But this was not all.

The artful author further arranged that when Sheppard reached his place of execution, he should send for a friend to the cart as he stood under the gibbet, and deliver a copy of the pamphlet as his last speech and dying confession.

A paragraph recording this incident was duly inserted in the newspapers.

It is a crowning illustration of the inventive daring with which Defoe practised the tricks of his trade.
One of Defoe's last works in connection with journalism was to write a prospectus for a new weekly periodical, the _Universal Spectator_, which was started by his son-in-law, Henry Baker, in October, 1728.

There is more than internal and circumstantial evidence that this prospectus was Defoe's composition.