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CHARLES G
HALF-HOURS WITH
THE HIGHWAYMEN
WORKS BY CHARLES G. HARPER
The Portsmouth Road, and its Tributaries : To-day and in Days
of Old.
The Dover Road : Annals of an Ancient Turnpike.
The Bath Road : History, Fashion, and Frivolity on an Old
Highway.
The Exeter Road : The Story of the West of England Highway.
The Great North Road : The Old Mail Road to Scotland. Two
Yols.
The Norwich Road : An East Anglian Highway.
The Holyhead Road: The Mail-Coach Road to Dublin. Two
Vols.
The Cambridge, Ely, and King's Lynn Road: The Great
Fenland Highway.
The Newmarket, Bury, Thetford, and Cromer Road : Sport
and History on an Last Anglian Turnpike.
The Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven Road : The
Ready Way to South Wales. Two Vols.
The Brighton Road: Speed, Sport, and History on the Classic
Highway.
The Hastings Road and the " Happy Springs of Tunbridge."
Cycle Rides Round London.
A Practical Handbook of Drawing for Modern Methods of
Reproduction.
Stage Coach and Mail in Days of Yore. Two Vols.
The Ingoldsby Country : Literary Landmarks of " The Ingoldsby
Legends."
The Hardy Country : Literary Landmarks of the Wessex Novels.
The Dorset Coast
The South Devon Coast.
The North Devon Coast.
The Old Inns of Old England. Two Vols.
Love in the Harbour : a Longshore Comedy.
Rural Nooks Round London (Middlesex and Surrey).
The Manchester and Glasgow Road; This way to Gretna
Green. Two Vols.
Haunted Houses; Tales of the Supernatural.
The Somerset Coast. [/« the Press.
SIXTRIIN STRING
SIXTKKN-STRISG JACK.
HALF-HOURS WITH
THE HIGHWAYMEN
PICTURESQUE BIOGRAPHIES AND
TRADITIONS OF THE " KNIGHTS
OF THE ROAD"
BY OHAELES G. HARPER
VOL. II
Illnxtrated by Paul Hardy and by the Author, and
from Old Prints
LONDON
CHAPMAN & HALL, LIMITED
1908
All riyhtt rtteroed
I/,
IRIMhlJ AND BOLND IT
I1AZELL, WATSON ASD VISEY. LU.,
U5NDOX AND AYLESBUKY.
CONTENTS
PAGE
NEVISON : " SWIFT NICKS " i
JOHN COTTINGTON, alias " MULLED SACK " ... 26
THOMAS RUMBOLD . . . 35
"CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNEY 41
TWM SHON CATTI . 65
JOHN WITHERS AND WILLIAM EDWARDS . . . -75
PATRICK O'BRIAN 81
JACK BIRD . . . . . . . . .86
WILL OGDEN, JACK BRADSHAW, AND TOM REYNOLDS . 98
JACK OVET . . . . . . . . . 105
JOHN HALL, RICHARD Low, AND STEPHEN BUNCE . .no
" MR." AVERY AND DICK ADAMS . . . . .121
JONATHAN WILD . . . . . . . .126
NICHOLAS HORNER . . . . . . . .148
WALTER TRACEY . . . . . . . -158
NED WICKS 166
DICK TURPIN 173
WILLIAM PARSONS, THE BARONET'S SON . . . .241
WILLIAM PAGE . . 249
ISAAC DARKIN, alias DUMAS 264
JAMES MACLAINE, THE "GENTLEMAN" HIGHWAYMAN. . 271
JOHN POULTER, alias BAXTER . . . . . -301
VOL. ii. *ii b
viii CONTENTS
i \,,i
PAUL LEWIS . ..... 316
TUB WESTONS . . 320
JACK UAXN : " SIXTEEIJ-STRING JACK " . . 340
ROBERT FERGUSON — "GALLOPING DICK" .... 353
JERRY ABERSHAW .... ... 361
JOHN AND WILLIAM BEATSON . .... 370
ROBERT SNOOKS 376
HUFFUM WHITK ........ 384
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
SIXTEEN-STEING JACK Frontispiece
JSTsvisoN's RIDE TO YORK . . '. . . . . 7
" SWIFT NICKS" BEFORE CHARLES THE SECOND ... 13
" MULLED SACK" ROBS THE ARMY PAY WAGGON . . 31
WHITNEY HUGGED BY THE BEAR ..... 43
WHITNEY AND THE USURER ...... 53
TWM SHON CATTI AND THE HIGHWAYMAN . . . .73
JACK BIRD FIGHTS THE CHAPLAIN 95
THE BOBBERY AT THE HACKNEY BAKER'S. . . .113
JONATHAN WILD ON THE WAY TO EXECUTION . . . 145
HORNER MEETS HIS MATCH 155
TURPIN AND HIS GANG IN THEIR CAVE IN EPPING FOREST 179
TURPIN HOLDS THE LANDLADY OVER THE FlRE . . .187
TURPIN MEETS TOM KING 199
TURPIN IN HIS CAVE 213
WILLIAM PARSONS ........ 243
WILLIAM PAGE. ........ 253
MACLAINE, THE LADIES' HERO 273
JAMES MACLAINE ...... . . 277
MACLAINE AND PLUNKETT ROBBING THE EARL OF EGLINTON
ON HOUNSLOW HEATH . . . . .287
MACLAINE IN THE DOCK . .'• . . . . . 293
NEWGATE'S LAMENTATION; OR, THE LADIES' FAREWELL TO
MACLAINE . 297
PAUL LEWIS 317
x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAOB
THE WESTONS ESCAPING FROM NBWGATE .... 335
" SlXTEEN-STRINQ JACK " AND ELLEN RoCHE IN THE DOCK 349
" GALLOPING DICK " 355
JERRY ABERSHAW ON PUTNEY HEATH .... 363
SNOOKS ADDRESSING THE CROWD AT HIS EXECUTION . . 379
HUFFUM WHITE ESCAPING FROM THE HULKS . . . 385
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
Nevison's Leg-irons, in York Museum .... 23
Jonathan Wild in the Condemned Cell . . . .135
Satirical Invitation -card to Execution of Jonathan Wild 139
Turpin's Baptismal Register, Hempstead . . . 175
Bold Dick Turpin 197
Tom King ......... 205
Dick Turpin ......... 207
Tom King ......... 209
Tom King . . . . . . . . .211
Dick Turpin . . . . . . . . .215
Sir Ralph Rookwood and Simon Sharpscent . . .219
Turpin's Cell in York Castle . . . . . .222
Ralph Ostler . . . . . . . . .225
Turpin's Waist-girdle, \Vrist-shackles, and Leg-irons . 227
Maid of the Inn ........ 228
Highwaymen carousing . . . . . . .229
Innkeeper. . . . . . . . . -231
Turpin's Stone ......... 237
Portmanteau, formerly belonging to Turpin, discovered at
Clerkenwell . . .- .. ... . . 239
William Parsons . . . . . . . .247
James Maclaine . . " >, . . . . 272
Jack Rann ......... 345
Snooks's Grave 383
HALF-
HOJRS
HIGHWAYMEN
NEVISON: " SWIET NICKS"
WHEN Harrison Ainsworth wrote Itookwood, that
fantastic romance of highway robbery and the
impossible exploits of the Rookwood family, he
did a singular injustice to a most distinguished
seventeenth-century highwayman, John Nevison
by name, and transferred the glory of his wonder-
ful ride to York to Dick Turpin, who never owned
a " Black Bess," and who never did anything of
the kind. Turpin, by virtue of Ains worth's glow-
ing pages, has become a popular hero and stands
full in the limelight, while the real gallant figure
is only dimly seen in the cold shade of neglect.
John or " William " Nevison, by some accounts,
was born at Pontefract, in 1639, of " honest and
reasonably-estated parents." Sometimes we find
him styled Nevinson, at other times he is " alias
Clerk " in the proclamations issued, offering
rewards for his arrest. Occasionally, in the chap-
books, we find John Nevison and William Nevison
treated as two separate and distinct persons, no
VOL. II. I
a HALP-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
doubt because the recorded adventures of this
truly eminent man were so widely distributed over
the country, that it was difficult to believe them
the doings of one person. But there seems to be
no reasonable doubt that one and the same man
was the hero of all these doings, as also of the
famous Ride to York. Of course it is now by
far too late to snatch from Turpin the false glory
bestowed upon him. A hundred romances, a
century of popular plays, have for ever in the
popular mind identified him with the Ride to
York, and with all manner of achievements and
graces that were never his. Lies are brazen
and immortal ; truth is modest ; and the Great
Turpin Myth is too fully established to be
thoroughly scotched.
But let us to the career of Nevison, as told in
the pages of what few authorities exist. He seems
to have been a precocious boy : precocious in
things evil. Indeed we must needs regard him
as a wunderkind in that sort, for between the ages
of thirteen and fourteen, and when still at school,
he is reported to have been the " ringleader in rude-
ness and debauchery." He stole a silver spoon from
his father, who delegated the thrashing so richly
deserved to the schoolmaster, who seems to have
" laid on " in the thorough manner suggested to
Macduff. A vivid picture presents itself to us,
of William (or John) occupying a sleepless night,
rubbing the parts and meditating revenge. As
a result of his deliberations, he arose before peep
of day and, cautiously taking his father's keys,
NEVISON 3
stole to the domestic cashbox and helped himself
to the ten pounds he found there. Then, taking
a saddle and bridle from his father's stable, he
hastened to the paddock where the schoolmaster
had a horse out to graze. Saddling it, he made
off for London, which he reached in four days.
He dared not sell the horse, for by that means
he might have been traced, so he killed the un-
fortunate animal when within one or two miles
of London.
Buying a new suit of clothes and changing his
name, he soon found employment with a brewer.
In that situation he remained nearly three years,
and then left suddenly for the Continent, in-
cidentally with £200 belonging to the brewer.
Holland was the country he honoured with his
presence, and there he found a fellow- mind in the
person of a young Dutch woman who, robbing
her father of all the money and jewels she could
lay hands upon, eloped with him. They were soon
arrested, but Nevison broke prison, and with
some difficulty, made his way into Elanders, and
enlisted in the troops stationed there under
command of the Duke of York. It is not to be
supposed that such a restless temperament as
his would allow him long to remain subject to
restrictions and the word of command, and
accordingly he deserted, made across to England,
and, purchasing a horse and arms, and " resolving
for the Road," blossomed out as a full-blown
highwayman. As his original biographer prettily
puts it, he embarked upon " a pleasant life at the
4 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
hazard of his neck, rather than toil out a long
remainder of unhappy days in want and poverty,
which he was always averse to." Who, for that
matter, is not ? Let us sigh for the days that
were, the days that are no more, when such
adventures as the highwaymen sought were to
be found on every highway. A short life, so long
as it was a merry, was sufficient for these fine
fellows, who desired nothing so little as a gnarled
and crabhed age, and nothing so much as a life
filled with excitement, wine, and the smiles of
the fair. Those smiles were apt to be purchased,
and generally purchased dear, but in that respect
the highwaymen were never disposed to be critical.
Nevison's success, immediate and complete,
proclaimed his fitness for the career himself had
with due thought and deliberation chosen. At first
he kept his own counsel and haunted the roads
alone. Sometimes he went by the name of Johnson.
At this early stage he met one evening on
the high road two farmers, who told him it was
dangerous to go forward, themselves having only
a few minutes before been robbed of forty pounds
by three highwaymen, scarce more than half a
mile off.
" Turn back with me," he said, " and show me
the way they went, and, my life to a farthing if
I do not make them return your money."
They accordingly rode back with him until they
had come within sight of the three robbers, when
Nevison, ordering the two farmers to stand behind,
rode up and spoke to the foremost of the three.
NEVISON 5
" Sir," said he, " by your garb and the colour
of your horse, you should be one of those I look
after, and, if so, my business is to tell you that
you borrowed of two friends of mine forty pounds,
which they desired me to demand of you, and
which, before we part, you must restore."
Two of the men then made haste to ride off.
" How ? " quoth the remaining highway-
man. " Forty pounds ; d — n me, is the fellow
mad ? "
" So mad," replied Nevison, " that your life
shall answer me, if you do not give me better
satisfaction."
With that Nevison drew his pistol and sudden-
ly clapped it to the man's chest ; at the same time
seizing his horse's reins, in such a manner that he
could not draw either sword or pistols.
" My life is at your mercy," he confessed.
" No," said Nevison, " 'tis not that I seek,
but the money you have robbed those two men of.
You must refund it."
With the best grace he could, the highwayman
parted with what he had, saying his companions
had the rest.
Nevison then, making him dismount, and
taking his pistols, desired the countrymen to
secure him, while he pursued the others. In the
gathering twilight, as he galloped up, they,
thinking it was their friend, drew rein.
" Jack," said one to him, " why did you stop to
argue with that fellow ? "
" No, gentlemen," said Nevison, " you are
6 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
mistaken in your man ; though, by token of his
horse that I ride and his arms I carry, he hath
sent me to you, to ransom his life. The ransom,
sirs, is nothing less than your shares of the prize
of the day, which if you presently surrender, you
may go about your business. If not, I must have
a little dispute with you, at sword and pistol."
One of them then let fly at him, but his aim
missing, Nevison's bullet in reply took him in the
right shoulder. He then called for quarter and
came to a parley, which ended in the two sur-
rendering not only their share of the two travellers'
money, but a total amount of a hundred and fifty
guineas. Nevison thereupon returned to the
farmers and, handing them their money, went his
way with the balance of one hundred and ten
guineas.
This, it will at once be conceded, was by no
means professional conduct ; and was indeed, we
may say, a serious breach of the highway law, by
which thieves should at any rate stand by one
another, shoulder to shoulder against the world.
Nevison, however, like a true philosopher and
a false comrade, improved any occasion to his own
advantage, without scruple. You figure him thus,
rather of a saturnine humour, with an ugly grin on
his face, instead of a frank smile; but probably
you would be quite wrong in so doing. At any
rate, the ladies appear to have loved him, for we
learn that, " in all his pranks, he was very favour-
able to the female sex, who generally gave him
the character of a civil, obliging robber." He
NEVISON'S KIDB TO YOKK.
NEVISON 9
was also charitable to the poor, and, being a true
Royalist, he never attempted anything against
those of that party.
After many adventures, our William, or John,
as the case may be, one day secured no less a sum
than £450 by a fortunate meeting on the road
with a rich grazier who had just sold, and been
paid for, some cattle. He resolved to let the road
lie fallow, as it were, for a while, and to seek, in
a temporary retirement in his native place, that
repose which comes doubly welcome after a period
of strenuous professional endeavour.
He was joyfully received by his father, who
still was living in the old town of Pontefract,
although some seven or eight years had passed
since his son had levanted and disappeared utterly
from the parental ken. He had long given up all
hopes of seeing his boy again ; and now he was
returned, a young man of twenty-one years of age,
and with a respectable sum of money ; the savings
of a frugal and industrious life in London, accord-
ing to his own account.
Here is an idyllic picture : the highwayman
returned home, soothing the declining days of his
father, and living as quietly and soberly as though
he had never emptied a pocket on the King's
highway !
After the death of his father, he left the quiet
existence at Pontefract, and opened the second
part of his career upon the road. He now so far
departed from his former practice as to become
the moving spirit in a numerous band whose
io HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
headquarters were long situated at Newark.
They particularly affected Yorkshire, and inspired
the drovers and graziers who used the Great North
Road with dread.
At times, however, he would range southward
again, hy himself, and one of these expeditions
resulted in the marvellous feat that made him
famous at the time, and should have kept him so
for all time. His well-earned laurels, unhappily,
have been snatched by a heedless hand from his
brow, and placed on the unworthy head of Turpin.
Such are the strange vagaries of fame I
Nevison's all-eclipsing exploit originated in a
four-o'clock-in-the-morning robbery upon Gad's
Hill, near Rochester.
For some reason, Nevison appears to have been
particularly afraid of being recognised by the
traveller whom he stopped and relieved of his
purse on that May morning, and he immediately,
for the establishment of an alibi, conceived the
idea of riding such a distance that day as to make
it appear humanly impossible he could have been
near R/ochester at that hour. He proposed to
ride to no less distant a place than the city of
York, two hundred and thirty miles away from
that "high old robbing hill." To the modern
commentator, writing with even pulse, it would
seem that, unless that traveller's purse had been
very well lined, the proceeds of the robbery
would not be nearly worth this tremendous
effort, after the taking of it.
\\ would seem that in being so rash as to
NEVISON ii
rob a traveller in the dawning of that May
day, he had indeed been so unfortunate as to
happen upon some one who knew him ; and
there was nothing else but to put as many
miles as he could between the dawn and the
setting of the sun. So behold him, mounted upon
his "blood bay " mare, galloping away for Graves-
end. He crossed the Thames to Tilbury, and so
went, by way of Horndon and Billericay, to
Chelmsford, where he halted an hour and gave his
gallant steed some balls. Thence through Brain-
tree, Booking, Wethersfield, Fenny Stanton,
Godmanchester, and Huntingdon, where he halted
another half -hour ; and so, straight down the Great
North Road (but avoiding the towns) to York.
Of course he must needs have had several re-
mounts on the way. It is unthinkable that one
horse could have performed such a journey. But
Nevison was no lone unfriended knight of the
road, and, in his extensive operations, had ex-
cellent friends in different parts of the country,
who could help him on occasion to a good horse.
Arrived at York, he halted only to put up his
horse, and to remove the travel-stains and signs of
haste from his person, and then made his way
to the nearest bowling-green, where it chanced
that so important a personage as the Lord Mayor
was playing bowls with some friends.
Nevison took an early opportunity of asking
the time, and was told it was just a quarter to
eight. Having done this, and thus fixed the time
and the incident in the Lord Mayor's mind, he
VOL. II. 2
12 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
was satisfied, and after-events proved the wisdom
of his flight ; for he was shortly afterwards
arrested on another charge of highway robbery,
and, among those who were present, in an effort
to identify him with other charges, was none other
than the early morning traveller upon Gad's Hill.
The alibi on that count was triumphantly
established. Nevison called his York acquaint-
ances, and the Lord Mayor was appealed to. That
civic dignitary readily deposed to the fact that
this falsely-accused gentleman was on the York
bowling-green on the evening of that day : and in
the end, Nevison was acquitted on all charges.
But the highwaymen of that age had a good
deal of the braggart in their composition. They
could not do a clever thing without taking the
world into their confidence ; and so, heedless of
the danger to his career, Nevison told the story
of the ride to delighted ears. Instead of being
arrested on what was practically a confession, he
became the hero of the hour. The tale even
reached the ears of Charles the Second, who had
him presented, and, loving a clever rogue as he
did (and possibly with some fellow-feeling, in the
recollection of how himself had been a harassed
fugitive), pardoned him, and christened him "Swift
Nicks."
Elsewhere, we read that the robbery took
place at Barnet, and that it was thence Nevison
rode to York. The traveller, it seems in this
version, had set out from the " Blossoms " inn,
Lawrence Lane, in the city of London, and lost
" SWIFT NICKS " BEFORE CHARLES THE SECOND.
NEVIS ON 15
five hundred and sixty guineas on this monumental
occasion.
According to one account, this was "in or
about" May 1676; but it is difficult to fix the
dates of many of the seventeenth-century high-
waymen's doings within a few years, and this
would certainly appear to be an error, for it can
be proved that he bore the nickname " Swift
Nicks " years before. For example, we find in
December 1668 a proclamation offering £20
reward for the arrest of several specified highway-
men, including Swift Nicks ; and another in the
London Gazette of November 18th, 1669, in which
" Swift Nix " is again mentioned. This pro-
clamation is in itself an interesting and valuable
sidelight upon the social conditions of that age :
WHITEHALL, Nov. nth.
His Majesty having been informed that divers lewd
and disorderly persons have committed great and
heinous Robberies, Murders, and Burglaries, imboldened
thereto either out of hope to escape the hand of Justice,
or by the carelessness and negligence in keeping due
"Watches and "Wards, and the pursuit of them by Hue
and cry, or the concealment of them and their Horses
by Inn-keepers, Ostlers, and others, and that some which
have been indicted for these offences, and others not
indicted but guilty of the same, continue their wicked
practices in spoiling his good subjects, of which number
are said to be Lewis, alias Lodowick, alias Claude de
Val, alias Brown, Swift Nix, alias Clerk, Humble
Ashenhurst, Martin Bringhurst, John Spencer, "William
Stavely, William Stanesby, Thomas Stanley, Nicholas
Greenbury, "William Talbot, Richard Wild, William
Connel, Nicholas James, and Herman Atkins, are
16 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
notoriously known to be such, and of one party and
knot, etc. His Majesty minding to preserve all His
loving Subjects in their Lives and Estates from all
Rapine and Violence, was thus pleased to order His
Proclamation to be issued out, Commanding all His
Subjects and Officers of Justice to use their endeavours
for the apprehension of the said persons, and all others
who have been, or shall be guilty of the offences afore-
said, that they may be proceeded against according to
Law and Justice, declaring His Will and Pleasure,
That all Justices take Order, that due Watches and Wards
be kept by Horse and Foot for the apprehension of such
offenders ; Commanding all Vintners, keepers of Common
Ordinaries, Gaming Houses, Inn-keepers, Horse-keepers,
and other persons where such persons shall be or resort,
to apprehend or cause them to be apprehended, etc., or
otherwise themselves to be proceeded against as far as
by due course of Law they may, declaring that whoso-
ever shall before the 20th of June next, apprehend or
cause to be apprehended any of the said persons above-
named, and brought into custody, and prosecute them
to a Conviction, shall have a reward of Twenty pounds
for every such offender, and for every other notorious
Robber, Burglar, or Murderer, the sum of Ten pounds
within 15 days after their Conviction, to be paid by the
respective Sheriff of the County where such conviction
shall be had, upon the Certificate of the Judge, or under
the hands of two or more Justices of the Peace before
whom they were convicted.
And so forth. This official proclamation clashes
discordantly with the kindly, forgiving character
of the King's interview with Nevison. Of course,
there would naturally be all the difference between
a proclamation and a private , act of clemency ;
and not even in those days, when a King might do
strange things, was it possible, or thinkable, to
NEVISON 17
give a highwayman liberty to rob as he pleased.
We may, perhaps, not without justification, sur-
mise that this highwayman's continued and
notorious activity wore out the easy-going
monarch's patience.
Nevison was arrested on one occasion and
lodged in Wakefield prison, but he broke out, and
was again holding up the lieges. At another time
he was released on giving a promise that he would
volunteer to serve in our newly acquired colony,
Tangier ; but he promptly deserted. Once he was
thrown into Leicester gaol, heavily ironed, and
strictly guarded ; so well-advised were the authori-
ties of his slippery character. Among those who
visited him in his cell was a friend in the disguise
of a doctor. This person, affecting to be struck
with horror at the sight of him, declared he was
infected with the plague ; and added that, so far
as the prisoner himself was concerned, he might
die and be d d for a rogue, and welcome ; but
a more serious thing was that, unless he were
removed to a larger room, not only would he die,
but he would also spread the infection over the
entire prison.
Nevison was very speedily removed to another
room, and the gaoler, implored by his wife, went
no further than the door. The physician, mean-
while, came twice or thrice a day to see the
patient, and at last declared his case to be hope-
less. The highwayman's body was then artfully
painted over with blue spots, and he was given a
powerful sleeping draught. The physician was
1 8 HALF HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
shocked, the next time he called, to find him dead.
An inquest was hurriedly held : the jury keeping
a considerable distance away, with vinegar-
saturated handkerchiefs to noses. " Dead of the
plague," they declared; and hurried home to
make their wills.
The friends of the dead highwayman proved to
the local world the strength and fearlessness of
their friendship by claiming the body, and were
allowed to coffin it and remove it. The coffin was
duly interred, but not Nevison, for he stepped out
at the first opportunity, and that very night, in
the character of his own ghost, was robbing way-
farers, doubly terrified at this " supernatural "
reappearance.
It was not long before the whole story leaked
out. Then ensued perhaps the busiest period of
his career. The drovers and farmers of Yorkshire
were put under regular contribution by him and
his gang : the carriers paid a recognised toll, in
the form of a quarterly allowance, which at one
and the same time cleared the road for them, and
offered protection against any other highway
marauders. Indeed, Nevison was in this respect
almost a counterpart of those old German barons
of the Rhine who levied dues on travellers, or in
default hanged or imprisoned them. The parallel
goes no greater distance than that, for those
picturesque nobles were anything but the idols of
the people ; while Nevison was sufficiently popular
to have become the hero of a rural ballad, still
occasionally to be heard in the neighbourhood of
NEVIS ON 19
his haunts at Knaresborough, Ferrybridge, York,
or Newark. Here are two verses of it, not
perhaps distinguished by wealth of fancy or re-
sourcefulness of rhyme :
Did you ever hear tell of that hero,
Bold Nevison, that was his name ?
He rode about like a bold hero,
And with that he gained great fame.
He maintained himself like a gentleman,
Besides, he was good to the poor;
He rode about like a great hero,
And he gained himself favour therefor.
A curious pamphlet survives, entitled Bloody
News from Yorkshire, dated 1674, and telling
how Nevison and twenty of his men attacked
fifteen butchers, who were riding to Northallerton
Pair, and engaged in a furious battle with them.
As an interlude to these more serious affairs,
there is the story of how Nevison alone, going on
a southerly expedition, met a company of canting
beggars, mumpers, and idle vagrants, and proposed
to join their " merry " life. Their leader wel-
comed his proposal, and indicated their course of
life. " Do we not come into the world arrant
beggars, without a rag upon us ? And do we not
all go out of the world like beggars, saving only
an old sheet over us ? Very well, then : shall we
be ashamed to walk up and down the world like
beggars, with old blankets pinned about us ? No,
no : that would be a shame to us indeed. Have
we not the whole kingdom to walk in, at our
20 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
pleasure ? Are we afraid of the approach of
quarter-day ? Do we walk in fear of sheriffs,
sergeants, and catchpoles ? Who ever knew an
arrant beggar arrested for debt ? Is not our meat
dressed in every man's kitchen ? Does not every
man's cellar afford us beer ? And the best men's
purses keep a penny for us to spend."
As a preliminary to electing him of their band,
they asked him if he had any loure in his bung.
Seeing his ignorance of their cant phrases, they
said the question was, " Had he any money in his
purse ? "
" Eighteenpence," said he, " and you're welcome
to it."
This modest sum was, by unanimous vote,
allocated for the purpose of a general booze, in
celebration of his admission. The ceremony, the
" gage of booze," as the historian of these things
terms it, consisted in pouring a quart of beer over
the head of the initiate, and the captain saying,
" I do, by virtue of this sovereign liquor, install
thee in the Roage, and make thee a free denizen
of our ragged regiment, so that henceforth it shall
be lawful for thee to cant, and to carry a doxy, or
mort, along with thee, only observing these rules :
first, that thou art not to wander up and down all
countries, but to keep to that quarter which is
allotted to thee ; and, secondly, thou art to give
way to any of us that have borne all the offices of
the wallet before ; and, upon holding up a finger,
to avoid any town or country village where thou
seest we are foraging for victuals for our army
NEVIS ON 21
that march along with us. Observing these two
rules, we take thee into our protection, and adopt
thee a brother of our numerous society."
Having ended his oration, the captain bade
Nevison rise, when he was congratulated by all
the company hanging about him, like so many
dogs about a bear, and making a hideous noise.
The chief, silencing them, continued : " Now that
thou art entered into our fraternity, thou must
not scruple to act any villainies, whether it be to
cut a purse, steal a cloak-bag or portmanteau,
convey all manner of things, whether a chicken,
sucking-pig, duck, goose, hen, or steal a shirt from
the hedge ; for he that will be a quier cove (a
professed rogue) must observe these rules. And
because thou art but a novice in begging, and
understandest not the mysteries of the canting
language, thou shalt have a doxy to be thy
companion, by whom thou mayest receive in-
structions."
Thereupon, he singled out a girl of about four-
teen years of age, which tickled his fancy very
much ; but he must presently be married to her,
after the fashion of their patrico, the priest of the
beggars. The ceremony consisted of taking a hen,
and having cut off the head, laying the dead body
on the ground ; placing him on one side and his
doxy on the other. This being done, the " priest,"
standing by, with a loud voice bade them live
together till death did them part. Then, shaking
hands and kissing each other, the ceremony of the
wedding was over, and the whole group appeared
VOL. ii. 3
22 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
intoxicated with joy. They could hardly, at any
rate, be intoxicated with booze, if eighteenpence
had been all they had to spend on liquor, and a
quart of that wasted.
Night approaching, they all resorted to a
neighbouring barn, where they slept : Nevison
slipping out secretly before morning, and continu-
ing his journey.
Butchers and Nevison were antipathetic, and
he and his gang had levied much tribute in York-
shire upon their kind. In 1684, two butchers,
brothers, Fletcher by name, tried to capture him
near Howley Hall, Morley.
He shot one dead, and escaped. The spot is
still marked by a stone near Howley Farm. Not
long after this he was arrested at the " Three
Houses " inn, at Sandal, near Wakefield.
He was at the time, and for long after, a
popular hero. The butchers, the graziers, the
farmers, the carriers might owe him a grudge,
but the peasantry dwelt upon his real or his
fancied generosity to the poor, and ballads about
him always commanded a ready sale. According
to a very popular example, entitled Nevison's
Garland, he pleaded " Not Guilty " :
And when then he came to the Bench,
"Guilty or not Guilty," they to him did cry,
"Not Guilty," then Nevifon faid,
" I'm clear e'er fince the fame Day,
That the King did my Pardon Grant,
I ne'er did rob anyone, nor kill
But that Fletcher in all my life,
'Twas in my Defence, I fay ftill,"
NEVISON
To commit murder in en-
deavouring to escape arrest
was ever regarded by the
highwaymen as a venial sin :
a view not shared hy the
law, and he was found guilty,
sentenced to death, and
hanged within a week from
his trial. He suffered at
Knavesmire, York, May 4th,
1685, in the forty-fifth year
of his age.
"He was something stupid
at the gallows," says the old
chronicler (" probably
drunk," adds a later com-
mentator), " yet he confess'd
everything."
The older Nevison ballads,
which had some little literary
merit, as well as quaintness,
to recommend them, have
given place to vilely re-
written verses that have not
the merit of truth or of rhyme.
This is how a typical ex-
ample goes :
NEVISON'S LEG-IRONS, IN
YORK MUSEUM.
Oh ! the Twenty-first day of last month,
Proved an unfortunate day;
Captain Milton was riding to London,
And by mischance he rode out of his way.
HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
He call'd at a house by the road-side,
It was the sign of the Magpie,
Where Nevison had been drinking,
And the captain soon did he espy.
Then a constable very soon was sent for,
And a constable very soon came ;
With three or four more in attendance,
With pistols charged in the King's name.
They demanded the name of this hero,
" My name it is Johnson," said he,
When the captain laid hold of his shoulder,
Saying "Nevison, thou goeth with me."
Oh ! then in this very same speech,
They hastened him fast away,
To a place called Swinnington Bridge,
A place where he used for to stay.
They call'd for a quart of good liquor,
It was the sign of the Black Horse,
Where there was all sorts of attendance,
But for Nevison it was the worst.
He called for a pen, ink, and paper,
And these were the words that he said,
" I will write for some boots, shoes, and stockings,
For of them I have very great need."
Tis now before my lord judge,
Oh ! guilty or not do you plead ;
He smiled into the judge and jury,
And these were the words that he said:
** I've now robbed a gentleman of two pence,
I've neither done murder nor kill'd,
But guilty I've been all my life time,
So, gentlemen, do as you will.
NEVISON 25
" It's when that I rode on the highway,
I've always had money in great store;
And whatever I took from the rich
I freely gave it to the poor.
" But my peace I have made with my Maker,
And with you I'm quite ready to go ;
So here's adieu ! to this world and its vanities,
For I'm ready to suffer the law."
JOHN COTTINGTON, alias "MULLED
SACK "
JOHN COTTINGTON, commonly known as "Mulled
Sack," was the son of a drunken haberdasher in
Cheapside, who wasted his substance to such an
extent in drinking with fellow-tradesmen of like
tastes, that he died in poverty and was buried by
the parish. He seems to have been in every way
an improvident person, for it is recorded that he
left fifteen daughters and four sons. John, our
present hero, was the youngest of these. At eight
years of age he was bound apprentice by the
overseers of the poor of the parish of St. Mary-le-
Bow to a chimney-sweep, and served his master in
the chimney-sweeping for five years. He then
ran away, for he was by this time thirteen years
of age, and considered himself grown up, and as
fully informed in the art and mystery of chimney-
sweeping as his instructor.
He soon acquired the nickname by which he is
best known, from his fondness for mulled sack,
morning, noon, and night. His earlier activities
were exercised in that inferior branch of robbery
known as pocket-picking, which does not, however,
demand less skill and nerve (perhaps, indeed, it
26
JOHN COTTINGTON 27
requires more) than was necessary in the nobler art
of collecting upon the roads. He was one of the
most expert cly-fakers and bung-snatchers in
London, frequenting Cheapside and Ludgate Hill
by preference ; and is said to have been so
successful that he stole " almost enough to have
built St. Paul's Cathedral." This is, of course, an
amiable, but extravagant exaggeration; but the
exploits of all heroes, in all ages, have been
similarly magnified, and why not those of " Mulled
Sack " ?
Among the most robust and uncompromising of
the E/oyalists, he remained in England to war
with the usurpers in his own way, while the
Cavaliers had fled across the Channel. His war-
fare was happy, inasmuch as it emptied the pockets
of the Commonwealth leaders, while it filled those
of himself and his confederates. If he could not
meet the enemies of the monarchy on the field, he
could, and did, slip a sly hand into their pockets,
and lighten them by many a gold watch and a
guinea. One of his greatest achievements was
the robbing of Lady Fairfax as she — wife of the
famous general — was stepping from her carriage
into the church of St. Martin, Ludgate, come to
hear a famous preacher of that age.
" Mulled Sack " was that day dressed as a gentle-
man. He did not often affect the part, being a
homespun fellow, and subdued from essaying fine
flights by those easy experiences of swarming up
the chimney-flues. But on this day he was un-
recognisable for himself, in quiet, but rich dress.
28 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
His associates were working with him, and had
removed the pin out of the axle of her ladyship's
coach, so that the heavy vehicle fell as it neared
the church door. " Mulled Sack " pressed forward
politely, to help her alight, and at the moment of
her setting foot to pavement cut her watch-chain
with a sharp pair of scissors, and gently removing
the watch itself — a handsome gold one, set with
diamonds — escorted her to the church door, raised
his hat as gracefully as he could, and then dis-
appeared in the crowd.
It was not until, wearied with an inordinately
long sermon, she sought to discover the time, that
she missed the watch.
"Mulled Sack" was less fortunate in an
attempt he made to pick the august pocket of
the Lord Protector, His Highness, Oliver,
by the Grace of God — Oliver Cromwell,
none other — as he was leaving the House of
Parliament. He was caught in the attempt, and
came near to heing hanged for it. This put him
so sadly out of conceit with the art to which he
had given his best time, that he determined to
forsake it for the sister craft of highway robbery,
where a man was under no craven necessity
to sneak, and crawl, and cringe, but boldly
confronted his quarry, and with an oath, or with a
jest — entirely according to temperament — rode
up and demanded or "requested," or even, as was
the fashion among the most flamboyantly politef ul,
" begged the favour of," the traveller's purse.
He at first worked the roads in company with
JOHN COTTINGTON 29
one Tom Cheney, with whom, robbing upon
Hounslow Heath, he encountered Colonel Hewson,
a warrior of those times who had by his military
genius raised himself from the humble station of
a cobbler. The Colonel was upon the Heath with
his regiment, riding some considerable distance
away, but still within sight of his men, when the
two highwaymen robbed him. A troop instantly
gave chase ; Cheney desperately defended himself,
against eighteen, and was then overpowered and
captured, but " Mulled Sack," flying like the wind
upon his trusty horse, escaped. Cheney was
severely wounded in the affray, and begged that
his trial might be postponed on that account,
but, as it was feared he might die of his
wounds, and so escape hanging after all, he was
hurriedly — and no doubt also illegally — con-
demned on the spot, and hanged there that same
evening.
A certain Captain Home was the next partner
" Mulled Sack " took, and he too was similarly
unfortunate in a like affair with that already
described. An early and ignominious fate seemed
to be the inevitable lot of those who worked with
our heroic pickpocket turned highwayman, and
either because the survivors grew shy of him in
consequence, or because he thought it best to play
a lone hand, he ever afterwards pursued a solitary
career.
It was a successful career, so long as it was
continued, and affords an example to the young of
the substantial advantages to be derived from an
VOL. II. 4.
30 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
industrious disposition, enthusiasm in the pro-
fession of one's adoption, and that thoroughness in
leaving no stone unturned which should bring
even only a moderately-equipped young man to
the front rank of his profession. " Mulled Sack "
left no unturned stone, no pocket (that was likely
to contain anything worth having) unpicked, and
no promising wayfarer unchallenged within the
marches of the districts he affected. And what
was the result of this early and late application to
to business ? Why, nothing less than the proud
admission made by his admiring biographer,
that " he constantly wore a watchmaker's and
jeweller's shop in his pocket, and could at any
time command a thousand pounds." How few
are those who, in our own slack times, could
say as much !
He wore the watches and jewellery he had
taken on his rides just as old soldiers display the
medals won in their arduous campaigns, and they
implied not only the energy of the business man,
but the pluck of the soldier on the battlefield. As
the soldier fights for his medals, so " Mulled
Sack " warred for his — or, rather, other people's—
watches.
His greatest deed as a highwayman is that told
by Johnson, of his waylaying the Army pay-
waggon on Shotover Hill. Fully advised of the
approach of this treasure-laden wain, he lurked
on the scrubby side of that ill-omened hill over-
looking Oxford — it was ever a place for robbers —
and, just as the waggon started to toil painfully up,
" MULLED SACK " ROBS THE ARMY PAY WAGGON.
JOHN COTTINGTON 33
rose from his ambuscade with pistols presented to
the head of the waggoner and to those of the three
soldiers acting as escort.
It seems that there were also two or three
passengers in the waggon, but " Mulled Sack " was
as generous as the liquor whence he obtained his
name, for he " told them he had no design upon
them."
"'This,' says he, 'that I have taken, is as
much mine as theirs who own it, being all extorted
from the Publick by the rapacious Members of
our Commonwealth to enrich themselves, maintain
their Janizaries, and keep honest people in sub-
jection.' '
The escort, never for a moment thinking it
possible that one highwayman would have the
daring to act thus, and dreading the onset of
others, bolted like rabbits.
The Republican treasure thus secured by the
enterprising " Mulled Sack " totalled £4000, and
by so much the expectant garrison of Gloucester,
for whom it was intended, for a while went short.
Cottington was at this time but twenty years of
age. Youth will be served !
It is sad to record a vulgar declension in the
practice of " Mulled Sack." He stooped to shed
blood, and murdered, as well as robbed a gentle-
man. With the guilt of Cain heavy on him, he
fled to the Continent, and, by some specious
pretence gaining access to the Court held by
the fugitive Charles the Second, stole a quantity
of valuable plate. Returning to England, a little
34 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
later, he fell into the hands of the sheriff's officers
who were keenly awaiting his re-appearance, and
he was executed at Smithfield Rounds in 1656, for
the crime of murder, aged forty-five.
THOMAS RUMBOLD
THOMAS RUMBOLD, born about 1643, at Ipswich,
was the son of the usual " poor but honest "
parents, and was early apprenticed to a bricklayer
in that town. But highly coloured stories of the
wonders of London fired his imagination and set
him to run away from home before little more
than a quarter of his time had been served. He
entered upon another kind of apprenticeship in
London : nothing less than a voluntary pupilage
with a thieves' fraternity ; but very shortly left
that also and set up for himself as a highwayman.
He would seem to have had a career of about
twenty- six years in this craft, before the gallows
claimed him ; so it is quite evident he had found
his true vocation. A complete account of his
transactions would doubtless make a goodly
volume, but they are not recorded at proper
length. The earlier years of his highway career
seem to be completely lost, and the painstaking
Smith, instead of showing us how he advanced
from small and timid successes to larger and
bolder issues, is obliged to plunge into the midst
of his life and begin with an adventure which, if
it is not indeed entirely apocryphal, can only have
35
36 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
been the extravagant and stupid whim of a very
impudent and ingenious fellow, long used to way-
side escapades.
Rumbold travelled, says Smith, from London
towards Canterbury, along the Dover Road, with
the intention of waylaying no less a personage than
Dr. Sancroft, the Archbishop, who was coming to
London, as Rumbold had been advised, in his travel-
ling chariot. Between Rochester and Sittingbourne
he espied the carriage and its attendant servants
in the distance, and, tying his horse to a tree, and
spreading a tablecloth on the grass of a field open
to the road, he sat himself down and began playing
hazard with dice-box and dice, all by himself, for
some heaps of gold and silver he placed conspicu-
ously on the cloth. Presently the Archbishop's
carriage creaked and rumbled ponderously by,
in the manner of the clumsy vehicles of that
time ; and His Grace, curiously observing a man
acting so strangely as to play hazard by himself,
sent a servant to see what could be the meaning
of it.
The servant, coming near, could hear Rumbold
swearing at every cast of the dice, about his losses,
and asked him what was the meaning of it. To
this Rumbold made no reply, and the servant
returned to the Right Reverend and informed him
the man must surely be out of his wits.
Then the Archbishop himself alighted, and,
looking curiously around, and seeing none but
Rumbold, asked him whom he played with.
" D n it, sir ! " exclaimed the player,
THOMAS RUMBOLD 37
" there's five hundred pounds gone." Then, as
His Grace was about to speak again, casting the
dice once more, " There goes a hundred more."
" Pr'ythee," exclaimed the Archbishop, "do
tell me whom you play with ? "
" With the devil," replied Rumbold.
" And how will you send the money to him ? "
" By his ambassadors, and considering your
Grace as one of them extraordinary, I shall beg
the favour of you to carry it to him." He rose,
and walking to the carriage, placed six hundred
guineas in it, mounted his horse, and rode off
along the way he knew the Archbishop had to
travel; and, both he and His Grace having
refreshed at Sittingbourne, in different houses of
entertainment, Rumbold afterwards took the road
to London a little in advance of the carriage.
Halting at a convenient place, and placing
himself on the grass, in the same manner as
before, he again awaited the carriage, this time
with but little money spread on the cloth.
The Archbishop again observed him, and this
time really believing him to be a mad gamester,
was about to make some remark, when Rumbold
suddenly cried out joyfully, throwing the dice,
" Six hundred pounds ! "
"What!" exclaimed the Archbishop, "losing
again ? "
" No, by G— d ! " returned Eumbold, " won
six hundred pounds this time. I'll play this hand
out, and then leave off, while I'm well."
" And whom have you won of P "
38 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
"Of the same person that I left the six
hundred pounds for with you, before dinner."
" And how will you get your winnings, my
friend ? "
" Of his ambassador, to be sure," said Rumbold,
drawing his sword. Thereupon, he advanced to
the carriage with pistols and drawn sword, and,
searching under the carriage-seat, found his own
six hundred guineas, and fourteen hundred be-
sides ; with which forty pounds weight avoirdu-
pois of bullion, we are gravely told, he got clear
off.
The incident is, without a doubt, one of Smith's
own inventions — and not one of the best. It
serves to show us how entirely lacking in criticism
he thought his public, to set before them, without
any criticism of his own, such a tale, in which
a highwayman who certainly could in real life
have been no fool, to have held his own so long
on the road, is made to act like an idiot without
any advantage likely to be gained by so doing.
We see him, in this preposterous story, taking
the trouble to carry six hundred guineas with him
and playing the fool needlessly, when he might
just as well have gone with empty pockets and
searched and robbed the carriage with equal
success.
More easily to be credited is his robbing of
the Earl of Oxford at Maidenhead Thicket. Rum-
bold was no exquisite, having, as we have already
learnt, been merely a bricklayer's apprentice
before he assumed the crape mask, and, mounting
THOMAS RUM BOLD 39
a horse and sticking a pair of pistols in his helt,
took to the road. He often assumed the appearance
of a rough country farmer ; hut he was, at the
same time, always a man of expedient. To say
of him that he had ostlers and chambermaids in
his pay, to give him information of likely travellers,
is but to repeat the practice of every eminent
hand in the high-toby craft. On the occasion
which led to his great exploit here, he had been
lurking for some well-laden travellers, who,
luckily for them, took some other route, and he
was just on the point of riding moodily off when
two horsemen rode up the hill. As they drew
near he perceived that they were the Earl of
Oxford and a servant. That nobleman knew
Rumbold (how the acquaintance had been made
we are not told), and so it was necessary for the
highwayman to assume some sort of disguise.
Here we perceive E/umbold's readiness of resource.
He threw his long hair over his face, and, holding
it in his teeth, rode up in this extraordinary
guise and demanded the Earl's purse, with threats
to shoot both if it was not immediately forth-
coming.
That nobleman was Aubrey De Vere, twentieth
and last Earl, the descendant of the old " fighting
Veres " and colonel of the Oxford Blues, a regiment
named after him, and not after the city of Oxford.
Despite all these things, which might have made
for valiance, he surrendered like the veriest woman,
and submitted to the indignity of being searched.
Rumbold rifled him, and at first found only dice
VOL. II. C
40 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and cards, until, coming to his breeches pockets,
he turned out a " nest of goldfinches " ; that is
to say, a heap of guineas. Saying he would take
them home and cage them, Rumbold recommended
the Earl to return to his regiment and attend to
his duty, giving him eighteenpence as an en-
couragement.
Prom these examples, it will readily be seen
that Maidenhead Thicket did not obtain its ill
repute without due cause.
A number of incredible stories of Bumbold
are told, both by Smith and Johnson, who seem
to have made up for the little real information
we have of his more than twenty years' career by
writing absolutely unconvincing fiction around
him. He was at last executed at Tyburn in 1689.
"CAPTAIN' JAMES WHITNEY
THERE is much uncertainty about the parentage
and the career of James Whitney. The small
quarto tract entitled The Jacobite Robber, which
professes to give a life of Whitney by one who
was acquainted with him, says he was born " in
Hertfordshire, of mean, contemptible parentage,
about two years after the Bestauration of King
Charles." Smith particularises Stevenage as the
place in Hertfordshire, and Johnson, who copies
almost everything in Smith, also adopts Stevenage.
