Essex, named Hester Palmer, of a respectable family: but he had not been long married before he took to the practice of stealing his neighbours’ cattle, which he used to kill and cut up for sale.
Having stolen two oxen belonging to Mr. Giles, of Plaistow, he drove them to his own house; but two of Giles’s servants, suspecting who was the robber, went to Turpin’s, where they saw two carcases corresponding with the beasts which had been lost: as the hides were stripped from them, it was impossible to say that they were the same: but learning that Terpin used to dispose of his hides at Waltham Abbey, they want thither, and saw the hides of the beasts that had been stolen; when, no doubt remaining as to who was the robber, a warrant was procured for the apprehension of Turpin, who learning that the peace-officers were in search of him, made his escape from the back winddow of his house at the very moment the others were entering the door. Having retreated to a place of security, he found means to inform his wife where he was concealed; on which she furnished him with money, when he travelled into the hundreds of Essex, where he joined a gang of Smugglers, with whem he was for some time successful, till a set of the custom-house officers, by one successful stroke, deprived him of all his ill-acquired gains. His association with these smugglers commenced under strange circumstances: at a loss, in his retirement, to find means of replenishing his pocket, he hit upon
