force of France and Spain in the late war.”