Waylen, on the other hand, who wrote a singularly
good and well-informed book on the highwaymen
of Wiltshire, believed Whitney to have been a
son of the Reverend James Whitney, of Donhead
St. Andrews, and says the highwayman practised
largely on Salisbury Plain.
The majority, believing in the Hertfordshire
origin of Whitney, fortify their statements by very
full and particular accounts of how he was
apprenticed to a butcher at Hitchin. We have
here an interpolated story of how he and his master
went to Romford to purchase calves (Essex calves
were so famous that a native of Essex nowadays
is still an "Essex calf"). The owner of one
41
42 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
particularly fine calf they greatly desired to
purchase required too much for it. He happened
to be also the keeper of an alehouse, as well as
a stock-raiser. While the butcher and Whitney
were refreshing themselves in the house and the
butcher was grumbling because he could not
buy the calf at what he considered a fair price,
Whitney thought of an easier way, and whispered
to his master that it would be foolish to give
good money for the calf when it could be had
for nothing. The butcher and Whitney thereupon
exchanged knowing winks, and agreed to steal
the calf that very night.
Unhappily for them, a man with a performing
bear had in the meanwhile arrived, and the land-
lord, removing the calf from the stable where
it had been placed, installed the bear in its place.
At last, night having fallen, master-butcher and
apprentice paid their reckoning and prepared to
go. Leaving the house, they loitered about until
all was quiet, and then, the two approaching the
outhouse where the calf had been, Whitney went
in to fetch it. The bear was resting its wearied
limbs when Whitney's touch roused it. He was
astonished in the dark to feel the calf's hair was
so long, and was still more astonished when he
felt the animal rear itself up on its hind legs
and put its arms lovingly round him. Mean-
while the butcher, wondering what could keep
Whitney so long, began softly through the door-
way to bid him be quick.
Whitney cried out that he could not get away,
WHITNEY HUGGED BY THE BEAR.
" CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNE Y 45
and he believed the devil himself had hold
of him.
" If it is the old boy," rejoined his master,
with a chuckle, "bring him out. I should like
to see what kind of an animal he is."
But Whitney's evident terror and distress soon
brought him to the rescue, and the bear was made
to release her prey.
Before Whitney had served his full time with
the butcher, his master cashiered him for idleness*
After some little intervening time he became
landlord of a small inn at Cheshunt. He was
ever, says the author of The Jacobite Robber,
a passionate admirer of good eating and drinking,
especially at other people's expense. The inn,
says our author, was the " Bell " or the " White
Bear," he would not be sure which. If the
" Bell," it was a sign he should presently make
a noise over all England ; if the " White Bear,"
a token that the landlord was of as savage a nature
as any wild beast.
As a matter of fact, it appears to have been
the " George " ; but what significance may be
extracted from that I do not know.
The inn did not pay its way on legitimate
trading, and the people of Cheshunt wondered
how Whitney could keep the pot boiling. Yet
they need not have wondered, while they could
see and hear, three or four times a week, a knot of
roaring gentlemen, who sang, drank, swore, and
revelled, the landlord himself joining in, until
it seemed as if the place were thronged with
46 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
old Lucifer and his club-footed emissaries. These
guests were, in fact, highwaymen, as any one
might have perceived, from their extravagant
living and the unseasonable hours they kept.
At first Whitney had no hand in his customers'
doings. As the quaint author of the tract already
referred to says :
" It seems the conscientious Mr. Whitney, for
all he was a well-wisher to the mathematicks and
a friend to the tribe, did not at first care to
expose his own dear person on the road ; not that
any one can justly tax him at the same time with
cowardice, or want of valour (for had he been
as plentifully stock 'd with grace as he was with
valour, he had never taken that employment upon
him) ; but he prudently considered with himself
that at present he ran no Bisque of hanging for
harbouring such people, and besides made a
comfortable penny of them : Whereas, should he
trade for himself, and scour the Highways to the
Tune of Dammee, Stand and Deliver, he must
certainly at one time or another make a Pilgrim-
age to Tybourn, and swinging in a Rope he had
a Mortal Aversion to, because his Prophetical
Grand-Mother had formerly told him it was a dry
sort of a death.
" But at last an Old Experienced Brother of the
Pad Avon him over to his Party, for, finding our
Inn-keeper to be notably stored with all those
ingredients and qualifications that are requisite to
fit a Man for such a Vocation, he was resolved to
leave no method unattempted till he had made
47
an absolute conquest of him. In order to effect
this, he represents to him the meanness and servile
condition of his present calling, how he was
obliged to stand cap in hand to every pitiful
Rascal that came to spend Six-pence in his house ;
that with all his care and diligence he only got a
little poor contemptible Pittance, scarce sufficient
to pay his Brewer and Baker, but on the other
hand, if he would be adopted into their society,
he would find Money come flowing in like a
Spring Tide upon him ; he would live delicately,
eat and drink of the Best, and in short, get more
in an hour than now he did by Nicking, and
Frothing and wrong Reckonings for a whole
Twelve Month together. That, as for the Gallows,
a Man of Courage and Bravery ought never to be
afraid of it, and, should the worst come to the
worst, better Gentleman by far than himself had
made a Journey to the other World in their Shoes
and Stockings."
Thus admonished, Whitney stripped off the
inn-keeper's apron, sold off his inn, and took
to the road, where he distinguished himself among
the foremost highway gentry of his time. As his
biographer is fain to acknowledge, he proved to
have "inherited all the Courage, Boldness, and
Dexterity of the famous Claude Du Vail and the
Golden Earmer, and the rest of his other noble
Predecessors of the Pad."
This admiring authority then proceeds to give
us an account of Whitney's first action, and tells
how " he encountered a Jolly E/ed-fac'd Son of
48 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
the Church bravely Mounted, with a large
Canonical Rose in his Ecclesiastical Hat and his
Gown fluttering in the Wind. He looked as if he
had been hung round with Bladders. Him, within
two miles of St. Albans, he accosts after this
manner, c Reverend Sir, the Gentlemen of your
Coat having, in all conscience, enough preached
up the edifying Doctrine of Passive Obedience
and Non-Resistance, and now I am fully resolved
to try the experiment, whether you Believe your
own Doctrine, and whether you are able to
Practise it. Therefore, worthy sir, in the name
of the above-mentioned Passive Obedience and
Non-Resistance, make no opposition, I beseech
you, but deliver up the filthy Lucre you carry
about you.'
" Now you must know that this rosy-gilled
Levite had the wicked sum of six-score and ten
guineas clos'd up in the waistband of his breeches,
designd as a present to a worthy gentleman that
lately helped him to a fat living (for you must
not call it Symony for all the world, but christen
it by the name of Gratitude, and so forth) but
Captain Whitney, who, it seems, did not understand
any of these softening distinctions, soon eased him
of his Mammon, but not without a great deal of
expostulation on the Levite's part, and, what was
more barbarous, stript him of his spick-and-span
new sacerdotal habit, sent his Horse home before
him, to prepare his family, and having bound him
to his good behaviour, left him all alone to his
contemplations in an adjoining wood."
"CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNEY 49
He then met a poor clergyman in threadbare
gown, riding a sorry Rosinante, whose poor ribs
in a starved body looked like the bars of a bird-
cage. "What would the typical outlaw, from the
days of Robin Hood, onwards, have done in such
a rencounter ? Why, he would have given the
poor divine the new robe and some money ; and
this Whitney did ; handing him four or five bags
of the best, saying : " Here is that will buy you
a dozen or so of clean bands ! " " Thus," says
the biographer, " our brave Captain dispensed
charities with one hand and plundered with the
other."
One day, patrolling Bagshot Heath, he met a
gentleman, and desired his purse and watch.
" Sir," said the gentleman, " 'tis well you
spoke first, for I was just going to say the same
thing to you."
" Why then," quoth Whitney, " are you a
gentleman-thief ? "
" Yes," replied the stranger, " but I have had
very bad success to-day, for I have been riding up
and down all this morning, without meeting with
any prize."
Whitney, upon hearing this doleful tale,
wished him better luck, and took his leave.
That night, Whitney and this strange traveller
chanced to stay at the same inn, but Whitney had
so changed his dress in the meanwhile, and altered
his manner, that he was not recognised. He
heard his acquaintance of that morning telling
another guest how smartly he had outwitted a
VOL. II. 6
So HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
highwayman that day, and had saved a hundred
pounds by his ready wit; and this revelation of
how easily he had been hoodwinked made him
determined, if it were at all possible, to take his
revenge on the morrow. Meanwhile, he listened
to the conversation.
The guest, who had been told of the adventure,
replied that he also had a considerable sum upon
him, and that he would like, if it were agreeable,
to travel next day in company with so ready-
witted a traveller.
Accordingly, the next morning they set forth
together, and Whitney followed, a quarter of an
hour later. He soon overtook them, and then,
wheeling suddenly about, demanded their purses.
" We were going to say the same to you, sir,"
replied the ready-witted one.
" Were you so ? " asked our hero ; " and are
you of my profession, then ? "
"Yes," they both chorused.
" If you are," said Whitney, " I suppose you
remember the old proverb, ' Two of a trade can
never agree ' ; so you must not expect any favour
on that score. But to be plain, gentlemen, the
trick will do no longer : I know you very well,
and must have your hundred pounds, sir ; and
your 'considerable sum,' sir," turning to the
other; "let it be what it will, or I shall make
bold to send a brace of bullets through each of
your heads. You, Mr. Highwayman, should have
kept your secret a little longer, and not have
boasted so soon of having outwitted a thief. There
"CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNEY 51
is now nothing for you to do but to deliver or
die I "
These terrible words threw them into a sad
state of consternation. They were unwilling
enough to lose their money, but even more
unwilling to forfeit their lives ; therefore, of two
evils they promptly chose the least, and resigned
their wealth.
Whitney then met on Hounslow Heath, one
Mr. Hull, a notorious usurer, who lived in the
Strand. He could hardly have chosen a wretch
more in love with money, and therefore less
willing to part with it. When the dreadful
words, " Stand and deliver ! " were spoken, he
trembled like a paralytic and began arguing that
he was a very poor man, had a large family of
children, and would be utterly ruined if the
highwayman were so hard-hearted as to take his
money. Besides, it was a most illegal, also
dangerous, action, to steal ; to say nothing of the
moral obliquity of those who did so.
"You dog in a doublet," exclaimed the now
angered Whitney, " do you pretend to preach
morality to an honester man than yourself. You
make a prey of all mankind, and grind to death
with eight and ten per cent. This once, however,
sir, I shall oblige you to lend me what you have,
without bond, consequently without interest : so
make no more words."
The usurer thereupon reluctantly produced
eighteen guineas, and handed them over with an
ill grace, scowling darkly at the highwayman,
52 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and telling him he hoped one day to have the
pleasure of seeing him riding up Holborn Hill,
backwards.
It was a foolish thing to remind a gentleman
of the road that he would probably some day be
an occupant of the cart, travelling to Tyburn.
Whitney had already turned to go when these
words fell upon his ear ; but he now turned back,
thoroughly enraged.
" Now, you old rogue," said he, " let me see
what a figure a man makes when he rides back-
wards, and let me have the pleasure, at least, of
beholding you first in that posture."
With that, he pulled Hull off his horse, and
then setting him on the animal's back again, face
to tail, tied his legs together, and then gave the
horse- two or three cuts, so that it cantered smartly
away and never stopped until Hounslow was
reached ; where the people, who knew the money-
lender well and liked him little, had a hearty
laugh at his expense before they untied him.
Whitney always affected to appear generous
and noble. Meeting one day with a gentleman
named Long, on Newmarket Heath, and having
robbed him of a hundred pounds in silver, which
he found in the traveller's portmanteau, tied up
in a great bag, the gentleman told him he had a
great way yet to go, and, as he was unknown
upon the road, was likely to suffer great in-
convenience and hardship, if he had not at least
some small sum. Would he not give him back a
trifle, to meet his travelling expenses ?
WHITNEY AND THE USURER.
"CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNEY 55
Whitney opened the bag of silver, and held
it out at arm's length towards him, saying : " Here,
take what you have occasion for."
Mr. Long then put in his hand, and took out a
handful, as much as he could hold ; to which
Whitney made no sort of objection, but only said,
with a laugh : "I thought you would have had
more conscience."
Smith tells a long story of how Whitney and
his band one day met a well-known preacher, a
Mr. Wawen, lecturer at Greenwich Church, and,
easing him of his purse, made him preach a
sermon on the subject of thieving. A very similar
story is told of Sir Gosselin (? Joscelin) Denville and
his outlaws, who in the reign of Edward the
Second did surprising things all over England, not
least among them the waylaying and robbing of a
Dominican monk, Bernard Sympson by name, in a
wood between Henley-on-Thames and Marlow,
and afterwards compelling him to preach a sermon
to like effect. Captain Dudley is said to have done
the same ; and indeed, whether it were the slitting
of a weasand (" couper gorge, par ma foy" as
Pistol might say), the taking of a purse, or the
kissing a pretty woman, the highwaymen of old
were all-round experts. But that they should
have so insatiable a taste for " firstly, secondly,
and thirdly, and then finally, dear brethren," I
will not believe. Some ancient traditional high-
way robber once did so much, no doubt, and the
freak has been duly fathered on others of later
generations : just as the antique jests at the
56 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
expense of College dons at Oxford and Cambridge
are furbished up anew to fit the present age.
The Reverend Mr. Wawen responded as well
as he could manage to Whitney's invitation, and,
whether it be genuine or a sheer invention of
Alexander Smith's, it is certainly ingenious, and
much better reading than that said to have been
preached by the Dominican monk, some three
hundred and fifty years earlier.
" Gentlemen," began the lecturer from Green-
wich church, "my text is THEFT; which, not to
be divided into sentences or syllables, being but
one word, which itself is only a monosyllable,
necessity therefore obliges me to divide it into
letters, which I find to be these five, T. H. E. F. T.,
Theft. Now T, my beloved, is Theological ; H is
Historical ; E is Exegetical ; F is Figurative ; and
T is Tropological.
" Now the theological part of my text is in two
portions, firstly, in this world, and secondly, in the
world to come. In this world, the effects it works
are T, tribulation ; H, hatred ; E, envy ; F, fear,
and T, torment. For what greater tribulation can
befall a man than to be debarred from sweet liberty,
by a close confinement in a nasty prison, which
must needs be a perfect representation of the Iron
Age, since nothing is heard there but the jingling
of shackles, bolts, grates, and keys ; these last, my
beloved, as large as that put up for a weathercock
on St. Peter's steeple in Cornhill.
" However, I must own that you highwaymen
may be a sort of Christians whilst under this tribu-
"CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNEY 57
lation, because ye are a kind of martyrs, and suffer
really for the truth. Again, ye have the hatred of
all honest people, as well as the envy of gaolers if
you go under their jurisdiction without money in
your pockets. I am sure all of your profession
are very sensible that a gaoler expects, not only to
distil money out of your irregularities, but also to
grow fat by your curses ; wherefore his ears are
stopped to the cries of others, as God's are to his,
and good reason too ; for, lay the life of a man in
one scale, and his fees in the other, he would lose
the first to obtain the second.
" Next, ye are always in as much fear of being
apprehended as poor tradesmen in debt are of the
Serjeant, who goes muffled like a thief too, and
always carries the marks of one, for he steals upon
a man cowardly, plucks him by the throat, and
makes him stand till he fleeces him. Only the
thief is more valiant and the honester man of
the two.
" And then, when ye are apprehended, nothing
but torment ensues ; for when ye are once clapt up
in gaol, as I have hinted before, you soon come
under the hangman's clutches, and he hangs you
up, like so many dogs, for using those scaring
words, * Stand and deliver ! '
" The effect which theft works in the world to
come is eternal, and there is no helping it. I
shall therefore proceed to the historical part of my
text, which will prove, from ancient history, that
the art of Theft is of some antiquity, inasmuch as
that Paris stole Helen, Theseus stole Ariadne, and
58 'HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Jason stole Medea. However, antiquity ought to
be no plea for vice, since laws, both Divine and
human, forbid base actions, especially theft. For
history again informs us that Sciron was thrown
headlong into the sea for thieving : Cacus was
killed by Hercules : Sisyphus was cut in pieces ;
Brunellus was hanged for stealing the ring of
Angelicus ; and the Emperor Frederick the Third
condemned all thieves to the galleys.
" The Exegetical part of my text is a sort of
commentary on what was first said, when I set
forth that your transgressions were a breach of
both divine and humane ordinances, which are
utterly repugnant to all manner of theft ; where-
fore, if ye are resolved to pursue these courses
still, note, my respect is such to you, although
you have robbed me, that if you can but keep
yourselves from being ever taken, I'll engage to
keep you always from being hanged.
" The figurative part of my text is still to be
set forth. Though I call you ' gentlemen,' yet
in my heart I think ye to be all rogues ; but I
mollify my spleen by a Charientismus, which is a
figure or form of speech mitigating hard matters
with pleasant words. Thus, a certain man
being apprehended, and brought before Alexander
the Great, King of Macedon, for railing against
him, and being demanded by Alexander why
he and his company had so done, he made answer:
' Had not the wine been all drunk, we had
spoken much worse.' Whereby he signified that
those words proceeded rather from wine than
"CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNEY 59
malice, by which free and pleasant confession
he assuaged Alexander's great displeasure, and
obtained remission.
" But now, coming to the Tropological part of
my text, which signifies drawing a word from
its proper and genuine signification to another
sense, as, in calling you most famous thieves ; I
desire your most serious attention, and that you
will embrace this exhortation of St. Paul the
apostle. 'Let him that stole, steal no more.'
Or else the letters of my text point towards a
tragical conclusion ; for T, ' take care ; ' H,
* hanging;' E, 'ends not'; P, 'felony;' T,
' at Tyburn.' "
The parson having ended his sermon, which
some of Whitney's gang took down in shorthand,
they were so well pleased with what he had
preached, that they were contented to pay him
tithes ; so, counting over the money they had
taken from him, and finding it to be just ten
pounds, they gave him ten shillings for his pains,
and then rode away to seek whom they might
next devour.
He then met Lord L shortly afterwards,
near London, and robbed him single-handed.
Knowing that his lordship moved in close attend-
ance upon the King, William the Third, and
perhaps being keenly conscious that the many
serious robberies committed by himself and his
men were drawing the net uncomfortably close
around them, he made an offer to compound with
the authorities. He said if the King would give
VOL. II. 7
60 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
him an indemnity for past offences, he would
bring in thirty of his gang, for military service in
Flanders. So saying, he whistled, and, quite in
the Roderick Dhu style, twenty or thirty mounted
bandits at once appeared.
Whitney, having thus given proofs of his
words, continued that, if the King refused his
offer, His Majesty might send a troop of Dutch-
men to apprehend him and his, but they would
find it a hard task to take any, and that he and
his men would stand on their defence, and bid
them defiance.
There is little or nothing of the " Jacobite
Robber " in the stories told of Whitney ; but it
seems to have been fully recognised that he was a
somewhat belated adherent of James the Second.
He gathered around him a gang that varied in
numbers according to circumstances, but was
occasionally about thirty strong. These he was
enabled by his superior courage and resource to
captain ; and with the imposing mounted force
they presented, he laid many important and wealthy
personages under contribution near London. It
was doubtless his gang that stopped and robbed
the great Duke of Marlborough of five hundred
guineas near London Colney, on the night of
August 23rd, 1692, and as a Jacobite, Whitney
would be particularly pleased at the doing of it.
It is almost equally certain that the numerous other
rich hauls about that time on the St. Albans road
were the handiwork of Whitney's party. On
December 6th, 1692, there was a pitched battle
"CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNEY 61
between Whitney's force and a troop of dragoon
patrols, near Barnet. One dragoon was killed,
and several wounded, and Whitney is most cir-
cumstantially said to have then been captured ;
but as an even more circumstantial account tells
us, with a wealth of detail, how he was finally
captured in Bishopsgate Street, on December 31st,
this cannot be altogether correct.
Was it, we wonder, his professed Jacobite
views that made many travellers so good-humoured
with him as they are said to have been when he
lightened their pockets ? A fellowship in political
views does not in our own days necessarily make a
stranger free of our purse. Whitney, for example,
meeting Sir Richard B between Stafford and
Newport, accosted him with a " How now ?
whither away ? "
"To London," replied the knight; whereupon
Whitney troubled him for £4.
Then, much to our surprise, we read of Sir
Richard, who appears to have known Whitney
very well by sight, saying, " Captain, I'll give
you a breakfast, with a fowl or two." It would
have come more naturally to read that he offered
to give him in charge !
Whitney politely declined, but said he would
drink to the knight's health then and there ; and,
halting a passing waggon, broached a cask out of
it on the spot.
In spite of a conflict of testimony, it seems to
be clearly established that Whitney was finally
captured on December 31st, 1692. He appears to
62 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
have at some earlier time been taken, after a
desperate fight with a "bagonet," and lodged in
Newgate, whence he broke out with a four-pound
weight on each leg. On this last occasion he
made a determined resistance at the door of the
house in which he was beset, fighting for over an
hour with the officers and the mob. Most of his
gang were afterwards captured ; including a livery-
stable keeper, a goldsmith, and a man-milliner.
Whitney appears to have been a man of
medium height, to have had a scarred face, and to
have lost one thumb : sliced off, probably, in one
of his encounters with the patrols.
He endeavoured to purchase his liberty by
" offering to discover his accomplices, and those
that give notice where and when money is con-
veyed on the road in coaches and waggons."
This offer was not accepted, and the order went
forth that he was to be hanged at the Maypole in
the Strand. Then he shifted his ground to include
more startling secrets that he was ready to divulge,
" if he may have his pardon." Jacobite plots
were the commonplaces of that day. King James
was not greatly liked by even the most ardent
Jacobite, but King William was detested, and
even those who had placed William on the throne
did so merely as a political expedient. Thus the
personally unpopular King was for ever harassed
with plots hatched to assassinate him ; and when
Whitney hinted, not obscurely, that he could tell
terrible tales if he would, it was thought advisable
to have the highwayman out in a sedan-chair and
" CAPTAIN" JAMES WHITNE Y 63
to take him to Kensington, under escort, that he
might be examined, touching these plots. But
it was soon discovered that he really knew nothing
and that his idle " confessions " and " revelations "
had no basis in fact.
He was not content to remain in Newgate
in worn and shabby clothes.
" He had his taylor," says Luttrell, " make
him a rich embroidered suit, with perug and
hat, worth £100 ; but the keeper refused to let
him wear them, because they would disguise him
from being known."
That somewhat obscure phrase seems to mean
that Whitney intended, under cover of his fine
new suit, to make a dash for liberty.
His execution was finally fixed for February 1st,
1693, at Porter's Block, Smithfield. He made a
very proper and a singularly restrained and
well-chosen speech at the fatal spot :
"I have been a very great offender, both against
God and my country, by transgressing all laws,
human and divine. I believe there is not one here
present but has often heard my name before my
confinement, and have seen a large catalogue
of my crimes, which have been made public
since. Why should I then pretend to vindicate
a life stained with deeds of violence ? The
sentence passed on me is just, and I can see
the footsteps of Providence, which I had before
profanely laughed at, in my apprehension and
conviction. I hope the sense which I have of
these things has enabled me to make my peace
64 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
with Heaven, the only thing that is now of any
concern to me. Join in your prayers with me,
my dear countrymen, that God will not forsake
me in my last moments."
" He seem to dye very penitent," says the
original chronicler of these things : " and was an
hour and a halfc in the cart before heing
turned off."
TWM SHON CATTI
A SINGULAR character, half mythical, and his
exploits almost wholly so, is Twin Shon Catti ; a
prankish creature whom, nevertheless, the people
of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire will not
willingly let die.
Twm, it need hardly be said, was a Welshman.
His name, duly translated from Cymraeg into
English, means " Tom John Kate," i.e. " Tom,
the son of Kate." Who was his other parent
remains a matter of uncertainty, hut he is thought
to have heen a local magnate, Sir John Wynne of
Gwydir. Kate, his mother, was a country girl, of
Tregaron, and Twm himself was horn apparently
about the third quarter of the seventeenth
century ; that is to say, if the half sprite and half
human being of the legends can be said to belong
to any easily-ascertained span of years. Some
of his exploits certainly seem to belong to a later
period.
But however that may be, he is yet the hero of
a very wide countryside, in which any peasant is
still able to give a very fair biography of him to
the passing stranger, and is also quite competent
to show him Twm's cave, in Dinas Hill, or
65
66 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
" Llidiard-y-Ffin," overlooking the river Towy,
near Ystrad Ffin. Composed in equal parts of
Will-o'-Wisp, Dick Turpin (the idealised Turpin
of legend, not the cowardly brute of cold-drawn
fact), and Robin Hood, his career is one of marvels.
Horse-thief, highwayman at one time and out-
witter of highwaymen at another, special provi-
dence to the deserving, and scourge of the wicked,
he always comes successfully out of encounters
and difficulties. If for that peculiarity alone, he
might reasonably be held mythical.
Starting in life as a farmer's boy, he after-
wards found a place in the service of the local
lord of the manor, in which his Puck-like pranks
were first developed. As the secret of his birth
was more or less an open one, these escapades
were not often visited with the punishment
another would almost certainly have incurred ;
and, besides, he was generally looked upon as a
" natural " : as one, that is to say, who is not more
than half-witted. Thus, when he would steal the
parson's horse in Llandovery and sell it to a
squire some twenty miles off, he proved the truth
of that old law which says one man may with
impunity steal a horse, while another may not
safely even look over the fence.
It all depends upon the man. In Twm's case,
such an exploit was not the criminal business that
would have brought an ordinary man to the
gallows, but merely an escapade serving, like
Prince Hal and Poins' fooling of Falstaff with
the men in buckram, as " argument for a week,
TWM SHON CATTI 67
laughter for a month, and a good jest for
ever."
At the rather uncertain period in which Twm
flourished there also flourished a highwayman in
the locality, who, from his daring and savage
disposition, was known as " Dio the Devil." This
terrific person had carried off the young and
heautiful wife of Sir John Devereux, lord of
Ystrad Ffin, and Twm was successful in rescuing
her. The obvious reward for this service was,
bearing Twm's almost gentle origin in mind, to
receive him in his house on equal terms : or, as
some accounts have it, he entered the service of
Sir John as jester. But whether he went as
such, or not, he certainly acted the part very
thoroughly, and kept the establishment always
well entertained.
Twm was a perfect centaur of a horseman, and
Sir John Devereux was almost as good in the
saddle. Twm's custom was to back himself in
heavy wagers to perform extraordinary feats of
horsemanship, and then proceed, by hair-raising
doings, to win the bets. Not only the physical, but
the mental agility of these things took strangers
at an utterly dumbfoundered disadvantage ;
but the most astonishing of all was the one now
to be related. An English guest who was staying
with Sir John happened also to be a remarkable
horseman, and had the advantage his Welsh host
had not, of owning a thoroughbred. The talk ran
high one day on the subject of horses and equita-
tion, and the whimsical Twm promptly wagered
VOL. II. 8
68 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
twenty pounds he would put his horse to a jump
where the Englishman dare not follow. Con-
versant with the not very fine specimens of horses
to be found in his host's stable, the Englishman
with contempt accepted the bet, quite easy in his
mind that he must win.
A " numerous and distinguished company," as
a modern chronicler of fashionable doings might
say, assembled on the mountain-side on the
appointed day, to see the challenger take this as
yet unknown leap, and the stranger follow if he
dared. They knew their Twm well enough to be
quite convinced he had some mad project in view,
to discomfit the Englishman ; and what Welsh-
man was there who would not have travelled far,
and at much discomfort, to witness the humilia-
tion of the " Saxon."
Twm was last upon the to-be-contested field,
and a great shout of laughter went up as he was
seen riding along upon a wretched horse, in the
last stage of decrepitude. The Englishman did
not quite know whether to feel insulted or amused,
but Twm, once arrived on the scene, did not
linger. Quickly he took a thick cloth and bound
it over the head of his horse ; and then, bidding
the Englishman follow him, put his mount at a
rift in the mountain-side some hundreds of feet
deep. Over leapt the horse, and was in another
half a minute lying dead, shattered in its fall
on the rocks below.
Even those of his countrymen who knew the
resourcefulness of their hero, and had backed him
TWM SHON CATTI 69
heavily, now lost heart; but in another minute
up rose the head and shoulders of Twm above the
edge, and he presently leapt among them unhurt,
to receive his winnings from the astounded
Englishman. He had adroitly slipped from the
horse's back at the moment of his taking oif, and
leapt into the bushes that grew out of the face
of the cliff. The horse itself merely met its end
in a different manner from that already ordained
for it that day, when it was to have been
slaughtered, as being past work.
His friend and patron, Sir John Devereux,
perceiving how well able Twm was to take care
of himself, and being under the necessity of
despatching a considerable amount of money in
gold to London, and obliged at the same time to
remain at home, he entrusted him with the
commission. He would have given Twm an
escort of one or two servants, but that worthy,
shrewdly remarking that it would be as much worth
their while as that of a highwayman to rob him,
declined all company, and, in the oldest clothes he
could find, set out alone on a shaggy Welsh pony.
He had gone two-thirds of his journey without
adventure, and put up one night, contentedly
enough, at what is described as the " Hop Pole,"
a " lonely inn on the bleak downs near Marl-
borough" — although there really seems never to
have been a house of that name near : perhaps
" Shepherd's Shore," or the " Waggon and Horses "
at Beckhampton would serve better. When he
retired for the night, and was lying still and
70 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
wakeful, he overheard the landlady and a strange
man discussing him. The landlady was saying
she did not suppose a traveller like our Twm,
" dressed like a scarecrow and mounted on a piece
of animated carrion, for which the rooks cawed as
he rode along," was worth rohbing.
" I don't know so much ahout that," he heard
the other — obviously a highwayman — reply.
" Very often these miserable-looking people you
see on the roads disguise their wealth in this
way, and are in reality carrying a great deal of
money about with them : sometimes half a year's
rent of a considerable estate. This fellow
seems to be one of that kind. We shall see
to-morrow."
Twm remembered having seen a plaguey ill-
looking fellow in the house, and lay long awake,
wondering what he should be at, and pleased that,
anyhow, he was not to be interfered with that
night. But he felt sure of being followed as soon
as ever he left the house, and bethought him,
there and then, of an ingenious plan. Before
their very eyes next morning, he rummaged in
the peak of his saddle, as If to arrange it more
comfortably, and in so doing managed to disclose
some gold to their covetous gaze. Then he was
soon off; not travelling very fast, as may be
supposed, on his laden pony. So soon as he was
out of sight of the inn, he hopped off and
transferred the money from the saddle to his
pockets. Then he resumed his way.
Presently, as he had expected, he heard the
TWM SHON CATTI 71
highwayman thundering along in his rear. "When
the pursuer came well in sight, Twin hurriedly
dismounted again, and, unloosening the saddle,
flung it as far as he was able into a pond that
spread by the wayside. Dismounting himself,
the highwayman, leaving Twm for the moment,
plunged knee-deep into the pond for the treasure,
as he supposed, and Twm leapt nimbly on his
thoroughbred horse : no highwayman of tradition
ever riding a horse that was not thoroughbred,
whatever the sorry jades the real ones had often
to bestride.
When Twm cantered happily into Marlborough
on the highwayman's steed, and told his story,
the townspeople, who it appears had suffered
much from the knights of the road, welcomed him
as a hero, and entertained him at the Town Hall.
If he had not been in a hurry, they might perhaps
have presented him with the freedom of the borough.
Perhaps they did so on his return. He sold his
horse for a good round sum, for he thought it
dangerous to ride up to London on so fine a mount.
Therefore, armed with one pistol, he resumed the
journey on foot, and to my mind it seems either a
testimony to the honesty or the lack of enterprise
among the burgesses of Marlborough, that some
one or other of them did not follow him into the
secluded glades of Savernake Forest, through
which his road lay, and do for him.
But he neared London without other en-
counters, until he came upon Hounslow Heath.
Here the tale of the confiding highwayman and
72 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
the apparently stupid countryman, often told, but
always fresh, had its origin. Twm was duly
pulled up on the Heath by a robber, who appears
to have been none other than Tom Dorbel, famous
in his day. Dorbel was bristling with an armoury
of pistols. Our ingenious Twm, affecting to
be seized with the abject terror of a country
lout, earnestly begged the ruffian, before he
robbed him, to put half-a-dozen bullets through
his coat, so that his master might easily see how
good a fight he had made of it, before yielding
his treasure. He took off his coat for the purpose,
and the highwayman very obligingly complied
with this very reasonable request.
Twm capered about like the idiot he pretended
to be. " That wass ferry coot of you — yess,
inteet," he said ; " and if you wass put another
look you, through my hat, it wass pe petter still,
whateffer."
The highwayman, wondering what special kind
of lunatic he had happened upon, fired his last
pistol through the hat as desired, when " Now,"
said Twm, himself producing a pistol, " it iss my
turn. Out with your coin, or I will put a pig
hole through your pody." And Twm not only
saved his master's coin, but robbed the highway-
man as well.
V w
JOHN WITHERS AND WILLIAM
EDWARDS
JOHN WITHERS, one of the most ferocious of those
highwaymen who did not scruple to add murder
to their crimes, was born in the last quarter of
the seventeenth century, at Lichfield. He was the
son of a butcher, in so small a way of business
that his father could not find employment for
him ; and so, in order to get a start in life, he
set off for London. Arrived there, he was drawn
by his natural bent into the company of criminals,
and, throwing in his lot with them, was soon
arrested and found guilty on charges of larceny,
with violence. He escaped punishment by accept-
ing the offer, generally made at that time, of
enlisting in the army, and was sent out to the
Flanders expedition. Here, perhaps, we see an
explanation of the well-known expression, " Our
armies swore terribly in Flanders." If it was
composed largely of reprieved criminals, there can
be no doubt that its language could not have
been choice, nor its conduct exemplary. " My
blackguards," the Duke of Wellington styled his
men, who fought so well and endured so greatly
in the Peninsula ; for even so lately as that
75
76 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
period the rank-and-file were composed of the
offscourings of society ; but they must have been
well-mannered gentlemen, compared with the
soldiers of a century earlier.
Sacrilege presently engaged the attention of
Withers in Flanders. Entering a church in Ghent
during high mass, and observing the people
placing money in a box that stood in front of
a figure of the Virgin, he awaited a favourable
opportunity, picked the lock, and filled his pockets
with the contents. " Unfortunately," says his
sympathetic biographer, " in haste to carry off his
plunder, some of the money fell upon the pave-
ment, ringing out sharply in the stillness of the
church ; so that he was detected in the act."
Taken before the venerable Cardinal, and
examined, he was about to be taken off in custody ;
when, falling upon his knees, with uplifted hands
he begged the Cardinal to listen to him. He then
declared with ready lies, that, brought up as a
heretic, and falling into evil ways that had brought
him to want and misery, he had seen the folly
of his life, and offered prayers before the effigy
of the Virgin Mary. While he was thus praying,
he continued, the figure pointed to the box, as
if it were giving him leave to take what was
necessary to supply his wants. In consequence
of this singular interposition on his behalf, he
concluded he had made up his mind to become
a Roman Catholic, but at the moment of this
decision he had been arrested.
This singular narrative was heard by the
JOHN WITHERS AND WILLIAM EDWARDS 77
Cardinal with much surprise, and at the close of
it he exclaimed, fervently, " A miracle indeed ! "
All who had heard it also shared the same opinion
and "it being justly concluded that none had
a hetter right to dispose of the money than the
Virgin herself , to whom it was devoted," Withers
was carried in solemn procession, as a convert
singularly honoured, and placed before the high
altar while an Ave Maria was sung.
It is not, it may be added, necessary to believe
this precious story in its entirety. Withers was,
of course, as we shall see, capable of worse than
this, and the probability is that the actual theft
was committed by him; but we can hardly be-
lieve the Roman Catholic clergy quite such fools
as they figure here.
At Antwerp, Withers made a second essay in
sacrilege. There he stole a great silver crucifix.
But he felt that there was really no career for
him in these enterprises, and so, deserting from
the army, he crossed to England, and took up the
profession of highwayman.
It would be of little interest to follow Withers
in all his highway doings, but the adventure of
himself and two companions with an actor on the
road is perhaps worth repeating. They espied
one morning a gentleman walking alone and
displaying all the gestures of passion, distrac-
tion, and fury to excess; casting his eyes to
heaven, stretching forth his arms imploringly,
or folding them moodily upon his breast. Near
by was a pond.
VOL. II. Q
78 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
" Make haste ! " exclaimed Withers to his
companions, " 'tis even as we thought ; the poor
gentleman is just going to kill himself for love."
Then, rushing towards him, two of them taking
an arm each, Withers addressed him earnestly :
" Pray, sir, consider what you do ! what a sad
thing it would be to drown yourself here. Be
better advised and consider, before it is too late."
The actor was indignant. " What a plague is
all this for ? " he asked. " I am not going to
hang, stab, or drown myself. I am not in love,
but only a player, learning a part."
" A player, are you ? " rejoined Withers. " If
I had thought that, you should have drowned
yourself, or hanged yourself indeed, before we
had taken the pains to follow you up and down.
But, to make amends for our trouble, the least
you can do will be to give us what money you
have."
So saying, they bound his hands and legs
together, emptied his pockets of ten shillings, and
took away a silver-hilted sword he carried.
It is, in this connection, curious to observe the
animus displayed against the stage. It is met
largely in the satire of the time, and not
merely in the literature inspired by the Puritans,
but even in those by no means puritanical books
and plays in which the highwaymen figure as
heroes. Thus, in the play, the Prince of Priggs,
written around the career of Captain Hind, but
not intended to be staged, we find the prologue
chiefly concerned with a sneer at those " apes and
JOHN WITHERS AND WILLIAM EDWARDS 79
parrots," silenced under the sour rule of the
Commonwealth :
Since that the Apes and Parrots of the Stage,
Are filenc'd by the Clamours of the Age ;
Like Conies forc'd to feed on bran and grafs,
(The true Defciples of Pithagoras)
Whofe Copper- Lace,1 and Copper -Nofes once
Made them to think themfelves great Prester-Johns :
You'l (fure) have caufe to praife, and thank that man,
Can make each thief a compleat Roftian :
Then much good doe't you (Sirs) fall to and eat,
You ne're had cheaper (perhaps) better meat.
The last adventure of Withers was that in
which he and a companion, William Edwards by
name, near Beaconsfield beset a nobleman and his
servant. Withers' horse was shot in the resistance
they made, and, mounting behind his friend, they
took to flight. But the horse with two riders was
no match for the others, not so heavily burdened ;
and, being hard pressed along the road, the two
fugitives dismounted and ran across country in the
direction of London. Sleeping in the hedges
overnight, the next morning they continued their
flight. Meeting, one mile on the London side of
Uxbridge, with a penny postman, they robbed
him of eight shillings ; and Withers, to prevent
their being identified, drew a large butcher's knife
he carried, and barbarously cut his throat. They
then ripped up his body, filled his stomach with
stones, and flung him into the little stream that
here flows across the road. The burial registers of
Hillingdon church bear witness to this and to
1 i,e. imitation gold-lace,
8o HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
another murder they appear to have committed at,
or near, the same place ; " 1702, November 13.
Will Harrison, Postman, murdered near the
Great Bridge between Hillingdon and Uxbridge.
November 28. Edward Symonds, Drover, mur-
dered at the same time, and about the same place,
and by the same hands."
Withers and Edwards were arrested the follow-
ing January in Norfolk, for a highway robbery
committed there, and were tried and executed at
Thetford, April 16th, 1703.
PATRICK O'BEIAN
" PATRICK O'BRIAN," says Captain Alexander
Smith, " was a native of Ireland." Perhaps we
might, without undue stress of mind, have guessed
as much. It seems that his parents were very
indigent natives of Loughrea, and so Patrick left
his native land for England, and presently enlisted
in the Coldstream Guards. But he was not a
good soldier ; or, at any rate, if good in that
profession, infinitely better in the practice of all
kinds of vice. He was resolved not to want
money, if there were any to be obtained, no
matter the means to it ; but began cautiously by
running into debt at public-houses and shops ; and
then followed up that first step by borrowing
from every acquaintance, until that source was
dried up.
When all these means to existence were
exhausted, O' Brian went upon the road. The
first person whom he met was, strange to say,
another unmitigated scoundrel : none other, in
fact, than the Reverend William Clewer, vicar of
Croydon, who here demands a little paragraph
entirely to himself.
William Clewer, who was collated to the
81
82 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
living of Croydon in 1660, was notorious, we are
told, for his singular love of litigation, un-
paralleled extortions, and criminal and disgraceful
conduct. His character became so bad, and his
ways of life so notorious, that he was eventually
ejected in 1684. He must have been, indeed,
pre-eminently bad, to have been ejected in that
easy-going age. Dispossessed of his living, on
these substantial grounds, he at last died, in 1702,
and was buried in St. Bride's, Fleet Street.
"We are indebted to Smith for the account of
the meeting of O 'Brian and this shining light
of the clerical profession :
" O' Brian, meeting with Dr. Clewer, who was
try'd once and burnt in the hand at the Old
Bailey for stealing a silver cup, coming along
the road from Acton, he demanded his money ;
but the 'reverend doctor having not a farthing
about him, O' Brian was for taking his gown. At
this our divine was much dissatisfied ; but, per-
ceiving his enemy would plunder him, quoth he :
' Pray, sir, let me have a chance for my gown ' ;
so, pulling a pack of cards out of his pocket, he
further said : ' We'll have, if you please, one game
of all-fours for it, and if you win it, take it and
wear it.' This challenge was readily accepted
by the footpad ; but, being more cunning than
his antagonist at slipping and palming the cards,
he won the game, and the doctor went contentedly
home without his canonicals."
On one memorable occasion, 0' Brian happened,
in his lurkings upon the road, to stop a man who
PATRICK O 'BRIAN 83
proved to be an acrobat, and who, when Patrick
bade him " stand and deliver ! " instantly jumped
over his head. The ignorant and superstitious
Irishman thought he had chanced upon the
devil himself, come to sport with him before his
time, and while he was trembling and crossing
himself, the acrobat, rolling along the road in
a series of somersaults and cartwheels, got clear
away.
These adventures appear to have been mere
tentative experiments, for we learn that 0' Brian
then deserted from the army and commenced
highwayman in earnest. He one day stopped the
carriage of none other than Nell Gwynne and
addressed her thus : " Madam, I am a gentleman.
I have done a great many signal services to the
fair sex, and have, in return, been all my life
maintained by them. Now, as I know you to be
a charitable woman, I make bold to ask you for
a little money ; though I never had the honour
of serving you in particular. However, if any
opportunity shall ever fall in my way, you may
depend upon it I will not be ungrateful."
Nell, we are told, made this mercenary knight-
errant a present of ten guineas.
It was the same with O' Brian as with every
other wicked man, says Smith ; he was eager to
lead others into the evil path himself had chosen.
In particular, he induced a young man named
Wilt to become a highwayman ; and Wilt was
unfortunate enough to be apprehended in his first
experiment and to be hanged for it.
84 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
O' Brian was also arrested, and hanged at
Gloucester. After his body had swung the usual
time, it was cut down and his friends were allowed
to carry it off. When it was taken indoors, it
was observed to move slightly, strange to say ;
upon which a surgeon was hurriedly called ; and,
what with being bled and his limbs being exercised,
O'Brian was presently restored to life.
This marvellous recovery was kept a strict
secret for a time, and it was hoped the experience
would have a salutary effect, the more especially
as his friends were willing to contribute towards
his support in some retired employment. He
agreed to reform his life, and, indeed, while the
memory of the bitterness of death was fresh upon
him, kept his promise; but as that dreadful
impression wore off by degrees, he returned to his
former ways. Abandoning an honest life, he
procured a horse (Smith says he purchased one,
but we may be allowed our doubts upon that
matter) " and other necessaries " : i.e. pistols,
powder and ball, and sword, and again visited the
road.
This was about one year after his execution
and supposed death, and the travelling public of
the districts he had principally affected had long
grown tired of congratulating themselves upon
his disappearance, and were quite accustomed to
thinking of him as a memory. It was, therefore,
a bad shock to the gentleman whom he had last
robbed, and for plundering whom he had been, to
all appearance, satisfactorily turned off, when he
PATRICK 0' BRIAN 85
was the first person to be stopped by O' Brian in
this second series of his adventures.
His consternation, we are told, and may readily
believe, was great. " Wher — why ? " he asked,
with chattering teeth, " I ther — thought you had
been hanged a twelvemonth ago."
" So I was," rejoined O' Brian, " and therefore
you ought to imagine that what you see now is
only my ghost. However, lest you should be so
uncivil as to hang my ghost too, I think the best
way is to secure you." So saying, he discharged
a pistol through the gentleman's head, and,
alighting from his horse, in a fury hewed the
body to pieces with his hanger.
Later, he committed a fearful atrocity in Wilt-
shire, which, although fully detailed in con-
temporary literature, cannot be set forth here.
He carried off at the same time no less a sum of
money than £2,500 ; but was fortunately brought
to justice after a further two years of miscellaneous
plundering, chiefly through the evidence of an
accomplice lying under sentence of death in
Bedford gaol. He was taken at his lodgings
in Little Suffolk Street, by the Hay market, and
then sent down to Salisbury, to be tried for his
Wiltshire enormity. Once lodged in gaol there,
he confessed a series of crimes, for which he was
executed on April 30th, 1689, aged thirty-one.
VOL. II. 10
JACK BIRD
JACK BIRD was humbly born and as humbly
educated. When it is added that he was born in
the second half of the seventeenth century, it
will rightly be supposed that his education did
not include any of the sciences, and that it
probably did not go far beyond teaching him to
write his own name. He had no use for even
that small accomplishment, for he was apprenticed
to a baker, and before his indentures were expired
had run away and 'listed for a soldier in the foot-
guards ; being almost immediately sent out to the
Low Countries. He served under the Duke of
Monmouth at the siege of Maestricht, but found
too many masters in the army, and so deserted
and made his way to Amsterdam, where he
commenced a new career by stealing a piece of
silk. He was detected in the act, taken before
a magistrate, and condemned to a term of hard
labour in the "rasp-house," where he was set to
rasping log-wood, and to other severe drudgeries,
for the term of twelve months. Unaccustomed
to such hard labour, Jack fainted at his tasks, but
the labour-master set it down to laziness, and to
cure it, chained him in the bottom of an empty
86
JACK BIRD 87
cistern by one foot, and caused a number of taps
to be turned on, so that the cistern began rapidly
to fill and the prisoner to be obliged, as the cistern
was deeper than his own height, to work vigor-
ously at a pump fixed in it, lest the water should
gain upon, and drown, him. An hour's experience
of this ingenious punishment rendered him quite
anxious to return to the labour that had before
been too much for him.
