Lying under sentence of death, John Little took up his pen to address his wife, beseeching her to turn from the felonious path she had trodden alongside him. He laid before her his present misery, the ignominy of a public execution, and the terror of eternal damnation. The thief who, at the bar, had swore he had no knowledge of his accomplice could no longer take shelter behind that falsehood: he now acknowledged his perjury and declared he submitted to the justice of his doom.
The chronicle first discovers him at sea, serving with the squadron of Sir George Byng—whom the author also styles by his later title of Lord Torrington—during an expedition to the Mediterranean, and thereafter under Lord Cobham at Vigo. In these campaigns, the chronicler tells us, he contracted his taste for pillage; having subsequently sailed for Sweden aboard a merchant vessel, he is said to have purloined whatever lay within his reach. The narrative represents these years as an apprenticeship in rapine, the fruits of which he presently carried back to his native soil.
From this transition the author draws a grave reflection upon the consequences of military expeditions. He observes that men once inured to plundering and maltreating an enemy are apt to practice the very same outrages upon their return home, the lust of booty having blinded them to the distinction between an armed foe and the King’s peaceful subjects. He would have preferred that commanders animate their men by the honour of serving their country and defending its rights, rather than by the prospect of plunder. To his mind, the motives instilled in common soldiers matter no less than the victory they are sent to achieve. This observation, prefacing his return to Little’s history, attaches the sailor’s first petty thefts to a broader concern of state: that which authority countenances afar may soon be turned against those whom that same authority was established to protect.
Upon his return to England, he fell in with John Bewle, who went also by the alias of Hanley, and a man named Belcher. The chronicle supposes that their discourse made theft appear to him both diversion and light work, provided it were conducted with some measure of caution. It portrays Little as a man given over to debauchery, and his wife as one who lived upon the town by picking pockets. According to the author, far from reclaiming her husband from such dangerous company, she spurred him on, urged him forward, and offered her assistance in whatever designs she knew them to be forming. This characterisation belongs to the chronicler; the facts he subsequently adduces disclose chiefly a household and its confederates embarked together upon the same desperate course.
The gang operated upon the roads leading into London and about the public resorts of the vicinity. At Sadler’s Wells and Belsize, they marked down those who had drunk most deeply. They suffered their quarry to walk on alone until he reached a convenient spot, whereupon they jostled him and picked a quarrel. The brawl served their purpose, enabling them to rifle his pockets, snatch his hat and wig, or strip him of whatever valuables were at hand. Each enterprise was thus carried off under the guise of an ordinary scuffle, the tumult of the street serving as a cloak for theft. The spoils of these nightly excursions were squandered in reckless dissipation, leaving them as penniless as before.
When the road yielded less than they had anticipated, the confederates turned their hands to housebreaking, which offered richer prize. Their expenses remained considerable; their depredations grew more frequent, and their persons better known to those charged with apprehending offenders. Moreover, the thieves fell into frequent disputes over the distribution of the plunder, exchanging recriminations that ended in threats and blows. Little was sometimes obliged to interpose to reconcile them, even parting with a portion of his own share to maintain peace among his fellows.
This precarious existence is the very paradox to which the author continually returns: though their booty accumulated, it never lifted these wretches out of want, whilst the constant dread of capture and their internal broils devoured their peace. Little’s apprehensions arose not merely from the vigilance of the law; he lived in equal terror of the malice of those who might purchase their own safety by impeaching him. That fear was soon to assume a familiar shape.
Bewle, whom Little later claimed to have seduced into this wicked course, lodged an information against him in order to secure his own pardon. A few days later, Little was taken into custody. At the following sessions, he was indicted for having broken and entered the dwelling-house of Mr. Deer and stolen therefrom various goods specified in the bill. The prosecutor deposed to the loss of his effects; Bewle, who had shared in the burglary, related the manner in which the entry had been effected.
Little made a poor defence. Conscious of his guilt, the chronicler observes, he pretended he had never seen Bewle before, calculating that if the jury credited his denial, the prosecutor’s testimony—which did not directly fix upon his person—would prove insufficient to convict him. The loss of the goods and the breaking of the house did not carry equal weight in the prosecution: the householder proved the felony had been committed, whilst Bewle, the accomplice, described the taking of the plunder and fastened the crime upon Little. But Bewle corroborated his account with an abundance of circumstantial detail that satisfied the jury. Little was found guilty.
Little then earnestly petitioned the court that he might be transported. The bench gave him no encouragement, and he did not suffer himself to be deceived by groundless hopes. He remained under sentence of death, whilst the house, the confederacy, and the spoils that had occupied his nights shrank into the memory of a life forever closed. The chronicler affirms that he candidly confessed the falsehood he had uttered at his trial and acknowledged the justice of his doom.
He was particularly solicitous for his wife, who, according to the narrative, followed the same wicked trade and stood in imminent peril of meeting the same fate. The letter he addressed to her dwelt heavily upon the horrors of his present state: the wretchedness of his confinement, the terror of an ignominious end, and the dread of retribution beyond the grave. He implored her to keep his sufferings ever before her eyes, and to abandon those practices to which, as he believed, she had wholly surrendered herself. Having dispatched this epistle, he sought to wean his thoughts from earthly concerns and fix them upon God; the chronicle relates that he devoted the remainder of his days to prayer and the pursuit of sincere repentance. The impending execution brought his entire life before his eyes in a single, unsparing view.
As the fatal day approached, Little gave himself up, according to the account, to the devotions of the chapel. He declared that he had been a most grievous sinner, professed himself deeply sensible of his transgressions, and cast himself upon the divine mercy. The chronicle draws a distinction between the dread of a shameful death and the terror of God’s judgment, attributing to the latter a far greater sway over his closing hours. Whatever judgment one may pass upon the pious reflections the author attaches to this penitence, the conduct he describes is that of a condemned felon suing for pardon and reconciled to die.
On September 13, 1725, John Little was conveyed to Tyburn and there executed. The records consulted by the chronicler make no mention of his age. His name remains linked to that of Bewle, whose testimony persuaded the jury to credit the indictment, and to that final letter addressed to a woman whom he feared was treading the same road to ruin. The man who had sought to conceal his part in the burglary spent his final hours confessing his guilt and imploring his wife to turn back from the abyss.