Jack, with many a good quality, is hanged, whilst that fellow of a lord, who wanted to get the horse from you at about two-thirds of his value, without a single good quality in the world, is not hanged, and probably will remain so.
You ask the reason why, perhaps.

I'll tell you: the lack of a certain quality called courage, which Jack possessed in abundance, will preserve him; from the love which he bears his own neck he will do nothing that can bring him to the gallows.

In my rough way I'll draw their characters from their childhood, and then ask whether Jack was not the best character of the two.

Jack was a rough, audacious boy, fond of fighting, going a birds'-nesting, but I never heard he did anything particularly cruel save once, I believe, tying a canister to a butcher's dog's tail; whilst this fellow of a lord was by nature a savage beast, and when a boy would in winter pluck poor fowls naked, and set them running on the ice and in the snow, and was particularly fond of burning cats alive in the fire.

Jack, when a lad, gets a commission on board a ship as an officer of horse marines, and in two or three engagements behaves quite up to the mark--at least of a marine; the marines having no particular character for courage, you know--never having run to the guns and fired them like madmen after the blue jackets had had more than enough.