At the end of his term of bondage he hastened
to take leave of Holland and the Hollanders, who
had proved themselves such connoisseurs in quaint
punishments. In England, justice certainly was
more severe, and hanged men who stole quite
trivial things, but it did not make people perform
such hard labour, and Jack was one of those who
would rather die than work. There are many
of his kind even now.
Although hard labour was distasteful to our
hero, he was by no means satisfied to live as
humbly as he had been born, and his thoughts
turned lightly to the road, as a likely place on
which to pick up a good living without over-
exertion. There was the choice of footpad or
highwayman, and of course he chose the higher
branch of the profession ; for a footpad had to
pad the hoof and be content, after all, with
robbing the comparatively poor; while a high-
wayman could cut a fine figure on horseback,
plunder the best, and be at little personal
fatigue in doing so. Many foolish fellows,
commencing highwayman, would hire, or even
88 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
purchase, a horse; not so Jack Bird. "Thorough"
was his motto, and he began business by stealing
the mount he fancied. At the same time he took
excellent good care to go fully armed, for we
read that he provided himself with six good pistols
and a broadsword. In this fortified condition,
and in the dress of a gentleman, he opened his
campaign. His first few attempts were highly
successful, but he soon learned, in a painful
adventure on the Dover Road, between Gravesend
and Chatham, that fortune is fickle. There he
encountered one Joseph Pinnis, a pilot, who was
returning from London, where he had received
ten or twelve pounds for piloting a Dutch ship
up-river. He had been so unfortunate as to
lose both hands during an engagement in the
Dutch war, some years earlier, and it seemed
to our callous highwayman an easy task to rob
him.
Summoned to " Stand and deliver ! " the pilot
replied, " You see, sir, that I have never a hand,
so cannot take my money out of my pocket. Be
so kind, therefore, as to take the trouble to search
me."
The highwayman, without the slightest mis-
giving, complied with this very reasonable request,
and securing the pilot's purse, began to examine
its contents, when he found himself suddenly
seized around the waist by the traveller, who
appeared to have enormous strength in his arms,
even though he had no hands. He succeeded in
overthrowing the highwayman, and falling upon
JACK BIRD 89
him, beat him fearfully about the face with his
metal-shod wrists.
Presently some other travellers approached,
and, asking the cause of the struggle, Pinnis told
them : asking them to take a hand and give the
ruffian a further drubbing, and adding that he
was almost out of breath with what he had done
already.
The travellers then, informed of the whole
affair, conducted Bird in custody to a magistrate,
who committed him to Maidstone gaol, where he
was tried and condemned to death, but was after-
wards, for some reason that has escaped the
historian, pardoned and set at liberty, to work
more outrages upon unarmed and inoffensive folk.
At first, however, the danger and indignity
he had passed through, of being so completely
vanquished by a handless man, whom he had at
first foolishly despised, quite put him out of
conceit with himself and the road, and he resolved
to abandon an employment which had at first
promised so well, only to turn out so ill. But
work — real work — was uncongenial as ever, and as
he had to exist somehow, it happened that the
road called him successfully again, after all.
The first person he encountered in his new
series of adventures was a "Welsh drover, who
proved to be a muscular man, and the very devil
of a fellow with that nasty weapon, the quarter-
staff. "Once bit, twice shy," murmured Jack,
withdrawing swiftly out of reach. " If a villain
of a sailor without hands can overthrow me, I
90 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
shall not venture my carcase within reach of one
that has hands, for fear of something worse." So,
he pulled a pistol from the armoury he carried in
his belt, and from a safe distance shot the drover
through the head. He then searched the body
and found, to his disgust, only eighteenpence.
But he summoned what philosophy he could over
this disappointment, and, cynically remarking
that " 'Tis a price worth killing a man for, any
time," rode off without the least remorse.
On another occasion he met the original
" Poor Robin," the almanac- writer and humorous
prognosticator ; and as he did not disdain to exact
contributions from the poor, as well as the rich
(although " Poor Robin " probably was by no
means so poor as his name would imply), he desired
the calendar-maker to halt and surrender. As
this was the first time Poor Robin had heard such
language, and as he had received no hint of this
occasion from the stars, he stood and stared, as if
himself had been planet-struck.
" Come now," said Jack, " this is no child's
play : I am in earnest."
Robin pleaded the poverty to which, he said,
his nickname bore witness.
" That," returned Bird, " is a miserable, thread-
bare excuse, and will not save your bacon."
" But," pleaded the almanac-maker, " as
author of those calendars that yearly come out
in my name, I have canonised a great many
gentlemen of your profession ; look in them for
their names, and let this be my protection."
JACK BIRD 91
But all in vain; Bird ransacked his pockets,
and from them extracted fifteen shillings, took a
new hat from his head, and requested him, as he
had now given him cause, to canonise him also.
" Ay ! " exclaimed Poor E/obin grimly, " that
will I, when you have suffered martyrdom at
Tyburn, which will not be long hence."
" Poor Robin's " publications, it may be said,
in this connection, are well worth examination.
In an age when Lilly, Perkins, and a host of
others issued prophetic almanacs, divining future
events from the stars, and were extensively be-
lieved in, " Poor Robin's " almanac, year by year,
made much fun out of those pretensions; fun
that sometimes reads curiously modern. Seven-
teenth-century humour is, as a rule, as flat to the
modern taste as champagne opened and left to
stand, but much of " Poor Robin's " wit and
humour still sparkles. While Perkins, with a
provoking solemnity, would give a chronological
table of events from the Year One and would
proceed by degrees from " Adam, created 1, B.C.,
3962," and would continue by way of "Methu-
selah, born 687, B.C., 2306," to " The Tyrant Oliver
began his government, December 16th, 1653 " ;
" Poor Robin " would devote his attention largely
to the days when highwaymen were hanged, and
would draw farcical conclusions from planetary
dispositions. Thus we find him saying :
" Now the effects of the conjunction of Saturn
and Mars will much operate : such conjunctions
are always attended with remarkable accidents.
92 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
There was one in the year 1672, and the German
Princess rode up Holborn Hill ; another in 1673,
and Du Vail visited the three-legged tenement at
Hyde Park Corner. I might instance in divers
other examples, but these shall suffice."
The so-called " German Princess " was an
adventuress, really a native of Canterbury, and a
daughter of one of the choristers in the Cathedral
there, named Moders. She was hanged at Tyburn,
in 1678 (not in 1672), and so was Du Vail (not at
Hyde Park Corner, and not in 1673).
In his burlesque monthly forecasts of the
weather and public events, he evidently reflects
upon his serious contemporaries, whose predictions
would occasionally go wrong, and who, like our
modern " Old Moore," would in consequence grow
less cocksure and more cautious, and would then
more or less cleverly tell readers to " expect "
something or other, together with such eminently
safe remarks for February and March as, " Wind
and rainstorms are to be looked for by the
farmer."
In February 1664, for example, " Poor Robin,"
in burlesque of this kind of thing, warns his readers
to " expect some showers of rain, either this month
or the next, or the next after that, or else we shall
have a very dry spring. . . . The twenty-seventh
day of this month died Cardinal Mazarine, and if
you would know the reason why he died, then, I
answer, it was because he could live no longer."
Under June, he declares that, " If the frost nips
the fruit trees, there will be no apples." In July,
JACK BIRD 93
" Fleas will grow troublesome, and will lie with
you without leave," and elsewhere we find that
" Tyburn shall be a great eye-sore to High- way
men and cut-purses," and that " The leafless tree
betwixt London and Paddington will this month
bear fruit, but it will be only Medlers, and they
are stark naught until they are rotten." The
which extracts fully illustrate the allusions in the
short life of Jack Bird.
Made bold by a long series of successes, Bird
procured a good horse and determined never again
to stoop to robbing for mere shillings. A meeting
with the Earl of , rolling along in his
carriage, accompanied by his chaplain, and at-
tended by two servants, gave him his first oppor-
tunity of putting this excellent determination
into practice.
" You must stop, my lord ! " exclaimed Bird,
threatening him with one pistol, and the coach-
man with the other.
" The devil I must ! " said his lordship ; " who
the " — here the chaplain gave a loud cough,
and the word was lost in the throaty rasp he pro-
duced— " what the " (" ahem ! " from the chap-
lain) " are you then, fellow, that you bid me pull
up on the roadway for you, you ? "
" An honest collector of tolls, your lordship,"
said Bird : " your purse this instant ! "
" So ! that is the way of it ? " replied his lord-
ship. " I am very little anxious about the small
sum I have about me, but I intend you shall fight
for it."
VOL. II. II
94 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Bird then flew into a passion, and swore
terribly, after the low fashion then proverbially
prevalent among our soldiers in the Low Countries.
He waved his pistols excitedly.
" Don't lose your temper," said my lord.
" When I said * fight,' I meant boxing, and not
shooting, and I will fight you fairly for all the
money I have, against nothing."
" That is an honourable challenge, my lord,"
replied Bird, " provided none of your servants be
near us."
His lordship then commanded them to with-
draw to a distance. The chaplain, however, could
not endure the thought of the Earl fighting while
he was but an idle spectator, and requested the
honour of being his patron's champion.
Matters were arranged : the divine stripped off
his gown, and in another half a minute the scene
resounded with the thuds and grunts of the com-
batants, as they planted blows home on each other's
faces and bodies. In less than a quarter of an
hour the chaplain was knocked out of time, with
only breath enough remaining to exclaim, " I'll
fight no more ! " Bird was unquestioned victor.
" Now, my lord," said he, turning to the carriage,
" if it please your lordship, I will take a turn with
you."
"Not I ! " earnestly replied the Earl, "for if
you can beat my chaplain, you will surely beat
me, for we have tried it out before." So saying,
he handed the highwayman the sum of twenty
guineas he was xjarrying.
JACK BIRD FIGHTS THE CHAPLAIN.
JACK BIRD 97
Bird's career was closed by a foolish act. He,
in company with a woman, knocked down and
robbed a man in Drury Lane. The woman was
seized on the spot, but Bird escaped. Going, how-
ever, to visit her in prison, he himself was
arrested ; and, being found guilty, he was executed
at Tyburn, March 12th, 1690, aged forty-two.
WILL OGDEN, JACK BRADSHAW, AND
TOM REYNOLDS
WILL OGDEN, who was born in Walnut Tree
Alley, Tooley Street, Southwark, now claims our
attention. He was a waterman by trade and a
highwayman by inclination, so that he presently
exchanged the river for the road. But he did not
blossom out all at once as a fully-equipped high-
wayman. He passed a kind of transition period
of about two years in the plundering of ships lying
in the Pool, between Southwark and Billingsgate,
and in the rifling of waterside shops. In these
activities he was associated with one Tom
Reynolds, a native of Cross Key Alley, Barnaby
Street, and admiral of a sludge-barge. Being
apprehended in the burglary of a watch-maker's
shop, they were lodged in Newgate, and tried and
convicted at the Old Bailey ; but received a
pardon, on what grounds does not appear.
This ended their burgling experiences, and
they then agreed to go upon the road, in the
humbler, padding form of the highwayman's
trade.
Early in their experiences, Ogden one evening
met a parson walking home by the light of the
98
OGDEN, BRADSHAW, AND REYNOLDS 99
moon, and approached him in the character of a
distressed seaman walking the highway to the
nearest port, where he might chance to get a ship.
His dismal story excited the compassion of the
parson, who gave him sixpence and passed on.
He had not proceeded far when Ogden, who
had hurried round in advance of him by a side
lane, approached him again, and renewed his
story.
"You are the most impudent beggar I ever
met," exclaimed the parson ; but Ogden told him
he was in very great want, and that the sixpence
he had received would not carry him very far.
The parson then gave him half-a-crown, which
Ogden gratefully accepted, adding : " These are
very sad times, and there's horrid robbing
abroad ; so, if you have any more money about
you, you may as well let me have it, as another
who don't deserve it so much, and may perhaps
even ill-use you, and, binding you hand and foot,
make you lie in the cold all night. If you'll
give me your money, I'll take care of you, and
conduct you safely home."
An offer of this kind, so delicately and yet
so significantly framed, had only to be made to
be accepted by any prudent man, who did not
feel himself equal to knocking that impudent
humorist on the head ; and so the parson made
a virtue of necessity, and, as cheerfully as he
could, handed him all his money ; about forty
shillings.
Ogden then remarked, " I see you have a
ioo HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
watch, sir ; you may as well let me have that
too." Whereupon the watch also changed hands.
As they were thus plodding along two or three
men, accomplices of the ingenious Ogden, came
out of the wayside bushes; but Ogden calling
out their pass-words, " The moon shines bright,"
they let them proceed. A little further on, the
same incident was repeated, by which the parson
could clearly see that, had he not met with the
gentle and persuasive Ogden, he might in all
likelihood have fallen into far worse hands, and
have been ill-used and tied up, even as he had
been warned.
The clergyman was at last brought safely to
his own door, and so greatly appreciated this
safe-conduct — though at the loss of some forty
shillings and a watch — that he invited Ogden in ;
but that person was as cautious as ingenious,
and declined. He thought the clergyman was
laying a trap for him; but he said he had no
objection to taking a drink outside. The good
parson then brought a bottle of wine, and, drink-
ing to Ogden, gave him the bottle and the glass
to help himself, upon which he ran off with both.
A little later, Ogden met a well-known dandy
of that time, Beau Medlicott by name. He
commanded the Beau to stand and empty his
pockets, but instead of doing so, he drew his
sword and made some half-hearted passes with it.
Ogden thereupon drew his pistols, and the Beau
was obliged to yield to superior armament. But
Ogden might haye left that fashionable person
OGDEN, BRADSHAW, AND REYNOLDS 101
alone, for he had little ahout him. Like the more
or less famous music-hall character, " La-di-da,"
of whom he must surely have been the ancestor,
he was scarcely worth robbing. Of what was that
music-hall celebrity possessed ?
He'd a penny papah collah round his throat, la-di-da;
A penny papah flowah in his coat, la-di-da;
In his mouth a penny pick, in his hand a penny stick,
And a penny in his pocket, la-di-da, la-di-da,
And a penny in his pocket, la-di-da !
The contents of Beau Medlicott's pockets were
pitiful enough to draw tears of rage from any
self-respecting highwayman : consisting only of
two half-crowns ; and one of them was a brass
counterfeit !
Ogden very rightly gave that cheap toff a good
thrashing.
Reynolds does not appear in the stories
just narrated; but in addition to another ally,
Bradshaw by name, said to have been a grandson
of that Serjeant Bradshaw who was one of the
regicides, he now appears lurking in the woods on
Shooter's Hill, one night in 1714, for whatever
fortune might be pleased to send them. It was
poor sport that evening, for only a servant-girl,
one Cecilia Fowley, came along the road, carrying
her box ; but these low-down footpads despised
nothing, and were ready to rob any one.
It was not worth the while of the three, they
thought, to rush out of their lurking-place for
the sake of one servant-girl, and so they deputed
Bradshaw for the job. He accordingly sprang
102 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
into the road, seized the box, and broke it into
fragments. It contained the girl's clothes, " and
fifteen shillings, being all her wages for three
months' service." (Servants were cheap then, it
seems.)
Turning over these things, Bradshaw turned
out a hammer, which the girl seized, and suddenly
dealt him a blow with it upon the temple, followed
by another with the claw of the hammer upon
his neck, which tore his throat open. He fell
down in the road, and died there.
At that moment, up came a gentleman, to
whom the girl narrated the circumstances. He
searched the dead man's pockets, and found in
them a large sum of money and a whistle.
Putting the whistle to his mouth, he blew upon it—
a rash enough thing to do — and thereupon Ogden
and Reynolds leapt out from the wayside coverts.
Finding, however, that something disastrous had
happened, and that it was a stranger who had
whistled them, they fled.
Odgen and Reynolds at a later date met a
tallyman, who was a well-known trader in St.
Giles, and demanded his money. " Money ! " he
exclaimed ; he was merely a poor man, who had
the greatest difficulty in earning his daily bread.
" Thou spawn of h — 11 ! " exclaimed Ogden,
in a violent passion — or, at least, an excellent
imitation of it — " have pity on thee, shall I P No,
sirrah, I know thee too well, and I would almost
as soon be kind to a bailiff or an informing
constable, as to you. A tallyman and a rogue
OGDEN, BRADSHAW, AND REYNOLDS 103
are terms of similar import. Every Friday you
set up a tenter in the Marshalsea Court, upon
which you rack and stretch poor prisoners like
English broadcloth, beyond the staple of the wool,
till the threads crack ; which causes them, with
the least wet, to shrink, and presently to wear
threadbare. I say that you, and all your calling,
are worse rogues than ever were hanged at
Tyburn."
After this abominable abuse, Ogden went over
his pockets, stripped him naked, and bound him
hand and foot, and left him in a ditch, "to
ruminate on his former villainies." By which
it would seem quite evident that tallymen shared
the hatred felt for attorneys.
Ogden and Reynolds were the particular
friends of Thomas Jones and John Richardson,
the one a butler and the other a footman, in the
employ of a gentleman living at Eltham. They
instructed the footman and the butler in their
own business, and it was not long before they
took to robbing on Blackheath, whenever their
master was away from home. On one of these
occasions, they plundered a gentleman, and left
him bound on the heath, and, their master coming
home unexpectedly, found him there, and after
the manner of a Good Samaritan, took him to his
own house, and gave him a glass of wine, to
recruit his spirits. The butler no sooner appeared,
than the ill-used traveller, much to the astonish-
ment of himself and his master, recognised him
as one of the men who had attacked and robbed
VOL. II. 12
io4 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
him. The guilty pair were eventually hanged at
Rochester, on April 2nd, 1714.
Ogden and Reynolds ended at last at Kingston,
on April 23rd, 1714 ; Ogden himself dying with
an air of complete indifference. He threw a
handful of small change among the crowd, with
the remark : " Gentlemen, here is a poor Will's
farewell."
JACK OVET
JACK OVET was born at Nottingham, and after
serving his time as apprentice to a shoemaker,
took up that useful employment for a livelihood.
But he soon grew tired of his awl and his
cobblers '-wax, and disregarding the old saw which
advises cobblers (and, no doubt, also boot and shoe
makers) to " stick to their last," deserted his last
and his bench, and took to the highway. A shoe-
maker newly emancipated from his useful, but
not romantic, trade does not impress us as a figure
of romance ; but that is merely prejudice ; and
really he started off at score, and at his first essay
robbed a gentleman of twenty of the best, without
a moment's hesitation. The dispute as to whom
the guineas should belong took place on the road
to London from his native Nottingham, so you
will perceive how quickly Ovet fell into his stride.
Ovet argued that the guineas were rightly his,
"by the law of capture"; thus following the
theory of the poet who put the law of ownership
in property so neatly in declaring it :
His to take who has the power,
And his to keep who can.
" Yours, you impudent scoundrel ! " bellowed
105
io6 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
the traveller ; " if I had not been taken unawares,
we would have seen about that."
Ovet, already prepared to take the ancient
traditional line of chivalric consideration, said he
would fight fairly for the money. " Here it is
again, and whoever is best man, let him keep it."
The enraged traveller agreed to this proposal, and
they fell to fighting with swords, with the result
that the gentleman was mortally wounded, and
Ovet went off with the purse.
Our ex-shoemaker was a quarrelsome fellow,
and soon after this killed another man in a heated
dispute, but escaped capture. Skulking in remote
places, afraid of being taken at a disadvantage, he
soon found himself short of money, and waylaid a
train of pack-horses. Cutting open their packs, he
discovered a number of guineas among the goods,
and finally went off with a hundred and eighty,
and three dozen silver knives, forks, and spoons.
One day Jack Ovet, drinking at a wayside inn,
overheard a soapboiler and a carrier consulting
how the carrier could most securely carry a
hundred pounds to a friend in the country. It
was finally decided to convey the money in a
barrel of soap. The carrier was highly pleased
with the notion, and laughingly remarked that if
any rogue were to rob his waggon, " the devil's
cunning must be in him if he looks for any money
in the soap -barrel."
Jack Ovet, later in the day, overtook him upon
the road and commanded him to stop, else he
would shoot both him and his horses.
JACK OVET 107
" I must make bold to borrow a little money
out of your waggon," he said ; " therefore, if you
have any, direct me to it, that I may not lose any
time, which, you know, is always precious."
The carrier, quite unmoved in his fancied
security, replied that he had none, and if he did
not believe him, he might, if he would, search
every box and bundle in his waggon.
Ovet then, simulating a violent passion, began
to toss down every box, parcel, and barrel in the
waggon, until at last, coming to the soap-barrel, he
flung it down with all his force, so that it broke
in pieces, the money-bag appearing in midst of
the soap scattered on the road.
Then, jumping down, he exclaimed, " Is not
he that sells this soap a cheating villain, to put
this bag of lead into it, to make the barrel weigh
heavier ? However, that he may not succeed in
his roguery, I'll take it and sell it in the next
house I come to, for it will wet my whistle to the
tune of two or three shillings."
So saying, he was making off, when the poor
carrier cried out, " Hold, hold, sir ! that is not
lead. It is a bag with a hundred pounds in it,
for which I must be accountable."
" No, no," returned Ovet, " this can't be
money ; but if it is, tell the owner that I'll be
answerable for it, if he'll come to me."
" To you ! Where, then, sir, may one find
you ? "
" Why, truly," rejoined Ovet, with a chuckle,
"that's a question soon asked, but not so soon
io8 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
answered. The best answer I can give you is
that you'll probably find me in a gaol before night,
and then perhaps you may have what I have
taken, and forty pounds more."
The highwaymen were generally susceptible
creatures, and Ovet not less so than his brethren.
One day, robbing the Worcester stage-coach, filled
on that occasion with young women, he was
violently smitten with one in particular.
"Madam," he declared, "your charms have
softened my temper. Cast not your eyes down,
nor cover your face with those modest blushes ;
and, believe me, what I have taken from necessity
is only borrowed, and shall be honourably restored,
if you will let me know where you may be found."
The young woman gave him her address, and
a week later, overcome by the most violent
passion, he wrote her a love-letter in which, in
the most bombastic and ridiculous style, he ex-
pressed his love. "Although I had the cruelty
to rob you of twenty guineas," he concluded, " you
committed at the same time a greater robbery,
by taking my heart. Do, I implore you, direct a
favourable answer."
But this was the discouraging reply :
" SlE,-
" Yours I received with as great dis-
satisfaction as when you robbed me. I admire
your impudence in offering yourself to me as a
husband, when I am sensible it would not be long
ere you made me a hempen widow. Perhaps
JACK OVET lag
Some foolish girl or another may be so bewitched
as to go in white, to beg the favour of marrying
you under the gallows ; but, indeed, I shall
neither venture there, nor in a church, to marry
one of your profession, whose vows are treacherous,
and whose smiles, words, and actions, like small
rivulets, through a thousand turnings of loose
passions, at last arrive at the dead sea of sin.
" Should you, therefore, dissolve your eyes into
tears; were every accent in your speech a sigh;
had you all the spells and magic charms of love,
I should seal up my ears. You have already
broken your word, in not sending what you
villainously took from me ; but, not valuing that,
let me tell you, for fear you should have too great
a conceit of yourself, that you are the first, to
my recollection, whom I ever hated ; and, sealing
my hatred with the hopes of quickly reading your
dying speech, in case you die in London, I
presume to subscribe myself.
"Yours, never to command."
Soon after this harrowing dismissal, Jack Ovet
was taken, tried, and executed, ending in May
1708, in the thirty-second year of his age.
JOHN HALL, born in 1675 of poor parents in
Bishop's Head Court, off Gray's Inn Lane, was
one of those late seventeenth and very early
eighteenth-century evildoers, who anticipated the
sordid career of the modern thief, without any
redeeming qualities. A chimney-sweep by trade,
he was, among other things, a highwayman, but
he more often padded the hoof upon the highway
than rode along it, and he would turn his hand,
according to what he deemed the necessities of
the moment, to pocket-picking, shop-lifting, or
ringing the changes, with equal facility. At the
same time, he was not altogether a fortunate
malefactor. As a pickpocket, he was frequently
detected and, we learn, " treated in the usual
manner, by ducking in the horsepond," by those
who did not want the trouble of prosecuting him.
Happening upon more vindictive persons, he was
arrested, time after time, and thrown into Bride-
well and often whipped. Which was the more de-
sirable, to be flung into a horsepond, or be whipped,
it must be left to individual tastes to decide. It
depends largely, no doubt, upon the comparative
no
HALL, LOW, AND BUNCE in
filthiness of the pond and the kind of lash in use
hy the brawny warders of Bridewell.
He was eminently versatile, but the public
has ever looked with suspicion upon versatility ;
and perhaps for this, among other reasons, his
name is scarcely famous : only notorious in a small
way as a jack-of -all- trades, except honest ones,
and a great master in no particular one.
He was, it may be at once granted, industrious
enough in his perverted way, and was for always
frequenting churches, fairs, markets, and public
assemblies : he had also generally a confederate
at hand, to whom he would swiftly pass on the
swag, to be himself found empty-handed when
searched, and with nothing on him to prove his
guilt ; quite in the modern style.
He had, as a shoplifter, the same painfully
chequered fortunes that studded his pocket-
picking career with deplorable incidents. In
January 1682 he was convicted at the Old Bailey
of stealing a pair of shoes, and was whipped at
the cart's tail. A little later, still smarting from
that correction, he was back at the same trade,
and in the long span of eighteen years suffered
a series of duckings, whippings, and the distressing
indignities that are the common rewards of clumsy
rogues, sufficient to have cured many an one. But
Jack Hall was clearly an "habitual." The de-
light of sport gilded his occupation, and salved
his moral and physical hurts ; and, after all,
although he was a more than commonly blunder-
ing criminal, it was in itself no mean feat in those
VOL. II. 13
ii2 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
severe times to follow the course he steered,
and yet for so long to keep his neck out of the
noose.
After eighteen years of miscellaneous villainy,
he was convicted of breaking into the house of one
Jonathan Bretail, and for this was sentenced to be
hanged. With so lengthy a record as this, he
was fortunate indeed in receiving a pardon con-
ditional upon his being transported within six
months to the American colonies. Fortunate
colonies ! But he escaped at the last moment
from the convict ship, and England therefore did
not lose her Hall.
Having tried many kinds of petty robbery
with no very great or continued success, and being
too well known as a pickpocket and shoplifter,
against whom every pocket was buttoned, all tills
locked, and goods carefully secured, he struck
out a new line ; robbing country waggons and
stealing portmanteaus off coaches. But even here,
in this arduous branch of a thief's varied business,
ill-luck malevolently pursued him; for he was
caught in the act and convicted in 1702. This
brought him a period of two years' enforced
seclusion in Bridewell, and the painful and
disfiguring sentence of branding in the cheek,
by which all men might know him on sight for
a convicted felon, and be warned accordingly.
This inevitable carrying his own condemnation
with him wherever he went severely handicapped
him when he was again at liberty ; and it was
probably for this reason that he returned tq
HALL, LOW, AND BUNCE 115
burglary, which, conducted at night-time, might
reasonably offer inducements to a man with a
scarred face.
With Stephen Bunce, Dick Low, and others,
he broke into the shop of a baker named Clare, at
Hackney, soon after midnight. They proceeded
at once to the bakehouse, where they surprised
the journeyman and apprentice at work, and,
tying them neck and heels, threw them into the
kneading-trough. One stood guard over them
with a drawn sword, while the others went
upstairs to rob the house.
The elderly Mr. Clare was awakened from
sleep and bidden disclose where his money lay,
but he stoutly refused, in spite of all their threats,
until Hall seized a little girl, the baker's grand-
daughter. " D n me ! " he said, " if I won't
bake the child in a pie and eat it, if the old rogue
won't be civil."
Mr. Clare seems to have been alarmed by this
extravagant threat. Perhaps the flaming " F '
for felon, or " T " for thief, on Hall's cheek, made
him appear exceptionally terrible. At any rate,
Mr. Clare then revealed his hoard of gold, which
amounted to between seventy and eighty guineas ;
and with that, very satisfied, the midnight band
departed.
Although this daring raid was naturally the
subject of much excited comment, the robbers
were not captured, and they were presently bold
enough to break into the house of a man named
Saunders, a chairman in the same locality.
n6 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Saunders was informed that Hall was one of the
thieves, and, knowing him well by sight, he
pursued him and his gang at three o'clock in the
morning, accompanied by a watchman. The gang
fired at their pursuers, and the watchman fell,
wounded in the thigh. Hall escaped altogether,
and although some of his accomplices were
captured, they were acquitted, from lack of
sufficient evidence.
In 1705 Hall was again in trouble, under the
alias of " Price," but was acquitted on the charge
of housebreaking then brought against him. He
was similarly fortunate in October 1706, when
he was charged in company with Arthur Chambers
with being concerned in stealing a handkerchief.
Such a trivial theft would seem hardly to need
collaboration.
Later on, he was again in custody, but meanly
obtained his liberty by turning evidence against
two accomplices.
Finally, in 1707 he was arrested with his old
pals, Stephen Bunce and Dick Low, for a burglary
committed at the house of Captain Gruyon, near
Stepney. All three were convicted, and suffered
in company at Tyburn, on December 7th, 1707.
Dick Low was a not very distinguished person,
and indeed his name, except in association with
Hall and Bunce, is utterly unworthy of record in
these annals. He was more expert at stealing
from shops and emptying tills than in any other
branch of the thieving profession, and would have
made an expert area-sneak had areas been then in
HALL, LOW, AND BUNCE 117
existence. Unfortunately they came in about a
century later. But he was an expert at the
" running-smohble," which consisted in two or
three confederates planning to rob a shop after
dark : one going in with an exaggerated pretence
of drunkenness and creating a disturbance ; while
the others would enter on the excuse of seeing
what the matter could be, and then, turning out
the lights, clearing out the till, and laying hands
on any light articles of value that might be
within reach. One of them would come provided
with pepper, or handfuls of mud and throw it in
the faces of the shopkeeper and his assistants,
when they began to cry " Stop, thief ! "
Eor the rest, Dick Low was a violent, sullen
brute, often, like his two allies, in Newgate, and
when there generally in the bilboes for savage
assaults on his fellow-prisoners.
Stephen Bunce, or Bunch, began his iniquities
as soon as he could toddle, and, according to the
Reverend Mr. Thomas Pureney, the Ordinary of
Newgate, was old in crime while he was yet an
infant in years. Another biographer picturesquely
says he was "born a thief," which, as his parents
were the inevitably " poor but honest " folk of the
conventional type of biography, seems an extreme
criticism.
The depravity of Stephen Bunce was, however,
so precocious that, as a child, he would go and play
with the children of a charcoal-man, who lived
near his native London alley, for the express
purpose of filling his pockets with the charcoal,
u8 HALP-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and then selling it, for hot codlins, to a woman who
kept an apple-stall. One day, when the codlins
were more than ever tempting and the charcoal
not so easily to be stolen, he asked the woman for
some apples on trust, but she refused, and Stephen
resolved upon revenge.
On the next opportunity, pocketing a larger
quantity of charcoal than usual, he filled the
holes in it with gunpowder and then stopping
them with black sealing-wax, sold the charcoal to
the unsuspecting woman, who presently replen-
ished her fire with it, with the natural result that
her brazier was blown to pieces and herself almost
frightened out of her wits.
Graduating in crime as he grew up, Stephen
naturally worked his way through picking and
stealing at the coffee-houses to practising on the
road. " Amongst others of his notorious pranks, he
often played several comical tricks, the most
remarkable whereof is this, viz. : One day being
upon some prospect in Essex, and destitute of
money, as he was coming along a footpath from
Brent wood to London, he espied over the hedges a
gentleman mounted upon a very fine gelding,
valued at above forty pounds. Bunce presently
gets the length of two or three fields before the
gentleman, and going over a stile at the turning
of a lane, he there lays himself down by a ditch-
side, with his ear close to the ground, till the
gentleman was come up with him. Seeing him
lie in that posture, he asked him the meaning
of it.
HALL, LOW, AND BUNCE 119
" Bunce, in a sort of admiration, holding up his
hands, as much as to say, ' Don't disturb me,'
gave no answer for some time, and then, rising,
said, * Sir, I have heard much talk of fairies, but
could never believe there were any till now ;
for, upon my word, under this spot of ground there
is such a fine harmony of melodious tunes play-
ing, upon all sorts of charming instruments, so
ravishing to the ears, that a man with the great
transports thereof (providing they were con-
tinually to play ) could lie here for ever.'
" The gentleman, eager to hear these fine
raptures, alights from his gelding, and lays his
ear to the ground, with his face towards Bunce,
but told him he could hear nothing.
" * Oh ! sir,' replied Bunce, ' lay the other ear to
it.' With that the gentleman very attentively
lays his other ear to the ground, to hear these
harmonious sounds, and his back being then
towards Bunce, he presently mounts the gelding,
and rid as fast as he could away.
" When being come within a quarter of a mile
of Romford, he alights and turns the gelding loose,
thinking if the gentleman used any inn in that
town, the gelding would make to it; and it did
accordingly run into the ' B.ed Lion.' At the
same time, the ostler happened to come out, and,
seeing the gelding running in without a rider,
cried out, ' 0 ! master, master ; here's Mr. What-
d'ye-call-him's gelding come without him ' (calling
him by his name).
" Bunce being just by, takes the advantage qf
120 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
hearing what the gentleman's name was, and
replied that he was engaged with some gentleman
at Brentwood, desiring the innkeeper to send him
£10, and had sent his gelding for pledge, as
designing to he there himself in two or three
hours' time.
"'Ay, ay,' quoth the innkeeper, a hundred
pounds was at his service, if he had sent for it,
and accordingly gave Bunch £10, with which
he came up to London.
" Ahout four or five hours later, the gentleman
came up to the inn, puffing and blowing, in his
jack-boots, asking the innkeeper if he had seen
any one with his gelding.
" The innkeeper bid him not fret, for his man
had left his gelding there, and he had given him
£10, according to his desire.
" * Hat him for a dog,' quoth the gentleman,
' he's none of my man ; but I'm glad he's left my
gelding here and raised no more money than that
upon him. However, it shall be a warning to me
for ever, alighting from my horse to hear fairies
play upon musick.' '
'MR." AVERT AND DICK ADAMS
THEN there was Avery, who appears in the
chronicles as " Mr." Avery. He had in his youth
been apprenticed to a bricklayer, and followed
that trade when out of his indentures. He also
followed that of a highwayman, and it is recorded,
in sub-acid manner, that he worked so hard at it
that it killed him at last, against his will : which
is an oblique way of saying that it finally brought
him to Tyburn tree.
Questing one day up and down the road, like the
ravens in search of food, he met an honest trades-
man. They rode together for some time, when
Avery asked him what trade he followed. The
man replied that he was a fishmonger, and, with
a polite show of interest, asked Avery 's trade.
" Why," said the highwayman, " I am a limb of
St. Peter also."
" What ! " exclaimed the other, astonished,
" are you a fishmonger too ? Indeed, I don't
understand your meaning, sir."
Whereupon Avery, pulling out his pistol,
coolly observed : " My meaning may soon be
comprehended, for there's not a finger upon my
hand but will catch gold or silver, without any
bait at all."
VOL. II. 121 14
122 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
So, taking all the unfortunate man possessed,
and cutting the girth and bridle of his horse, to
delay any likelihood of pursuit, he rode off for
London.
On another occasion he met an exciseman on
Finchley Common. The exciseman would not
deliver his money until Avery had shot his horse
dead and threatened to do the like to him. Then,
daunted by Avery's terribly high words, and almost
frightened out of his wits to hear what dreadful
volleys of oaths came out of his mouth, he stopped
it as soon as he could with twelve pounds, saying :
" Here, take what I have, for if there be a devil,
certainly thou art one."
" It maybe so," replied Avery, " but yet much
of a devil though I am, I see an exciseman is not
so good a bait to catch him as some people would
make out."
" No, he is not," returned the exciseman ; " the
hangman is the only bait to catch such devils as
you."
It was ill work, as a rule, exchanging insults
with a highway gentleman, but Avery, content
with the main thing, rode off unmoved. He was
hanged at last, at Tyburn, January 31st, 1713.
Dick Adams, who derived from Gloucestershire
and at an early age was in the service of a respect-
able Duchess (their Graces, you know, were not all
what they might have been, in the way of personal
character, in the seventeenth century), at last
found his way into the Life Guards, but as his
pay did not suffice to support his extravagance, he
"MR." A VERY AND DICK ADAMS 123
sometimes collected upon the highway. "With
some of his companions of the road, he on one
occasion rohbed a gentleman of a gold watch and
a purse of a hundred and twenty guineas. Now
observe how the greedy are made to suffer for
their greediness ! Not content with their fine
booty, he must needs covet the gentleman's coat ;
and so cantered after him, saying : " Sir, you have
got a very fine coat on ; I must make bold to ex-
change with you ; " and off the coat had to come,
and the traveller went angry away. Presently
however, as he was riding along in that shabby
misfit, he thought he heard something jingling in
a pocket ; something that sounded very differently
from the jingling of his horse's bridle. Thrusting
in his hand, he, to his astonishment, found his
watch and all his money that Adams in his hurry
had forgotten to remove out of the pockets of his
own coat when this exchange, which certainly
proved, after all, to be no robbery, was made.
We may dwell a moment upon the rage of
Adams and his party, when they came to the
next hedgeside inn and sat down to examine their
gains, which had thus vanished away, like the
early dews of morning.
It is pleasant to read of honest men occasionally
coming to their own again, and of incidents of
painful retribution. Such an incident as that
recorded above deserves a fellow, and we find it
in the painful adventure in which Tom Taylor
was the luckless sufferer. We do not hear much
of Tom Taylor, who was, indeed, more of a pick-
i24 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
pocket than a highwayman. We do learn, how-
ever, that he was the son of a clergyman, and
that " he was executed along with Moll Jones."
Clearly, Tom Taylor was an undesirable and the
companion of undesirables. He was accustomed
to dress himself in smart clothes and attend
theatres and public entertainments, and there —
an unsuspected fine gentleman — to pick pockets.
On one such occasion he emptied a gentleman's
pocket of forty guineas, and we are told that, in
a disguise, he seated himself the next night beside
the same person, who recognised him but made
no sign, having this time come prepared. He had,
in fact, baited his pocket with a handful of guineas,
which set up a pleasant jingling and made poor
Tom's mouth water. Poor Tom, we say advisedly,
bearing in mind the sequel. He began presently
to " dive " for those guineas and found, to his
dismay, that the gentleman had really in the
truest sense, " baited " his pocket, for it had been
sewn all round with fish-hooks, and the wretched
Taylor's hand was held fast.
Having in vain attempted to disentangle him-
self, he said to the gentleman : " Sir, by a mistake,
I have somehow put my hand into your pocket,
instead of into my own " ; but, without taking the
least notice, that merciless person rose from his
seat and made for the " Rose " tavern, Tom
helplessly along with him, his hand all the while
remaining in the pocket. Arrived there, it was
no difficult matter to make him cry " Mercy ! "
and to induce him to send for one of his comrades,
"MR" A VERY AND DICK ADAMS 125
to bail him out, so to say. It cost the unfortunate
Tom Taylor eighty guineas to get free again. The
account of these things then concludes on the
proper note of poetic justice : " Nor was the
gentleman satisfied with this, but caned him in
a most unmerciful manner, and then turned him
out to the mob, who ducked him in a pond, and
broke one of his legs."
The succeeding chapters of Tom Taylor's
chequered career do not concern us, but we learn,
without surprise, that this ferocious buffeting and
bruising — to say nothing of the fish-hooks — de-
termined him to abandon the " diving " trade.
JONATHAN WILD
To cheat that arch-rogue and cunning friend and
betrayer of rogues, Jonathan Wild, out of a place
in these pages would be too mean an action. He
towers above the ordinary run of bad men as a
very giant in wickedness. Although he was
himself no highwayman, he was friend of and
associate with all of their trade, and as such
has a right here.
Jonathan Wild was a native of Wolverhamp-
ton, the son, according to some, of a carpenter ;
but, by more trustworthy records, his father was
a wig-maker. He was born about 1682. His
father apprenticed him to a Birmingham buckle-
maker. While at Birmingham he married, but,
deserting his wife and child, he made for London,
and was for a short period a gentleman's servant.
Returning for a brief space to the buckle-making
trade, he soon found himself in debt, and then,
by what was a natural transition in those times,
lodged in the Poultry Compter. The Compter
(it is also styled the Wood Street Compter) was
something over and above a prison for debtors
and others : and was indeed nothing less than an
academy and forcing-house of villainies, where
126
JONATHAN WILD 127
incipient scoundrels were brought on early in
season, like cucumbers under glass. It was not
singular in this, for all the prisons of that age
shared the like well-earned reputation. Some-
thing of the horrors of imprisonment for debt,
as then practised, may be judged by the fact
that Wild was here for four years ; but for a
portion of the time he had the advantage over
his fellow-prisoners of being appointed assistant-
gaoler. Wild never at any time lacked address
and tact, and these qualities here stood him in
good stead.
It was in this abode of despair that he first
met Mary Milliner, who was ever afterwards
associated with him. She was already old in
crime, though not in years, and was his initiator
into the first practical rogueries he knew. But
he was a criminal by instinct, and needed only
introductions to the world of crime. Once shown
the methods in vogue, he not only became a
master in their use, but speedily improved upon
them, to the wonderment and admiration of all
the cross-coves in London.
Released at length from durance, he and Mary
Milliner set up a vile establishment in Lewkenor's
Lane, and later took a low public-house, a resort
of the padding-culls of the City — the sign of the
" Cock," in Cock Alley, Cripplegate.
Wild had also made acquaintance, while in the
Wood Street Compter, of a deep-dyed scoundrel,
a certain Charles Hitchen, an ex-City marshal,
who had lost his post through irregular practices,
128 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and had become an associate with and director
of thieves, and an expert blackmailer. Hitchen
was his early instructor in the curious art of
acting as intermediary between the thieves and
those persons who had been robbed of goods, or
had had their pockets picked of watches and
other valuable jewellery ; but Wild was a genius
in his own way, with a talent for organisation
never equalled in his line, before or since, except
perhaps by Moll Cutpurse, who flourished a
century earlier. Moll, however, was ever staunch
to her friends and accomplices, but Wild was
always ready to sell his intimates and to send
them to the cart, if it were made worth his
while. So their careers run parallel for only a
little distance and then widely separate.
Wild in a very little time broke with Hitchen.
He left his instructor far behind, and did business
on so Napoleonic a scale that he speedily aroused
the furious jealousy of his sometime associate,
who, unable to contain himself at the thought
of Wild, once his pupil, taking nearly all his
profitable business away, published a singular
pamphlet, intended to expose the trade. This
was styled " The Regulator ; or, a Discovery of
Thieves, Thief -takers, and Locks " : " locks " being
receivers of stolen property. It had not the
desired effect of spoiling his rival's trade ; and
Jonathan continued to thrive amazingly. As a
broker and go-between in nearly all the felonies
of his time committed in and immediately around
London, he speedily came to the front, and he
JONATHAN WILD 129
was exceptional in that he most adroitly and
astonishingly doubled the parts of R-eceiver-
General of stolen property and self-styled " Thief-
catcher- General of Great Britain and Ireland."
It might at the first blush, and indeed even after
long consideration, seem impossible to pose with
success at one and the same time as the friend
and the enemy of all who get their living on
the cross, but Jonathan Wild achieved the ap-
parently impossible and flourished exceedingly on
the amazing paradox.
The first steps in this mesh of scoundrelism
that Wild drew are not sufficiently detailed, and
Fielding's " History of the Late Mr. Jonathan
Wild the Great " is rather an effort in whimsical,
satirical imagination than in sheer biography.
The considerable number of chap-book " Lives "
of this arch-villain are also absolutely untrust-
worthy. But it is abundantly evident that he
was a man of imagination and a master at
organising, for we find him the brain-centre of
all the robberies committed at that time in and
around London, himself the secret, supreme
director of them all, and at the same time the
apparently " honest broker " who, for a considera-
tion (quite after the old manner of Moll Cutpurse),
would undertake to restore missing property.
This self-appointed " Thief -taker " had numerous
contingents, to each of which was allotted its
special work. One attended churches, another
visited the theatres, yet another detachment de-
voted their best energies to the art of shop-lifting,
VOL. II. 15
130 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and another still took situations as domestic
servants, and in that capacity made away with
their employers' plate and jewellery. It all seems
like the fantastic imagining of a novelist, but it
is sufficiently real, and the theory of mutual
benefits accruing to Wild and his gang by this
unnatural alliance is quite sound. He received
the stolen property and held it to ransom,
dividing (more or less unfairly) the amounts re-
ceived with his thieves, who could not, without
running great risks, sell it. All concerned
benefited : the plundered citizens repurchased
their valuables cheaply, Wild took an excellent
commission, and the thieves, pickpockets, and
highwaymen made a good living without much
risk. The reverse of this charming picture of
distributed benefits was the alarming increase
of robberies and the decrease of arrests and con-
victions ; and another serious outcome of Wild's
organisation was that he absolutely commanded
the lives of those who worked with him. None
with impunity offended the great man, who
was merciless in his revenge, swearing away
the lives of those who dared cross him. Among
the numerous satirical old prints relating to
Jonathan Wild there is a gruesome picture of
devils lighting him with flaring torches on the
red way to Hell, together with a trophy of
twenty-five hanging persons, men and women,
all duly named, whom he brought to the gallows
as a result of differences of opinion in the business
matters between them, or merely for the reason
JONATHAN WILD 131
that they had outlasted their use and had become
inefficient thieves, and it would pay him better
to secure their conviction. And it is to be
observed that in all this while he was well known
to be a director of robberies and receiver of
stolen goods. It was scandalously notorious that,
while he advertised himself in the newspapers
as " Thief -catcher- General of Great Britain and
Ireland," he was colleague of those he professed
to catch. And, as the law then stood, he could
not be brought to book. Everything was possible
to the cunning and daring of Jonathan Wild,
who could not merely bring a man to trial, but
could snatch him from the very jaws of death
by making the prosecutor so drunk that he was
not present to give evidence at the trial ; where-
upon the accused was discharged.
