Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) a thief.

1754		G. Stevens ‘A Cant Song’ Muses Delight 177: Dear Molly, he cried, I will doss in your pad, / I’m a bowman that ne’er will deceive you; [...] And boldly will pad to relieve you.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: bowman a prig, a thief.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 206: How my bowman he snivelled away, o, / How he broke off all the dubbs in the whitt, / And chivied the darbies in twain, o.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.
c.1850		Duncombe New and Improved Flash Dict.