Later Life
By 1719, Blake was working with Irish highwayman James Carrick, and, by 1722, he was a member of a gang of street robbers led by Robert Wilkinson. Several of his colleagues were arrested that summer, and three were hanged in September. Blake escaped this time, perhaps due to influence deployed on his behalf by Wild, but he received a sabre cut to the head as he resisted his arrest by Wild in December 1722. He turned King's evidence against several former associates, including Blewitt. Three accomplices (John Levee, Richard Oakey and Matthew Flood) were hanged on the strength of Blake's testimony in February 1723. Blueskin expected to be released and to receive some of the reward money for securing the convictions, but he was confined in Wood Street Compter instead, under threat of deportation.
Eventually, Blake found sureties for his good behaviour, and was released in June 1724. He quickly joined forces with notorious thief and gaol-breaker Jack Sheppard. They burgled the house of William Kneebone (Sheppard's former apprentice master) on Sunday 12 July, stealing a quantity of cloth and some other trinkets, but this burglary was to prove their undoing. Having stored the goods near the horse ferry at Westminster, they approached one of Wild's fences, William Field, to sell the stolen goods. Word of the crime soon reached Wild, who was determined to punish Sheppard because he had refused to work for Wild. After a brief interlude as highwaymen on the Hampstead Road on Sunday 19 July and Monday 20 July, Sheppard was arrested at Blueskin's mother's brandy shop in Rosemary Lane (later renamed Royal Mint Street), east of the Tower of London, on 23 July by Wild's henchman, Quilt Arnold. He was detained in Newgate Prison pending trial, accused of the Kneebone robbery. Kneebone, Wild and Field gave evidence against Sheppard, and he was convicted of the burglary on 12 August.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Blake (criminal)
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