In fifteen years' activities of this kind, Wild
amassed enormous sums. He established himself
in a fine house in the Old Bailey, conveniently
opposite Newgate, and there lived in fine style
with his Molly, the widow of a criminal who had
been hanged at Tyburn. A footman followed
him in livery ; he dined in state : " His table was
very splendid, he seldom dining under five Dishes,
the Reversions whereof were generally charitably
bestow'd on the Commonside felons." Jewellery
and valuables not ransomed were shipped by him
to Holland, in a sloop he regularly maintained
for the purpose, bringing contraband goods on the
return voyage.
There is this undoubted tribute to Jonathan
132 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Wild's greatness, that Parliament was at last
moved to pass an Act especially designed to cope
with his villainies, and to lay him by the heels.
This was the Act of 1718, "For the farther
preventing Robberies, Burglaries, and other
Felonies, and for the more effectual transportation
of Felons." A portion of this measure constituted
it a felony for any one to solicit or to accept
a reward on the pretence of restoring stolen
property to the owners, unless they prosecuted
the thieves.
But this clause was evaded without much
difficulty by the astute Wild. He merely recon-
stituted his business, and made it an Enquiry
Office, where no money was accepted. Clients
still came in numbers to him, seeking their lost
property, for it was certain, all the while, that he
had really a guilty knowledge of at least three-
quarters of the robberies committed in London.
This revised procedure was for the owners who
called upon him to be informed that he had made
enquiries, and that he had heard the articles might
be recovered if a reward was despatched to a place
named. The owners would then generally, acting
on his advice, send out, by the hands of a ticket-
porter (ticket-porters were the " commissionaires "
of that period) the reward agreed upon. The porter
was instructed to wait at a street- corner until
a person delivered a package into his hands,
whereupon he was to hand over the reward.
The celerity attending these transactions was
remarkable.
JONATHAN WILD 133
In other instances Wild would advise his
clients to advertise their loss and to offer a reward
payable to any person who should deliver the lost
property to Mr. Jonathan Wild, or at his office ;
and no questions asked. Perhaps the most mar-
vellous thing in these negotiations was the assumed
disinterestedness of Mr. Jonathan Wild himself,
who, although the most notorious evil-doer in
London, posed delightfully as the instrument of
good, restoring the lost valuables of utter strangers
entirely without fee or reward, from the Christian
love he bore the human race. Eielding truly
styled him " the Great Man."
Wild's impudence increased with his success,
and he is found petitioning the Corporation for
the freedom of the City to be conferred upon him,
in recognition of his great services in bringing
criminals to justice. It does not appear that the
City responded.
Wild's career first became seriously threatened
early in 1724, when, greatly alarmed for his own
safety, he is found imploring the Earl of Dart-
mouth to shield him from what he styles the
" persecution " of the magistrates, who, he declares,
had procured thieves and other bad characters to
swear false evidence against him. The scandal of
Wild's continued existence had at last become
too gross for even that age. But his time was
not yet come, and he continued as before ; mindful
perhaps of the old adage, " threatened men live
long." He nearly ended, however, by a more
summary process than any known to the law ; and
134 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
entirely through his own bloodthirsty treatment
of " Blueskin," one of his own associates.
Joseph Blake, better known in all the stories
of the highwaymen as " Blueskin," who was
hanged at Tyburn on November llth, 1724, was
an expert highwayman, thief, and pickpocket—
or, to speak in the professional terms then in
use among these fraternities, a " bridle- cull," a
" boman," and a " diver." He had long been a
busy servant of Jonathan, and frequently worked
in company with Jack Sheppard, but he would
perhaps be little known in these later times were
it not for his having come very near sending the
Great Man out of the world, and thus cheating
the gallows, already growing ripe for him.
" Blueskin," rebelling, it may be presumed,
against Wild on some question of money, was
promptly arrested by that astute Director-General
of Thieves, in his character of thief-taker, and
committed to Newgate on a charge of house-
breaking. It was almost invariably fatal to
quarrel, or even to have a mere difference of
opinion, with that powerful and revengeful man.
Wild was in court at the Old Bailey, to give
evidence, when " Blueskin " beckoned him over to
ttie dock. Inclining his ear to gather what the
prisoner was pretending to whisper, Wild instantly
found himself seized in " Blueskin's " frenzied
grasp, and the court with horror saw his throat
cut from ear to ear. The deed was done with a
penknife, and the wound was severe and danger-
ous, but Wild eventually recovered, much to the
JONATHAN WILD IN THE CONDEMNED CELL.
From an old Print.
136 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
surprise of those who saw the ferocity of the
attack, and greatly to the sorrow of the criminal
classes of London, who knew right well that they
were suffered to live only as long as they were
useful and profitable to Wild, and careful to
exercise a due subservience to him.
Indeed, it was at first thought that Wild must
certainly die, and Swift at that moment wrote the
famous Blueskin's Ballad, of which here are two
verses :
Then, hopeless of life,
He drew his penknife,
And made a sad widow of Jonathan's wife.
But forty pounds paid her, her grief shall appease,
And ev'ry man round me may rob, if he please.
Some rob in the customs, some cheat in the 'xcise,
But he who robs both is esteemed most wise.
Churchwardens, who always have dreaded the halter,
As yet only venture to steal from the altar.
But now to get gold
They may be more bold
And rob on the highway, since honest Wild's cold ;
For Blueskin's sharp penknife has set you at ease,
And ev'ry man round me may rob, if he please.
Swift, however, was in too great a hurry :
Jonathan Wild did not die then, and the thieves
were not yet released from his iniquitous bondage.
His wife was not then made a " sad widow,"
although she was soon to become one ; and thus
earned the remarkable distinction of having been
twice a " hempen widow."
In January of the following year, 1725, the
captain of Wild's sloop, a man named Roger
JONATHAN WILD 137
Johnson, who had been arrested on a charge of
contraband trading with Holland, sent hurriedly
to him. Wild, never at a moment's loss, assembled
a mob, and provoked a riot, by which the prisoner
was rescued.
Himself arrested at his own house in the Old
Bailey, on February 15th, 1725, on a charge of
being concerned in the theft of fifty yards of lace
from the shop of Catherine Stetham, in Holborn,
on January 22nd, he was, after considerable delay,
put upon his trial at the Old Bailey on May 15th.
The lace stolen was valued at £50.
He was further charged with feloniously
receiving of Catherine Stetham " ten guineas on
account, and under colour of helping the said
Catherine Stetham to the said lace again; and
that he did not then, nor at any time since,
discover or apprehend, or cause to be apprehended
and brought to Justice, the persons that committed
the said felony."
The evidence adduced at the trial is first-hand
information of Wild's method in organising a
robbery. Henry Kelly, one of the chief witnesses
against him, told how he went on that day to see a
Mrs. Johnson who then lived at the prisoner's house.
He found her at home, and with her the great
Jonathan and his Molly, and they drank a quartern
of gin together. By-and-by, in came a certain
woman named Peg Murphy with a pair of brocaded
clogs, which she presented to Mrs. Wild. After
two or three more quarterns of gin had passed
round, Murphy and Henry Kelly rose to leave.
VOL. II. 1 6
138 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
" Which way are you going ? " asked Wild.
" To my lodging in ' Seven Dials/ ' replied
Kelly.
" I suppose," remarked Wild, " you go along
Holborn ? "
Both Kelly and Murphy answered that they
did.
" Why, then," he said, " I'll tell you what :
there's an old blind bitch that keeps a shop within
twenty yards of Holborn Bridge and sells fine
Flanders lace, and her daughter is as blind as
herself. Now, if you'll take the trouble of calling
upon her, you may speak with a box of lace. I'll
go along with you, and show you the door."
The Judge at this moment intervened with the
question, " What do you understand by * speaking
with a box of lace ' ? "
Even in our own day judges are commonly
found enquiring the meaning of phrases whose
significance is common knowledge which one
might reasonably suppose to be shared even on
the Olympian heights of the King's Bench and
other exalted divisions of the High Court. Every
one in Jonathan Wild's day understood perfectly
well that to " speak with " a thing was to steal
it, and this was duly expounded to his lordship.
Then Kelly went on to explain how Wild,
himself, and Murphy went along Holborn Hill until
they came within sight of the lace-shop, which
Wild pointed out to them.
" You go," he said, " and I'll wait here and
bring you off, in case of any disturbance."
'o u><vre nerely dcwd
acccmp
SATIRICAL INVITATION-CARD TO EXECUTION OP JONATHAN WILD.
i4o HALF-HOVRS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Murphy and Kelly accordingly entered, in the
character of purchasers, and turned over several
kinds of lace, pretending to be very difficult to
please. This piece was too broad, that too narrow,
and t'other not fine enough. At last the old
woman went upstairs to fetch a finer piece, when
Kelly took a tin box of lace and gave it to
Murphy, who hid it under her cloak. Then the
old woman came down with another box and
showed them several more pieces, but the con-
federates made as if they could not agree about
the price, and so left the shop and joined Wild,
where they had parted from him. They told him
they had " spoke " ; whereupon they all returned
to his house and opened the box, in which they
found eleven pieces of lace. " Would they have
ready money ? " asked Wild, " or would they wait
until the advertisement for the stolen lace came
out ? "
Funds were very low at the time with Murphy
and Kelly, and they asked for ready money,
Wild then giving them about four guineas.
" I can't afford to give any more," he said,
" for she's a hard-mouthed old bitch, and I shall
never get above ten guineas out of her."
Kelly took the lion's share of the money —
three guineas — and Murphy had the remainder.
Wild was acquitted on the first charge, of being
concerned in the actual theft, but for feloniously
receiving the ten guineas the trial was continued.
Catherine Stetham the elder said that on
January 22nd she had a box of lace, valued
JONATHAN WILD 141
at £50, stolen out of her shop. She went, that
same night, to the prisoner's house to enquire
after it ; but, not finding him at home, she
advertised the stolen goods, offering a reward
of fifteen guineas, and no questions to be asked.
There was no reply to her advertisement, and she
went again to the prisoner's house, and saw him
there. He asked her to give a description of the
persons she suspected, which she did, as nearly
as she could, and he promised to make enquiries,
and suggested she should call again in three days.
She did so, when he said he had heard some-
thing of her lace, and expected to hear more in
a little time. Even as they were talking a man
came in and said that, by what he had learned,
he believed a man named Kelly, who had already
stood his trial for passing gilded shillings, had
been concerned in stealing the lace.
She then went away, and returned on the day
the prisoner was apprehended. She had told him
that, although she had advertised a reward of only
fifteen guineas for the lace, she would be prepared
to give twenty, or even five-and-twenty, rather
than lose it.
" Don't be in such a hurry, good woman,"
he rejoined ; " perhaps I may help ye to it for
less, and if I can, I will. The persons that have
got your lace are gone out of town ; I shall set
them quarrelling about it, and then I shall get it
the cheaper."
On March 10th he sent her word that if she
would go to him at Newgate, with ten guineas in
i4» HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
her pocket, he would be able to help her to her
lace. She went. He asked her to call a porter,
but she told him she did not know where to find
one, so he sent out and obtained a ticket-porter.
The porter was given ten guineas, to call upon the
person who was said to have the lace, and he
returned in a little while with a box which was
said to contain all the lace, with the exception of
one piece.
" Now, Mr. Wild," said she, " what must I
give you for your trouble ? "
" Not a farthing, madam," said he. " I don't
do these things for worldly interest, but for the
benefit of poor people who have met with mis-
fortunes. As for the piece of lace that is missing,
I would not have ye be uneasy, for I hope to get
it for you ere long ; nay, and I don't know but in
a little time I may not only help ye to your ten
guineas again, but to the thief too. And if I can,
much good may it do you ; and as you are a
widow and a good Christian, I desire nothing of
ye but your prayers ; and for them I shall be
thankful. I have a great many enemies, and God
knows what may be the consequences of this
imprisonment."
The consequences were the most serious known
to the law. Wild was sentenced to death. No
sentence in that court had ever been so popular.
When asked if he had anything to say why this
judgment should not be passed upon him, he
handed a paper to the Judge, setting forth the
numbers of criminals he had been instrumental in
JONATHAN WILD 143
bringing to Justice, and in a very feeble voice
said : " My lord, I hope I may, even in the sad
condition in which I stand, pretend to some little
merit, in respect of the services I have done
my country, in delivering it from some of the
greatest pests with which it was ever troubled.
My lord, I have brought many a bold and daring
malefactor to just punishment, even at the hazard
of my own life, my body being covered with scars
received in these undertakings. I presume, my
lord, to say I have some merit, because, at the
time these things were done, they were esteemed
meritorious by the Government ; and therefore I
beg, my lord, some compacsion may be shown,
upon the score of these services. I submit myself
wholly to His Majesty's mercy, and humbly beg a
favourable report of my case."
But the law had too long been waiting for
him, and his enormities were too great, for any
mercy to be hoped for ; and he was left to die.
He did not afford an edifying spectacle in that
condemned hold to which he had consigned so
many, reflecting that, as " his Time was but short
in this World," it was necessary to improve it
to the best advantage " in Eating, Drinking,
Swearing, Cursing, and talking to his Visit-
ants." His old crony, the Reverend Thomas
Pureney, the Ordinary, he flouted ; and, for the
little spiritual consolation he at the last moment
required, he called in an outsider. But this
did not prevent Pureney from concocting a
lying account and offering it for sale after his
144 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
execution. Therein we read, as though in Wild's
own words :
"Finding that there was no room for mercy (and
how could I expect Mercy, who never show'd any?),
as soon as I came into the condemned Hole, I began
to think of making a preparation for my Soul ; and
the better to bring my stubborn Heart to Repent-
ance, I thought it more proper to have the advice
and the Council and Directions of a Man of
Learning, a Man of sound Judgment in Divinity,
and therefore Application being made to the
reverend Mr. Nicholson, he very Christian-like
gave me his Assistance : And I hope that my
Repentance has been such as will be accepted in
Heaven, into which Place, I trust in God, my Soul
will quickly be received. To part with my Wife,
my dear Molly, is so great an Affliction to me,
that it touches me to the Quick, and is like
Daggers entering into my Heart. As she is
innocent, and I am the Guilty Man, let her not
suffer in her Charracter and R/eputation for my
Crimes : Consider that she is a Woman, and how
ungenerous it would be to reflect upon one whose
weakness will not permit her to defend herself
so well as her Innocence will carry her.
" And now, good People, you see to what a
shameful End my Wickedness has brought me; take
warning therefore by my Example, and let my
unhappy Fate deterr you from following wicked
Courses, and cause such of you to forsake your
Crimes, who are now fallen into them. Remem-
ber that though Justice has leaden feet, yet she
( ",r
JONATHAN WILD ON THE WAY TO EXECUTION.
JONATHAN WILD 147
has Iron hands, and sooner or later will overtake
the unwary Criminal. I am now upon the point
of departing out of this World ; joyn with me,
therefore, in Prayer while I have life, and pray to
God to receive my poor Soul into his blessed
Arms, and to make us all happy with our Saviour
Jesus Christ. Amen."
All the foregoing was the sheer invention of
the egregious Pureney, and Wild really went
unrepentant to his end at Tyburn, May 24th, 1725.
He sought, by taking laudanum, to cheat the
gallows of its due, but failed in the attempt. The
day of his execution was one of great rejoicings in
London, and huge crowds lined the way, pelting
Wild, as he rode in the cart, with stones and dirt.
VOL. II. 17
NICHOLAS HOKNEE,
NICHOLAS HORNER was a younger son of the vicar
of Honiton, in Devonshire, and was born in 1687.
He was wild and unmanageable almost from
infancy, and showed little promise of remaining in
the humble post of attorney's clerk, in which his
father placed him, in London, when he was seven-
teen or eighteen years of age. He remained,
however, with the attorney for three years, learn-
ing more in the way of drinking and dicing at the
" Devil " and the " Apollo " taverns in the Strand,
than of law in Clement's Inn. He then ran away,
and remarked when he exchanged his quill-pen,
his parchments, and his stool in the lawyer's office,
for the pistols, the crape mask, and the mettle-
some horse of the highwayman, that he was
only exchanging one branch of the profession to
which he had been articled for another and a higher
— becoming a "highway lawyer," a "convey-
ancer " and a " collector." Unfortunately for him,
he began to practise in this new branch before he
had properly made himself acquainted with the
rudiments of its procedure, and was in consequence
taken in an interview with his first client, and
lodged in Winchester gaol, where he remained for
148
NICHOLAS HORNER 149
three months before his trial came on. In the
meanwhile, the friends of his family, seeing how
scandalous a thing it would be if a clergyman's
son were convicted of highway robbery, and sen-
tenced to die by the rope of the hangman, strongly
endeavoured to persuade the gentleman whom he
had robbed to fail in identifying him. But their
efforts were fruitless, for he was determined to
prosecute, and the trial in due course was held,
and the prisoner found guilty and formally sen-
tenced to death.
His friends were more successful in the
petitions they forwarded to the Queen, herself
an excellent Churchwoman, and disposed to stretch
a point that its ministers might be saved from
unmerited reproach. Horner was pardoned on
condition that his friends undertook that he
should be sent out of the kingdom within three
months, and that they should undertake to keep
him in exile for seven years. It was an excellent
offer, and they accepted, shipping him to India,
where he remained for the stipulated time, passing
through many adventures which, although de-
tailed by Smith, are not concerned with the
highway portion of his career, and are not even
remotely credible.
Returning to his native shores, he found both
his father and mother dead, and received from the
executors of his father's will the amount of £500,
all his father had to leave him. That sum did not
last him long. What are described as "the
pleasures of town " soon brought him again to his
150 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
last guinea ; and he, of course, once more took
to the road.
"Well overtaken, friend," he said to a farmer
he came up with on the road. " Methinks you
look melancholy ; pray what ails you, sir ? If
you are under any afflictions and crosses in the
world, perhaps I may help to relieve them."
" Ah ! my dear sir," replied the farmer, " were
I to say I had any losses, I should lie, for I have
been a thriving man all my life, and want for
nothing ; but indeed I have crosses enough, for I
have a d — d scolding wife at home, who, though
I am the best of husbands to her, and daily do my
best to make her and my children happy, is always
raving and scolding about the house like a mad-
woman. I am daily almost nagged out of my
life. If there be such a thing as perpetual motion,
as some scientific men say, I'm sure it is in my
wife's tongue, for it never lies still, from morning
to night. Scolding is so habitual to her that she
even scolds in her sleep. If any man could tell
me how to remedy it, I have a hundred pounds in
gold and silver about me which I would give him
with all my heart, for so great a benefit which
I should receive by the taming of this confounded
shrew."
Horner, listening to this most pleasant tune
of a hundred pounds, said : " Sir, I'll just tell the
ingredients with which nature first formed a scold,
and thus, the cause of the distemper being known,
it will be easier to effect a cure. You must under-
stand, then, that nature, in making a scold, first
NICHOLAS HORNER 151
took of the tongues and galls of bulls, bears,
wolves, magpies, parrots, cuckoos, and nightin-
gales, of each a like number ; the tongues and tails
of vipers, adders, snails, and lizards, six each ;
aurum fulminans, aqua fortis, and gunpowder, of
each a pound ; the clappers of seventeen bells, and
the pestles of thirty apothecaries' mortars, which
becoming all mixed, she calcined them in Mount
Stromboli and dissolved the ashes in water, distilled
just under London Bridge at three-quarters flow-
tide, and filtered through the leaves of Calepin's
dictionary, to render the operation more verbal ;
after which she distilled it again through a
speaking-trumpet, and closed up the remaining
spirits in the mouth of a cannon. Then she
opened the graves of all recently-deceased petti-
foggers, mountebanks, barbers, coffeemen, news-
mongers, and fishwives at Billingsgate, and with
the skin of their tongues made a bladder, covered
over with drumheads and filled with storms,
tempests, whirlwinds, thunder and lightning.
Lastly, to irradiate the whole elixir, and make
it more churlish, she cut a vein under the tongue
of the dog-star, drawing thence a pound of the
most choleric blood ; and from which sublimating
the spirits, she mixed them with the foam of a
mad dog; and then, putting all together in the
before-mentioned bladder, stitched it up with
the nerves of Socrates' wife."
" A damned compound, indeed," said the
farmer ; " and surely it must be impossible for any
man to tame a shrew at this rate."
152 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
" Not at all," replied Homer, " for when she
first begins to he in her fits, you shall perceive it
by the bending of her brows ; then apply to her a
plaster of good words : after that, give her a
wheedling potion ; and if that will not do, take a
bull's tail, and, applying the same with a strong
arm from shoulder to flank, it shall infallibly
complete the cure."
The farmer was very well pleased with this
prescription, and, giving Homer many thanks and
treating him liberally at the next inn, they con-
tinued to ride on together. At last, coming to
a convenient place, Homer said, " Please pay me
now, sir, for my advice."
" I thought the entertainment I provided for
you just now at the inn was all the satisfaction
you required," retorted the surprised farmer.
"No, sir," said Horner, "you promised a
hundred pounds if any one would find you a remedy
for your scolding wife ; and a bargain is a bargain
all the world over, in the market or on the road " :
so presenting his pistol at the farmer's head,
" d — n me, sir," he continued, " presently deliver
your bag, or you are a dead man ! "
The farmer delivered the bag, which, if it did
not contain quite a hundred pounds, formed an ex-
cellent recompense for the time Horner had spent
in exercising his fantastic imagination upon him.
Shortly after this exploit, Horner met a gentle-
man on Hounslow Heath, saluting him with the
customary demand to hand over his dibs.
The traveller gave him six guineas, all he had,
NICHOLAS HORNER 153
saying : " Sir, you love money better than I do, to
thus venture your neck for it " ; to which Horner
rejoined, " I follow the way of the world, sir,
which now prefers money before friends, or
honesty; yea, some before the salvation of their
souls ; for it is the love of money that makes the
unjust judge take a bribe, the corrupt lawyer to
plead an evil cause : the physician to kill a man
without fear of hanging, and the surgeon to pro-
long a cure. "Pis this that makes the tradesman
tell a lie in selling his wares ; the butcher to blow
his veal ; the tailor to covet so much cabbage ; the
miller to cheat in his corn-grinding ; the baker to
give short weight, and to wear a wooden cravat
for it ; the shoemaker to stretch his leather, as he
does his conscience : and the gentlemen of the pad
—such as myself — to wear a Tyburn tippet, or old
Storey's cap on some country gallows. So good-
day to you, sir, and thank you, and never despise
money in a naughty world."
Horner now experienced a sad blow to his
self-esteem, in an adventure in which he was
made to play a ridiculous part, and to be the butt
afterwards of his acquaintances. A lady of con-
siderable position and wealth was travelling from
Colchester to London by stage-coach, and happened
to be the only passenger for a considerable distance.
At Braintree the coachman very politely warned
her that, if she had anything of value about her,
she had better conceal it, for there were several
gay sparks about the neighbouring heath, whom
he thought to be highwaymen. Thanking him,
154 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
the lady placed her gold watch, a purse full of
guineas and some valuable lace under the seat ;
and then disarranged her hair, like poor Ophelia,
to act the part of a lunatic.
Presently, Homer rode up to the coach,
presented a pistol, and demanded her money.
Instantly she opened the coach-door, leapt out,
and taking the highwayman by the leg, cried in
a very piteous voice, " Oh, dear cousin Tom, I am
glad to see you. I hope you'll now rescue me
from this rogue of a coachman, for he's carrying
me, by my rogue of a husband's orders, to Bedlam,
for a mad woman."
"D — n me," replied Homer, "I'm none of
your cousin. I don't know you, but you must
be mad, and Bedlam is the best place for you."
" Oh ! cousin Tom," said she, clinging to him,
" but I will go with you, not to Bedlam."
" Do you know this mad creature ? " asked
the now distracted highwayman of the coachman.
" Yes," he replied, entering into the spirit of
the thing ; " I know the lady very well. I am
now going, by her husband's orders, to London,
to put her in a madhouse, but not into Bedlam, as
she supposes."
" Take her, then," exclaimed Horner, " even
if it were to the devil." So saying, he set spurs
to his horse, and made off as fast as he could, for
fear of her continuing to claim cousinship with
him.
This story, afterwards appearing in the Weekly
Journal, or British Gazetteer, of December 27th,
1°
^7/ ,. / - q/jUll
HORNER MEETS HIS MATCH.
NICHOLAS HORNER 157
1718, and coming to Horner's knowledge, he was
almost beside himself with rage, at being so easily
tricked. The tale enjoyed a wide circulation,
and seems to have impressed other travellers ; for
when Horner soon afterwards adventured down
into the West of England, and stopped a carriage
near Honiton, in which was a lady travelling
from Exeter to London, he beheld another frantic
creature with dishevelled hair, who greeted him
as " cousin."
" You hypocritical ! " he roared out ;
" because I was once bit this way by one of your
d — d sex, d'ye think I must always be bit so ? "
Saying this he turned over every cushion in
the carriage, and found under them sufficient for
his trouble : a gold watch, and other valuables
and money, in all to the value of some two hundred
pounds.
But this was Horner's very last stroke of
business. He was taken only two hours later,
in attempting to rob two gentlemen, and after
a patient trial at Exeter, was hanged there on
April 3rd, 1719, aged thirty-two.
VOL. II. 1 8
WALTER TRACEY
" THE adventures of this individual," says Johnson,
" are neither of interest nor importance." He then
proceeds to recount them at considerable length,
sufficiently disproving his own words in the course
of his narrative.
Tracey was heir to an estate of £900 annual
value, in Norfolk. His father, himself a man of
liberal education, wished his son to share the like
advantage, and sent him to Oxford, where he
hoped he would take a degree and then enter the
Church. But "Walter was a gay and idle blade ;
thoughtless and reckless. His character was
otherwise gentle, open, and generous : so it will
be noted that if his recklessness suited him for
the profession of highwayman, his alleged mild-
ness of disposition was distinctly a drawback. At
the least of it, he seems to have been singularly
unfitted for the Church, and, indeed, had never
an opportunity of entering it, for his wild life as
a student led to his being expelled from the
University.
Our precious, delightful humbug, Johnson,
greedily telling the story of the highwayman and
omitting no scandalous detail from the task in
158
WALTER TRACEY 159
which he revelled, halts at this point to make an
insincere moral reflection, which he felt would
be called for by some of his readers, even in the
middle of the eighteenth century, when morals
and improving discourses were alike at a heavy
discount.
" The road to vice," he remarks, with his
tongue in his cheek, " is of easy access, and,
fascinating as it appears when you proceed, it
closes behind, and leaves nothing on the retro-
spect but ruggedness and gloom. Tracey had
entered the delusive path, and though he had
the wish, possessed not the fortitude, to retrace
his steps."
That was bad for Tracey. He and his com-
panions, we learn, for some time amused their
parents with various artifices ; " but were at last
denied any further pecuniary assistance." In
this Micawberish high-falutin style, are Tracey 's
experiences told.
To fill their pockets, Tracey and his friends went
upon the road. Expelled from the University, he
reformed for awhile, and made his way through
England until he arrived in Cheshire, where he
took service with a wealthy grazier. He soon
became fond of the country, and reconciled to his
now humble lot, and being a youth of elegant
appearance, and possessing very pleasing and
fascinating manners, his friendship was courted
by every one. He was proficient in music and
singing, and often, when the toils of the day were
over, the villagers would assemble at his master's
160 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
door, and " measure their gay steps to the sound
of his violin ; ' in fact, as Mr. Micawber might
say,' they danced to his fiddling."
The country girls vied with one another for
his attention ; but the grazier's daughter (or
perhaps the prospect of the grazier's money) was
the object of his choice ; and so firmly had he
gained the esteem of his master, that their
marriage was agreed upon, and at length cele-
brated with every mark of happiness and satis-
faction.
Eor a time he remained happy in this condition
of life ; especially as his wife had brought a part
of her father's property with her. He managed
farm and stock with skill and industry, and
might have become an ornament and a shining
light in the Cheshire cheese-farming, only for the
vagabond blood in him. He found a respectable
life insufferably dull after his early riotous days ;
and was so loud in his praise of town and its
delights, that he at length disturbed the content
of his wife and his father-in-law as well, and
induced them to realise all their property, and to
accompany him to London, where, he said, he
expected to procure some lucrative situation.
Johnson, perhaps thinking this to be too great
a demand upon the credulity of his readers, feels
constrained to add at this point a criticism of his
own. " It was no small proof of the influence
he had over the resolutions and actions of others,
that he could thus induce a country farmer to
forget his accustomed habits, and follow an
WALTER TRACEY 161
adventurous son-in-law into scenes with which
he was altogether unacquainted." We may
heartily agree with him here.
Having disposed of their joint stock and other
property, they proceeded to London hy way of
Trentham, in Staffordshire, where they intended
to rest for a day or two. In the house where they
stayed Tracey met some of his old college
friends, with whom he spent a jovial time. This
confirmed him in his desire to return to his former
extravagant way of living, and he seems instantly
to have lost all his new-found honesty and sense
of responsibility, under the influence of this old
acquaintance.
Early next morning he arose and, stealing his
father-in-law's pocket-book, and every thing of value
that lay handy, went off on his horse, and thus,
without a word of farewell, disappeared. " Thus,"
remarks our author, ready with the moralising
reflections we know he really detested, "he in a
moment blasted the good hopes which the reader
must have entertained of him ; and his future
serves only to confirm that contempt which every
honourable mind must feel for him, after so
infamous an action. Every endeavour to discover
his retreat proved ineffectual, and his wife and
father-in-law never heard of him again, until he
expiated his crimes by an ignominious death."
It appears that Tracey proceeded to Coventry,
where he alighted at an inn, in which he observed
an unusual stillness. Entering the house, and
hearing sounds of quarrelling upstairs, his curiosity
1 6a HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
led him to enquire what was amiss, and walking
abruptly into one of the rooms, surprised the
innkeeper and his wife in a heated dispute. The
innkeeper, an elderly man, had married a woman
much younger than himself, and had discovered,
too late, that she had really heen angling for his
money, rather than for himself : hence these
disagreements.
The dispute ran high as Tracey entered. Both
husband and wife were eager to state their
respective grievances, and he listened patiently.
Having heard both sides, he summed up judicially.
" Money," he said, " has been the cause of this
confusion. Without it you may live in peace
and quietness ; so, for your own sakes, hand me
at once the money you possess " ; handling a
loaded pistol significantly the while. He took
first eighty-five guineas, and then his farewell.
On his way south he met a young Oxonian,
whom he accompanied as far as Ware, where they
passed the evening in great harmony and friend-
ship. Proceeding next day, Tracey frequently
remarked that his companion's valise — a pros-
perous-looking article — was certainly too weighty
for him. But, in constantly recurring to the
subject, he aroused his companion's suspicions that
this pleasant fellow, whom he had picked up on
the road, was none other than a highwayman.
He said nothing of his suspicion, but was
resolved to be even with him. Presently, remark-
ing that he was travelling to take up his degree
of Master of Arts, he hinted that he had with
WALTER TRACEY 163
him, in his portmanteau, sixty pounds for his
expenses.
" Have you so ? " said Tracey. " That is very
convenient for me at this time, for I want to
horrow just such a sum, and you could not lend
it to a better person than myself."
So, without more ado, he helped himself to the
valise, untying it from the other's horse and
strapping it on his own.
The student poured forth the most lamentable
entreaties, and begged Tracey not to thus deprive
him of what was to establish his future prospects
in life. The money, he declared, was all borrowed,
and if it were sto er ! borrowed from him at
this juncture, he had not the least prospect of
ever being able to repay it.
All these tears and protestations moved Tracey
only so far as to give him his own purse, contain-
ing some four pounds, to carry him on for a few
days. He then disappeared down a bye-road with
the valise, and the student saw him no more, and
perhaps had no wish to see him again; for, as
Tracey discovered when he halted at the next
hedge-row alehouse and unstrapped the valise,
the sixty pounds was purely imaginary, and its
contents were nothing but two old shirts, half
a dozen dirty collars, a ragged and threadbare
student's gown, a pair of stockings minus the feet,
a pair of shoes with but one heel between them,
a comb, some needles and thread, and a ham.
The picturesque force of the sucking highway-
man's language when he discovered these treasures,
164 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and how simply he had been taken in, must have
considerably astonished the landlord of that way-
side tavern.
The biographers of Ben Jonson mention his
once being robbed by Tracey in very humorous
style. Tracey met the poet, whom he knew well
by sight, on a road in Buckinghamshire, and
demanded his purse. To this " Rare Ben, " as
his epitaph in "Westminster Abbey styles him,
answered in the following impromptu :
" Fly, villain ! hence, or by thy coat of steel,
I'll make thy heart my leaden bullet feel ;
And send that thricely thievish soul of thine
To Hell, to be the Devil's valentine."
Upon which Tracey is supposed to have
replied :
" Art thou great Ben ? or the revived ghost
Of famous Shakespeare ? or some drunken host,
Who, being tipsy with thy muddy beer,
Dost think thy rhymes will daunt my soul with fear?
"Nay, know, base slave, that I am one of those
Can take a purse as well in verse as prose ;
And when thou'rt dead, can write upon thy hearse,
' Here lies a poet who was robbed in verse.' "
This ingenious reply disarmed Jonson, who
thus discovered that he had both a wit and a
knave to contend with. He endeavoured to save
his money, but to no purpose, and had to resign
it to the man who, it seemed, could rhyme better,
impromptu, than himself, and at greater length.
This was not the only misfortune that befel Jonson
WALTER TRACEY 165
on this journey ; for, when within two or three
miles of London, he was attacked by a gang of
thieves, who knocked him from his horse, bound
him hand and foot, and threw him into a park,
where some other wayfarers who had shared the
same fate were lying. One of his unfortunate
companions calling out that he and his wife and
children were undone, another, who was tied up
also, said, " Pray, if you are all undone come and
undo me " ; which afforded Ben a hearty laugh,
and a subject upon which he afterwards expressed
his poetical powers.
Tracey was not one of your common highway-
men who expended their money as fast as they
earned it. He was of a saving disposition, and
after some time amassed sufficient to keep him in
comfort during the rest of his life. Unfortunately
there is little dependence to be placed upon the
honesty of the world, as Tracey found, for the
person to whom he had entrusted his savings
embezzled them ; and so our highwayman's inten-
tion to retire was upset, and he was reduced to
going once more upon the road. His hand seems
by this time to have lost its cunning, or else he
had the very worst luck, for he was soon taken, in
an attempt to rob the Duke of Buckingham ; and,
after being brought to trial at Winchester, was
executed there in 1634, aged thirty-eight.
VOL. II. 19
NED WICKS
THE famous Edward Wicks — more famous as
" Ned," one of the favourites of the romancing
Harrison Ainsworth — was born in 1684, and was
the son of an innkeeper at Coventry. His father
had him properly grounded in reading, writing,
and 'rithmetic, with the ambition of seeing him a
clerk, but the youthful Edward shunned the desk,
and for a few months filled the post of exciseman.
The excisemen of that day were looked upon
with that suspicion and hatred with which tax-
gatherers, tithe-collectors, landlords, people who
render accounts for payment, and the like vermin,
have ever been regarded from the earliest times,
and ever will be by all right-minded folk ; and
Edward soon quitted the unpopular post of gauger,
not only because of its unpopularity, but for
reasons not altogether unconnected with an in-
ability to make his accounts balance. His reasons
for the change are, however, put in a different
light by Smith, who, with sardonic humour, says :
" Not thinking that a post sufficient to cheat Her
Majesty's subjects, he was resolved to impose upon
'em more by taking all they had on the highway."
Or, in milder fashion, according to Johnson, " he
1 66
NED WICKS 167
chose rather to gather contributions for himself
than for the King." For " King " read " Queen,"
for Wicks practised in the reign of Queen Anne.
The first two interviews he held with travellers
upon the highway were successful, hut the third
brought him misfortune, for he was apprehended
near Croydon, and sent to prison in the Marshalsea,
a doleful hold, at that time said to be "a lively
representation of the Iron Age, since nothing but
gingling of keys and rattling of shackles and bolts
and grates are here to be heard."
His third attempt would no doubt have
remained also his last, had it not been for the
exertions of his friends, who, during the interval
between his arrest and the trial at Sessions, got at
the prosecutor and bribed him with sixty guineas,
to fail in identifying him. As the prosecutor had
been robbed of only thirty shillings, he profited
largely by the transaction and was doubtless sorry
it could not be often repeated.
Wicks was accordingly acquitted, on the failure
of this suborned prosecutor to swear to him ; and
was immediately on the road again ; this time in
partnership with a certain Joe Johnson, alias
Saunders. Near Colnbrook they held up a stage-
coach containing four gentlemen, one of whom
discharged a blunderbuss at the luckless Joe, who
received seven or eight bullets, and was thus
wounded so severely that he was easily seized :
the more easily in that Wicks instantly made off,
with the speed of the wind. The "chivalry" of
the highwaymen, of which we read so much in
168 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
novels, was an elusive thing, and was apt to be
altogether missing in the stress of danger. The
highwayman who would stand by a wounded
comrade was a very rare bird : so rare, indeed,
that we are inclined to doubt his existence.
Joe Johnson, committed to prison, was charged
by one Woolley with an earlier robbery, of a silver
watch and some money, and was found guilty
and hanged at Tyburn, February 7th, 1704, aged
twenty- two.
The fate of the companion whom he had so
basely deserted in the moment of his greatest need
did not warn Wicks from his perilous career, and
we are assured that he " pursued his wicked
courses with a great deal of pleasure and satisfac-
tion." One day he overtook the Duke of
Marlborough at St. Albans, but His Grace had
too large a retinue for it to be safe to venture an
attack, and so the great Churchill escaped, for
once in a way.
Then, riding on towards Cheshunt, he found
his way to a little cottage in a bye-road, where
he discovered a poor old woman, bitterly weeping.
She told him she was a poor widow, with no
money to pay her rent, and expected the landlord
every moment to come and seize what few goods
she had.
Wicks bade her rest contented, and he would
make things easy; and, pulling off the richly
laced clothes he wore, and putting on an old coat
the woman lent him, he awaited the arrival of the
hard-hearted landlord j who presently came ancl
NED WICKS 169
demanded payment. Ned thereupon, rising out of
the chimney-corner with a short pipe in his mouth,
said, " I understand, sir, that my sister here, poor
woman, is behindhand for rent, and that you
design to seize her goods, but as she is a desolate
widow and hath not wherewithal to pay you at
present, I hope you will take so much pity and
compassion on her mean circumstances as not to
be too severe : pray let me persuade you to have a
little forbearance."
Said the landlord, " Don't talk to me of for-
bearance ; I'll not pity people to ruin myself. I'll
have my money. I want my rent, and if I am
not paid now, I'll seize her goods forthwith, and
turn her out of my house."
When Ned found that no entreaties or per-
suasions would prevail, he said, " Come, come,
let's see a receipt in full, and I'll pay it."
Accordingly the receipt was given, and the
rent paid, and the landlord made ready to go.
But Wicks warned him of the dangers of the
roads. " 'Tis drawing towards night, sir, and there
are many robbers about. I would advise you to
stay here till to-morrow, and go in the morning."
" No, no ! " exclaimed the landlord impatiently,
" I'll go now. I can go seven miles before dark.
I don't care what robbing there is abroad.
Besides, I am not afraid of being robbed by any
one man, be he whom he may."
So, taking his horse, away he rode, and Wicks,
hastily re-assuming his fine clothes, quietly after
Jum, at a cautious interval,
170 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Taking a circuitous course and putting his
mare to a hand-gallop, Wicks was already waiting
the landlord at the edge of a dark pond on a
lonely stretch of road, when the old man rode
by. In that situation, as the shades of night
were falling, he rohhed him of the rent and of as
much beside, which he later kept for his honest
brokerage, after making the widow a present of
the original amount. Hastening back to the
cottage, he had already resumed the rustic clothes
and was seated in the chimney corner, when a
knocking came at the door. It was the landlord
returning to tell the story of his woes. He said
he had been robbed by a rogue in a lace coat, who
swore a thousand oaths at him.
" I told you how unsafe it was," said Wicks,
from his corner ; " but you would not take my
advice."
The landlord begged leave to stay the night,
and went the following morning upon his way.
The obvious criticism of this is that, having
already been robbed, his best and safest course
would have been to make haste on his way
home, the remainder of the journey, without
turning back.
Ned Wicks one day met Lord Mohun on the
road between Windsor and Colnbrook, attended
by only a groom and a footman. He commanded
his lordship to " stand and deliver ! " for he was
in great want of money, and money he would
have, before they parted company. Lord Mohun,
a noted bully and rustler of that age, proposed
NED WICKS 171
that, if the highwayman was so insistent, they
should fight for it, and Wicks very readily accepted
this proposal ; whereupon, my lord, seeing him
husily preparing his pistols for the engagement,
hegan to hack out of the bargain. Wicks, per-
ceiving this, said contemptuously : " All the
world knows me to be a man, and such a man
am I that, although your lordship could, in a
cowardly manner, murder Mumford the actor,
and Captain Gout, I am by no means afraid of
you. Therefore, since you will not fight, I
order you to down with your gold, or expect
no quarter ! "
Thus meeting with more than his match, Lord
Mohun fell into a passionate fit of swearing.
" My lord," said Wicks, when he could get a word
in edgeways, " I perceive you swear perfectly
well, extempore : come, I'll give your honour a
fair chance for your money, and that is, he that
swears best of us two shall keep his own, and the
money of he who loses as well."
My lord, an expert in this line, through long
cursing over losses at cards, eagerly agreed to this
new bargain, and threw down a purse of fifty
guineas. Wicks staked a like sum, and the
competition started.
After a quarter of an hour's prodigious swearing
on both sides, it was left to his lordship's groom
to declare the winner.
He said : " Why, my lord, your honour swears
as well as ever I heard any Person of Quality in
my life ; but, indeed, to give the Strange Gentle-
172 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
man his due, he has done better than yourself,
and has won the wager, even if it were for a
thousand pounds."
After a few successful years of constant atten-
tion to his profession, Wicks was at last executed
at Warwick, on August 29th, 1719, aged twenty-
nine.
DICK TURPIN
RICHARD TURPIN, the hero of half a hundred
plays, and of many hundred ballads and chap-book
histories, now demands our attention. His name
stands out, far and away above that of any other
of the high-toby fraternity. Not Claude Du Vail
himself owns half his celebrity, nor Hind, nor
Whitney, nor Sixteen - String Jack. Ballad-
mongers, playwrights of the old penny-gaff order,
and novelists, with Harrison Ainsworth at their
head, have ever united to do him honour and have
conspired — innocently as a rule — to deprive
another and a worthier highwayman of his due, in
order to confer it upon " Dick." The familiar
" Dick " itself shows us how the great public long
ago took Turpin to its ample bosom, and cherished
him, but the student of these things smiles a little
sourly as he traces the quite unheroic doings of
this exceptionally mean and skulking scoundrel,
and fails all the time to note anything of a
dashing nature in his very busy but altogether
sordid career.
Turpin never rode that famous Ride to York
upon Black Bess : another and an earlier than he
by some sixty years — the bold and daring Nevison
VOL. II. 173 2O
174 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
— performed that ride, as we have already shown ;
and the chivalry, the courtesy, and consideration,
generally so much in evidence in the plays and
the stories, are hy no means found in the many
contemporary reports of his doings.
Richard Turpin was born on September 21st,
1705, at the village of Hempstead, in Essex.
There are those who find a fanciful appropriate-
ness in the fact, that a man, whose wife was to
become a "hempen widow," should have been
born at a place so significantly named. Those
who are curious enough to seek it, may duly find
the record of the future highwayman's baptism in
the parish register, and will find the baptism of
an elder sister, Maria, recorded nearly three years
and a half earlier, April 28th, 1702.
The Reverend William Sworder, vicar of
Hempstead, who performed the baptism, and
thereafter made an entry of it in his register, was
evidently proud of his acquaintance with the
language of the ancients, and less pleased with
his native tongue, for his entries are generally in
Latin : and thus we find the infant Dick and his
parents figuring, " Richardus, filius Johannis et
Mariae Turpin"
John Turpin at that time kept the inn that
even now, somewhat altered perhaps in detail,
looks across the road to the circle of pollard trees
known as " Turpin's Ring," and thence up to the
steep church-path. It was then, it appears, known
as the " Bell," but at times is referred to as the
" Royal Oak," and is now certainly the " Crown."
a
DICK TURPIN 175
Such are the difficulties that beset the path of the
historian. Nor has this mere nomenclature of
the ancestral roof-tree heen the only
difficulty. Were there not seven cities ^
that claimed to be the birthplace of
Homer ? In like manner at least one
other place, Thaxted, is said to have
been Turpin's native home ; but with
the register as witness we can flatly
disprove this, and give the honour of
producing the famous person to Hemp-
stead.
The youthful Turpin was appren-
ticed to a butcher in Whitechapel,
and soon afterwards set up in business ^
for himself at Waltham Abbey, at "v> §
the same time marrying at East Ham v>
a girl named Hester Palmer, whose s g
j^
father is said to have kept the " Rose yi
and Crown " inn at Bull Beggar's
Hole, Clay Hill, Enfield.
As a butcher, he introduced a novel 7S g
method of business by which, except
for the absurd and obstinate old-
fashioned prejudices that stood in his
way, he might soon have made a
handsome competence. This method
was simply that of taking your cattle
wherever they might best be found,
without the tiresome and expensive formality of
buying and paying for them. It might con-
ceivably have succeeded, too, except that he
*t
i76 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
worked on too Napoleonic a scale, and stole a
herd. It was a herd belonging to one " Farmer
Giles," of Plaistow, and unfortunately it was
traced to his door, and he had to fly. More
restrained accounts, on the other hand, tell us it
was only two oxen that were taken.
The Plaistow-Waltham Abbey affair rendered
Turpin's situation extremely perilous, and he
retired north-east in the Rodings district, generally
called in those times " the Hundreds of Essex "
— to " Suson," say old accounts, by which Seward-
stone is meant.
But although a comparatively safe retreat, it
was exceedingly dull, and nothing offered, either
in the way of the excitements he now thirsted for,
or by way of making a living. He was reduced to
the at once mean and dangerous occupation of
robbing the smugglers who then infested this, and
indeed almost every other, country district. It was
mean, because they, very like himself, warred with
law and order; and dangerous, because although
he might only attack solitary " freetraders," there
was that strong fellow-feeling among smugglers
that made them most ferociously resent interfer-
ence with their kind. Turpin probably ran
greater risks in meddling with them than he
encountered at any other period in his career.
