ABSTRACT
A newspaper report of John Poulter’s arrest in 1753 for robbery also noted that he had ‘made a Discovery of a Gang of Rogues to save himself’, and it seems that The Discoveries was, in some form, that confession.1 Although he was not hanged until February 1754, versions of this confession appeared in the Bath Journal over two issues in April 1753 and also in broadsheet form. The much more elaborate pamphlet, The Discoveries of John Poulter, reprinted here, first appeared sometime in 1753.2 The Discoveries represents the most extreme example of that genre of ‘autobiographies’ which resemble, and were, perhaps, derived from, confessions made by offenders in an effort to escape death by becoming a witness for the Crown against their old comrades.3 Doubtless, their function dictated their form; hence the apparent care taken in The Discoveries over dates, places and people. Furthermore, unlike the majority of criminal biographies of this period, Poulter’s early life, that is, before 1749, is summed up in a brief paragraph which is only tacked on as a supplement to the main substance of the work. So, there is no speculation about the reasons behind Poulter’s choice of crime as a career, with the exception of some discussion of his being drawn back into crime after having gone to Ireland.
