Launching a one-man crusade against the might of the British Crown in general and the Royal Navy in particular, he carried out a series of arson attacks over a period of several months on naval facilities in Bristol and Portsmouth.
Eventually tracked down and brought to justice, he gained the highly dubious distinction in March of 1777 of being hanged from the mizzenmast of a ship in Portsmouth dockyard – the highest gallows used in an English execution – watched by an estimated crowd of 20,000."