Sometimes he would rob them without any
beating about the bush : at others he would make
pretence of being a " riding-officer," i.e. a
mounted Revenue officer, and would seize their
goods " in the King's name."
DICK TURPIN 177
But that line of business could not last long.
Writers on Turpin generally say he wearied of it :
but the truth is, he was afraid of the smugglers'
vengeance, which, history tells us, could take
fearful forms, scarcely credible in a Christian
country, did we not know, by the irrefragible
evidence of courts of justice, and by the terrible
murders by smugglers in Hampshire, duly expi-
ated in 1749, to what lengths those desperate men
could go.
He turned again, therefore, to the neighbour-
hood of Waltham, and, with a few chosen spirits,
haunted Epping Eorest. There they established
themselves chiefly as deer-stealers, and soon
formed an excellent illicit connection with un-
scrupulous dealers in game in London, to whom
they consigned many a cartload of venison, which
generally travelled up to town covered over with
an innocent-looking layer of cabbages, potatoes, or
turnips.
But the prices they obtained for these supplies
did not, in their opinion, pay them sufficiently for
the work they did, or the risks they ran, and they
then determined to throw in their lot with a
notorious band of housebreakers and miscellaneous
evil-doers, dreaded in Essex and in the eastern
suburbs of London as " Gregory's Gang." The
earliest of their exploits in this new class of
venture was the robbing of Mr. Strype, who kept
a chandler's shop at Watford, a district hitherto
unaffected by them. They cleared the house of
everything of any value, without offering Mr.
178 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Strype any violence (which was thought to be
very good of them) and so disappeared ; to re-
appear always unexpectedly in widely-sundered
districts.
Nothing came amiss to them. In one night
they rohhed both Chingford and Barking churches,
but found little worth their while; and then,
in a manner most baffling to the authorities of
those times, would for a time disband themselves
and work separately, or some of them would lie
entirely by for a while. An odd one or two would
even be taken and hanged, which rendered it more
than ever desirable for their surviving brethren
to make themselves scarce for a time. But want
of money was not long in bringing such generally
spendthrift and improvident rogues back again to
the calling they had chosen. Several among them
were already too well and too unfavourably known
as deer-stealers to the verderers of Epping Forest
for their reappearance in those glades to be safe,
but Turpin, among others, ventured. Mr. Mason,
one of the chief of these verderers, rangers, or
keepers, was especially active in putting down this
poaching, and the gang vowed they would repay
him for it. But more immediate schemes claimed
their attention. First among these was a plan for
robbing a farmhouse at R/ippleside, near Barking.
There would seem to have been eight or nine of
them on this occasion. After their manner, they
knocked at the door at night, and when, properly
afraid of strangers coming after dark, the people
refused to open, they rushed forward in a body
TURPIN AND HIS GANG IN THEIK CAVE IN EPPING FOREST.
DICK TURPIN 181
and broke the door in. Having bound the farmer,
his wife, his son-in-law, and the servant-maid,
they ransacked the house, and stole £700.
" This will do I " exclaimed Turpin, captaining
the band ; adding regretfully, "if it were always
so!"
The attack then made by the gang upon the
house of Mr. Mason, the vigilant keeper of Epping
Eorest, was probably determined upon in the first
instance from a desire rather to be revenged upon
him for interfering with their earlier deer-stealing
operations, than from the idea of plunder. Turpin
was not present on this occasion, for although he
had intended to take part in the act of vengeance,
he was at the time in London, squandering his
share of the Rippleside robbery, and in too
advanced a state of intoxication to meet his
accomplices as he had arranged to do.
Rust, Rose, and Eielder were the three con-
cerned in the affair, and it clearly shows the spirit
in which they entered upon it, when it is said that,
before starting, they bound themselves by oath
not to leave anything in the house undamaged.
An oath would not necessarily be of any sacred
quality of irrevocability with scoundrels of this or
any other type, but when the compact fitted in
with their own earnest inclinations, there was no
difficulty in adhering to it.
Fielder gained admission to the house by
scaling the garden wall and breaking in at the back
door, then admitting the other two by the front
entrance. Mason was upstairs, sitting with his
i8* HALF-HOURS WITH THE
aged father in his bedroom, when the three suddenly
hurst in upon them, and, seizing them, hound them
hand and foot. They asked the old man if he knew
them : he said he did not, and they then carried
him downstairs and laid him, helplessly tied up,
under the kitchen dresser. Mason, the keeper,
had a sack forced over his head and tied round his
waist ; his little daughter, terrified at what she
heard, slipping hurriedly out of hed and out of
doors, and hiding in a pigstye.
The revengeful three then entered upon the
work of wanton destruction upon which they had
come. They first demolished a heavy fourpost
bedstead, and then, each armed with a post,
systematically visited every room in the house and
battered everything to pieces. Carpets, curtains,
bedclothing, and linen, and everything that could
not be broken, were cut to shreds. Money had
not been expected, but in smashing a china punch-
bowl that stood somewhat out of the way, on a
high shelf, down fell a shower of a hundred and
twenty-two guineas, with which they went off,
doubly satisfied with revenge and this unlooked-
for plunder. They hastened up to London and
joined Turpin at the Bun-House in the Rope
Fields, and shared their booty fairly with him,
although he had not been present to earn his
portion — an unusual support of that generally
misleading proverb, " There is honour among
thieves."
From 1732 and onwards a solitary inn, on the
then desolate, remote, and often flooded Hackney
DICK TURPIN 183
Marshes was greatly frequented by Turpin on his
way to and from Epping and London. This inn,
the " White House " by name, then kept by one
Beresford, was the resort of sportsmen interested
in cock-fighting. Turpin was known there as
a private gentleman. The house was demolished
and entirely rebuilt in 1900 ; but another at
Tyler's Eerry, Temple Mills, also a white-faced
house, remains, and claims a similar association.
On January llth, 1735, Turpin and five of his
companions, Ned Rust, George Gregory, Eielder,
E-ose, and Wheeler, went boldly to the house of
a Mr. Saunders, a rich farmer at Charlton, Kent,
between seven and eight o'clock in the evening,
and, having knocked at the door, asked if Mr.
Saunders were at home. When they learned that
he was within, they rushed immediately into the
house and found the farmer, with his wife and
some friends, playing at cards. They told the
company they would not be injured if they
remained quiet, and then proceeded to ransack
the house. Eirst seizing a trifle in the way of
a silver snuff-box that lay on the card-table, they
left a part of their gang to stand guard over the
party, while the rest took Mr. Saunders and forced
him to act the part of guide, to discover the where-
abouts of his valuables. They broke open some
escritoires and cupboards, and stole about £100,
exclusive of a quantity of plate. Meanwhile, the
maid-servant had retreated into her room upstairs
and bolted the door, and was calling " Thieves ! "
at the top of her voice, out of window. But the
VOL. II. 21
184 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
marauders presently found their way upstairs,
broke open the door and secured and silenced her :
not, apparently, doing her any considerable injury :
and then at leisure thoroughly searched every
corner of the house, and gleaned everything of
a portable nature that was worth taking. There
was no hurry. They discovered some relics of
the late Christmas festivities in the larder, in the
shape of mince-pies, and sat down impudently,
with the master of the house and his friends, to
partake of them. One of the gang, by careful
foraging, had found a bottle of brandy, and
broached it at the table, hospitably offering some
to Mr. Saunders and his friends, and assuring
them, with a quaint humour, that they were as
welcome as could be to it. Mrs. Saunders did not,
however, see the humour of it, and was fainting
from terror ; and so they mixed her some brandy -
and-water, to revive her.
At length, having taken everything possible,
and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, they made
off, declaring that if any of the family gave the
least alarm within two hours, or if they dared to
advertise the marks on the stolen plate, they
would infallibly return at some future period, and
murder them.
It was afterwards ascertained that they then
retired to a public-house in Woolwich, near by,
where the robbery had been planned, and soon
afterwards crossed the river and resorted to an
empty house in Ratcliffe Highway, where they
deposited the plunder until they had found a
DICK TURPIN 185
purchaser ready to buy without asking any
inconvenient questions.
A week later, the same gang visited the house
of a Mr. Sheldon, near Croydon church. They
arrived at about seven o'clock in the evening, and,
finding the coachman in the stable, immediately
gagged and bound him. Then, leaving the stable,
they encountered Mr. Sheldon himself, in the
yard, come to hear what the unaccustomed sounds
of scufflLing and struggling in the stable could
mean. The unfortunate Mr. Sheldon was then
compelled to act as guide over his own house,
and to show the gang where all his valuables
resided. Jewels, plate, and other valuable articles
were removed, together with a sum of eleven
guineas ; but at the last moment, they returned
two guineas, and apologised more or less hand-
somely for their conduct. They then had the
effrontery to repair to the " Half Moon " tavern,
close at hand, and to each take a glass of spirits
there, and to change one of the guineas of which
they had robbed Mr. Sheldon.
The manners of the gang would thus appear to
be mending, but their unwonted politeness did not
last long, as we shall presently see.
In giving some account of the doings of Turpin,
either singly or in association with others, it is
desirable, as far as possible, to tell his story largely
by the aid, and in the exact words, of the news-
papers of the time. Only in this manner is it
likely that a charge of exaggeration can be
avoided. Where all have boldly enlarged upon
1 86 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
the popular theme and have as richly brocaded it
as their imaginations permit, to revert to plain
facts becomes a healthy exercise.
The London Evening Post of February 6th,
1735, is the original authority for the next two
incidents ; two of the foremost in all popular
accounts of Turpin's life. So much extravagant
nonsense has been written, and is still being
written, and will yet continue to be written about
Dick Turpin, that any original documents about
him are particularly valuable. They help to
show us what we must discredit and what we may
safely retain. Indeed, without such newspaper
paragraphs, the conscientious writer, faced with the
flood of indubitably spurious Turpin " literature,"
might in his impatience with its extravagance,
refuse to credit any portion of it. But the news-
papers of that day serve amply to show that in
this case, truth is equally as strange as fiction.
Not stranger, as the proverb would have us
believe, but certainly as strange.
Thus we read in the London Evening Post :
" On Saturday Night last, about Seven o'Clock,
five Rogues enter'd the House of the Widow
Shelley, at Loughton in Essex, having Pistols etc.,
and thr eaten 'd to murder the old Lady, if she did
not tell them where her Money lay, which she
obstinately refusing for some Time, they threaten'd
to lay her across the Fire if she did not instantly
tell them, which she would not do ; but her Son
being in the Room, and threaten'd to be murder'd,
cry'd out, he would tell them if they would not
TURPIN HOLDS THE LANDLADY OVER THE FIRE.
DICK TURPIN 189
murder his Mother, and did ; whereupon they
went up Stairs and took near £100, a Silver
Tankard, and other Plate, and all Manner of
Household Goods ; they afterwards went into the
Cellar, and drank several Bottles of Ale and Wine,
and broil'd some Meat, eat the Relicts of a Fillet
of Veal, etc. While they were doing this, two of
their Gang went into Mr. Turkle's, a Farmer's,
who rents one End of the Widow's House, and
rohb'd him of above £20 and then they all went
off, taking two of the Farmer's Horses to carry
off their Luggage ; the Horses were found on
Sunday Morning in Old Street ; they staid (the
Rogues, not the horses) about three Hours in the
House."
This house, still in existence, although part of
it has been rebuilt, is identified with a place now
styled " Priors," but at that time known as " Traps
Hill Farm." The heavy outer door, plentifully
studded with nail-heads, is said to have been
added after this visit.
This incident is probably the original of the
story told of Turpin holding the landlady of the
" Bull " inn, Shooter's Hill, over the fire ; although
it is inherently possible that he and his scoundrelly
crew, having certainly threatened to do as much
at Loughton, and having done the like to a
farmer at Edgeware, actually perpetrated the
atrocity.
The startling paragraph already quoted is
followed immediately by another report, a good
deal more startling : " On Tuesday Night," it
190 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
says, very circumstantially, " about Eight o'Clock,
five Villains " —it will be noticed that by this time
the " Rogues " of the earlier narration have
become " Villains," and their conduct, by natural
consequence, infinitely more heinous — " came to
the House of Mr. Lawrence, a Farmer at Edgeware-
bury, near Edgeware, in Middlesex, but the Door
being bolted, they could not get in, so they went
to the Boy who was in the Sheep-house, and
compell'd him to call the Maid, who open'd the
Door ; upon which they rush'd in, bound the
Master, Maid, and one Man-Servant, and swore
they would murder all the Family, if they did not
discover their Money, etc. ; they trod the bedding
under foot, in case there should be money hidden
in it, and took about £10 in Money, Linnen etc.,
all they could lay their Hands on, broke the old
Man's Head, dragg'd him about the House,
emptied a kettle of water from the fire over him,
which had fortunately only just been placed on it,
and ravish'd the Maid, Dorothy Street, using her
in a most barbarous Manner, and then went off,
leaving the Family bound, lock'd the Door, and
took the key away with them : The Son, who came
Home soon after they were gone, call'd the Boy
to take his Horse, but could make nobody hear,
but at last the old Man call'd out, and told him
Rogues had been there " (surely, he meant " Vil-
lains"), "as they were all bound, and that the
Rogues said they would go rob his Brother ;
whereupon he rode and alarm'd the Town, went
to his Brother's, but they had not been there ; they
DICK TURPIN 191
pursued them to the Turnpike, and found they
had been gone through for London about an Hour.
They were all arm'd with Pistols, and one had a
Handkerchief all over his Pace."
Neither of these accounts mentions the name
of Turpin, but these outrages were immediately
ascribed to a gang of which he was a member.
The same evening journal of February llth
has a later account : " Mr. Lawrence, the Farmer
at Edgeware-Bury, who was robb'd last Week (as
we mention'd) lies so ill, of the Bruises etc., he
receiv'd, that its question'd whether he'll recover :
the Rogues, after he had told them where his
Money was, not finding so much as they expected,
let his Breeches down, and set him bare — on the
Fire, three several times ; which burnt him pro-
digiously."
There seems, by this account, to have been
much in common between this gang and those
" chauffeurs " described by Vidocq in his Memoirs ;
bands of robbers who pervaded the country dis-
tricts of France, and adopted the like methods of
persuasion with people who could not otherwise be
made to disclose the whereabouts of their hoards.
This ferocious attack upon the farm at Edge-
ware-bury was the first of a series in which the
gang appeared on horseback. They had already
done so well that they felt they could no longer
deny themselves the luxury of being fully-furnished
highwaymen. But they did not purchase; they
merely hired ; and imagination pictures some of
them as very insufficient cavaliers, holding on by
i92 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
their horses' necks. For it is not given to a
footpad, graduating in the higher branch of his
profession, instantly to command an easy seat
in the saddle ; and the scene at the " Old Leaping
Bar " inn, High Holborn, whence they set out
to ride to the " Ninepin and Bowl " at Edge ware,
must have been amusing in the extreme.
Six of Turpin's gang assembled next on the
7th of February at the " White Bear " inn, Drury
Lane, and planned to rob the house of a
Mr. Francis, a farmer in the then rural fields of
Marylebone. Arriving at the farm about dusk,
they first saw a man in a cowshed and seized and
bound him, declaring they would shoot him if
he should dare to make any attempt to break
loose, or to cry out. In the stable they found
another man, whom they served in the like manner.
Scarcely had they done this when they met
Mr. Francis at his own garden gate, returning
home. Three of the gang laid their hands upon
his shoulders and stopped him ; and the farmer,
thinking it to be a freak of some silly young
fellows, out for the evening, was not at all
alarmed. " Methinks you are mighty funny,
gentlemen," he said good-humouredly ; upon
which, showing him their pistols in a threatening
manner, he saw his mistake.
No harm, they said, should come to him if he
would but give his daughter a note by one of
them, authorising her to pay bearer a hundred
pounds in cash.
Mr. Francis declared he could not do so; he
DICK TURPIN 193
had not anything like that amount in the house ;
upon which they ran him violently into the stable
and tied him up also. Then, knocking at the
door of the house, and Miss Francis opening it,
they pushed into the passage and secured her as
well. The foremost men were particularly rude
and violent, but Turpin, who came in at the
rear, appears to have remonstrated with them
about this gross usage, and to have stopped it :
only assuring her that it would be best she
remained quiet, and that if she made any resist-
ance she would be treated even worse.
A maid-servant, hearing this, cried out, " Lord,
Mrs. Sarah ! what have you done ? "
One of the gang then struck the maid, and
another hit Miss Francis, and swore they would
be murdered if they did not hold their peace.
Mrs. Francis, hearing the disturbance from an
inner room, called out, " What's the matter ? "
on which Fielder ran forward, and crying " D n
you, I'll stop your mouth presently ! " broke
her head with the handle of a whip he carried,
and then tied her to a chair.
Miss Francis and the maid were tied to the
kitchen-dresser, and Gregory was deputed to watch
them, with a pistol in his hand, lest they should
cry out for assistance or try to struggle free while
the others were raiding the house.
A not very considerable reward met their un-
hallowed industry ; including a silver tankard,
a gold watch and chain, a silver medal of Charles
the First, a number of minor silver articles, and
VOL. II. 22
194 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
four or five gold rings. A find of thirty-seven
guineas was more to the point, and a brace of
pistols was not to be despised. They were even
so particular about details, in the hour-and-a-
half search they made, that they took away with
them such inconsiderable items as a wig, six
handkerchiefs, four shirts, a velvet hat, and some
pairs of stockings. A frugal and meticulous gang,
this!
As a result of these bold attacks in the suburbs
of London, a great feeling of indignation and
insecurity arose, and a reward of £100 was at once
offered for the apprehension of the gang, or of
any members of it. Information having come
to some of the "Westminster peace-officers that
these confederates were accustomed to meet in an
alehouse situated in a low alley in Westminster,
the place was beset, and Turpin, Fielder, Rose,
and Wheeler were found there. After a short
fight with cutlasses, the last three were secured.
No one appears to have been seriously hurt in
this affray, except the usual harmless, innocent
person, present by mere chance; in this case,
a certain Bob Berry, who received a dangerous
cut on the arm, below the elbow. Turpin
dexterously escaped out of window, and, obtaining
a horse (not the celebrated " Black Bess," who
never existed outside the imagination of Harrison
Ainsworth and the pages of his Rookwood), rode
away to fresh fields and pastures new. Fielder
and Rose were tried and found guilty, chiefly on
the testimony of Wheeler, who turned King's
DICK TURPIN 195
evidence. They were hanged at Tyburn, and
afterwards gibbeted.
The Gentleman's Magazine refers shortly to
the execution, and includes a certain, or an
altogether uncertain, Saunders : "Monday,
March 10th, the following malefactors, attended
by a guard of fifty soldiers, were executed at
Tyburn, appearing bold and undaunted ; viz. Rose,
Saunders, and Eielder, the Country Robbers."
It is significant of the horrors of that era that ten
others were hanged in company with them, for
various crimes.
The gang was thus broken up, but rogues
have, as it were, a magnetic attraction for one
another, and Turpin was not long alone. It must
have been a dull business waiting solitary on
suitable, i.e. dark or foggy, nights in lonely
situations for unsuspecting wayfarers ; an ex-
perience calculated to get on the nerves, and so
it is scarcely remarkable that many highwaymen
elected to hunt in couples ; although in the long
run it was safer to work alone and unknown.
No fear then of treachery on the part of a trusted
comrade, always ready to "make a discovery,"
as the technical phrase ran, to save his own neck
from the rope, a little while longer.
But Turpin seems to have sought, and found,
one companion for a little while, for he duly
appears in an account of how two gentlemen were
robbed about eight o'clock on the evening of
July 10th, between Wandsworth and Barnes
commons, "by two Highwaymen, suppos'd to be
196 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Turpin the Butcher, and Rowden the Pewterer,
the remaining two of Gregory's Gang, who robb'd
them of their Money and dismounted them ; made
them pull off their Horse's Bridles, then turning
them loose, they rode off towards Roehampton,
where a Gentleman was robb'd (as suppos'd by
the same Highwaymen), of a Watch and £4 in
Money."
Old maps of this district hint, not obscurely,
that this was no mere isolated, chance danger in
the neighbourhood ; for the eye, roaming along
those charts, towards Richmond, notes " Thieves'
Corner " boldly marked at what is now the
junction of the Sheen Road and Queen's Road,
where the " Black Horse " of old, a very shy and
questionable kind of brick-built, white-washed
alehouse, stood until it was pulled down about
the year 1902 and rebuilt in the flashy modern
style. Adjoining, was, and still is, for that matter,
" Pest House Common " : cheerful name ! while
Rocque's map of 1745, not marking that inimical
corner, transfers the affected area to the stretch
of highway between Marshgate and Manor Road
and Richmond Town, and styles it "Thieves'
Harbour." On the opposite side, in sharp contrast,
is marked " Paradise Row." Rocque also styles
the common, " Pestilent Common." Altogether,
in fact, a pestilent neighbourhood.
How well-named was " Thieves' Corner " we
may perhaps judge from a brief and matter-of-fact
account (as though it were but an ordinary
occurrence, demanding little notice) of a Reverend
DICK TURPIN 197
Mr. Amey, " a country clergyman who lodges at
the * Star' inn, in the Strand," being robbed two
nights earlier than the foregoing robbery " two
miles this side of Richmond in Surrey, of his
Silver Watch, four Guineas, and some Silver, by
two Highwaymen, well-mounted and well-dress 'd.
f'./f^
BOLD DICK TURPIN.
(According to Skelt.)
The Rogues turn'd his Horse loose and went off
towards Richmond."
Again, this time in the Grub Street Journal of
July 24th, 1735, we find a trace of the busy Dick,
in the following : " Monday, Mr. Omar, of South-
wark, meeting between Barnes-Common and
Wandsworth, Turpin the butcher, with another
i98 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
person, clapt spurs to his horse, hut they coming
up with him, oblig'd him to dismount, and Turpin
suspecting that he knew him, would have shot
him, but was prevented by the other, who pull'd
the pistol out of his hand."
On Sunday, August 16th, Turpin and Eowden
the Pewterer seem to have been particularly busy
and to have had a good day ; for it is recorded by
the same authority that they robbed several gentle-
men on horseback and in coaches. The district
they favoured on this occasion was the Portsmouth
Road between Putney and Kingston Hill.
In another fortnight's time or so, having made
these parts of Surrey too hot to hold them longer,
and being apparently unwilling to transfer their
activities beyond ten or twelve miles' radius from
London, they opened a most aggressive campaign
in suburban Kent. "We hear," says the Grub
Street Journal of October 16th, " that for about
six weeks past, Blackheath has been so infested
by two highwaymen (suppos'd to be E-owden and
Turpin) that 'tis dangerous for travellers to pass.
On Thursday Turpin and Rowden had the insolence
to ride through the City at noonday, and in Watling
Street they were known by two or three porters,
who had not the courage to attack them ; they
were indifferently mounted, and went towards
the bridge ; so 'tis thought are gone the Tonbridge
road."
It was while patrolling the road towards
Cambridge (on Stamford Hill, according to some
historians) that Turpin first met Tom King.
TURPIN MEETS TOM KING.
DICK T UK PIN 201
Observing a well-dressed and well -mounted
stranger riding slowly along, Turpin spurred up
to him, presented a pistol, and demanded his
money. The stranger merely laughed, which
threw Turpin into a passion, and he threatened
him with instant death if he did not comply.
King — for it was he — laughed again, and said,
" What ! dog eat dog ? Come, come, brother
Turpin ; if you don't know me I know you, and
shall be glad of your company."
This was the beginning of an alliance. These
brethren in iniquity soon struck up a bargain,
and, immediately entering on business, committed
so large a number of robberies that no landlord of
any wayside inn of the least respectability cared
to welcome them, for fear of being indicted for
harbouring such guests. Thus situated, they
fixed on a spot between the King's Oak and the
Loughton road, in Epping Forest, where they
made a cave, " large enough to receive them and
their horses," says an old account. This was
enclosed within a thicket of bushes and brambles,
through which they could look, without themselves
being observed. Erom this station they used to
issue, and robbed such numbers of persons that at
length the very pedlars who travelled the road
carried firearms for their defence. At such times
when they could not safely stir from this hiding-
place, Turpin's wife was accustomed to secretly
convey to them such articles of food and such
other things as might be necessary to their
comfort. When, at a later period, Turpin's cave
202 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
was discovered, and he was reduced to skulking
about the forest, it was found to be by no means a
despicable retreat. It was dry, and carpeted with
straw, hay, and dry leaves ; and such articles as
two clean shirts, two pairs of stockings, a piece of
ham, a bottle of wine, and some feminine apparel,
served to show that this was not altogether an
anchorite's cell. Some old accounts go so far as
to say that Turpin altogether occupied this cave
for six years, but that is not credible.
One day, as Turpin and Tom King were spying
up and down the road from their cave, through
the screen of furze and bramble that hid them
from passers-by, they saw a gentleman driving
past whom King knew very well as a rich City
merchant, of Broad Street. He was on his way to
his country estate at Fairmead Bottom, in a
carriage with his children. King made after him,
and on the Loughton road called upon the coach-
man to stop. The merchant, however, was a man
of spirit, and offered a resistance, supposing there
to be only one highwayman; upon which, King
called Turpin, by the name of "Jack," and bid
him hold the horses' heads. They then proceeded
to take his money, which he parted with, without
any further trouble ; but strongly demurred to
parting with his watch, which he said was a
family heirloom, the gift of his father. The
altercation, although short, was accompanied by
threats and menaces and frightened the children,
who persuaded their father to give up the watch ;
and then an old mourning ring became an object
DICK TURPIN 203
of dispute. Its value was very small, but King
insisted upon having it, when Turpin interposed
and said they were not so ungentlemanly as to
deprive a traveller of such a relic, and bade King
desist. This concession prompted the merchant to
ask whether they would not, as a favour, permit
him to repurchase his watch from them ; upon
which King said : " Jack, he seems to be a good,
honest fellow ; shall we let him have the
watch ? "
" Aye," said Turpin ; " do as you will."
The merchant, then inquiring the price, King
replied, " Six guineas," adding, " we never sell
one for more, even though it be worth six-and-
thirty." Then the merchant promised not to
discover them, and said he would leave the money
at the " Sword Blade " coffee-house in Birchin
Lane, and no questions asked.
The Country Journal for April 23rd, 1737, says
that on Saturday, April 16th, as a gentleman of
West Ham and others were travelling to Epping,
" the famous Turpin and a New Companion of his
came up and attack'd the Coach, in order to rob
it; the Gentleman had a Carbine in the Coach,
loaded with Slugs, and seeing them coming, got it
ready, and presented it at Turpin, on stopping the
Coach, but it flash'd in the Pan ; upon which says
Turpin ' G — d D you, you have miss'd me,
but I won't you,' and shot into the Coach at him,
but the Ball miss'd him, passing between Him
and a Lady in the Coach ; and then they rode off
towards Ongar, and dined afterwards at Hare
VOL. II. 23
204 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Street, and robbed in the Evening several
Passengers on the Forest between Loughton and
Romford, who knew him ; he has not robb'd on
that Road for some Time before."
It is possible that this adventure gave Turpin
the idea of providing himself with a carbine and
slugs in addition to his pistols, for, following the
contemporary newspaper record of his movements,
we learn from several London papers, notably the
London Daily Post and the Daily Advertiser,
that when a servant of Thompson, one of the
under-keepers of Epping Forest, went in search of
him and his retreat in those leafy recesses, with a
higgler on Wednesday, May 4th, Turpin shot the
man dead with a charge of slugs from a carbine.
Detailed accounts set forth how Mr. Thompson's
servant, animated with hopes of a hundred pounds
reward, went out, armed with a gun, in company
with the higgler, in search for Turpin. When
they came near his hiding-place, the highwayman
saw them, and, taking them for sportsmen, called
out that there were no hares near that thicket.
" No," replied Mr. Thompson's man, " but I
have found a Turpin ! " and, presenting his gun,
required him to surrender.
Turpin, replying to him in a friendly manner,
and at the same time gradually retreating into the
cave, slyly seized his carbine, and shot him in the
stomach.
He then fled from the Forest, and was reported,
by the London Daily Post of May 12th, to have
been very nearly captured in the small hours of
DICK TURPIN 205
the morning of the llth by three peace-officers,
who, late the night before, received information
that he proposed to sleep at a certain house near
Wellclose Square, Three men accordingly beset
the house, but they were observed by a woman on
the look-out, and Turpin, hurriedly aroused, fled
TOM KINO.
(From SkelCs Drama.)
through the roof, and over the chimneypots of the
adjoining houses.
It will be observed by these various newspaper
paragraphs and scattered notices, that Turpin
was always changing his associates, and it is
obvious that the stories which would have us believe
he and Tom King set up an exclusive partnership,
206 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
are not to be implicitly believed. Turpin and the
many of his kind, with whom he associated from
time to time, no doubt, worked together or apart,
or in alliance with others, just as changing
circumstances from week to week dictated.
Tom King is usually said to have been killed
under dramatic circumstances in the yard of the
" Bed Lion" inn, at the corner of the Whitechapel
Road and Leman Street ; but although we read
much of him in the picturesque romances of the
highway, it is by no means easy to trace Tom's
movements, and he remains, whatever brave
figure he may be in fiction, a very shadowy figure
as seen in recorded facts. He, it appears, was
one of three brothers. The other two were named
Matthew and Robert, and it was really Matthew
King who was mortally wounded in the yard of
the " Red Lion " in 1737, in the affray with the
Bow Street runners. The newspapers of the time
record how, a week later, he died of his wounds
in the New Prison, Clerkenwell, on May 24th.
The affair was the outcome of Turpin having
stolen a fine horse of considerable celebrity at
that time, a racehorse named " White Stockings,"
belonging to a Mr. Major, who, riding it, was
overtaken one evening by Turpin, Tom King, and
a new ally of theirs, named Potter, near the
" Green Man," Epping. Turpin made him dis-
mount and exchange horses, and took away his
riding-whip; and then the three confederates
went their way to London.
Mr. Major immediately made his loss known
DICK TURPIN 207
at the " Green Man," to Mr. Bayes, the landlord,
who at once said : " I daresay Turpin has done it,
or one of that crew," and then advised him the
hest thing to do would be to get a number of
handbills immediately printed, describing the
horse, and offering a reward. It was characteristic
of the thoroughpaced rascality of Turpin, that the
very horse he had compelled Mr. Major to change
with him was stolen. It was identified as one
DICK TURPIN.
(Sfcett.)
that had been missing from Plaistow marshes.
And the saddle had been stolen too, and was
afterwards claimed.
Although this was on Saturday night, the
handbills were at once struck off and put into
circulation, and by Monday morning information
was brought to the " Green Man," that a horse
answering the description of " White Stockings,"
had been left at the " Red Lion," in the White-
chapel Road. The innkeeper went to the house
with some Bow Street runners, determined to
2o8 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
wait there until some one called for the horse;
and about eleven o'clock at night Matthew King
came for it. When he was seized, he declared
he had bought the animal ; but a whip he held
in his hand proved to be the identical one stolen
by Turpin, and although a portion of the handle
had been broken off, Mr. Major's name could still
be read on it. An offer was made to Matthew
King, that he would be released if he would
disclose the actual robber, and he thereupon said
it was a stout man in a white duffel coat, who
was at that moment waiting in the street.
A movement was then made to capture the
man in the duffel coat, who proved to be Tom
King ; but he resisted and fired at his would-be
captors. The pistol merely flashed in the pan, and
King then attempted to draw another ; but it got
twisted in his pocket, and Bayes' hands were
being laid upon him, when he cried out to Turpin,
who was waiting on horseback at a little distance,
" Dick, shoot him, or we are taken, by God ! "
Turpin was heavily armed. Nothing less than
three brace of pistols contented him, in addition
to a carbine slung across his back. He fired,
and shot (the stories say) Tom King.
" Dick, you have shot me ; make off," the
wounded man is represented as saying, but is
afterwards said to have cursed him for a coward,
and to have informed the authorities that if they
wanted him, he might most likely be found at a
certain place on Hackney Marsh : indicating, no
doubt, the " White House."
DICK TURPIN
209
Turpin is indeed said to have at once made for
that retreat and to have exclaimed, " What shall
I do ? where shall I go ? d n that Dick Bayes,
I'll be the death of him, for I have lost the best
fellow I ever had in my life. I shot poor King
in endeavouring to kill that dog."
That is the accepted version, but it seems to be
incorrect in several particulars. As before men-
tioned, Matthew King was the victim of that
ill-considered aim. A
somewhat different
account is given in
Turpin's alleged con-
fessions to the hang-
man, printed in the, in
most respects, reliable
pamphlet narrating his
life and trial, published
in York in four editions
in 1739. In those
pages Turpin " said he
was confederate with
one King, who was executed in London some
time since, and that once, being very near taken,
he fired a pistol in the crowd, and by mistake,
shot the said King in the thigh, who was coming
to rescue him."
That entirely reverses the position, and may or
may not be an imperfectly recollected account of
what Turpin said.
There is no doubt that a Tom King, a highway-
man, was executed at Tyburn, in 1753, many
210 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
years after the Tom King who was supposed to
have been shot dead.
If Turpin had been really so terrified for his
safety after the Whitechapel affair as represented,
he must speedily have recovered himself, for he
was busy all that month in his vocation. Com-
rades might die tragically, but his own pockets,
always leaking like a colander, must be replenished.
Really, however narrowly the career of this much-
discussed highwayman is scanned, it seems hope-
less to paint a consistent picture of him. He
was, by the testimony of many witnesses, a
cowardly fellow, not often with sufficient resolu-
tion to rob unaccompanied, and even on those
occasions when he did play a lone hand, he wore a
perfect armoury of weapons and attacked only the
unarmed. One Gordon, lying at Newgate on a
charge of highway robbery, told how he had once
proposed to Turpin that himself and his brother,
Turpin, and another should seize the money going
down to pay the King's ships at Portsmouth.
They were to stand in a very narrow pass and
with swords and pistols attack the convoy. The
scheme recalls the fine mid-seventeenth century
exploits of " Mulled Sack " and his contemporaries,
and if the enterprise had been undertaken, a
splendid booty might have become theirs. But
Turpin's courage failed him, and he backed out.
Gordon said he was sure Turpin would be guilty
of many cowardly actions, and die like a dog. His
career, although a busy one, never touched great
heights, and was commonly concerned with mean
DICK TURPIN
211
thefts and raids, but he must have been possessed
of some nerve to continue actively robbing iii the
neighbourhood of London where he was so well
known, after a hundred pounds was advertised
to be waiting for any one who brought about his
arrest. It is not merely a tradition that he so
continued : we have the facts abundantly in the
public prints of the time.
Thus, the London Magazine has this note
respecting him : " The noted
Highwayman, Turpin the
Butcher, (who lately kill'd
a Man who endeavour'd to
take him on Epping Forest)
this Night robbed several
Gentlemen in their Coaches
and Chaises at Holloway and
the back Lanes at Islington,
and took from them several
Sums of Money. One of the
Gentlemen signified to him
that he had reigned a long
Time, and Turpin replied, ' 'Tis no matter for
that. I am not afraid of being taken by you;
therefore don't stand hesitating, but give me the
Cole.' " (Or, by another account, " the coriander-
seed.")
A London newspaper of the close of May is
found stating that " Turpin, the renown'd Butcher-
Highwayman, committed a robbery almost every
day this month."
But these were his last exploits in the neigh-
VOL, n. 24
212 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
bourhood of London. The position presently grew
so difficult that the merest elementary instincts
of self-preservation suggested a flight to other
scenes.
By a proclamation issued in the London
Gazette of June 25th, 1737, " His Majesty was
pleased to promise his most gracious pardon to
any of the Accomplices of Richard Turpin who
shall discover him, so that he may be apprehended
and convicted of the Murder, or any of the
Robberies he has committed ; as likewise a Reward
of £200 to any Person or Persons who shall
discover the said Criminal, so that he may be
apprehended and convicted as aforesaid ; over and
above all other Rewards to which they may be
entitled." In this proclamation, Turpin is de-
scribed as being 5 feet 9 inches in height, and it
further appears that he was not by any means
the prepossessing and even elegant figure he
presents in the engraving that shows him reclining
exquisitely in his cave ; dainty boots on his feet,
and a ladylike hand thrown over his carbine. He
had high cheekbones, his face tapered to a narrow
point at his chin, and he was deeply pitted with
small-pox.
Really, he was, it will be gathered, not an
engaging ruffian ; but there is, unfortunately, no
portrait existing which can lay the slightest claim
to be authentic. A rough woodcut, no doubt from
the strictly unauthentic imagination of the wood
engraver, or the wood-chopper who engraved, or
rather hewed it out, appears in one of the popular
TUUPIN IN HIS CAVE.
roiii an old Engraving.
DICK TURPIN
old chap-books, and shows him to have rather a
plentiful development of chin and an expression
that somewhat baffles description, but which
conveys the very decided impression that he was
not the kind of person one would much like to
meet in a lonely lane on a dark night.
Rowden the Pewterer, whom we have shown
to have accompanied Turpin so frequently in 1735,
chiefly in his adventures in Surrey, was taken
about this time and trans-
ported in July 1737.
With the price of
£200 upon his head, and
with the additional pro-
mise of a pardon for any
accomplice who would
betray him, Turpin 's
position was now more
than ever desperate. He
fully realised this, and
took the only possible
course, that of removing himself into the country,
far away from his accustomed haunts. After
three months at Long Sutton, in Lincolnshire,
he appears to have selected Yorkshire as the safest
part, and staying some time at the ferry-house.
Brough, and then at Market Cave and North
Cave, to have settled at Welton, ten miles from
Beverley, in October 1737. There he posed as
a gentleman horse-dealer, Palmer by name.
Sometimes he would range southward to Long
Sutton in Lincolnshire, but always where he went
DICK TURPIN.
(From a strictly unauthentic source.)
2i6 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
the farmers and others missed their horses, in
the most mysterious way. No one suspected the
" gentleman " horse-dealer, who mixed freely in
the company of the Yorkshire yeomen and knew
a thing or two about cockfighting and proved
himself a singularly good judge of stock — qualities
which would render tiny one popular at that time,
with the Yorkshire tykes. His ugly mug was a
mere accident, and as for his rough manners, why
the tykes themselves were rough and ready, and
so they easily excused, or perhaps even did not
notice, his overbearing ways.
But his evil temper got the better of him one
day, when, returning from a shooting expedition,
and being perhaps half-drunk, he wantonly shot
one of his neighbour's fowls. When the owner
resented this, Turpin, or " Palmer," threatened to
serve him in the same way (i.e. " if he would only
stay till he had charged his piece, he would shoot
him too "), and in the result he was arrested on a
charge of brawling, at the " Green Man " inn.
When he came before the magistrates in Quarter
Sessions at Beverley, the singular fact was dis-
covered that this man, so well known in the
neighbourhood, had many acquaintances, but no
friends who would speak to his character or go
bail for him. It then appeared that he had come
as an entire stranger to the district less than two
years earlier ; and in short, in one way and
another, it was all at once discovered that he was
a suspicious character, whose doings had better be
investigated. He was accordingly remanded, and
DICK TURPIN 217
enquiries resulted in his being charged with
stealing a black mare, blind of the near eye, off
Heckington Common, in Lincolnshire, near Slea-
ford. He had declared himself a native of Long
Button, and said his father lived there and his
sister kept house for him. He had been, he
continued, in business there, but had been obliged
to abscond, owing to his having contracted some
debts he found himself unable to pay, in an
unfortunate transaction in which he had bought
some sheep that had proved to be diseased.
Enquiries proved these statements to be entirely
false. He had no relations at Long Sutton,
but he was known there, and badly wanted,
as a sheep - stealer, suspected also of horse -
stealing.
It is significant of Turpin's activity in horse-
stealing that the Worcester Journal of Sep-
tember 29th, 1738, has the following curious item :
" A few days since, the Father of the noted
Turpin was committed to Chelmsford Gaol, for
having in his Possession a Horse supposed to be
stolen out of Lincolnshire, which, he pleads, was
left with him by his Son, to pay for Diet and
Lodging." Research fails to discover the result
of this committal.
John Palmer, or Richard Turpin, was sent
from Beverley to York Castle to stand his trial at
the assizes for stealing the horse from Heckington ;
and from his grim dungeon cell, still in existence
in the Castle, he wrote a letter to his brother, or,
according to the evidence at his trial, his brother-
218 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
in-law, at Hempstead, asking him to be a referee as
to character :
YORK, Feb. 6, 1639.
" DEAR BROTHER,
" I am sorry to acquaint you that I am
now under confinement in York Castle, for horse-
stealing. If I could procure an evidence from
London to give me a character, that would go a
great way towards my being acquitted. I had not
been long in this county before my being appre-
hended, so that it would pass off the readier. For
heaven's sake, my dear brother, do not neglect me;
you will know what I mean when I say,
" I am, your's,
"JOHN PALMER."
The letter was not prepaid, and the recipient,
not recognising the handwriting of the address,
refused to receive it and pay the sixpence
demanded. As it happened, Mr. Smith, the
schoolmaster who had taught Turpin to write,
saw the letter, and recognising the handwriting,
carried it to the magistrates, so that it might
legally be opened, and perhaps the very much
wanted Turpin be arrested from the information
it possibly contained. Perhaps this public-spirited
person really thought he saw a chance of obtain-
ing the £200 reward offered ; but, however that
may be, the letter disclosed the fact that Turpin
was lying in prison at York, and Smith eventu-
ally appeared at the trial and identified him. It
DICK TURPIN
219
is not known who, if indeed any one, received the
reward.
The rumour that Turpin had been taken, and
was a prisoner in York Castle, was no sooner
circulated than people nocked from all parts to
get a sight of him, and debates ran very high
whether he was the real person or not. This
making a holiday show of a prisoner in his cell
SIB RALPH ROOKWOOD AND SIMON SHARPSCENT.
(Skelt.)
seems odd to us moderns ; but it was then, as we
see constantly in these pages, the usual thing, and
a practice that greatly enriched the turnkeys ; or
the warders, as we should call them.
Among others who visited Turpin was a young
fellow who pretended to know the famous high-
wayman. After having looked for a considerable
time at the prisoner, he turned to the warder on
duty, and said he would bet him half a guinea this
was not Turpin ; whereupon Turpin, in his turn
220 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
inclining to the warder, whispered, with cynical
humour, " Lay him the wager, you fool, and I'll
go you halves ! "
The trial of " John Palmer, alias Paumer, alias
Richard Turpin," as the official account of the
proceedings has it, took place at the York Assizes,
March 22nd, 1739, " before the Hon. Sir William
Chappie, one of His Majesty's Justices of the
Court of King's Bench, for stealing a black geld-
ing, the property of Thomas Creasy.
Thomas Creasy deposed that in the August
of 1738 he was owner of the black gelding, and
missed it on the eighteenth of the month. He
had hired men and horses, and had ridden some
forty miles to try and obtain news of its where-
abouts, and had paid criers to cry it in different
market towns. He had also told one Richard
Grasby of his loss, and described the animal to
him, and at a later date Grasby told him his horse
was at an inn called the "Blue Bell" at Beverley.
He then went to Beverley and saw the landlord of
the " Blue Bell," and described the horse to him
as a black gelding, with a little star on his fore-
head. The landlord then took him to the stable
and showed him the horse.
James Smith was then called, and asked if he
knew the prisoner at the bar. He said he did.
He had known him at Hempstead,'in Essex, where
he was born. He had known him since he was a
child. His name was Richard Turpin, and his
father kept the " Bell " inn in that village.
Richard Turpin had married one of his maids. It
DICK TURPIN 221
was about five years since he had last seen him.
He had taught him at school, and there was no
doubt whatever that this was the same man.
Asked how it happened that, living so far
distant as Essex, he came to be present as a
witness at this trial, he said that at the Hempstead
post-office one day he observed a letter directed
to Turpin's brother-in-law, who had refused to
pay the postage on it. Looking narrowly at the
handwriting, he thought he recognised it as that
of Richard Turpin, whom he had taught to write.
Turpin then being very much in demand by the
magistrates, he took the letter forthwith to a local
Justice of the Peace, who opened it, and found it
was sent from York Castle, and purported to come
from one " John Palmer."
The justices had sent him a subpoana to appear
for the prosecution at York. He had been shown
into the prison yard, and there he had seen and
recognised Turpin, who was there under the name
of Palmer.
"Palmer," then informed that he might ask
Mr. Smith any questions he desired, merely
replied he did not know him.
Mr. Edward Saward, of Hempstead, then
called and asked if he knew prisoner, said he did.
He was born and brought up at the " Bell," kept
by his father, John Turpin. He had known him
twenty-two years. (" Upon my soul, I have,"
he added ; to which counsel rejoined, " My friend,
you have sworn once already ; you need not swear
again.") " I knew him ever since he was a boy
VOL. II. 25
222 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and lived at the ' Bell.' He lived with his
father there, and I was friendly with him. I
knew him also after he had set up for himself,
and I have bought a great many good joints of
meat from him." The prisoner had at first
affected not to know him ; but afterwards had
TUBPIN'S CELL IN YORK CASTLE.
acknowledged the acquaintance, and had added :
" Let's bung our eyes up with drink."
The prisoner's sole defence was that he had
bought the horse; but he could produce no
evidence to show he had actually done so, and
could not mention the name of the person from
whom he had bought him, nor the place where
the transaction had been completed.
The jury ha4 no difficulty in returning a
DICK TURPIN 223
verdict of " guilty," and, indeed, did so without
leaving the court. Turpin was then formally
sentenced to death.
He wrote to his father, and made great efforts
to obtain a reduction of his sentence to trans-
portation ; hut without result. A letter received
from his father was a feature of a pamphlet,
detailing his trial and adventures, published at
York in April 1739. There is no reason to doubt
its genuine character :
March 29, 1739.
"DEAR CHILD,
" I received you Letter this Inftant, with
a great deal of grief ; according to your Requef t,
I have writ to your Brother John, and Madam
Peek, to make what interceffion can be made to
Col. Watfon, in order to obtain Tranfportation
for your Misfortune ; which, had I £100 I would
freely part with it to do you good ; and for God's
Sake, give your whole Mind to beg of God to
pardon your many Tranfgreffions, which the Thief
upon the Crofs received Pardon for at the laft
Hour, tho' a very great Offender. The Lord be
your Comfort, and receive you into his eternal
Kingdom.
