Paul Lewis, who was, like Nicholas Horner, the son of a clergyman, was born at Hurst-monceaux, in Sussex, and was originally put to the profession of arms, and became an officer of artillery. The usual career of gambling and debauchery, so productive of highwaymen, led him first into difficulties with his creditors, and then caused him to desert from the army. He left one service only to enter another, for he joined the navy, and rose from the rank of midshipman to that of lieutenant.

None doubted his courage, nor, on the other hand, was there any mistaking his depravity. He robbed his brother officers of the small sum of three guineas, and made off with that meagre amount to begin the life of the road in the neighbourhood of Newington Butts. He levied contributions from a gentleman travelling in a chaise on this spot, but this, his initial effort, resulted in his capture. The plea of an alibi set up for him, however, secured his acquittal. Later he was seized at night by a police-officer while in the act of robbing a Mr. Brown, whose horse he had frightened by discharging a pistol. Mr. Brown was flung violently to the ground, and Lewis was in the act of going over his pockets when Pope, the police-officer, who had been on the look-out for him, secured him, after a struggle.

Lewis was duly sentenced to death at the ensuing Sessions.

The Newgate Calendar, recounting all these things, says: "Such was the baseness and unfeeling profligacy of this wretch that when his almost heart-broken father visited him for the last time in Newgate, and put twelve guineas into his hand to repay his expenses, he slipped one of the pieces of gold into the cuff of his sleeve by a dexterous sleight, and then, opening his hand, showed the venerable and reverend old man that there were but eleven; upon which his father took another from his pocket, and gave it him to make the number intended. Having then taken a last farewell of his parents, Lewis turned to his fellow-prisoners, and exultingly exclaimed: "I have flung the old fellow out of another guinea!"

Lewis said he would die like a man of honour; no hangman should put a halter round his neck. He would rather take his own life. But this he had not, after all, sufficient courage to do. A knife he had secreted in his pillow fell out one day, either by accident or design, and was taken away from him. He was executed at Tyburn on May 4th, 1763, aged twenty-three.