In the politic, as in the natural body, no disorders ever spring up without a cause … and such causes must be adequate to the effects which they produce.

It may be now expected that I should give some account what were the Reasons and Motives that instigated me to this Crime. But alas! when I consider the slender Inducements I had thereunto, I must only clap my Hand upon my Breast, and confess it was … my own vile and Corrupted Heart.

One Sin wilfully committed easily draws on another, and that more; and a Man cannot tell when or where to stop, till it end at last in a sad and shameful Death.

The nature of Malefactors is so amply known, I need not much inlarge upon the subject; for why, they are most of them men of leud Conversations … who first most commonly begin with Crimes of a smaller note, and by degrees emboldened in the cursed Trade, they trample upon fear and stifle all remorse; a sympathy so frequently observed in their insolent behaviours, who often have been known, when in their Infancy, to scoff at Admonitions, and make a jest of Piety, but this is only when they are free and unrestrained, roving to and fro…. when they are shackled by justice, and the ends of all their courses come before their Eyes, then they are of other minds.