" I am yours Diftrefs'd,
" Yet Loving Father,
" JOHN TURPIN.
" HEMSTEAD.
" All our Loves to you, who are in much Grief
to fubfcribe ourfelves your diftreffed Brother
and Sifter, with Relations."
224 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Turpin principally concerned himself in those
twenty-six days that bridged the distance between
sentence and execution in joking, drinking with
the many visitors who came to see him, and telling
stories of his adventures. He turned a deaf ear
to the ministrations of the Ordinary, and was
infinitely more concerned that he should make
a last " respectable " appearance in this world,
on the scaffold, than for his welfare in the next.
Nothing would satisfy him but new clothes, a
brand-new fustian frock, and a smart pair of
pumps to die in. On the morning before the
fatal April 17th he gave the hangman £3 10s. Od.,
to be divided among five men, who were to follow
him as mourners, and were to be furnished with
black hat-bands and mourning gloves. When
the time came, and he went in the tumbril to be
turned off upon York's place of execution at
Knavesmire, he bowed to the ladies and flourished
his hat like a hero. It is true that when he had
arrived at the tragic place his leg trembled, but
he stamped it down impatiently. He talked for
half an hour with the hangman, until the crowd
began to grow impatient, but then mounted the
ladder provided, and threw himself off in the
most resolute fashion. He had the reward of his
courage, for he died in a moment.
It should here be explained that hanging in
those old times, before the drop had been intro-
duced, was generally a cruel and clumsy method.
As a rule, the culprit was driven up in the cart
immediately under the gallows, and the noose then
DICK TURPIN
225
adjusted round his neck. When all was ready,
the cart was simply drawn away and the victim
left hanging, to be slowly and agonisingly
suffocated. Thus the horrible spectacle was often
witnessed of compassionate persons — and some-
times the relations of the hanging man — pulling
his legs to more speedily end his sufferings. In
the museum at Dorchester there may to this day
be seen two heavy weights made for the purpose
of thus shortening the misery of
criminals hanged at the gaol there,
and bearing the word MERCY.
It sometimes happened, in
those days, that a criminal would
be ineffectually hanged, and after-
wards cut down and revived.
" Half - hanged Smith " was a
burglar who obtained his nick-
name in this manner at Tyburn;
but he was convicted, a few years
later, of a similar crime, and
effectually hanged on that occasion. Another,
cut down and revived, declared the sensation of
being hanged was sufficiently bad, but that of
being restored to life was indescribably agonising,
and said he wished those hanged who had cut
him down.
The shocking old alternative to being slowly
hanged when the cart was withdrawn was the
method by which criminals with sufficient courage
were enabled to anticipate the modern drop, by
throwing themselves off the ladder, and so securing
RALPH OSTLEB.
(Skelt.)
226 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
an instant and practically painless death. But
this was making the condemned their own execu-
tioners, and, to all intents and purposes, suicides.
It also required a considerable amount of resolu-
tion.
Turpin's body lay in state for a day and a
night at the " Blue Boar " inn, Castlegate, York,
and was buried the following morning in the
churchyard of St. George's, Fishergate Postern.
That evening it was disinterred by some of the
city surgeons, for dissection, but the mob, with
whom Turpin had already become a hero, deter-
mined that his remains should not be dishonoured,
rescued the body and reinterred it in lime, so as
to effectually prevent any other attempts.
The Ride to York and Black Bess are alike
myths, but the spot was long pointed out upon
the racecourse at York (perhaps it still is), where
that gallant mare sank down exhausted and died.
So strong a hold have myths upon the imagination,
that it is hardly possible the most painstaking
historian will succeed in popularly discrediting
the bona fides of that ride, invented and so
stirringly described by Harrison Ainsworth in
1834, in his Rookwood.
Ainsworth was the unconscious predisposing
cause of much of Skelt's Juvenile Drama, that
singular collection of remarkably mild plays for
toy theatres, allied with terrific scenes and the
most picturesque figures conceived, drawn and
engraved in the wildest spirit of melodrama, and
in the most extravagant attitudes. No such
TURPIN'S WAIST-GIRDLE, WRIST-SHACKLES, AND LEG IRONS,
228 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
scenery ever existed as that drawn by Skelt's anony-
mous artists. It was a decided improvement upon
Nature ; and no heroes so heroic and no villains
so villainous could possibly have lived and moved
as those imagined by his staff of draughtsmen.
Dick Turpin was of course in the forefront of
the thirty-three plays published by Skelt, and the
pictured characters do full justice — and perhaps
a trifle over — to the entirely illegitimate fame
Turpin has acquired. You see
them reproduced here, engraved
line for line from Skelt, scattered
over the pages of this recon-
sideration of Turpin. Firstly, you
have the great brethren, Turpin
and Tom King, themselves,
mounted on noble steeds that
stretch themselves gallantly in
their stride ; and then you have
MAID OF THE INN. Sir Ralph Rookwood and that
intelligent officer, Simon Sharp-
scent, also on horseback, hurrying off in company,
but upon the trail of the highwaymen. Simon
Sharpscent, you will observe, has in his hand a
something that looks not unlike a Field Marshal's
baton. It is the police-officer's crown-tipped
staff of office ; and producing it he will pre-
sently say, dramatically : "I arrest you in the
King's name 1 "
Always, with the remarkable exception of the
group of " Highwaymen Carousing," these char-
acters are intensely dramatic in their attitudes ;
DICK TURPIN 229
hut the carousing highwaymen are unexpectedly
wooden; although they look capable of being
daredevil fellows when the generous wine, or the
old ale — whichever it may be — has done its work.
Even the " Maid of the Inn " is a creature of
romance.
Although Ainsworth invented Turpin's Ride to
York, he certainly did not invent Black Bess, nor
did he conceive the ride as an attempt to establish
an alibi ; for he shows him hotly pursued by the
HIGHWAYMEN CAROUSING.
(Skelt.)
officers of the law, nearly all the way. In
Ains worth's pages you find no reason why the
ride should have been undertaken. I have else-
where remarked that Ainsworth invented Black
Bess, as well as robbed Swiftnicks of the glory of
the ride ; but a further acquaintance with the
literature of the early part of the nineteenth
century discloses the curious fact that Horace
Smith in 1825, in a volume entitled Gaieties and
Gravities, included a story called " Harry Halter,"
in which that highwayman hero is represented as
VOL. II. 26
23o HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
sitting at the " Wig and Water Spaniel," in
Monmouth Street, with his friends of the same
persuasion, Ned Noose, and Old Charley Crape,
and singing the ballad of
TURPIN AND THE BlSHOP
Bold Turpin upon Hounslow Heath
His black mare Bess bestrode,
When he saw a Bishop's coach and four
Sweeping along the road ;
He bade the coachman stop, but he,
Suspecting of the job,
His horses lash'd — but soon roll'd off,
With a brace of slugs in his nob.
Galloping to the carriage- door,
He thrust his face within,
When the Chaplain said — " Sure as eggs is eggs,
That is the bold Turpin."
Quoth Turpin, "You shall eat your words
With sauce of leaden bullet " ;
So he clapp'd his pistol to his mouth,
And fired it down his gullet.
The Bishop fell upon his knees,
When Turpin bade him stand,
And gave him his watch, a bag of gold,
And six bright rings from his hand.
Rolling with laughter, Turpin pluck'd
The Bishop's wig from his head,
And popp'd it on the Chaplain's poll,
As he sate in the corner dead.
Upon the box he tied him then,
With the reins behind his back,
Put a pipe in his mouth, the whip in his hand,
And set off the horses, smack !
Then whisper'd in his black mare's ear,
WTho luckily wasn't fagg'd,
"You must gallop fast and far, my dear,
Or I shall be surely scragg'd."
DICK TURPIN 231
He never drew bit, nor stopp'd to bait,
Nor walk'd up hill or down,
Until he came to Gloucester's gate,
Which is the Assizes town.
Full eighty miles in one dark night,
He made his black mare fly,
And walk'd into Court at nine o'clock
To swear an Alibi.
A hue and cry the Bishop raised,
And so did Sheriff Foster,
But stared to hear that Turpin was
By nine o'clock at Gloucester.
So all agreed it couldn't be him,
Neither by hook nor crook;
And said that the Bishop and Chaplain was
Most certainly mistook.
Here we certainly find Black Bess, not treated
to two capital letters, and only referred to as " his
black mare Bess " (it was reserved
for Ainsworth to discover the
worth of the alliteration and the
demand it made for two capital
B's), but we thus have traced the
invention of that coal-black steed
one remove further back, and there
it must rest, for a time, at any
rate.
It seems pretty clear that Smith
. , j .,-, ,i -, ., INNKEEPER.
was acquainted with the exploit
of Swiftnicks, but why he trans-
ferred the ride to Turpin, and the purpose of
establishing an alibi to Gloucester, does not appear,
unless indeed he wanted a rhyme to " Poster."
Dickens, who wrote Pickwick in 1836, eleven
232 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
years after Gaieties and Gravities was published,
had evidently read Smith's book, for in Chapter
XLIII. we find Sam Weller represented as singing
to the coachman a condensed and greatly altered
version, beginning :
Bold Turpin vunce, on Hounslow Heath
His bold mare Bess bestrode — er ;
Ven there he see'd the Bishop's coach
A-coming along the road — er.
That Swiftnicks actually performed the famous
ride was generally believed, as elsewhere described
in these pages ; and unless any later evidence can
be adduced to deprive him of the credit, he must
continue to enjoy it. But it is curious to note
that riding horseback between York and London
under exceptional circumstances has often been
mentioned. A prominent instance is the wager
accepted by John Lepton, esquire to James the
First, that he would ride six times between London
and York on six consecutive days. Puller, in his
Worthies, tells us all about it. He first set out
on May 20th, 1606, from Aldersgate, London, and
completed the journey before nightfall, returning
the next day ; and so on until he had won the
wager, " to the great praise of his strength in
acting, than to his discretion in undertaking it,"
says Fuller, with an unwonted sneer.
Turpin was certainly described in his own life-
time as "the noted," "the renowned," "the
famous," but those were merely newspaper phrases,
and the notability, the renown, or the fame
DICK TURPIN 233
commented upon in to-day's paper is, we are by
way of seeing in our own age, the oblivion of next
week. The London Magazine, commenting briefly
on his execution, styles him a " mean and stupid
wretch," and that estimate of him is little likely
ever to be revised, although it may readily and
justly be amplified by the epithets " brutal " and
"cowardly." The brutalities of himself and his
associates kept the suburbs of London for a while
in terror, but he evidently had made little impres-
sion on the mind of Captain Charles Johnson,
whose book on The General History of Highway-
men, published in 1742, three years after Turpin's
execution, has no mention of him.
Yet, side by side with these facts, we are
confronted with the undoubted immediate ballad
fame he acquired in the north, of which here are
two pitiful specimen verses :
For shooting of a dunghill cock
Poor Turpin he at last was took ;
And carried straight into a jail,
Where his misfortune he does bewail,
O rare Turpin hero,
O rare Turpin 0 !
Now some do say that he will hang —
Turpin the last of all the gang ;
I wish the cock had ne'er been hatched,
For like a fish in the net he's catched.
Pedlars hawked these untutored productions
widely over the country, and it will be noticed
with some amusement that, just as Robin Hood
had been made a popular ballad hero, robbing the
rich to give to the poor, and succouring the widow
234 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and the orphan, and just as Nevison had been
similarly enshrined, so Turpin, who would have
heen mean enough to rob a poor man of his beer,
a poor widow of her last groat, or to steal a penny
out of a blind man's pannikin (the worst of crimes),
was instantly converted into a blameless martyr.
We may, however, readily imagine the ill-treated
Mr. Lawrence of Edge ware-bury, rubbing his
roasted posteriors and vehemently dissenting from
that estimate of Turpin.
But the ballad-writers did not pretend to
historical accuracy, or to grammar, scansion, or
anything but a rude way of appealing to the
feelings of the rustics, whose lives of unremitting
toil for poor wages embittered them more than
they knew against the rich ; to this extent, that
they imagined virtue resided solely in the lowly
cot, and vice and oppressive feelings exclusively in
the lordly hall. Those who were poor were
virtuous, and the highwayman who emptied the
pockets of the rich performed a meritorious service.
Hence ballads like the following grievous example,
in which Turpin appears, in spite of well-ascer-
tained facts, to have been executed at Salisbury :
TURPEN'S APPEAL TO THE JUDGE IN HIS DEFENCE; OR THE
GEN'ROUS ROBBER
Printed and sold by J. Pitts, 6, Great St. Andrew Street, Seven Dials
Come all you wild and wicked young men
A warning take by me,
A story now to you I'll tell
Of Turpen of Salisbury.
DICK TURPIN 235
He was a wild and wicked blade
On the High road did he hie,
But at last was tried, and cast,
And condemn'd he was to die.
When before the Judge he came
And at the Bar he did stand,
For no pardon he did ask,
But boldly he held up his hand,
Declared the truth before the Judge
Who was to try him then : —
"I hope, my Lord, you'll pardon me,
I'm not the worst of men,
I the Scripture have fulfilled,
Tho' a wicked life I led,
When the naked I've beheld,
I've cloathed them and fed ;
Sometimes in a Coat of Winter's pride,
Sometimes in a russet grey,
The naked I've cloathed, the hungry fed,
And the Rich I've sent empty away.
As I was riding out one day,
I saw a Prisoner going to Jail,
Because his debts he could not pay,
Or yet sufficient bail.
A true and faithful friend he found
In me that very day ;
I paid the Creditor forty pounds
Which set the Prisoner free.
When he had my guineas bright,
He told them into his purse,
But I could not be satisfied:
To have 'em again I must.
Boldly I mounted my prancing steed,
And crossing a point of land,
There I met the Creditor,
And boldly bade him stand.
Sir, the debt you owe to me
Amounts to Forty pounds
Which I am resolved to have
Before I quit this ground,
236 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
I search'd his pockets all around,
And robb'd him of his store,
Wherein I found my forty pounds
And Twenty Guineas more.
What harm, my Lord Judge, he said,
What harm was there in this,
To Rob a Miser of his store,
By my stout heartedness.
I never rob'd or wrong'd the poor,
As it plainly does appear ;
So I hope you'll pardon me
And be not too severe."
Then the Judge unto bold Turpen said
"Your stories are but in vain,
For by our laws you are condemn'd,
And must receive your pain.
Repent, repent, young man, he said,
For what is done and past,
You say the hungry you've cloathed and fed,
But you must die at last."
It is of course possible that this ballad was
not meant for Dick Turpin at all ; for, so wide-
spread in rural districts had his fame early grown,
that " Turpin " became almost a generic name for
local highwaymen, just as after Julius Caesar all
the Emperors of Rome were Caesars. It was
a name to conjure with : and this no doubt goes
some way to explain the infinitely many alleged
" Turpin's haunts " in widely separated districts :
places Turpin could not have found time to haunt,
unless he had been a syndicate.
Away down in Wiltshire, in the neighbourhood
of Trowbridge, between Keevil and Bulkington,
and in a soggy level plain watered by an affluent
of the Wiltshire Avon, there stands in a wayside
DICK TURPIN
237
ditch a hoary object called "Turpin's Stone,"
inscribed, in letters now almost entirely obliter-
ated,
Dick Turpin's dead and gone,
This Stone's set up to think upon.
This curious wayside relic may be found on the
boundary-line of the parishes of Bulkington and
TURPIN'S STONE.
Keevil, near a spot oddly named Brass Pan Bridge,
and standing in an evil- smelling ditch that receives
the drainage of the neighbouring pigsties. It is
a battered and moss-grown object, and its in-
scription, despite the local version of it given
above, is not really decipherable, as a whole.
VOL. II. 27
238 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
" Turpin " may be read, easily enough, but if the
word above it is meant for " Dick," why then
the sculptor of it spelled the name " Dicq," a feat
of illiterate ingenuity that rather staggers belief.
Brake-loads of Wiltshire archaeologists have visited
the spot in summer, when county antiquaries
mostly archseologise, and, braving typhoid fever,
have descended into the ditch and sought to
unravel the mystery of this Sphinx : without
result.
The village of Poulshot, birthplace of Thomas
Boulter, a once-dreaded highwayman, is not far
off, and it is possible that Boulter, who had a very
busy and distinguished career on the highways of
England in general, and of Salisbury Plain in
particular,1 may have been named locally " Dick
Turpin," after the hero who died at York under
tragical circumstances, with the aid of a rope, in
1739. Boulter himself ended in that way in 1778,
at "Winchester, and so the transference of names
was quite possible. He, it is significant to note,
had a mare named " Black Bess," which he stole in
1736 from Mr. Peter Delme's stables at Erie Stoke.
There are Turpin " relics " and associations at
the " Spaniards," on Hampstead Heath, and we
find the Times of August 22nd, 1838, saying :
" The rear of the houses on Holborn Bridge has for
many years been the receptacle for characters of
the most daring and desperate condition. There,
in a secret manage (now a slaughter-house for her
species), did Turpin suffer his favourite Black
' See the " Exeter Road," ppf 217-228,
DICK TURPIN
239
Bess to repose for many a night previously to her
disastrous journey to York." The Times had
evidently swallowed the Ride to York story
whole, and relished it.
Another, and more cautious commentator says,
" He shot people like partridges. Many wild and
improbable stories are told of him, such as his
rapid ride to York, his horse chewing a beef-steak
on the way ; but, setting these aside, he was hardy
PORTMANTEAU, FOEMEBLY BELONGING TO TURPIN, DISCOVERED
AT CLERKENWELL.
and cruel enough to shine as a mighty malefactor.
He seems, to quote the Newgate jest, to have been
booked, at his very birth, for the Q-ravesend Coach
that leaves at eight in the morning."
"Many years ago," we read in Pink's History
of Clerkenwell, " a small leather portmanteau was
found at the ' Coach and Horses ' tavern, at
Hockley-in-the-Hole, with the ends of wood,
large enough to contain a change of linen, besides
other little etceteras. On the inner side of the
lid, lightly cut in the surface of the leather, is the
24o HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
name, ' R. TVRPIN.' Whether or no this portman-
teau (such an one as horsemen formerly carried
behind them, strapped to the saddle), belonged to
that famous highwayman," says Pink, " we will
not attempt to decide."
But here there should not be much room for
doubt. The relic was probably genuine. It was
illustrated in Pink's book, but the whereabouts of
it are not now known.
The irons worn by Turpin in his cell at York
Castle are now preserved in the York Museum,
together with those used for Nevison. They have
a total weight of 28 Ib.
WILLIAM PABSONS, THE BARONET'S
SON
WILLIAM PARSONS, born in 1717, was the youngest
son of a respectable baronet, Sir William Parsons,
of Nottingham ; and was so well connected that
he could claim no less a personage than the
Duchess of Northumberland for aunt. Sent to
Eton, to complete his education, he left " Henry's
holy shade " in considerable disfavour, and on a
visit to an uncle at Epsom so misconducted him-
self, that he was bidden never show his face there
again. His behaviour was no better at Cheshunt,
where another relative had the misfortune to
receive him for a time. He was then packed off
to sea, as midshipman, aboard the Drake. Re-
turning at the end of a cruise to England, he
continued in the gaming habits he had early
learnt, and, to provide funds for his amusements,
called upon his highly-placed aunt and stole a
gold-mounted miniature from her dressing-room.
This he was obliged to sell for one-fourth its
value. We next find him at Buxton, stealing a
gold-buckled pair of shoes in the assembly-room
belonging to a Mr. Graham, and realising on them
while the owner, vainly seeking, lost all his
dances.
241
242 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
A cruise aboard the Romney then took him
to Newfoundland. He played cards and cheated
aboard ship, and acquired so bad a character that
it was plainly intimated the Navy was not his
vocation and he had better leave it. He accord-
ingly left the service and soon found himself
deserted by his friends and without a stiver in his
breeches pockets.
Realising his wild nature, his father thought
it best to secure him some post that should take
him abroad for at least a few years, by which time
his hot blood might have cooled down. To this
end, he procured him a billet with the Royal
African Company, on the West Coast of that then
very Dark Continent; but the scapegrace was
soon back in England, having quarrelled with the
governor of James Port on the Gambia River, to
whom he had been accredited. He landed even
more destitute, if possible, than before, and of
necessity lived the simple life, by existing for four
whole days on three half -penny worth of bread.
The public fountains supplied him freely with
water, wherewith to wash down those frugal
meals.
He dared make no more applications to his
father for assistance, for that father was then
smarting at having paid £70 to redeem his honour
over a discreditable affair that had taken place in
Africa, where the reckless youth had forged a
letter purporting to come from his aunt, the
Duchess, saying she would be answerable for any
debts her nephew might incur, up to that amount.
WILLIAM PARSONS.
WILLIAM PARSONS 245
It was folly of the worst, and most unremunera-
tive, kind, for that aunt, with whom he had
originally been a favourite, revoked the will she
had made in his favour, and left the £25,000, that
would have come to him, to his sister.
It is evident that William Parsons was what
would be called in modern times a " degenerate."
In 1740 he borrowed a large sum of money by a
pretence that he was his elder brother, who was
the prospective owner of a considerable legacy.
He then succeeded in making a respectable
appearance for a time, and married a young lady
of good family and fortune. By that marriage he
acquired a sum of £4,000, but his wife's trustees,
being not quite satisfied with him, took care to
secure the bulk of her property in such a manner
that he could not touch it. Entering the Army
in 1741, as an ensign in a foot regiment, he
embarked upon an extravagant manner of living :
obtained a quantity of gold and silver plate from
confiding tradesmen, and kept a large number of
servants. He could never resist the gaming-
tables, and although himself a rogue and a
swindler, always found others there who proved
more finished than himself, and thoroughly fleeced
him.
He would then turn to forgery, and success-
fully negotiate forged bills under well-known
names. The Duke of Cumberland's signature was
used for £500. Nothing came amiss to his per-
verse ingenuity ; and he would even, as an army
officer, call upon tailors and pretend to having a
246 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
contract for the supply of uniforms. He would
pocket a handsome commission and receive the
goods and sell them for what they would fetch.
To be his friend was to be marked down for being
defrauded, and often to be placed in the most em-
barrassing situations. Thus in 1745, when the
Jacobite rebellion was disturbing the country, he
borrowed a horse of a brother officer and rode
away with it, intending to desert to the rebels.
But, thinking better of it, he went no further than
Clerkenwell, where he sold the horse. The late
owner was, in consequence, arrested on charges
of desertion and high treason, and things might
quite conceivably have gone hard with him.
Accounts of Parsons' next doings do not quite
agree. By one of them we learn that he went
to Florida as a lieutenant, but according to
another and a more probable version, he was
shipped to the plantations in Virginia as a con-
vict, who had been found guilty of forgery at
Maidstone Assizes, and sentenced to be transported.
Family influence had no doubt prevented his
being hanged.
Working as a slave in the plantations belong-
ing to Lord Fairfax, he attracted the attention of
that nobleman, who took him from the gang of
convicted malefactors, with whom, under strict
supervision, he hoed and delved under the blazing
sun, and befriended him. It did not pay to
befriend William Parsons. He stole one of the
best horses belonging to his benefactor, and, going
upon those early colonial roads, soon accumulated,
WILLIAM PARSONS
247
as a highAvayman, a sufficient sum to buy himself
a passage back to old England.
By fraud, backed up with consummate
assurance, he obtained £70 at his port of landing,
and came at once to London. A scheme for plun-
dering his sister, who
by this time had
succeeded to her
aunt's legacy of
£25,000, then en-
gaged his attention.
He hatched a plot
with a discharged
footman, for that man
to pose as a gentle-
man of fortune, and
to make advances to
her, and even to
forcibly carry her off
and marry her against
her will, if needs
were. Some women
servants were also in
the plot, and were
even given duly
WILLIAM PARSONS.
signed bonds in £500
and lesser sums, to lend their aid. The footman
and Parsons were, in the event of this scheme
proving successful, to share the £25,000 in
equal parts.
By a mere accident, the plot was discovered in
a milliner's shop in the West End, where a lady
VOL. II. 28
248 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
friend of Miss Parsons had pointed out to her
a finely dressed gentleman, " who was going to
marry Miss Parsons." This led to enquiries, and
an exposure of the whole affair.
The last resource of this thorough-paced
scoundrel was the road. He chiefly affected the
western suburbs and Hounslow Heath, and it was
in a robbery on that widespreading waste that he
was captured. He had obtained information that
a servant, with a valise containing a large sum in
notes and gold, was to leave town and meet his
master at Windsor ; and so set out to lie in wait
for him. But he had already been so active on
the Heath that his face was too well known, and
he was recognised at Brentford by a traveller who
had suffered from him before. Following him
into Hounslow Town, this former victim suddenly
raised an alarm and caused him to be seized.
Taken to the " Rose and Crown " inn, Parsons
was recognised by the landlord and others, as one
who had for some time scoured the Heath and
committed robberies. His pistols were taken from
him, and he was committed to Newgate, and in
the fulness of time tried, convicted, and sentenced
to death. The efforts of his family connections
were again used to save him from the gallows,
and themselves from the stigma of it ; but his
career was too notorious for further leniency, and
he was hanged at Tyburn on February llth, 1751.
WILLIAM PAGE
" THERE is always room on top " has long been
the conclusive reply to complaints of overcrowding
in the professions. However many duffers may
already be struggling for a bare livelihood in
them, there yet remains an excellent career for
the recruit with energy and new methods. The
profession of highwayman aptly illustrates the
truth of these remarks. It was shockingly over-
crowded in the middle of the eighteenth century,
even though the duffers were generally caught in
their initial efforts and hanged ; and really it is
wonderful where all the wealth came from, to
keep such an army of " money-changers " in
funds.
William Page, who for twelve years carried on
a flourishing practice in the " Stand and Deliver ! "
profession, was one of those few who lived very
near the top of it. His name is not so familiar as
those of Du Vail, Hind, Maclean, or Turpin, but
not always do the really eminent come down to us
with their eminence properly acknowledged. He
was born about 1730, the son of a bargeman to
a coal merchant at Hampton-on-Thames. The
bargeman was unfortunately drowned at Putney
249
25o HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
in 1740, and his widow was reduced to eking out
a meagre livelihood by the distilling of waters
from medicinal herbs. She is described as "a
notable industrious woman," and certainly it was
not from her example that William learned the
haughty and offensive ways that would not permit
him long to keep any of the numerous situations
he took, after leaving the Charity School at
Hampton, where he acquired what small education
he had. He started life as tapster's boy at the
" Bell " alehouse, in his native town, and thence
changed to errand-boy in the employment of
" Mr. Mackenzie," apothecary. Soon his youthful
ambition took him to London, where he obtained
a situation in the printing-office of Woodfall, in
Little Britain, who became in after-years notorious
as printer of the " Letters of Junius " ; but " that
business being too great a confinement for his
rambling temper, he left it, and went footboy
to Mr. Dalrymple, Scots Holland warehouse in
London."
He rapidly filled the situations of footman to
one Mr. Hodges, in Lincoln's Inn Fields ; porter
to a gentleman in Cork Street, and footman to
Mr. Macartney in Argyle Buildings. He then
entered the service of the Earl of Glencairn, but
left that situation to become valet to a certain
Captain Jasper. Frequently discharged for " his
proud and haughty spirit, which would not brook
orders from his masters," and prevented him, on
the other hand, being on good terms with his
fellow-servants, he at last found himself unable to
WILLIAM PAGE 251
obtain another place. This was a sad time for
William Page. In service he had learned ex-
travagant habits, the love of fine clothes and the
fascination of gambling; but his arrogant ways
had brought him low indeed.
" Being by such means as these extremely
reduced in his circumstances, without money,
without friends, and without character, he could
think of no better method of supplying his wants,
and freeing himself from a servile dependency,
than by turning Collector on the Highway. This
he imagined would not only take off that badge of
slavery, the livery he had always worn with
regret, but would set him on a level with
gentlemen, a figure he was ever ambitious of
making."
His first steps were attended with some diffi-
culty, for he laboured under the disadvantage, at
the moment of coming to this decision, of having
no money in his pockets ; and to commence
highwayman, as to begin any other business or
profession, it was necessary to have a small
capital, for preliminary expenses. But a little
ingenuity showed him the way. Pistols and a
horse were the tools of his trade, and pistols, of
course, first. A servant of his acquaintance
knew a person who had a brace of pistols to sell,
and Page took them, " to show a friend on
approval." He then hired a horse for deferred
payment, and with the pistols went out and
immediately and successfully robbed the Highgate
coach. Thus, with the £4 he in this manner
252 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
obtained, he paid for the pistols and settled with
the livery-stable keeper for his horse-hire. In
another day or two he had touched the wayfaring
public for a sum sufficient to purchase a horse of
his own ; and thus commenced his twelve-years'
spell of highway adventure, in which, although he
had many exciting experiences, he was arrested
only once before the final escapade that brought
him to the gallows.
An early freak of his was the robbing of his
former master, Captain Jasper, on Hounslow
Heath. The Captain was crossing the ill-omened
place with a lady in a post-chaise, when Page rode
up, bade the postilion stop, and ordered the
Captain to deliver.
"That may be, sir," retorted the Captain
angrily, " but not yet," and, pulling out a pistol,
fired at him. His aim was not good, but he hit
somebody : none other, indeed, than his own
postilion, who was struck in the back, " and
wounded very much."
Then said Page, " Consider, sir, what a rash
action you have been guilty of. You have killed
this poor fellow, which I would not have done for
the world. And now, sir, I repeat my orders, and
if you refuse any longer to comply, I will actually
fire upon you."
The Captain then snapped his second pistol at
him, but it missed fire. Page then swore he
would shoot the lady ; intending to do nothing of
the kind, but only to alarm the Captain the more.
But in Captain Jasper our highwayman had met
WILLIAM PAGE.
WILLIAM PAGE 255
sterner stuff than common, and the gallant
7 O
soldier, the better to protect her, forthwith sat
himself in her lap. On Page continuing to declare
he would shoot him, the Captain leapt out of the
chaise at him, and at that moment Page fired, hut
with intention to miss, and the shot passed
harmlessly by. Again the Captain pulled the
trigger of his pistol, and again it missed fire.
Then Page declared his ultimatum : " You
must now surrender, or I absolutely will shoot
you." Whereupon the Captain, having done all
he possibly could, delivered up his gold watch and
ten or eleven guineas. Page then demanded his
sword, but he quite rightly, as a soldier, demurred
to such a humiliation.
" You may see by my cockade I am an officer,
and I would sooner part with my life and soul
than with my sword," he bravely declared.
Page generously acknowledged his spirit. " I
think myself," he said, " thou art the bravest
fellow that ever crossed these plains, but thou
art an obstinate fellow ; and so, go about your
business."
He introduced some interesting novelties into
the well-worn business. The chief of these was
the distinctly bright idea of driving from London
in a phaeton with a pair of horses and at some
lonely spot disguising himself with a wig and
another suit of clothes. Then, saddling one of
the horses and leaving the phaeton, he would
carefully emerge upon the high road and hold up
coaches, post-chaises, or solitary equestrians. This
256 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
accomplished, he returned to his phaeton, harnessed
the horse again, resumed his former attire, and
drove back to town, like the gentleman of fashion
and leisure he pretended to be. One day, pursuing
this highly successful programme, he was nearly
undone by the action of some countryfolk who,
finding an abandoned phaeton and one horse
strangely left in a coppice, went off with it. The
simple people, making along the road with this
singular treasure-trove, were themselves followed
by some unlucky travellers whom Page had just
robbed, and violently denounced as confederates.
Page was fully equal to the occasion. Nearly
stripping himself, and casting his clothes down a
convenient well, he returned to London in that
plight and declared himself to have been treated
like the man in the Scriptures, who " fell among
thieves " ; although it does not appear that the
traveller in question had a carriage. His phaeton
had been stolen, and himself robbed and left almost
naked.
This precious story was fully believed, and
the country people themselves stood in some con-
siderable danger. They were flung into prison
and would no doubt have been convicted had Page
appeared against them. This he, for obvious
reasons, refused to do, and they found themselves
at liberty once more, resolved to leave any other
derelict carriages they might chance to see severely
alone.
Page, in course of time, married a girl of his
native town. She could not long remain ignorant
WILLIAM PAGE. 257
of his means of livelihood, and earnestly begged
him to leave the road and take to honest work.
Few, however, quitted the highway except for the
" three-legged mare " at Tyburn, and the one- or
two-legged mares of other places ; and he held
on his way. Now and again he would disappear
for a time, after some particularly audacious
exploit, to reappear when the excitement it had
caused was over. On one of these occasions he
shipped to Barbados and Antigua, stayed there
for seven or eight months, and then returned to
England, desperately in want of money. The
line of least resistance indicated the road once
more.
His first exploit after this reappearance was
the robbing of one Mr. Cuffe, north of Barnet.
The traveller, being driven along the road alone
and unarmed in a post-chaise, had no choice but
to surrender his purse, and held it out from the
window at arm's length. But Page's horse, not
being used to this kind of business, shied violently,
and Page thereupon ordered the postilion to dis-
mount and hand it him, which he did, and he
then gracefully and at leisure retired.
On his return to town, leading this high-
mettled horse down Highgate Hill, Page was
followed by three men on horseback, who, having
heard of this robbery down the road, suspected he
might be the man. They immediately planned
how they were to take him, and then, one of them
riding quietly up, said, " Sir, I have often walked
my horse up Highgate Hill, but never down ;
VOL. II. 29
25 3 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
but since you do, I will also, and bear you
company."
Page readily agreed, without the least suspicion
of any design against him, and so they entered
into a very friendly conversation. After walking
in this manner some little distance, the gentleman
finding a fit opportunity, keeping a little behind,
suddenly laid hold of his arms and pinioned them
so tightly behind him that he was not able to stir ;
seeing which, the other two, then on the opposite
side of the road, crossed over and secured him
beyond any possibility of escape. They found in
his pockets four loaded pistols, a powder-horn, and
some bullets, a crape mask, and a curious and
ingenious map himself had drawn, showing all the
main roads and cross roads for twenty miles round
London. *
They then took him before a Justice of the
Peace at Highgate, who put many searching
questions, without gaining any information. He
was, however, committed to Clerkenwell Bride-
well, and was afterwards examined by none other
than Henry Eielding, magistrate and novelist.
Sent from the Old Bailey to stand his trial at
Hertford Assizes, he was acquitted for lack of
exact evidence, although every one was fully
satisfied of his guilt, for, however strange the
times, they were not so strange that honest gentle-
men carried such a compromising collection of
things about with them on the roads.
His narrow escape did not disturb him, and he
was soon again on his lawless prowls. On Houn-
WILLIAM PAGE 259
slow Heath he robbed a Captain of one of the
Guards regiments, and was pursued into Hounslow
town by that officer, shouting " Highwayman ! "
after him. No one took any notice. Page got
clear away, and afterwards boasted of having, the
following night at a theatre in London, sat next
the officer, who did not recognise him.
An interlude followed in the activities of our
high-spirited highwayman. He and an old
acquaintance struck up a more intimate friendship
over the tables of billiard-rooms in London, and
there they entered into an alliance, with the
object of rooking frequenters of those places.
But their returns were small and precarious, and
did not even remotely compare with the rich
harvest to be gathered on the road, to which he
accordingly returned.
It was Page's ill-fortune to meet with several
plucky travellers, who, like Captain Jasper, would
not tamely submit to be robbed, and resisted by
force of arms. Among them was Lord Downe,
whose post-chaise he, with a companion, one day
stopped at Barnet. Presenting his pistol, he
issued the customary orders, but, to his surprise,
Lord Downe himself drew a pistol, and discharged
it with such excellent aim, that Page was shot
in the body, and bled very copiously. His com-
panion's horse, alarmed at the shot, grew restive,
and thus his friend was for a while unable to
come to his aid. Page, however, again advanced
to the attack; but my lord was ready with
another pistol, and so the highwaymen thought
260 HAL f- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
it best to make off. They hurried to London, and
Page sought a doctor, who found the wound so
dangerous, that he refused to treat him without
consultation. The other doctor, immediately on
arriving, recognised Page, and asked him how he
came by the wound ; to which Page replied, that
he had received it in a duel he had just fought.
" I will extract the ball," replied the doctor ;
" but," he added significantly, " I do not wish to
see your face again, for I believe you fought that
duel near Barnet."
Shortly after his recovery from this untoward
incident, he and one ally, Darwell, by name,
an old schoolfellow, waiting upon chance on
Shooter's Hill, met two post-chaises, in one of
which was a " supercargo " belonging to the East
India Company, and in the other a person, who
is simply described as a " gentleman."
Page's accomplice opened the encounter by
firing a pistol, to which the supercargo replied in
like manner ; but with a better aim, for the bullet
tore away a portion of his coat, under the armpit.
A second shot from the highwayman was also
ineffective. Then Page rode up and attacked the
other chaise. A desperate fusillade followed ; but
the only damage done was that Page's horse
was slightly wounded. At last, the post-chaise
travellers having expended all their ammunition,
the two highwaymen compelled them to alight,
and the postilions to dismount ; and then, having
bound the hands of all of them with rope, they
ordered these unfortunate persons, on peril of
WILLIAM PAGE 261
their lives, to remain on that spot for one hour.
They then returned to the chaises, removed the
travelling trunks, and, carrying them off on horse-
hack, hid them securely.
Then they hastened back to London. The
next morning, in two chaises, they returned to
the spot, and in security brought back the trunks,
which contained, not only a large amount of
money, but a mass of important documents
belonging to the East India Company.
A reward of forty guineas was offered, by
advertisement in the newspapers of the time, for
the return of the documents, " and no questions
asked." The advertisers themselves, by so doing,
risked a fine of £50 for compounding a felony ;
but, in any case, the reward was never claimed,
although Page carefully returned the papers
anonymously.
The fact which at last cut the knot of William
Page's existence was the robbing of Captain
Earrington in 1757, on Blackheath. Among other
things the Captain was compelled to render to
this Caesar of the roads was a gold repeater watch.
Hotly pursued, Page gave the hue-and-cry a long
chase for it, and finally, arriving at Richmond,
had himself and his exhausted horse ferried across
to Twickenham.
Soon after, finding the south of England ringing
uncomfortably with the fame of his doings, he
took ship for Scotland, but landed at Scarborough,
where, at the fashionable spa, he gambled heavily
and strutted awhile as a man of considerable
262 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
fortune. But he must have been at last really
alarmed and prepared to consider turning over
a new leaf, for he went north to see his former
master, the Earl of Glencairn, who, he thought,
would be able to recommend him to employment
in the plantations. The Earl, however, received
him coldly, and he came south again, to resume
his chosen profession, in company with Darwell,
whom he had by constant alternate threats and
persuasions seduced from the reformed life he
was leading and the respectable situation he
held, to take up again this hazardous calling.
Together they scoured the road to Tonbridge,
Darwell forming, as it were, a rearguard. Page
was pursued beyond Sevenoaks by five mounted
men armed with pistols, and a blunderbuss, who
dashed past Darwell, and after a struggle seized
his leader, who presently escaped again. In their
return, disappointed, they made a prisoner of
Darwell, who, suspecting something of the kind
would happen, had already thrown away his pistols.
In spite of his indignant protestations that he
was a private gentleman, and would not endure
such an outrage, he was searched and a part of
Captain Farrington's watch was found upon him,
with the maker's name and most of the distinguish-
ing marks more or less carefully obliterated.
Questioned closely, he declared he had picked it up
upon the road. As for the highwayman they had
just now nearly captured, he knew nothing of
him : had never set eyes on him before.
But, in spite of these denials, Darwell was
WILLIAM PAGE 263
taken off in custody and examined before a magis-
trate, who so plied him with questions, threats
of what would happen to him if he continued
obstinate, and promises of clemency if he would
make discovery of his companion, that he at last
turned King's evidence. During the interval, he
was lodged in Maidstone gaol.
A fortnight later, Page was arrested in one
of their old haunts in London, the " Golden Lion,"
near Grosvenor Square. He was at first taken
to Newgate, but afterwards remitted to Maidstone,
and tried there for the robbery of Captain
Earrington. Convicted and sentenced to death,
he was hanged on Penenden Heath, April 6th,
1758.
ISAAC DARKIN, ALIAS DUMAS
ISAAC DARKIN was the son of a cork-cutter in
Eastcheap, and was born about 1740 ; too late to
appear in the stirring pages of Alexander Smith
or Charles Johnson, in which he would have made,
we may be sure, an admired figure. All those
who knew him, on the road or in the domestic
circle, agreed that he was a handsome fellow ; and
travellers, in particular, noticed his taking ways.
These were first displayed in 1758, when he robbed
Captain Cockburn near Chelmsford. No less
taking, in their own especial way, were the police
of the neighbourhood in that time, for they
speedily apprehended Isaac, and lodged him in
Springfield gaol. He was duly arraigned at the
next assizes, and no fewer than eight indictments
were then preferred against him. He pleaded
guilty to the robbing of Captain Cockburn, but
not guilty on the other counts ; and was, after a
patient trial, found guilty on the first and
acquitted on the others. He was then sentenced
to death, but was eventually respited on account
of his youth, and finally pardoned on condition
that he enlisted in the 48th Regiment of foot,
then serving in the West Indies, at Antigua.
264
ISAAC DARKIN 265
Drafted with others ahoard a ship lying in the
lower reaches of the Thames, presently to set sail
for that distant shore, he effected his escape,
almost at the moment of up-anchor, by dint of
bribing the captain of a merchant vessel lying
alongside, to whom he promised so much as a
hundred pounds to help him out. He was
smuggled aboard the merchantman, and so cun-
ningly disguised that when a search-party, sus-
pecting his whereabouts, boarded the ship, and
searched it, even to the hold, they did not recog-
nise him in a particularly rough and dirty sailor
who was swearing nautical oaths among the ship's
company on deck. So the transport- vessel sailed
without him, and he, assuming the name of
Dumas, rioted all through the West of England,
robbing wealthy travellers and gaily spending his
takings on what he loved best : fine clothes and
fine ladies. He was so attentive to business that
he speedily made a name for himself, the name
of a daring votary of the high toby. This reputa-
tion rendered it politic on his part to enlist in the
Navy, so that in case of being arrested for high-
way robbery, he could prove himself to have a
respectable occupation, that would help to dis-
credit the charge of being a highwayman.
He soon became a valued recruit, and was
promoted to midshipman ; and it is quite likely
that if he had been sent on active service he
would have distinguished himself in a more
reputable career than that in which he was so
soon to die. But his duties kept him for consider-
VOL. ii. 30
266 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
able periods in port, and he seems to have had
ample leave from them ; for we find him hovering
near Bath and gaily robbing the wealthy real
or imagined invalids going to, or returning from,
the waters.
On the evening of June 22nd, 1760, he fell in
with Lord Percival, travelling by post-chaise over
darken Down, near Bath, and robbed him of
twelve, thirteen, or fourteen guineas — my lord
could not positively swear to the exact amount.
He then made off in the gathering twilight, and
galloped across country, to Salisbury Plain and
the little village of Upavon, where he was arrested
in a rustic alehouse, and sent thence to Salisbury
gaol. At his trial he indignantly denied being a
highwayman, or that he was an Englishman. He
declared his name was Dumas, that he had lately
come from Guadaloupe, where he had taken a part
in the late military operations ; and said that the
so-styled " suspicious behaviour " and damaging
admissions he was charged with, when arrested at
the inn, were merely the perplexities of a foreigner,
when suddenly confronted by hostile strangers.
This special pleading did not greatly deceive
judge or jury, but the prosecution broke down
upon a technical detail, and Darkin was acquitted ;
not, however, without an affecting address to the
prisoner from the judge, Mr. Justice Willmott,
who urged him to amend his ways, while there
was yet time.
It is thus quite sufficiently evident that,
although the Court was bound to acquit the
ISAAC DARKIN 267
prisoner, no one had the least doubt of his guilt.
His narrow escape does not appear to have im-
pressed Darkin, or " Dumas " ; but he was anxious
enough to be off, as we learn from a contemporary
account of the proceedings, in which it is quaintly
said : " He discovered great Impatience 'till he
had got off his Fetters and was discharged, which
was about five o'clock in the evening, when he
immediately set out for London in a post-chaise."
The fair ladies of Salisbury sorrowed when he
was gone. They had been constant in visiting
him in prison, and had regarded him as a hero,
and Lord Percival as a disagreeable hunks.
The hero-worship he received is properly noted
in the account of his life, trial, and execution,
issued in haste from an Oxford press in 1761,
shortly after the final scene had been enacted.
In those pages we read : " During Mr. Dumas'
imprisonment at Salisbury, we find his sufferings
made a deep impression upon the tender Hearts
of the Ladies, some of whom, having visited him
in his Confinement, his obliging Manner, genteel
Address, lively Disposition, and whole Deportment
so struck them that his Fame soon became the
Discourse of the Tea Table ; and at the happy
Termination of His Affair with my Lord Percival,
produced between them the following Copy of
Verses :
Joy to thee, lovely Thief ! that thou
Hast 'scaped the fatal string,
Let Gallows groan with ugly Rogues,
Dumas must never swing.
268 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Dost thou seek Money ? — To thy Wants
Our Purses we'll resign ;
Could we our Hearts to guineas coin
Those guineas all were thine.
To Bath in safety let my lord
His loaded Pockets carry ;
Thou ne'er again shall tempt the Road,
Sweet youth ! if thou wilt marry.
No more shall niggard travellers
Avoid thee — We'll ensure them :
To us thou shalt consign thy Balls
And Pistol ; we'll secure 'em.
Yet think not, when the Chains are off,
Which now thy Legs bedeck,
To fly : in Fetters softer far
We'll chain thee by the Neck."
But in the short space of six weeks from his
acquittal at Salisbury and his triumphal exit in
a post-chaise for London, he was again arrested on
a charge of highway robbery, this time for robbing
a Mr. Gammon at Nettlebed, on the road to
Oxford. Committed to trial at Newgate, he was
transferred to Oxford gaol, and tried there on
March 6th. He had up to now been phenome-
nally fortunate, but things at this crisis looked
a great deal more serious. He acknowledged " he
had experienced many narrow scrapes, but never
such a d — d one as this," and he was presently
found guilty and condemned to death, this time
without any extenuating circumstances being
found.
Isaac Darkin was what in our times would be
called a " superior person." Slang he disdained
ISAAC DARKIN 269
to use, bad language was anathema to him ; and
if he did, indeed, condescend to describe a person
of mean understanding as " a cake," or " a flat,"
that was the most he permitted himself. His
delicacy was so great that he never mentioned a
"robbery," a "robber," or a "highwayman," but
spoke instead of persons who had been "injured,"
or of " the injured parties." And as he was so
nice in his language, so he was particular in his
dress and deportment. As an eulogist of him said,
not without a little criticism : " He was possessed
of too great a share of pride for his circumstances
in life, and retained more of it to the last than
was becoming in a person in his unhappy situation.
He had a taste for elegance in every respect ; was
remarkably fond of silk stockings, and neat in his
linen ; had his hair dressed in the most fashionable
manner every morning ; his polished fetters were
supported round his waist by a sword-belt, and
tied up at his knees with ribbon."
Although but the son of a cork-cutter, he had
lived, in the estimation of his contemporaries, like
a gentleman. Like a gentleman he spent his last
days, and if he did indeed seem to boast a little
when, a few days before his execution, he declared
he had been nine times in gaol, and seven times
tried on a capital charge, that was merely a
pardonable professional exaggeration. His claim
to have gleaned over six hundred guineas from
the road has, on the other hand, the look of an
under-estimate. The rumbustious fellows of a
hundred years earlier would have thought that
270 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
very bad business ; they often took much more in
a single haul. But times were changing, and not
for the better, from the highwaymen's point of
view.
Isaac Darkin died like a gentleman, without
apparent fear, and without bravado, at Oxford, on
March 23rd, 1761, and was at that time, as him-
self remarked, without apparent pathos or truck-
ling to weak sentiment, " not twenty-one."
JAMES MACLAINE, THE " GENTLEMAN'5
HIGHWAYMAN
THE career of James Maclean, or Maclaine, shows
that it was not really difficult to become a
" gentleman " highwayman. Born at Monaghan
in 1724, he was the second son of Lauchlin
Maclaine, a Presbyterian minister, who, although
settled in Ireland, was a Scotsman of unmixed
Scottish blood, and of undoubted Scottish sym-
pathies. There are plenty of materials for a life
of his son James, the highwayman, for the story
of his career had a remarkable attraction for all
classes of people at the time when he went to
die at Tyburn, in 1750; and consequently the
" Lives " and " Memoirs " of him are numerous.
There are also several portraits of him, most of
them showing a distinctly Scottish type of coun-
tenance, but not one solving the mystery of his
extraordinary fascination for women. Indeed,
the full-length portrait of him engraved in Caul-
field's Remarkable Characters, in which he is
styled " Macleane, the Ladies' Hero," shows a
heavy- jowled person, with dull, yet staring fish-
like eyes ; exactly the kind of person who might
be expected to create an unfavourable impression.
271
272 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Perhaps the artist does him an injustice, but none
of the several artists and engravers who have
handed down to us their respective versions of
his features have succeeded in imparting the
slightest inkling of good looks to him, and few of
the portraits agree with one another. He was tall
above the average,
as the various
prints show ; and
he wore fine
clothes. It was
these exceedingly
fine feathers, and
the fashionable re-
sorts he affected,
that gave him the
distinction of
' • gentleman ''
highwayman; and
it is to be feared
that his exquisite
dress, in larger
measure than the
quality of his man-
ners, influenced
the ladies of 1750, who wept over his fate just as
the equally foolish women of 1670 had wept over
the hanging of Du Vail.
The Ordinary of Newgate saw nothing re-
markable in Maclaine. He speaks of him as " in
person of the middle-size, well-limbed, and a
sandy complexion, a broad, open countenance
JAMES MACLAINE.
From a contemporary Portrait.
MACLAINE, THE LADIES' HERO.
JAMES MACLAINE 275
pitted with the small-pox, but though he was
called the Gentleman Highwayman, and in his
dress and equipage very much affected the fine
gentleman, yet to a man acquainted with good
breeding, and that can distinguish it from im-
pudence and affectation, there was very little in
his address or behaviour that could entitle him
to the character."
Archibald, the elder brother of this fashionable
hero, was an entirely respected and blameless
person, who entered the Church, and was pastor
of the English community at The Hague for
forty-nine years, from 1747 to 1796.
James, the future knight of the road, was
intended by his father for a merchant; but that
pious father died when James was eighteen
years of age, and so the youthful " perfect master
of writing and accompts," as he is styled, in-
stead of proceeding, as intended, to a Scottish
merchant in Rotterdam, received a modest in-
heritance, with which he immediately took himself
off to Dublin, where he lost or expended it all
inside twelve months, in dissipation, after the
example of the Prodigal Son in the Scriptures.
Only, unfortunately for him, when the money
was gone, and he would, given the opportunity,
perhaps have returned, like that illustrious ex-
emplar, from his husks and his harlots, to
partake of the fatted calf, there was no father,
no home, and no fatted calf to which he might
return.
But he had still some relatives left in Mon-
VOL. II. 31
276 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
aghan, and he thought he might be received by
them. In this he was altogether mistaken when
he tried to put it to the proof, and was reduced
almost to the point of starvation there, when he
attracted the attention of a gentleman, who offered
him a footman's place in his service. He did
not keep this situation long. He was too im-
pudent to his master, and too patronising towards
the other servants. He was discharged, and for
a time subsisted upon a scanty allowance from
his brother.
In this extremity he found a gentleman of
Cork, a " Colonel F n," who was confiding
enough to engage him as butler. But he appar-
ently did not make a good butler ; and was, more-
over, discovered making away with his master's
property, and discharged. "We next find him in
London, thinking of joining the Irish Brigade
in the French service ; but abandoning the idea
from conscientious scruples against being em-
ployed in Popish surroundings. Maclaine had
a very tender conscience and a timid nature, and
what with his religious scruples and the fear of
being shot (to which he does not allude, but
which was very vivid to him), he had to abandon
the notion of wearing a fine uniform, which we
may suspect had originally given him the im-
pulse to a military life.
Maclaine did not at this period keep very
reputable society ; but was in 1746 again occupy-
ing a position with the forgiving " Colonel
F n." The Colonel seems to have, on this
JAMES MACLAINK.
JAMES MACLAINE 279
second occasion, found him an undesirable servant ;
whereupon, "being prepossessed with the per-
fections of his person," he proposed to enlist in
Lord Albemarle's troop of horseguards. The
Colonel, as an old soldier, thought this, no doubt,
the best thing, and, with an advance of ten
pounds, bade him go where glory waited him.
Maclaine accordingly enlisted. He had visions
of being seated on a prancing steed — " steed "
being the superlative of " horse " — and, dressed
in something with plenty of blue or scarlet and
gold in it, taking part in ceremonial processions
and escorts. Unhappily, soon after he had en-
listed, he heard that the troop was to proceed at
once to Flanders on active service, and hurriedly
got, somehow, out of the dangerous position.
He then made some attempt to settle down
and live respectably, for he married the daughter
of a Mr. Maclagen, a horsedealer in the Oxford
Road — the Oxford Street of to-day. His wife
brought a small dowry of £500, and with this
they set up business in the grocery and chandlery
way in Welbeck Street. Unhappily for any views
he may have entertained of a settled life as a
tradesman, his wife died in 1748. It appeared
then that the business had not prospered, or
that their style of living had been beyond their
means, for the stock and furniture were then
found to be worth only £85.
Maclaine's first idea after this domestic
catastrophe was one very prevalent at that time :
the notion of posing as a gentleman of fortune
28o HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and of fashion, with the object of ensnaring the
affections of some susceptible young lady of means
and marrying her for her money. He accord-
ingly realised all his effects, and, placing his two
infant daughters in the care of his mother-in-law,
burst upon the town as one of the elegants of
the day.
A needy neighbour, like himself a tradesman,
Plunkett by name, who had failed as a chemist,
was induced by this hopeful widower to act a
part as his footman, and together they frequented
places of fashionable assemblage, both in London
and at Tunbridge Wells, on the look-out for
heiresses. But the game was shy, and meanwhile
the small capital of £85 was fast melting away.
Eine clothes were ten times more expensive in
that age than the finest clothes of to-day,
and although it was possible to obtain a good
deal on credit, it was not at all workable to visit
Vauxhall and such expensive places, and to cut
a dash there, for any considerable time on so
inconsiderable a capital.
It was Plunkett who at this stage of affairs,
when their funds were nearly exhausted, sug-
gested the road as a place where money might
usually be had for the asking.
" A brave man," said Plunkett, " cannot want.
He has a right to live, and need not want the
conveniences of life. While the dull, plodding,
busy knaves carry cash in their pockets, we must
draw upon them to supply our wants. Only
impudence is necessary, and the getting better
JAMES MACLAINE 281
of a few idle scruples. Courage is scarcely
necessary, for all we have to deal with are
mere poltroons." But when poltroon meets pol-
troon, when the timid traveller, ready to hand
over his purse on demand, cannot do so because
the coward highwayman dare not reach out and
take it, what happens ? It is an embarrassing
moment, whose fortunes are (or were) determined
only by chance.
Plunkett did not know the manner of man
he had to deal with until they had taken the
road together. He had always seemed a bold,
swaggering fellow, and big enough in all con-
science; but when it came to highway robbery
he was a helpless companion.
Their first affair was with a grazier, going
home from Smithfield with the proceeds of his
day's business in his pocket. Plunkett, suddenly
enlightened as to Maclaine's want of nerve, took
the conduct of the incident firmly in hand at
once, or the results might have been disastrous
for both. He took £60 from the grazier, while
Maclaine looked on and spoke no word, inwardly
in greater fear than he, and ready, had there
been any sign of resistance, to fly.
Their next attempt was to stop and rob a
coach on the St. Albans road.
It was agreed that Maclaine should stop the
coachman and present his pistol on one side,
while Plunkett did the same on the other. But
although he rode up several times, intending to
challenge the Jehu with the traditional cry of
282 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
the bold and fearless fellow's who did the like
every night, his heart failed him; so Plunkett
had to carry it off as best he could, while Maclaine
sat shivering with cowardice in the background,
in spite of the " Venetian mask " that covered the
upper part of his face and concealed his identity
sufficiently well.
But Plunkett, as may have been already
gathered, was a man with sufficient resolution
for two, and although Maclaine was quaking with
terror on every occasion, he brought him in some
fashion up to the scratch in a long series of
robberies. They frequently hired or stabled
horses at Hyde Park Corner, and thence rode out
for a day and a night upon Hounslow Heath, or
elsewhere.
" In all this while," we learn, he scarcely ever
thought of his daughters, " and seldom visited his
mother-in-law." O villain !
When in town, he had lodgings on the first
floor over a shop in St. James's Street, and pre-
sented a gorgeous figure to morning callers. He
was even more gorgeous in the evening, when
he frequented places of public entertainment,
and obtained the freedom of some fashionable
houses. But the morning picture he presented
will probably suffice. He then wore a crimson
damask ban j an, a silk shag waistcoat turned with
lace, black velvet breeches, white silk stockings,
and yellow morocco slippers.
On one exceptional occasion, Plunkett and
Maclaine went as far as Chester, and did good
JAMES MACLAINE 283
business on the way ; but their best haul was
on Shooter's Hill, where they stopped and robbed
an official of the East India Company of a large
sum.
With his share of the plunder, Maclaine took
a little holiday on the Continent, and visited his
brother at The Hague, probably astonishing that
worthy man by his sudden magnificence. He then
returned and rejoined Plunkett.
Horace Walpole wrote at different times several
accounts of how he was once stopped by these
brothers-in-arms. It was a moonlight night, in
the beginning of November 1749, nearly a year
before Maclaine's career was brought to a close,
that Horace was returning from Holland House,
Kensington, to London. The hour was ten o'clock,
the place Hyde Park. What trifles, or what
amount of money Messrs. Maclaine and Plunkett
took on this occasion we are not told ; for Walpole
does not take his correspondents so completely
and voluminously into his confidence over this
affair as he generally did. He only tells them,
and us, that the pistol of " the accomplished
Mr. Maclean," as he calls him, went off — by
accident, he is careful to say — and that the bullet
passed so close as to graze the skin beneath his
eye and stun him. The bullet then went through
the roof of the carriage.
The incident that so nearly brought the life of
Horace Walpole to an untimely end, and might
thus have left the world much poorer in eighteenth-
century gossip, was conducted, as he tells us,
284 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAVMEN
" with the greatest good-breeding on hoth sides."
He further adds that the reason of Maclaine being
out that night and taking a purse that way was,
he had only that morning been disappointed of
marrying a great fortune. It does not seem at all
an adequate reason ; but that was the eighteenth
century and this is the twentieth, and perhaps we
cannot see eye to eye on all these matters.
But, at any rate, Maclaine afterwards behaved
very nicely about the articles he had taken ;
sending a note to Walpole as soon as ever he had
returned to his lodgings, in which he made his
excuses, if not with the witty grace of a Voiture,
at least expressed in a manner ten times more
natural and easily polite. He declared that, had
the bullet found its billet in Walpole 's head, he
would certainly have put one through his own.
Then, in a postscript, which, like the postscripts
in letters written by feminine hands, contained
the whole substance of and reason for the letter,
Maclaine added that he would be pleased to meet
the gentleman at Tyburn (O ominous tryst !) at
twelve at night, where the gentleman might
purchase again any trifles he had lost.
There, if not particularly elsewhere, Maclaine
seems to have indeed proved himself, in one brief
moment, a " gentleman " highwayman. You see
the argument passing in his mind. The trifles
were indeed trifles intrinsically, but they might
have had some sentimental worth, of old or new
association, that would have made the loss of
them a grievous thing to their rightful owner.
JAMES MACLAINE 285
Well, then, if that owner liked to ransom them
for a trifling sum, here was his chance. A very
considerate offer.
But Horace Walpole did not accept the
rendezvous. Possibly he doubted the honour of
a highwayman met at such a spot.
The " gentleman highwayman " resented criti-
cism, as will be seen by the following story :
Maclaine frequented Button's Coffee House, in
Hussell Street, Covent Garden, and paid particular
attention to the barmaid there, daughter of the
proprietor. The attentions of such a fine gentle-
man as he appeared to be were very flattering to
the girl, and very noticeable to other frequenters
of the house, one of whom, a certain Mr. Donald-
son, knew Maclaine, and took the opportunity of
warning the girl's father of his real character.
The father in his turn cautioned his daughter,
and foolishly let slip the name of the person
who had warned him ; and she, of course,
passed on the information to the engaging
Maclaine.
On the next occasion when Donaldson visited
Button's, and while he was sitting in one of the
boxes, Maclaine entered, and in a loud voice, and
the pronounced Irish brogue that was ever on
his tongue, said : " Mr. Donaldson, I wish to spake
to you in a private room."
Mr. Donaldson, being unarmed, and naturally
afraid of being alone with such a man as he knew
Maclaine to be, said that as there could not
possibly be anything pass between them that the
VOL. II. 32
286 ffALF-ffOURS WITH THE* HIGHWAY MEtf
whole world was not welcome to know, he begged
leave to decline the invitation.
" Very well," rejoined Maclaine, " we shall
meet again."
A day or so later, as Mr. Donaldson was
walking near Richmond in the evening, he saw
Maclaine on horseback, approaching him ; but
fortunately at that moment a gentleman's carriage
appeared, and Maclaine rode after it ; Donaldson
hastening into the protection that the streets of
Richmond town afforded. It is probable that,
but for this timely diversion, Maclaine would
have shot the man who dared tell the truth
about him.
But the end of the alliance of Maclaine and
Plunkett was now at hand. On June 26th, 1750,
at two o'clock in the morning, they stopped the
Salisbury stage on Turnham Green. The courage
of the coach passengers was at a low ebb at that
unconscionable hour, and they suffered themselves
to be robbed, without making the least resistance.
They numbered five men and one woman. The
men were bidden step out, and, doing so, were
searched and robbed at leisure. A Mr. Higden
had an exceptionally fine waistcoat, and had to
part with even that to Maclaine, who was a
connoisseur in waistcoats. A Mr. Lockyer also
was constrained to give up a wig. From the lady
was taken " only what she chose to give." Here,
at any rate, is a faint sweet relic of an older
courtesy.
As an afterthought, Maclaine went back for
JAMES MAC LAI NE 289
two or three of the portmanteaux stored away in
the boot.
They then, riding off westward, met the Earl
of Eglinton, travelling in his postchaise. He had
an escort of two mounted servants, but as they
were over half a mile behind at the time, he
might equally well have been travelling alone.
Maclaine, riding up to the postboy, threatened
him with a pistol and told him to stop instantly ;
but, at the same time, was sufficiently cautious to
so place himself that the occupant of the post-
chaise would be unable to fire at him without
hitting the postboy. The highwaymen were, as
a rule, exceedingly well-informed persons ; and
Maclaine knew perfectly well that Lord Eglinton
carried a blunderbuss with him, and had the
reputation of always being ready and willing to
use it.
But in the strategic position he had taken up,
he was quite safe, and meanwhile Plunkett had
advanced from the rear and taken his lordship
completely by surprise. He threatened, indeed,
instantly to shoot him, if he did not throw the
blunderbuss away ; and my lord flung the weapon
from him at once, as though it had been red-hot.
Plunkett then took seven guineas from him.
Maclaine was not behindhand, and seized his
lordship's overcoat and the blunderbuss which
was lying upon the heath. He was a frugal
person, and in that particular did credit to his
Scots ancestry. A curious old print shows this
robbery, famous in its day, and in it Maclaine and
29o HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
Plunkctt do certainly look most awe-inspiring in
their attitudes : Maclaine, in particular, being
apparently engaged in pushing his pistol through
the postboy's head. But that is doubtless artistic
licence.
Maclaine did a very foolish thing when he
returned to his St. James's Street rooms, early
that same day. He sent for a Jew dealer to come
and make an offer for some clothes he wished to
sell ; none other, in fact, than those he had taken
from the coach, and when they were shortly
advertised as having been stolen, the mischief
was done. As if that were not folly enough,
Maclaine's frugality had led him also to remove
the gold lace from one of the stolen coats and to
offer it for sale. He chanced to take it to the
very laceman who had recently sold it. His
arrest was then a matter of course. Equally of
course, he strongly protested against the indignity
of a " gentleman " being arrested for theft, and
then he broke down and wept in " a most dastardly
and pusillanimous manner, whimpering and crying
like a whipt schoolboy."
Maclaine declared that the absconded Plunkett
had left the clothes with him, in part satisfaction
of a debt he owed, and that he, Maclaine, was to
have sold them for what they would fetch, as part
liquidation of the debt.
Any so-called confession he might have made,
he now declared impossible. What should a
gentleman like himself know of highway robbery ?
" It is true enough that when first apprehended,
JAMES MACLAINE 291
the surprise confounded me and gave me a most
extraordinary shock. It caused a delirium and
confusion in my hrain which rendered me in-
capable of being myself, or knowing what I said
or did. I talked of robberies as another man
would do in talking of stories ; but, my Lord,
after my friends had visited me in the Gate-house,
and had given me some new spirits, and when I came
to be re-examined before Justice Lediard, and was
asked if I could make any discovery of the robbery,
I then alleged I had recovered my surprise, that
what I had talked of before concerning robberies
was false and wrong, and was entirely owing to a
confused head and brain."
He called nine witnesses to character ; among
them Lady Caroline Petersham, who is represented
in a curious print of the trial at the Old Bailey,
under examination.
The elegant Maclaine stands prominently in
the dock handsomely attired, but, alas ! heavily
fettered, with his laced hat under his left arm.
One hand holds his lengthy written defence, the
other is affectedly spread over his breast, in
gentlemanly protestation of his being an injured
person. His is a tall, upstanding figure ; but he
appears, by the evidence of the print, to have had a
face like a pudding : and the majority of the
counsel seated at a table in front of him are shown
regarding it with easily understood curiosity and
astonishment.
One of the dignified persons on the bench is
represented addressing Lady Caroline : " What has
29 2 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
your Ladyship to say in favour of the Prisoner at
y' Bar ? "
With a dramatic gesture, she replies : " My
Lord, I have had the Pleasure to know him well :
he has often been about my House, and I never
lost anything."
In spite of this cloud of witness, our gentle-
man was convicted, and that with the utmost
dispatch, for the jury returned their verdict of
" guilty " without leaving the box.
The time between his condemnation and
execution was spent in an affectation of repentance,
that does not read very pleasantly. He suddenly
found himself a great sinner, and indeed revelled
luxuriantly in the discovery. But there was not
the true note of abasement and conviction in all
this ; for he went among his fellow- criminals like
a superior person, and offered them consolation
from the rarefied heights of his " gentility," that
must have been excessively galling to them. Their
profanity and callousness shocked him profoundly.
Probably their behaviour was not less profane
when he, condemned to die for misdeeds similar
to their own, presumed to lecture them on the
error of their ways. But preaching was in his
blood, and would find expression somehow, and he
found excuse for his almost consistent lack of
courage on the road in the moral reflection that
it was conscience made a coward of him. But
conscience did not prevent him sharing in the
swag when the enterprise was carried through.
He said it was true that, since he had entered
MACLAINE IN THE DOCK.
JAMES MACLAINE 295
upon the highway, he had never enjoyed a calm
and easy moment ; that when he was among ladies
and gentlemen they observed his uneasiness, and
would often ask him what was the matter, that he
seemed so dull. And his friends would tell him
that surely his affairs were under some embarrass-
ment ; " But they little suspected," said he, " the
wound I had within."
He protested in a good cause he believed there
was not a man of greater natural courage than
himself, but that in every scheme of villainy he put
Plunkett on the most hazardous post. " There,"
said he, " I was always a coward — my conscience "
always that sickly, unconvincing iteration.
But the insistence of conscience that Plunkett
should always be placed in the way of the bullets
is at least amusing.
Walpole tells how Maclaine had rooms in
St. James's Street, opposite White's Club, and
others at Chelsea. Plunkett, he says, had rooms
in Jermyn Street. Their faces were as well known
in and about St. James's as that of any of the
gentlemen who lived in that quarter, who might
also be in the habit of going upon the road, if the
truth were known about everybody. Maclaine,
he said, had quarrelled, very shortly before his
arrest, with an army officer at the Putney Bowling
Green. The officer had doubted his gentility, and
Maclaine challenged him to a duel, but the
exasperating officer would not accept until Mac-
laine should produce a certificate of the noble
birth he claimed.
296 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
" After his arrest," says Walpole, " there was
a wardrobe of clothes, three-and-twenty purses,
and the celebrated blunderbuss found at his
lodgings, besides a famous kept-mistress." Wai-
pole concluded he would suffer, and as he wished
him no ill, he did not care to follow the example
of all fashionable London, and go to see him in
his cell. He was almost alone in his thus keeping
away. Lord Mountfield, with half White's Club
at his heels, went to Newgate the very first day.
There, in the cell, was Maclaine's aunt, crying
over her unhappy nephew. When those great and
fashionable frequenters of White's had gone, she
asked, well knowing who they were, but perhaps
not fully informed of their ways, beyond the fact
that they gambled extravagantly : " My dear,
what did the Lords say to you? Have you ever
been concerned with any of them ? "
"Was it not admirable? " asks Walpole; adding,
" but the chief personages who have been to
comfort and weep over their fallen hero are Lady
Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe : I call
them ' Polly ' and ' Lucy,' and asked them if he
did not sing : ' Thus I stand like the Turk with
his doxies around ' ? "
In that last passage, Walpole refers to Gay's
Beggar's Opera, written in 1716 and produced
in 1728 ; a play written around an imaginary
highwayman, " Captain Macheath," who might
very well have stood for Maclaine himself. Polly
and Lucy were two of Macheath's friends in the
opera.
JAMES MACLAINE 299
We have Walpole's own authority for the
otherwise almost incredible statement that three
thousand people went to see Maclaine in his
cell, the first Sunday after he was condemned.
He fainted away twice with the heat of the
cell. " You can't conceive the going there is to
Newgate, and the prints that are published of
the malefactors and the memoirs of their lives
and deaths, set forth with as much parade as
Marshal Turenne's."
The fatal October 3rd came at last, when he
was to die. A curious etched print published at
the time, at the small price of threepence, entitled
" Newgate's Lamentation, or the Ladies' Last
Farewell of Maclaine," shows the parting, and
bears the following verses :
Farewell, my friends, let not your hearts be fill'd,
My time is near, and I'll with calmness yield.
Fair ladies now, your grief, I pray, forbear,
Nor wound me with each tender-hearted tear.
Mourn not my fate ; your friendships have been kind,
Which I in tears shall own, till breath's resign'd.
Oh ! may the indulgence of such friendly love,
That's been bestowed on me, be doubled from above.
Thus fortified, and giving his blessing, for what it
might be worth, he went to Tyburn diligently
conning his prayer-book all the way, and not once
glancing at the crowds.
To the constable who had arrested him, and
who now came to beg his forgiveness, he replied
earnestly : " I forgive you, and may God bless
VOL. ii. 33
300 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
you, and your friends ; may He forgive my enemies
and receive my soul." And then he was turned
off, and died quite easily. There was a great sale
for the many more or less truthful lives of him
hawked round the gallows.
JOHN POULTEB, ALIAS BAXTER
THE story of John Poulter is one of the saddest
that here present themselves to he recorded. He
was horn at Newmarket, of poor parents, and
was given a sufficient schooling for his station.
At thirteen years of age he was taken into service
in the stahles of the Duke of Somerset, and re-
mained there for six years, leaving with an
excellent character for smartness and industry.
He then went into the employ of Colonel Lumley,
and was on three occasions sent to France, in
charge of racehorses ; always giving complete
satisfaction. But this slight experience of foreign
travel seems to have unsettled him, and he craved
for adventures under alien skies. We next find
him, accordingly, sailing on a Bristol merchant
ship and voyaging to the West Indies, to the
American Colonies, and to Newfoundland ; seeing
life in a humble but effective way.
Returning to England at last, and, sailor-like
— or at any rate, like sailors of those times —
falling at once into abandoned company, he met,
at Lichfield on February 1749, a dissolute set of
persons living disreputably upon their wits ;
among them a certain John Brown, alias Dawson,
301
302 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
who, with an experience of the highway trade,
easily persuaded the adventurous Poulter to join
him and his associates.
Brown, Poulter, and company, fully armed,
then set out to prey upon all and sundry ; devot-
ing themselves more particularly to thefts from
houses. At Lichfield, while one diverted the
attention of the landlord of the " George " inn,
another rifled a chest and stole a sum of money
and many valuable articles. At Chester, Poulter
distinguished himself by stealing some black plush
that he fancied might make him a fine stylish
waistcoat; and sent off at once to a tailor, to
call at the " Black Dog " inn, where he and the
gang were lodging, that he might be measured,
and enabled to appear forthwith as a person
of elegance and distinction. We may here fitly
pause a moment to admire, or to be astonished
at, the child-like vanity and delight in fine
clothes displayed by nearly all the highwaymen
at that time. They could not resist seizing every
and any opportunity that offered, of dressing
themselves in the best that could be obtained.
Unfortunately, the manners of a highwayman
were not exactly those of a gentleman. There
was something overdone in the affected elegance
of deportment, a certain exaggeration and a
decided " loudness " that made reflective people
suspicious. Thus, the tailor to whom Poulter sent
for his stolen plush to be made up was not
altogether satisfied with his strange customer, and
when a pistol that Poulter carried in his pocket
JOHN \PO ULTER 303
went off accidentally during the process of
measurement, he was convinced that a person
who carried loaded firearms in this manner was
not only a dangerous, but also a suspicious,
person. The bullet had harmlessly sped into the
ceiling, but the tailor was unnerved by the in-
cident, and Poulter, rather lamely apologetic,
endeavoured to explain away this concealed
armoury by accusing Brown of putting crackers
in his pockets. As for the tailor, he hurried off
to the Mayor with the story that a dangerous
person, evidently a highwayman, had taken lodg-
ings in the city, and was one of a queer gang,
whose suspicious movements had already attracted
attention. The Mayor sent some trusty emissaries
to examine Poulter and his associates, but they
had already taken the alarm, and had embarked
at Parkgate for Ireland.
Poulter had already had enough of this
criminal life, and, tired of adventure of all kinds,
desired nothing better than to settle down to
some business. He accordingly, in the name of
Baxter, took a small alehouse in Dublin, and,
entirely dissociating himself from his companions
for a time, did a comfortable and fairly prosperous
trade, averaging five barrels a week. Here he
might have continued, and would have been
glad to do so, only for a most unfortunate
circumstance.
There were at that time a number of Irish
rogues in London, obtaining a hazardous livelihood,
chiefly by picking pockets, but not disdaining
304 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
any form of villainy that might promise to be
profitable. General Sinclair was robbed of a gold
watch by one or other of this gang, as he was
leaving a party at Leicester House, and William
Harper and Thomas Tobin, two suspicious char-
acters, were arrested for being concerned, and
taken to the Gatehouse at Westminster, whence
they were presently rescued by their gang, to
the number of a couple of dozen ; all of them
making off to Ireland.
This affair would not appear to concern Poulter
in any way, engaged as he was at Dublin in earn-
ing an honest livelihood ; but it had a very tragical
result on his fortunes. Among the fugitives
was one James Field, who had known Poulter
in London ; and he, as ill-fortune would have it,
chanced one day to walk down that Dublin Street
where Poulter 's inn was situated. By the ac-
cursed malevolence of fate, Poulter himself
happened at that moment to be standing at the
door of his house. Field immediately recognised
him and stopped to enquire what his old con-
federate was doing. He drank there and wished
him good day, but soon after brought all that
escaped gang of scoundrels to the spot ; and there,
much to Poulter's dismay, they established them-
selves, day by day, making his inn, once so
respectable and well-conducted, a byword for
riotous drinking, and the haunt of characters that
it would be flattery to describe as merely "suspi-
cious." Field and others were actually taken into
custody there. Decent trade deserted the inn,
JOHN POULTER 305
and, despairing of being rid of the scoundrels,
whom he dared not forbid the house, lest they
should turn upon and denounce him, he absconded
across Ireland to Cork, where he at first con-
templated taking another inn. He at last, how-
ever, settled upon Waterford, and took an inn
there, remaining for six months, when he was
induced to return to Dublin by his former brewer,
who, sorry to have lost a good customer by
Poulter's enforced flight, wanted him back.
He eventually settled two miles outside
Dublin, at an inn called the " Shades of Clontarf,"
looking upon the sea ; and became part inn-
keeper, part fisherman, and led a very happy,
honest, and contented life, making, moreover, an
average profit of £3 a week.
But here he was found towards the close of
1751 by Tobin, who foisted himself and a dissolute
woman companion upon the unfortunate man.
Poulter generously received them, but earnestly
implored Tobin not to bring his evil associates
into the neighbourhood. He wanted, he declared,
to live an honest life, and to be done with the
past. Tobin assured him he would not appear in
the neighbourhood again ; but in a few days he
was back at Clontarf, with a select company of
rascals, and from that time the unhappy Poulter
knew no peace. His determination to lead a
respectable life they took as a direct challenge to,
and slur upon, themselves. There is nothing that
so greatly enrages the habitual criminal as the
reclamation of one of his own kind, and it is
306 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
doubtless the influence of hardened evil-doers
that prevents many a criminal, really disgusted
with crime, from reforming. These wretches
set themselves deliberately to ruin Poulter. They
practically lived at his house, and, as had been
done before, they soon changed the character of
it from a decent alehouse to a thieves' boozing-
ken, to which the police-officers came at once
when they Avanted to find some bad character, or
to trace stolen property. Poulter was a mere
cipher under his own roof.
But they were not content with wrecking his
trade : they must needs blast that good character
he had been so patiently acquiring. They did it
by making him out a smuggler. Six pounds of tea
and twelve yards of calico and muslin placed
secretly in his boat, and information then lodged
with the Revenue officers, was sufficient. Poulter's
boat was seized and condemned, and Poulter him-
self, convinced that he would not be able to
establish his innocence, fled from the scene and
hurried aboard a vessel bound for Bristol, where
he landed penniless. There, in Bristol streets, he
met two early criminal acquaintances, Dick Bran-
ning and John Roberts, and as there seemed to be
no likelihood of being allowed to live within the
law, he agreed to take part with them and a
number of confederates, whose headquarters were
at Bath, in a campaign of highway and other
robberies.
Their operations were of the most roving
description. By way of Trowbridge, they made
JOHN POULTER 307
for Yorkshire, raiding the country as they went
with all manner of rogueries. Nothing came
amiss. At Halifax they netted twenty-five
guineas from a clergyman by an eighteenth-
century ancestor of the thimble-rigging fraud,
called " pricking in the belt." At last they
found themselves at Chester : place of evil omen
for Poulter. There, at the house of a confederate,
they heard on the evening of their arrival of a
train of pack-horses laden with Manchester goods,
due to pass that night. Watch had been kept
upon them, said the confederate, and a man would
point out to our friends which, among all the
animals of the pack-horse train, was best worth
robbing of his load. It would be best, he said, to
do the work on the country road, and to take the
horse into a field.
As it happened, they pitched upon the wrong
horse, and got only a load of calamancoes, fabrics
woven of wool with an admixture of silk, popular
in those times ; but the pack contained over a
thousand yards, and they cut it off after some
difficulty in the dark, and got away safely with
it ; although greatly alarmed by the horse's loud
neighing when he found himself separated from
his companions.
The robbers went off at once out of the
neighbourhood, and that same night reached a
village near Whitchurch, eighteen or twenty miles
distant. There they obliterated all distinguishing
marks on the goods, and divided them.
At Grantham, which Poulter and Tobin next
VOL. u. 34
3o8 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
favoured with a visit, they relieved a credulous
farmer of fifteen guineas by the " pricking in the
belt " device. At Nottingham several of the
accomplices met, but they had bad luck, and
Poulter went on the sneak and stole a silver
tankard, [without a lid, from the " Blackamoor's
Head " inn : and that was all the scurvy town of
Nottingham yielded them. They then made for
Yorkshire, where they remained for a considerable
period, . and then left, only because their wide-
spread thefts of all kinds made a continued
stay dangerous. York, Durham, and the north,
including Newcastle, comprised a tour then
undertaken.
They then made their way to Bath, the general
rendezvous of the gang, and thence in what
Poulter calls " three sets," or gangs, moved in-
dependently and by easy stages into Devonshire :
attending the cattle-fair at Sampford Peverell,
with marked success to themselves, and grievous
loss to the farmers and graziers there assembled.
Thence they moved on to Torrington and Exeter,
and so back again to Bath, where twelve of them
met at Roberta's house.
Poulter and two confederates named Elgar and
Allen then went into the north of England again,
attending fairs, horse-races and cock-fighting
matches on the sharping lay ; winning about £30
or £40 at cards. Returning to Bath, and being
looked upon with suspicion, living as they were
with a number of riotous men in B/oberts's house,
they hit upon the dodge of passing for smugglers,
JOHN POULTER 3°9
and thus at once explaining their association and
enlisting public sympathy. Every one, except the
Revenue officers, was in those times well-affected
towards smugglers.
They were not only at considerable pains, but
at great expense also, to create this impression.
" We used," says Poulter, in his confessions, " to
give seven shillings a pound for tea, and sell it
again for four shillings and sixpence, on purpose
to make people believe we were smugglers."
While they were thus staying at Bath, they
would go now and then to a fair, and try " the
nob," or " pricking in the belt." If that did not
succeed, they would buy a horse or two, give
lOU's for the money and false addresses, and then
sell the horses again. " This," says Poulter, " is
called ' masoning.' '
This was followed by a raid into Dorset. A
visit of the gang to Blandford races was highly
successful. They attended numerously, and while
some robbed the booths, others devoted their
attention to the sportsmen, and yet others
lightened the pockets of the crowds engrossed
in watching the cock-fighting. They wound
up a glorious day by dining in style at the
" Rose and Crown," and there chanced upon the
best luck of all those gorgeous hours : finding a
portmanteau from which they took eighteen
guineas, four broad pieces, and diamonds, jewels,
and clothes to a great amount. Many of these
articles were taken to London by Poulter, and
sold there to Jews in Duke's Place, Aldgate, on
310 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
behalf of self and partners. The proceeds were
duly divided at Roberts's house at Bath.
The next activities of these busy rogues were
at Corsham, near Bath. They then appeared at
Farringdon in Berkshire, and there robbed the
Coventry carrier. Newbury and Bristol then
suffered from them. At last, they grew so
notorious in the West of England that they
judged it only prudent to alter their methods
for a time, and to devote themselves exclusively
to horse-stealing : an art they had not hitherto
practised with any frequency.
An amusing incident was that in which
Poulter robbed a man of £20. The foolish fellow,
an utter stranger, had been rash enough to display
his money to Roberts one night in a country
alehouse. It had just been paid to him, he said.
"And it will presently be taken from you,"
Roberts might truly have retorted. But he
merely in a sly manner drew Poulter's attention,
who later followed the man and presenting a
metal tinder-box to his head, roared out, " Your
money or your life." The tinder-box in the
darkness looked so like a pistol that the money
was meekly handed over.
Poulter then went off to Trowbridge, in
company with a new recruit, Burke by name,
an Irishman, who had been confidential ostler to
Roberts, and was now advanced to full member-
ship of this body of raiders. Meeting a postchaise
near darken Down, Burke proposed to attack it,
but Poulter would agree only on condition that
JOHN POULTER 311
no violence were used. Poulter then led the
attack, but in the darkness put his hand with
accidental force through the window, and cut
it severely. In doing so, his pistol went off, and
Burke thinking it was the occupant of the chaise
who had fired, replied with his own firearms.
Fortunately, no one was hit.
The chaise was occupied by Dr. Hancock and
his little girl. Poulter took up the child and
kissed her, and then, setting her down, robbed
the Doctor of one guinea and a half in gold, six
shillings, a gold watch, and some clothes : a booty
not worth all the trouble, and certainly not by a
long way worth the further trouble the affair
was presently to bring.
After seeing the postchaise disappear in the
darkness, Poulter and his companion made their
way to a neighbouring inn, and coolly displayed
their takings to the landlord and his wife, who
appear to have been, if not actual confederates,
at least better disposed to self-revealed robbers
than honest innkeepers should be. The landlady
gave the highwaymen a bag for the clothes, and
the landlord, when they lamented the fact of all
their powder and ball being fired off, obligingly
removed the charge from his loaded fowling-
piece, and melted down two pewter spoons for
casting into bullets. The landlady, when Poulter
and Burke asked her if these preparations for
arming did not alarm her, said : " No, they are not
the first pistols I have seen loaded by night in
this kitchen." Evidently an inn that the solitary
312 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and unarmed traveller with money about him
should avoid.
She added thoughtfully that, after this robbery,
they had better travel as far away as they could,
that night from the spot. She would send them
any news.
They then left, and, taking a horse they
chanced to see in an adjacent meadow, proceeded
to Exeter, where they sold the stolen articles to a
receiver.
It was not more than three weeks later when
Poulter was arrested on suspicion of being con-
cerned in the robbery of Dr. Hancock. He was
thrown into Ilchester gaol, brought to trial, and
condemned to death. He made a full confession
and disclosed the names of no fewer than thirty-
one of his associates, their places of meeting, and
their methods. He was not only anxious to save
his life by thus turning evidence against the gang,
but he was genuinely wearied of the manner of
life into which he had been hounded.
Many members of the gang, he said, lived
to all appearances respectably. Their general
meeting-place was Bath. He added that it was
on every account desirable that the messenger to
the police at Bath, entrusted with these disclosures,
should keep all these things secret, except to the
Mayor ; but some one had gossiped, for within one
hour of his arrival those revelations were the talk
of the town, and the names of those implicated in
them were freely mentioned. The next day they
were even printed, in accounts of the disclosures
JOHN POULTER 313
hastily struck off and sold in the streets. The
very natural result was that most of the persons
named escaped before justice could lay hands upon
them. A list of nineteen not taken, and twelve in
various gaols all over the country, is printed in
the Discoveries.
Dr. Hancock's property was found and re-
turned to him. His conduct was one of the most
astonishing features in this amazing case, and
reflected considerable discredit upon him ; for
although he visited Poulter in Ilchester gaol,
before the trial, and assured the prisoner that
although he was obliged to be a prosecutor, he
would bear lightly upon the facts, and would
in the event of a conviction use his best efforts to
obtain the Royal pardon, he treacherously used
every effort to secure his being hanged. There
seems to have been no motive for this double-
dealing, except his own natural duplicity. His
treachery was thorough, for he even used his
influence with the judge to obtain a shortening of
the period between sentence and execution.
The trial and the revelations made by Poulter
excited keen and widespread public interest, and
the lengthy pamphlet account of them, entitled
" The Discoveries of John Poulter, otherwise
Baxter, apprehended for robbing Dr. Hancock on
darken Down, near Bath," had a large and long-
continued sale. A copy of the fourteenth edition,
issued in 1769, fourteen years later, is in the
British Museum library.
He was respited for six weeks, in consideration
3i4 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
of the further disclosures he was to make, or of
any evidence he might be required to give, and in
this time, so moving was his tale, and so useful
was the information he had given, that the
corporations of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, and Taunton,
together with numerous private gentlemen of
considerable influence, petitioned that he might
be reprieved. It is probable that these efforts
would have been successful ; but Poulter was an
unlucky man, and at this particular crisis in his
affairs happened in some way to rouse the ill-will
of the gaoler, who was never tired, in all those
days of suspense, of assuring him that he would
certainly be hanged, and serve him right !
It is not surprising that, under these circum-
stances, the unhappy Poulter endeavoured to
escape. With the aid of a fellow-prisoner, com-
mitted to gaol for debt, he forced an iron bar out
of a window, and the two, squeezing through the
opening, broke prison at nightfall of Sunday,
February 17th, 1755. They intended to make for
Wales. All that night they walked along the
country roads, Poulter with irons on his legs as
far as Glastonbury, where he succeeded in getting
them removed. When day came, they hid in
haystacks, resuming their flight when darkness
was come again. They next found themselves at
Wookey, near Wells, much to their dismay, having
intended to bear more towards the north-west.
Poulter was by this time in a terribly exhausted
condition, and his legs and ankles were so sore
and swollen from the effects of being chafed with
JOHN POULTER 315
the irons he had walked with for ten miles, that it
was absolutely necessary he should rest. He did
so at an alehouse until two o'clock in the after-
noon, and was about to leave when a mason at
work about the place entered, and recognised him.
Calling his workmen to help, he secured Poulter,
who was then taken back to Ilchester. Nine days
of his respite were left, but a strong and murder-
ous animus was displayed against this most
unfortunate of men, and it was decided to hang
him out of hand. The execution could not, how-
ever, take place earlier without a warrant from
London, and the trouble and expense of sending
an express messenger to the local Member of
Parliament, then in town, demanding his instant
execution, were incurred, in order to cut shorter
his already numbered days. The messenger must
have been phenomenally speedy, for he is said to
have returned with the warrant within twenty-four
hours ; and Poulter was at once taken out of his
cell and hanged, February 25th, 1755.
VOL. ii. 35
PAUL LEWIS
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.
316
PAUL LEWIS.
PAUL LEWIS 319
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 un-
feeling 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 exe-
cuted at Tyburn on May 4th, 1763, aged twenty-
three.
THE WESTONS
THE careers of George and Joseph Weston read
like the imaginings of a romantic novelist, and,
indeed, Thackeray adopted some of the stirring
incidents of their lives in his unfinished novel,
Denis Duval.
George Weston was horn in 1753, and his
"brother Joseph in 1759 ; sons of George Weston, a
farmer, of Stoke, in Staffordshire. Early in 1772,
George was sent to London, where a place in a
merchant's office had been secured for him, and
there he was fortunate enough to be promoted to
the first position, over the heads of all the others,
upon the death of the chief clerk, eighteen
months later. He was then in receipt of £200 a
year, and on that amount contrived to take part
pretty freely in the gaieties and dissipations of
Vauxhall and similar resorts. At this period he
introduced his brother Joseph to town, and also
began a series of peculations in the office, in order
to support the extravagances into which a passion
for gambling and " seeing life " had led him.
WTien he could no longer conceal his defalca-
tions, he fled to Holland, and Joseph, suspected of
complicity, was obliged to leave London.
320
THE WESTONS 321
Within three months George had returned to
England in disguise. He made his way to Durham
and there entered the service of a devout elderly
lady of the Methodist persuasion. Pretending to
have adopted the religious convictions of George
Whitefield's followers, he affected the religious
life, with the object of marrying the lady and
securing her ample fortune. But he was recog-
nised on the very eve of the wedding, and exposed.
He then fled southward, with as much of the old
lady's money and valuables as he could manage to
secure at the moment.
But he speedily lost nearly all his plunder in
backing outsiders at York and Doncaster races,
and entered Nottingham with only one guinea.
There he fell in with a company of strolling
players, managed by one James Whiteley, who
offered him the post of leading gentleman. He
accepted it, and under the name of Wilford,
remained with them a little while.
It was not a distinguished troupe, which
perhaps accounts for his having been so promptly
given a leading part in it. It consisted of two
runagate apprentices, a drunken farrier, a stage-
struck milliner, two ladies whose characters it
were well not to study too closely, the manager's
wife, a journeyman cobbler, a little girl seven
years of age, and a stage-keeper, who alternated
his stage-keeping with acting and barbering.
The theatre was a decrepit and almost roofless
barn, and the stage consisted of loose boards
propped up on empty barrels ; while the scenery
322 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and the curtains were chiefly dilapidated blankets.
Barn-storming in such pitiful circumstances did not
suit our high-minded hero, who soon made his way
to Manchester, where he became a schoolmaster, and
a leading member of a local club, where he read
the papers and conducted himself with such a
show of authority that the parson, the lawyer, and
the apothecary, who had before his coming disputed
for pre-eminence over their fellow-members, yielded
before his masterful ways. He shortly became
High Constable, and soon began to abuse the
position by blackmailing innkeepers and forging
small drafts upon them. The more timid and easy-
going submitted for a while to this, but others
resented it in the very practical way of taking
steps to secure his arrest. George then obeyed the
instinct of caution and disappeared.
About the year 1774 the brothers met at a fair
in Warwickshire, where Joseph hadbeen playing the
game of " hiding the horse," and had hidden three
so effectively from their owners that he was pre-
sently able to sell them, unsuspected, for over £70.
They then had thoughts of purchasing a farm, and
travelled to King's Lynn, where, in the name of
Stone, they lodged some time with a farmer.
Pretending to be riders (i.e. travellers) to a London
distiller, they wormed themselves into the con-
fidence of the farmer and appointed him local
agent for the non-existent firm, showing him
tricks by which he would be able to water down
the spirits he was to receive, and so cheat the
retailers. On the strength of these confidences,
THE WESTONS 323
they borrowed over a hundred pounds, and then
decamped, leaving only their " sample bottles " of
brandies and rums behind.
They thought it wise to travel far, and so made
their way into Scotland, and in the name of Gilbert
took a small farm, where they remained for only a
few months, leaving secretly and at night with all
the movables, and with two geldings belonging
to a neighbour.
Cumberland had next the honour of affording
them shelter. In October 1776 they were
apprehended on a charge of forgery at Bishop's
Castle, Shropshire, and must have received an
altogether inadequate sentence, or perhaps escaped,
for they are next found in Ireland, in the following
summer, at Baltinglass, county Wicklow. They
were shortly afterwards at Dublin, frequenting
the clubs under the name of Jones. There they
met a noted plunger of that time, one " Buck "
English, and fooled him in the highest degree ;
cheating at hazard, and obtaining money from him
in exchange for forged bills and drafts. At length,
after a fierce quarrel with English, who fought
with George in the Dublin streets and wounded him
in the right hand, the Westons left for Holyhead.
Landing there with plenty of ready money, they
toured Wales at leisure; Joseph as "Mr. Watson,"
and George as his valet.
In May 1778 they were at Tenby. On leaving
the inn, where they had stayed and run up a bill
of £30, they paid the landlord with a forged
cheque and departed grandly with the change, in
3 24 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
a postchaise and four. They then visited Brecon
and Bidcford ; George now posing as master, in
the name of Clark, and Joseph acting as Smith,
his valet. Next they are found at Sutton Cold-
field, then on the Sussex and Kentish coasts,
where they purchased a vessel and became known
to the fishermen of Folkestone, Deal, and Dover
as the " Gentlemen Smugglers," trading between
those parts and Dunkirk. They did very well,
too, until an interfering Revenue cutter chased
them and forced them to run their craft ashore.
After this exciting episode, they made their
way to London, and led a fashionable life, strongly
flavoured with gambling and forgery. George
took a house in Queen Anne Street, and the two
" commenced gentlemen," as we are told ; George
passing for a wealthy squire of sporting tastes.
Hounds and whippers-in were almost daily at the
door in the morning, and at night the rooms were
filled with callow young men about town, attracted
by the brilliant card-parties given — at which, it is
scarcely necessary to add, they were thoroughly
rooked.
The brothers lived here in great style, on the
proceeds of forgery and cheating at cards. They
induced a lady next door to lend a sideboard full
of valuable silver plate, on the pretence that their
own had not arrived from the country, and sold
it; and, advertising largely that they were pre-
pared to purchase plate, jewellery, and annuities,
did, in fact, make several such purchases, paying
for them in worthless bills. A good deal of the
THE WESTONS 325
property thus obtained was stored at a residence
they had hired at Beckenham, in the name of Green.
At length warrants were issued against them,
and they fled to Scotland. At Edinburgh they
posed as merchants trading with Holland, and
acted the part with such complete success that
they secured a considerable amount of credit.
After forging and cashing numerous acceptances,
they left for Liverpool, where, in the guise of
" linen merchants," they repeated their Edinburgh
frauds ; and then, transferring themselves to
Bristol, they became " African merchants." There
they did a little privateering with one Dawson,
but that, being legalised piracy, did not appeal to
these instinctive criminals, to whom crime was a
sport, as well as a livelihood.
London called them irresistibly, and they re-
ponded.
Biding up to town from Bristol to Bath, and
then along the Bath Road, they overtook the
postboy in the early hours of January 29th, 1781,
driving the mailcart with the Bristol mails,
between Slough and Cranford Bridge, and bidding
him " good night," passed him. Arriving at
the " Berkeley Arms," Cranford Bridge, they
halted for refreshment, and then turned back,
with the object of robbing the mail.
George took a piece of black crape from his
pocket and covered his face with it ; and then they
awaited the postboy.
Halting him, George ordered him to alight,
and when he meekly did so, seized and bound him,
VOL. II. 36
326 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and then flung him into a field. The two then
drove and rode off to Windmill Lane, Sion Corner,
and thence on to the Uxbridge road, through Baling,
and up Hanger Hill to Causeway Lane. There,
in " Farmer Lott's meadow," they rifled the con-
tents of the cart and took the bags bodily away.
Having disposed the mails carefully about their
persons, they hurried off on horseback for London,
to a house in Orange Street, near Piccadilly, where
they were well known. The bags proved to con-
tain between ten and fifteen thousand pounds, in
notes and bills.
A clever plan for immediately putting a great
part of the notes in circulation was at once agreed
upon ; and in the space of an hour or two, George
left the house fully clothed in a midshipman's
uniform, with Joseph following him dressed like
a servant. They went to the "White Bear," in
Piccadilly, and, hiring a post-chaise, set out upon
what was nothing less than a hurried tour of the
length and breadth of England ; tendering notes
at every stage, and taking gold in exchange. By
way of Edgeware, they went to Watford, Northamp-
ton, Nottingham, Mansfield, Chesterfield, Sheffield,
York, Durham, Newcastle, and Carlisle. Thence
they returned, on horseback, by way of Penrith,
Appleby, Doucaster, Bawtry, and Betford, to Tux-
ford, where they arrived February 1st. Putting up
for a much-needed rest there, with an innkeeper well
known to them, they were informed that the Bow
Street runners had only that day passed through,
in search of them, and had gone towards Lincoln.
THE WESTONS 327
Early in the morning, the Westerns resumed
their express journey, making for Newark, where
they were favoured hy some exclusive information
from an innkeeper friend, which enahled them
narrowly to escape the runners, who had doubled
back from Lincoln.
Thence, post-haste, they went to Grantham,
Stamford, and Huntingdon, to Royston, halting
two hours on the way at the lonely old inn known
as " Kisby's Hut."
At Ware they took a postchaise and four, and
hurried the remaining twenty miles to London ;
arriving at the " Red Lion," Bishopsgate, at
eleven o'clock on the night of February 2nd. The
officers of the law were not remiss in the chase,
and were at the " R/ed Lion " only one hour
afterwards.
Once in London, the brothers separated ;
Joseph taking another postchaise, and George
a hackney-coach. They were traced to London
Bridge, but there all track of them vanished.
Meanwhile, the Post Office had issued a long
and detailed notice of the robbery, and had offered
a reward of two hundred pounds for the appre-
hension of the guilty person, or persons :
"General Post Office, Jan. 29th, 1781.
" The Postboy bringing the Bristol Mail this morning
from Maidenhead was stop't between two and three
o'clock by a single Highwayman with a crape over his
328 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
face between the llth and 12th milestones, near to
Cranford Bridge, who presented a pistol to him, and
after making him alight, drove away the Horse and
Cart, which were found about 7 o'clock this morning in a
meadow field near Farmer Lett's at Twyford, when it
appears that the greatest part of the letters were taken
out of the Bath and Bristol Bags, and that the following
bags were entirely taken away : —
Newbury.
Melksham.
Maidenhead.
Wantage.
Wotton-under-Edge.
Tewkesbury.
Leominster.
Cheltenham.
Hay.
Cardigan.
Haverfordwest.
" The person who committed this robbery is supposed
to have had an accomplice, as two persons passed the
Postboy on Cranford Bridge on Horseback prior to the
Robbery, one of whom he thinks was the robber; but
it being so extremely dark, he is not able to give
any description of their persons.
" Whoever shall apprehend and convict, or cause to
be apprehended and convicted, the person who committed
this Robbery will be entitled to a reward of TWO
HUNDRED POUNDS, over and above the Reward
given by Act of Parliament for apprehending Highway-
men ; or if any person, whether an Accomplice in the
Robbery or knoweth thereof, shall make Discovery
whereby the Person who committed the same may be
apprehended and brought to Justice, such discoverer will
Pewsy.
Ramsbury.
Bradford.
Henley.
Cirencester.
Calne.
Trowbridge.
Wallingford.
Reading.
Stroud.
Gloucester.
Ross.
Ledbury.
Hereford.
Presteign.
Fairford.
Northleach.
Lechlade.
Aberystwith.
Carmarthen.
Pembroke.
Lampeter.
Tenby.
Abergavenny.
THE WESTONS 329
upon conviction of the party be entitled to the Same
Beward of TWO HUNDRED POUNDS and will also
receive His Majesty's most gracious Pardon.
" By Command of the Postmaster-General,
" ANTH. TODD, Sec."
It was soon ascertained that the Westons were
the robbers, and careful descriptions of them were
at once circulated :
" George "Weston is about twenty-nine years of age,
five feet seven inches high, square-set, round-faced,
fresh-coloured, pitted with small-pox, has a rather thick
nose, his upper lip rather thick, his hair of lightest
brown colour, which is sometimes tied behind, and at
other times loose and curled ; has much the appearance
of a country dealer, or farmer. One of his thumb-nails
appears, from an accident, of the shape of a parrot's
bill, and he is supposed to have a scar on his right
hand, from a stroke with a cutlass."
The younger brother was just as closely de-
scribed :
" Joseph Weston is about twenty-three years of age,
five feet nine inches high, slender made, of a fair and
smooth complexion, genteel person, has grey eyes and
large nose with a scar upon it; his hair is of a light
brown colour, sometimes tied behind, at other times
loose and curled ; his voice is strong and he speaks
a little through his nose ; has a remarkable small hand
and long fingers."
While these descriptions were staring from
every blank wall, George and Joseph were hiding,
in disguise, in the Borough. They had a large
amount of money, realised by their tremendous
330 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
exertions over that long journey, and they added
judiciously to their store by carrying on their
business of lending money on plate and jewellery,
and paying for the articles in the remaining notes
stolen from the Bristol mail. The famous " Per-
dita " Robinson was one of those victimised in this
way ; and, as a contemporary account says, " lost
her diamond shoebuckles which a certain Heir
Apparent presented her with."
It was in October 1781, when paying for some
lottery tickets in Holborn, with stolen notes, that
George and Joseph became acquainted with two
pretty girls, cousins, employed as milliners near
Red 'Lion Square. George gallantly bought some
shares for them, and in the evening took them
to Vauxhall Gardens. The delighted girls were
told the two gentlemen w^ere Nabobs just returned
from India; and, dazzled with the wealth they
flung about, readily consented to go and live with
them. They were soon, accordingly, all four in
residence in a fine house near Bromptou ; George
adopting the name of " Samuel Watson," and
Joseph passing as " William Johnson."
They left Brornpton for a while and migrated
to ' Winchelsea, where they took the " Friars,"
a fine house with beautifully wooded grounds. The
foremost furnishers in London, Messrs. Elliot
& Co., of 97, New Bond Street, were given
orders for furniture, cutlery, and a generous
supply of plate, and from other firms they pro-
cured horses and carriages, finally establishing
themselves at the mansion in December 1781.
THE WEST ON S 331
While in residence there the ladies conducted
themselves with such propriety, and the gentle-
men appeared so distinguished and so wealthy,
that they soon moved in the hest society of the
neighbourhood. It did not, apparently, take long
in those times, or in the neighbourhood of Win-
chelsea, for strangers to obtain a footing in local
society, for all this short-lived social splendour
began in December, and ended in the middle of
the following April. The last, sealing touch of
respectability and recognition was when George
was elected churchwarden of the parish church
in Easter 1782. Erom that pinnacle of parochial
ambition, however, he and his were presently
cast down, for Messrs. Elliot & Co., growing
anxious about their unpaid bills for goods de-
livered, sent two sheriff's officers down to Win-
chelsea to interview the brothers. The officers
met them at llye on horseback, and endeavoured
to arrest Joseph. When he refused to surrender,
they tried to dismount him, but the two brothers
overawed them by presenting pistols, and escaped ;
making their way back to Winchelsea, and thence
travelling at express speed to London, in their
own handsome chariot. Their identity with
the Westons and the robbers of the mail was
revealed in that encounter with the sheriff's
officers, one of whom had observed George's
peculiarly distorted thumb-nail. Information
was thereupon given, and a redoubled search
begun.
They went at once to their old hiding-place
332 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
in the Borough, and might again have escaped
detection had they been sufficiently careful.
But, gambling for high stakes at the " Dun
Horse," they quarrelled violently, and in the
hearing of the ostler used some remarks that led
him to suspect them. He communicated his
suspicions to the police at Bow Street, and
although they appear to have become uneasy and
to have then left the Borough, they were traced on
April 17th to Clements' Hotel, in Wardour Street.
Mr. Clark, the officer sent to arrest them, met Mrs.
Clements at the entrance and asked if two gentle-
men of the description he gave were in the house.
She said she would see, and went and warned
them. Down they came, and, with pistols cocked
and presented at him, walked past as he was
standing in the passage, and, without a word, into
the street. Once out of the house, they ran
swiftly up Wardour Street, into Oxford Street, and
then doubled into Dean Street and into Richmond
Buildings. Unfortunately for them, this proved
to be a blind alley, and an unpremeditated trap.
They hurried out again, but already the mob was
coming down the street after them, and they had
only reached Broad Street when they were over-
taken. Both fired recklessly upon the crowd ;
no one but a butcher-boy being hit, and he only
slightly grazed under the left ear.
G eorge was then knocked down by a carpenter,
with a piece of wood. The carpenter, we learn,
" afterwards jumping upon him, kept him down
till his pistols were taken away."
THE WESTONS 333
Meanwhile Joseph had been vanquished in an
equally unsportsmanlike way by a carrier, " who
had a large stick, with which he beat him about
the legs."
George was then pitched neck and crop, and
still struggling, into a hackney coach ; but Joseph,
being more tractable, was permitted to walk to
Bow Street, where, on being searched, he was
found to have £240 in his pockets, all in bank-
notes that had been stolen from the mail.
On the day of their arrest they gave a bill of
sale to one Lucius Hughes, who disposed of plate
to the amount of £2,500, at the price of old silver ;
and jewels to the value of £4,000 were said to
have been sold to a Jew in St. Mary Axe.
After a preliminary examination, the brothers
were committed to separate prisons : Joseph to
Tothill Fields Bridewell, and George to the New
Prison. They behaved with great insolence to
the Bench, and seemed to build much upon the
postboy having died since the robbery. In court
they actually told Clark, who had arrested them,
he was fortunate in still having his brains in his
skull that morning. Their coachman and footman,
attending upon them in the court, in livery, made
an imposing show. They were then remanded,
and their wenches were in the meanwhile arrested
at Brompton, and appeared in court on the next
hearing. No evidence being forthcoming against
them, they were discharged ; but the Westons
were duly committed for trial, which began on
May 15th, 1782.
VOL. ii. 37
334 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
They made a brave appearance in the dock,
George being dressed quietly but fashionably, in
black, with his hair finely curled in the latest style;
while Joseph, whose taste was not so subdued,
was radiant in a scarlet coat with gold buttons,
and hair " queued a 1'Artois."
The trial was unexpectedly postponed, on the
application of counsel for the prosecution, owing
to the death of Samuel Walker, and the difficulty
of collecting sufficient evidence ; and so they were
taken back to Newgate. There they led a life
typical of prison-life all over England in those
days. They entertained their fellow-prisoners,
gambled, and drank, and received their friends.
They had plenty of money, and as Newgate was
then no ill place for those whose pockets were
well furnished, they were provided with every
luxury that money could buy. Unfortunately,
however, they were heavily ironed : the one
circumstance that seared the souls of those gallant
fellows. But, in spite of these encumbering
circumstances, they dreamt of liberty, and a
well-planned attempt to escape was made on
July 2nd, the day before the opening of the
new sessions.
Their faithful young women took breakfast
with them that morning, and then left, whereupon
one of the brothers called Wright, the warder on
duty at the time, and asked him to get a bottle
of port and make a bowl of negus for some
expected company. He then handed him a
guinea.
THE WESTONS ESCAPING FROM NEWGATE.
THE WES TONS 337
Wright had no sooner gone about this business
than they slipped off their fetters, which they had
secretly and with much labour, filed through.
Then they calmly awaited the return of Wright,
with the bowl. It was too large to go through
the hatch of their locked and bolted door, as they
had foreseen, and Wright was persuaded to unlock
and open the door and bring it in. When he had
done so, the jovial highwaymen hospitably in-
vited him to take the first drink, and while he
was engaged in thus pleasing himself and them-
selves at the same time, they made suddenly at
him and pushed him violently over; then slam-
ming the door and fastening it securely upon
him.
An old woman who sold porter and such-like
plebeian drinks to the meaner prisoners, was at
the head of the stone stairs up which they then
rushed, and stood still with amazement at sight
of them, whereupon they overset her and her cans,
and then, by a short passage-way, came to the
outer door. They were each armed with a pistol,
which their thoughtful girls had smuggled into
their cell. Escaping with them were also one
Lepierre, a suspected spy, and a certain Prancis
Storey.
The warder whose post was at this doorway
was at that moment washing down the steps. At
once the fugitives flung themselves upon him,
and downed him as he shouted " Stop thief ! "
The cry was heard, and by the time the Westons
had emerged upon the street, they were followed
338 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
by a " runner," John Owens by name. The brothers
very cleverly separated ; Owens following George,
who ran into Newgate Street, doubled into
Warwick Lane, and made for Newgate Market.
Here, however, he was felled by the fist of a
market-porter, but struggled again to his feet,
and desperately resisted until Owens and a crowd
of excited spectators arrived and dragged him back
to Newgate.
Joseph was not more fortunate, and had only
reached Cock Lane when his flight also was
stopped by a market-porter, one John Davis, who
flung down a sack of peas in his path. This
Joseph easily avoided, but Davis then laid hold
of him by the collar.
" Let go ! " said the highwayman, " or I will
shoot you."
The porter did not let go, and Joseph fired and
hit him in the neck. But Davis held on until
the crowd closed in, and Joseph also was soon in
his cell again.
So, too, was Lepierre, who was taken in
Newgate Street. Storey was more successful, and
escaped altogether, although he had fetters on his
legs. The crowd, seeing him calmly walking
along, thought he was being re-conducted to gaol,
and so did not interfere with him.
The brothers were brought to trial on July 6th,
1782, charged with robbing the Bristol mail near
Cranford Bridge, on January 29th, 1781. Over
a hundred witnesses appeared for the prosecution,
among them, people who had been given stolen
THE WESTONS 339
notes by them. But the postboy, Samuel Walker,
having died, the prosecution failed.
They were then charged with forgery in respect
of the notes and bills stolen : George being con-
victed and sentenced to death. Joseph was
acquitted, but was then charged in the third
instance with maliciously wounding John Davis,
for which he was found guilty and condemned.
They were executed at Tyburn on September 3rd,
1782.
Clothed quietly but fashionably in black, they
went to the place of execution in two carts, in
company with several other condemned criminals,
but held themselves haughtily apart, as " gentle-
men " should. They refused the ministrations of
the Ordinary, declaring themselves to be Roman
Catholics ; and died firmly, and without any
appearance of contrition.
JACK RANN: " SIXTEEN-STRING JACK'
JOHN RANN, better known as " Sixteen-string
Jack," was born in the neighbourhood of Bath,
midway in the eighteenth century. As a boy he
earned a meagre but honest living by peddling
articles of everyday household consumption in the
villages round about. He and his donkey were well
remembered in after years, and aroused the envious
anticipations of other small boys who, reckless of
the appointed end of highwaymen, looked forward
to some happy day when they too might perhaps
blossom out from such obscure beginnings into
such fame as his. He was but twelve years of
age when his handsome face attracted the atten-
tion of a lady prominent in the neighbourhood.
She offered him a situation, and he gratefully
accepted. A little later we find him in London,
occupied as a stable-helper in Brooke's Mews.
Prom that he became a postilion, and then an
officer's servant. About the year 1770 he was coach-
man to a gentleman living in the neighbourhood
of Portman Square, and was at one time in the
service of the Earl of Sandwich. In this situation
he obtained the nickname of " Sixteen-string Jack,"
from the bunches of eight parti- coloured ribbons
340
JACK RANN 341
he gaily wore at the knees of his breeches ; but
by some intimates it was supposed that these
"sixteen strings" were a covert allusion to his
having been sixteen times arrested and charged,
but on as many occasions acquitted. Such were
the legends that enwrapped the career of him whom
Dr. Johnson described as "above the common
mark " in his line.
It was this love of finery that led to the
undoing of Jack Rann, but before it sent him
down into the company of those who lived by
their wits, employed in unlawful enterprises, it
raised him to better situations. For Rann was
a tall, smart fellow, and good clothes well became
him.
But flowered-satin waistcoats, and full-skirted
damasked coats of silk, elaborately embroidered,
are not paid for out of a coachman's wages, and
Eann soon found himself deeply in debt. And,
moreover, of what possible use are brave costumes,
but to flaunt and flourish about in ? And when
you do so flourish, you must needs go the pace
altogether. There were excellent companions in
those places to which Rann most resorted, as a
gentleman of fashion, at Vauxhall, and elsewhere;
and there were the card-tables, where he had a
passing run of luck ; and there were the women.
In spite of being pitted somewhat with the small-
pox, he was still a handsome fellow, and he played
the very Cupid with the girls.
All these items totted up to a very costly sum-
total, and the gaming-tables did not long stand
him in good stead. At the moment when he was
in the sorest straits, he became acquainted with
three men : Jones, Clayton, and Colledge (this last
known as "Eight-string Jack"), in whose company
he very speedily grew more and more reckless,
and at last was dismissed from his situation with
a long-suffering nobleman, and refused a character.
Thus turned adrift upon the world, he began,
with those three companions, a career of pocket-
picking, and thence drifted by easy stages into
the society of highwaymen and of receivers of
stolen goods.
In these circles there moved at that time a
certain Eleanor Roche, originally a milliner's
apprentice, but who, from a somewhat unfortunate
friendship with an officer of the Guards, had
declined upon the condition of " fence," and
generally, the fair friend and ally of the nimble-
fingered, and the speakers with travellers on
the highways. Jack Rann was a free-lover.
Pretty faces, rosy lips, infallibly attracted him,
and although he loved his Nelly best, he scarce
knew the meaning of faithfulness.
But to Ellen Roche, " Sixteen-string Jack "
was her own Jack, her hero ; and when once she
had met him, she had eyes for none other.
Rann was first in custody in April 1774, at
the Old Bailey, in company with two others,
named Clayton and Shepherd, on a charge of
robbing William Somers and Mr. Langford on
the highway. All three were acquitted, but on
May 30th Rann was at Bow Street, charged with
JACK RANN 343
robbing Mr. John Devall of his watch and money,
near the ninth milestone on the Hounslow Road.
It was the watch brought him there. The gallant
Rann had brought it back with him from the
road — just as the hunter, home from the hill,
returns with the day's spoil to his domestic circle.
He handed it to Ellen, who in turn sent out
a certain Catherine Smith to offer it in pledge
with the nearest pawnbroker. The pawnbroker,
distrustful man, sent for the police, who, seeing
at once that Catherine Smith was merely an
intermediary, apprehended Rann and Ellen.
" Sixteen-string Jack " made a proud, defiant
figure in the dock before Sir John Fielding. He
was dressed not only in, but in advance of the
fashion. He was in irons, but the grimness of
those fetters was disguised in the blue satin bows
in which they were tricked out, and in his fine
coat he carried a nosegay as big as a birch-broom.
Beside him, but not so collected as he, stood
Ellen, charged with receiving.
Ellen Roche had, indeed, lost her nerve
altogether when Catherine Smith deposed to
having been told by her how Rann was expected
home that evening with some money; that he
returned about ten o'clock, when Roche told
her he had brought ten guineas and a watch,
and that she was sent out to pawn the watch.
Crying, and hardly aware of what she was doing,
Ellen at the first hearing owned that Rann had
given her the watch, and the two were thereupon
committed.
VOL. II. 38
344 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
At the trial, after having had plenty of time
for reflection, she stoutly declared that she never
before had set eyes upon him, and that her former
evidence was a mistake I
Jack himself carried it off bravely, and, indeed,
insolently. " I know no more of the matter than
you do," he replied to Sir John Fielding, and
added impudently, " nor half so much, neither."
The prosecution, on some technicality, broke
down, and the pair were released. They celebrated
the happy occasion by dining extravagantly and
then spending the evening at Vauxhall, where
Rann was the gayest of the gay, and returned
home with two watches and three purses.
An absurd burglary charge brought him into
the (Jock again, that July. The watch discovered
him half-way through the window of a house in
which lodged one Doll Frampton, and not only
hauled him out, but marched him off to prison ;
but it appeared that he was only keeping an
appointment to supper with the weary Doll, who,
tired of waiting for him, had gone to bed. The
Bench, assured of as much by the shameless minx
herself, dismissed the charge, and, in addition to
some pertinent remarks about this unconventional
method of entry, gave him some excellent advice
on conduct. Although Hann had escaped so far,
Sir John Fielding said, his profession was perfectly
well known, and he urged the prisoner to leave
his evil courses while yet there was time.
So far from paying attention to this well-
meant discourse, Rann put in an appearance the
JACK RANN
345
next Sunday, not with Doll, but with Ellen, at
Bagnigge Wells, then a famous place for dining
and drinking. They drove thither in a carriage
and dressed — in the slang phrase — " up to the
nines." Jack was splendid in a scarlet coat,
tambour waistcoat, white silk stockings, and a
laced hat. Of
course there flew
at his knees the
already famous
sixteen strings.
He was by
nature boastful,
and when the
drink was in him
bragged without
restraint or ordin-
ary prudence. On
this occasion he
drank freely, and,
with an oath, de-
clared himself a
high w ayman.
Bather more of
a pickpocket,
perhaps. The company trembled : some sought
the way out. " No fear, my friends," quoth he,
" this is a holiday." Then he fell to quarrelling,
and presently lost a ring from his finger, and
declared those present had stolen it. Then again
his mood changed. " 'Tis no matter," he exclaimed;
" 'tis but a hundred guineas gone, and one evening's
JACK RANN.
346 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
work will replace it." Then, growing more
drunken and incapable, they threw him out, and
he was not in a fit condition to resist. So, Ellen—
the gentle Ellen — scratching the faces of the
foremost, as they were put out, they drove back
to their lodgings near Covent Garden.
" Fine treatment for a gentleman ! " he
hiccupped ; and indeed a gentleman he considered
himself. But his highwayman's takings, large
though they occasionally were, did not keep pace
with his gentlemanly expenses. Debts accumulated,
and sheriff's officers dogged his footsteps. He was
arrested for a debt of £50, and thrown into the
Marshalsea prison ; but so much of a hero had he
already become among those of his calling that
they clubbed together and liquidated the debt ;
and handsome Jack was again free.
The sheriff's officers he affected to regard as
low, churlish fellows, but they would not be
denied. His creditors were soon after him again,
and he was arrested when drinking in an ale-house
in the then suburban Tottenham Court Road. He
shrank with horror from the touch of the two
" vulgar " bailiffs, but there was little help for it.
He must pay up, or be taken up. His drinking-
companions found between them three guineas,
and he gave up his watch. Together, these
involuntary contributions made up more than the
amount due. The bailiffs, on their part, agreed
to refund the balance when Rann was sufficiently
in funds to redeem the ticker ; and cordiality then
reigned. " Lend me five shillings," said Rann to
JACK RANN 347
the bailiffs, " and I will treat you to a bowl of
punch." They fell in with the proposal, and
a merry carouse ensued. Such were the manners
and customs of about a hundred and forty years
ago.
Still, in the course of this merry evening, the
subject of the manner peculiar to bailiffs recurred
to our Jack and rankled. " You have not," he
grumbled, " treated me like a gentleman. When
Sir John Fielding's people come after me, they
only hold up a finger, beckon, and I follow like
a lamb. There's your proper civility 1 "
It was soon after this that he visited Barnet
races, fashionably dressed ; with waistcoat of blue
satin trimmed with silver, and other finery to
match. Crowds followed him, eager to set eyes
upon so famous a person. Shortly afterwards,
with perhaps some melancholic foreshadowing of
approaching doom, he attended a public execution
at Tyburn. In spite of opposition, he thrust
through the ring formed by the constables round
the gallows. "For, "'said he, " perhaps it is very
proper I should be a spectator on this occasion."
Why, he did not say, but the inference was under-
stood by some of the crowd.
In September 1774 he was arrested, together
with one William Collier, for a robbery on the
Uxbridge road, and brought the next Wednesday
before Sir John Fielding, when Dr. Bell, chaplain
to the Princess Amelia, gave evidence that, between
three and four o'clock in the afternoon of Monday,
when taking horse-exercise near Ealing , he
348 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
observed two men of mean (!) appearance and
suspicious looks, who rode past him. Presently,
one of them — he thought it was Rann — turned his
horse's head and demanded his money. " Give it
me," he said, " and take no notice, or I'll blow
your brains out ! "
Dr. Bell handed over one shilling and sixpence,
all he had about him, and a common watch in a
tortoiseshell case. So much tremendous bluster,
so paltry a booty: so poor a thing for which to
throw away a life. For that day's doings served
to bring Rann to the gallows.
That evening, Ellen Roche and her servant
took the watch to pawn with one "Mr. Cordy,"
in the Oxford Road, or, as we should now say,
Oxford Street. Cordy was a suspicious man. He
communicated with the watchmaker, Grigman
by name, of Russell Street, Covent Garden, who
had made it for Dr. Bell, who, when called upon,
told how he had parted with it.
The next day, Jack Rann and his doxy were
arrested, and with them Collier and Ellen Roche's
servant, Christian Stewart. They all figured in
Bow Street dock, and later appeared on trial at the
Old Bailey.
Handsome Jack was no less a dandy on this
occasion than he had been on others, and he took
the centre of the stage in his drama with a fine
air. To be sure, there were none who envied him
the principal part. He was dressed in pea-green
coat and waistcoat, with unblemished white buck-
skin breeches, and again his hat was silver-laced.
" SIXTEEN-STRING JACK " AND ELLEN EOCHE IN THE DOCK.
JACK RANN 351
He stood there with every assurance of acquittal,
and had taken thought to order a splendid supper,
wherewith to entertain his friends that evening,
to celebrate his release. But, as the grey day
wore on, he grew less confident. Dr. Bell's
evidence was again taken, and a Mr. Clarke told
how, going to Miss Roche's lodging on that
Monday night of the robbery, 'he found two pairs
of men's boots there, in a wet and dirty condition,
having evidently been worn that day. A Mr.
Haliburton also swore that he had waited at
Miss Roche's lodgings that night until Rann and
Collier arrived.
William Hills deposed that he was servant to
the Princess Amelia. He had observed Rann,
whom he knew well by sight, ascend the hill at
Acton, about twenty minutes before the robbery
was committed.
This spot would be about where the Police
Station now stands, in the main road : less
troubled nowadays with highwaymen than with
electric tram-cars.
In the end, Rann was found guilty and
sentenced to die. Collier was also found guilty,
but recommended to mercy, and was afterwards
respited. Ellen Roche was sentenced to fourteen
years' transportation, and her servant was ac-
quitted.
Thus the supper grew cold and was not eaten.
The brave figure moved in pea-green glory to his
prison cell, and hoped there for a rescue that
never came. His last days were full-packed with
352 H ALP-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
the revelry the lax prison regulations of the age
permitted, and on Sunday, October 23rd, he had
seven girls to dine with him in gaol ; and he the
gayest of the party. " Let us eat, drink, and be
merry, for to-morrow we die." Or, at any rate,
in a month's time. So, with an air and a jest,
behold him on the fatal day, November 30th, 1774,
the most admired figure in the three-miles' journey
from Newgate to Tyburn. Was it the cold
November air made him shiver, or the shadow of
death, as, ladies' man to the last, he raised his
hat to the crowded windows lining Holborn and
thought how he would never come back ? What-
ever it was, it was no more than involuntary :
for, arrived at the fatal tree, he ended manfully
in his finery and his famous sixteen strings.
EGBERT FERGUSON— " GALLOPING
DICK "
ROBERT FERGUSON, who in after life became
famous as " Galloping Dick," was a native of
Hertfordshire. His father, a gentleman's servant,
proposed a like career for him, and had a mental
picture of his son gradually rising from the posi-
tion of stable-boy, in which he was placed, to
that of coachman. In such respectable obscurity
would Robert have lived and died, had his own
wild nature not pioneered a career for him. He
had proved a dull boy at school, but proud, and
out of school-hours showed a strange original
spirit of daring, so that he was generally to be
found captaining his fellows in some wild exploit.
As a stable-boy, however, he proved efficient
and obedient, and was found presentable enough
to take the postilion's place when the regular man
had fallen ill, on the eve of the family's journey
to London in their chariot. He performed that
task to the satisfaction of every one, but the other
servant recovered, and the lad was obliged to
return to his stables and work in shirt sleeves or
rough stable-jacket, instead of titupping in beauti-
fully white buckskin breeches, silk jacket, and
VOL. H. 353 39
354 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
tall beaver hat, on one of the leading horses that
drew the carriage to town. The return to an
inferior position through no fault of his own was
a bitter disappointment, and he determined to
seek another situation.
Oddly enough, at this juncture of affairs, a
neighbouring lady who was in want of a postilion
chanced to ask the family who employed young
Robert what had become of their smart young
man, and, when informed of the situation, engaged
him.
At this time he was close upon twenty years
of age. Described as being by no means hand-
some, he was of a cheerful and obliging tempera-
ment, and might have long retained the post, had
his employer not discovered him in a discreditable
love-affair with one of the maid-servants. He
was dismissed, but soon found another situation :
but he never afterwards kept a place for any
length of time. Roystering companions unsettled
him and made him undesirable as a postilion.
Coming up to London, he found employment in
a livery-stable in Piccadilly, but presently his
father died and he found himself the owner of his
savings, amounting to £57. Alas ! poor Robert.
He had never before possessed at one time the
half of what he had now, and he acted as though
the sum of £57 was an endowment for life. He
threw up the Piccadilly livery-stable, and came
out upon the world as a " gentleman " ; or in
other words, ruffled it in fine clothes in fashion-
able places. He frequented theatres in this
GALLOPING DICK."
ROBERT FERGUSON 357
novel character, and seems to have impressed a
number of perhaps not very critical people.
Amongst these was a dissolute woman whom he
met at Drury Lane. She believed him to be a
man of wealth, and sought to obtain a share of it.
Ferguson flung away all his money on her. It
could not have been a difficult task, one would
say, nor have occupied him long. And when all
the money was gone, he went back, sadder possibly,
but still not wiser, to his livery- stable situation in
Piccadilly, as postilion. It was in this employ-
ment that he observed the debonair gentlemen
who had been his rivals in the affections of this
woman calling upon her, and received, where he
had been thrust forth with contumely when his
money was at an end, and when she discovered
that he was no man about town, but only one who
got his living in the stables. False, perfidious
Nancy !
It was some time before the true character of
those visitors was revealed to him ; but one day,
acting as a postilion on the Great North Road, the
chaise he was driving was stopped by two high-
waymen, duly masked. One stood by the horses,
while his companion robbed the occupants of the
chaise. It was a windy day, and a more than
usually violent gust blew the first highwayman's
mask off. Instantly Ferguson recognised the man
who stood by the horses as one of his Nancy's
visitors.
Seeing this, the unmasked robber perceived,
clearly enough, that the situation was peculiarly
358 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
dangerous, and, when he had galloped off with his
companion, laid the facts before him. They
agreed that there was nothing for it hut to await
Ferguson's return at a roadside inn, and to hribe
him to silence. There, accordingly, they remained
until the chaise on its return journey drew up at
the door.
Two gentlemen, said the landlord, particularly
desired to see the postilion. He entered and
accepted a price for his silence ; further agreeing
to meet them that night at supper in the Borough.
Meeting there, according to arrangement, Fer-
guson was persuaded to throw in his lot with the
highway blades. His imagination took fire at the
notion of riding a fine horse, and, dressed in hand-
some clothes, presenting a figure of romance ; but
his new-found friends were cool men of business,
and had nothing of that kind in view for their
fresh associate. To cut a fine figure was, no
doubt, all very well, but the more important thing
was to know which travellers were worth robbing,
and which were not. If they could be reasonably
well advised on that point, much useless effort,
and a considerable deal of risk, would be avoided,
in not stopping those whose pockets were so nearly
next to empty as to be not worth " speaking to "
on the road. Their idea was that Ferguson should
continue in his employment of postilion, and, as a
confederate, keep them well informed of the
movements of his clients.
Ferguson was disappointed in not being
allowed a spectacular part, but the profitable
ROBERT FERGUSON 359
nature of the scheme appealed to him, and he
agreed to this distinctly well-conceived plan. So
a long series of unsuspecting travellers driven by
him owed their extraordinary ill-luck on the road
entirely to the agency of their innocent-looking
postilion, who was so professionally interested in
their movements, who was so obliging with the
portmanteaus and valises, and who secretly kept a
keen eye upon the contents of his customers'
purses. Quite often it would happen that a trace
would be broken in some lonely situation, and
then, strange to say, while it was being mended, a
couple of highwaymen would infallibly appear,
and threatening the postilion with horrid oaths
when he pretended to show fight, would at their
leisure ransack all the luggage and coolly request
all money and personal adornments to be handed
over.
Wine, women, and cards were Ferguson's
downfall. Success in his new line of life brought
reckless conduct, and he grew so impossible that
the livery-stable, without in the least suspecting
his honesty, dismissed him for general unreliability.
He then took to the road for a while as a high-
wayman, and thus indulged his natural liking for
finery.
He was an excellent horseman, and daring to
the verge — or beyond the verge — of recklessness.
On one occasion, he and two companions " spoke
to " and were robbing two gentlemen on the road to
Edgeware, but were interrupted by the appearance
pf three other well-mounted travellers, who gave
360 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
chase. Ferguson escaped, but his two companions
were caught, brought to trial, and executed. It
was this exploit that first procured him the name
of " Galloping Dick," although his name was
Robert. Complimented by admiring friends on
his escape, he declared he would gallop a horse
with any man in the kingdom.
The name of " Galloping Dick " soon became well
known, and was a name of dread. No clattering
horseman could come hurriedly along the road
without stirring the pulses of nervous travellers,
who immediately fancied " Galloping Dick " was
upon them. Indeed, he soon became too well
known for any reasonable degree of safety, and he
would then for a while, for prudential reasons, find
temporary employment as a postilion. Frequently
in custody at Bow Street, on various charges, he
was many times acquitted, on insufficient evidence ;
but was at last arrested, at the beginning of 1800,
on a charge of highway robbery, sent for trial to
the Lent Assizes at Aylesbury, convicted, and
executed.
JERRY ABERSHAW
THE southern suburbs of London were haunted
during the last quarter of the eighteenth century
by a youthful highwayman of a very desperate
kind. He was as successful as reckless, and
captained a gang that made Putney Heath and
Wimbledon Common places to be dreaded as much
as were Hounslow Heath on the west, and
Finchley Common in the north, and brought the
name of " Jerry Abershaw " into exceptional
prominence.
The real name of this highwayman was Louis
Jeremiah Avershaw, and he was born in 1773, of
the usual " poor but honest " parents. Indeed,
it would seem, in enquiring into the lives of the
highwaymen, that they in general came of such
stock, whose only crime was their poverty :
although that, as we well know in this happy
land of ours, is a very heinous offence, it being
the duty of every English man and woman to
pay rates and taxes to keep a constantly
growing official class in well-paid and easy em-
ployment.
We so rarely hear of a highwayman deriving
from dishonest parents that, it would seem, even
361
362 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
in the more adventurous centuries, ill-led lives
were as a rule so short and sordid as to impress
the children of those who led them with the idea
that honesty was not only really, in the long run,
the best policy, but that for evil courses there was
no long run at all. Otherwise, the life of the high-
wayman, if not by any means, as a general rule,
so gay as usually it was represented to be, was
sufficiently full of that spice of excitement which
to the youthful makes amends for much danger
and discomfort, and sons might often have
succeeded fathers in the liberal profession of
highway robbery.
The boyhood of Jerry Abershaw has never
been dragged from the obscurity that enwraps it.
No slowly-budding flower he, but one that in one
brief day flung open its petals. Or rather, in less
flowery language, we learn nothing of the first
steps that led him to the highway, and find him at
the very first mention of his doings already a cool
and assured character, robbing with impunity, and
making one place in especial a spot to be dreaded.
This was the hollow of Putney Bottom, through
which the Portsmouth Hoad runs on its way
to Kingston. The little Beverley Brook trickles
by, to this day, in the hollow ; and Combe Wood,
whose thickets formed so convenient a lair for
Abershaw, and a rallying-place for his gang, is
still very much what it was then.
Abershaw was not, of course, the first to see
the strategic value of the heath, and of such woody
tangles as these, bordering the road for quite
JEKHY ABEKSHAW ON PUTNEY HEATH.
JERR Y ABERSHA W 365
three miles; for we read in Ogilby's great book
on the roads, published in 1675, of Kingston Hill,
hard by as " not rarely infested with robbers" ;
and a gibbet long stood near at hand, to remind
those robbers, and others who succeeded them,
of their own probable fate. But, if by no means
the first, or even the last, who practised here,
he is easily the most famous, even though it be
merely a pervasive fame, not crystallised into many
anecdotes.
The " Bald Paced Stag," that then stood, a
lonely tavern, by the . roadside near the Beverley
Brook, was a favourite meeting-place of Abershaw
and his fellows. It was afterwards rebuilt, as
a superior hostelry, in the days when the growth
of travel and of coaching had rendered the old
roadside accommodation insufficient. This later
house may still be seen, standing nowadays as
a private residence, with imposing pillared portico,
by the way.
Whether the landlord of the original " Bald
Faced Stag," was in league with Abershaw and
his gang, or not, is impossible to say. Very
generally, the tavern-keepers of that age were
suspected, and rightly suspected, of a guilty
acquaintance with the highwaymen, but it would
be too much to assume that they were all of that
character; and indeed we find in the sad story
of one John Poulter, otherwise Baxter, who was
hanged in 1754 for highway robbery, that the
frequenting by highwaymen against his wish of
an inn he kept in Dublin first ruined his trade
VOL. II. 40
366 HALf -HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
and compelled him in self-defence at last to seek
a living on the road.
An innkeeper situated like him who kept the
" Bald Faced Stag " in the days of Abershaw
would have no choice but to harbour the gang
whenever they felt inclined to confer their
patronage upon him; but, to be quite just, it
would certainly appear that he was a willing
ally, for, in the most outstanding among the few
stories told of Abershaw, it appears that once,
when taken ill on the road, the highwayman was
put to bed in the house and cared for while
a doctor was procured. It was a Dr. William
Roots who answered the call, from Putney. The
ailing stranger, whose real name and occupation
the doctor never for a moment suspected, was
bled, after the medical practice of the time,
and the doctor was about to leave for home,
when his patient, with a great appearance of
earnestness, said : " You had better, sir, have some-
one to go back with you, as it is a very dark
and lonesome journey." This thoughtful offer
the doctor declined, remarking that " he had not
the least fear, even should he meet with Abershaw
himself." The story was a favourite with
Abershaw : it afforded him a reliable criterion
of the respect in which the travelling public
generally held him.
The notoriety Abershaw early attained led to
his early end. The authorities made especial
efforts to arrest him, and, learning that he fre-
quented a public-house in Southwark, called the
JERR Y ABERSHA W 367
" Three Brewers," set a watch upon the place.
One day the two officers detailed for this duty
discovered him in the house, drinking with some
of his friends, and entered to arrest him. But
Ahershaw was on the alert, and, as they stood in
the doorway, arose with a pistol in either hand,
and, with a curse, warned them to stand clear, or
he would shoot them. Disregarding this threat,
they rushed in, and Abershaw, firing both pistols
at once, mortally wounded one officer and severely
wounded the landlord in the head.
But he did not escape. He was tried at
Croydon Assizes, on July 30th, 1795, before Mr.
Baron Penryn, for murder ; the wounded officer,
David Price, having died in the interval. A
second indictment charged him with having
attempted to murder the other, by discharging
a pistol at him.
Abershaw was taken by road from London to
Croydon, and passing Kennington Common, then
the principal place of execution in Surrey, he
laughingly asked those in charge of him, if they
did not share his own opinion that he would
himself be " twisted " there on the following
Saturday. That was the conventionally callous
way in which the highwaymen approached their
doom.
To prove the charge of killing Price was
naturally the simplest of tasks, and the jury,
returning from a three-minutes' deliberation, duly
found him guilty. Prisoner's counsel, however,
raising an objection on some legal quibble as to
368 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
a flaw in the indictment, the point was argued
for two hours — and not decided ; the judge
desiring to consult his learned brethren on the
point. There is a certain grim humour about
these proceedings ; because, whatever the result
of this was likely to be, there was yet the second
indictment to be tried, and on that alone there
could be no doubt of Abershaw being capitally
convicted. It was then proceeded with, and
Abershaw himself, seeing how he must inevitably
be found guilty, and hanged, threw off all
restraint. He insolently inquired of the judge,
if he were to be murdered by perjured witnesses,
and in violent language declared his contempt
for the Court. Even at that solemn moment,
when, having been found guilty on the second
count, the judge, in passing sentence, assumed
the black cap, he was not affected, except by
rage and the spirit of mockery, and followed the
action of the judge by putting on his own hat.
The gaolers were at last compelled by his violence
to handcuff him, and to tie his arms and legs.
In that condition he was removed to gaol, to
await execution.
There he must soon have realised the folly of
resistance ; for he became quiet and apparently
resigned. In the short interval that remained
between his sentence and that appearance on
Kennington Common he had accurately foreseen,
he occupied himself with drawing rough pictures
on the whitewashed walls of his cell with the
juice of black cherries that had formed part of
JERR Y ABERSHA W 369
the simple luxuries his purse and the custom of
the prison permitted. These idle scribblings
represented his own exploits on the road. In one
he appeared in the act of stopping a post-chaise
and threatening the driver : the words, " D — n
your eyes ! Stop ! " appended. The remainder
of this curious gallery pictured the other incidents
common in a highwayman's life.
The time then allowed convicted criminals
between their sentence and execution was very
short. On August 3rd he was hanged on Ken-
nington Common ; game — or, rather, callous — to
the last. Arrived there, he kicked off his boots
among the great crowd assembled, and died
unshod, to disprove an old saying of his mother's,
that he was a bad lad, and would die in his shoes.
He was but twenty-two years of age when he met
this fate, not actually for highway robbery, but
for murder. His body was afterwards hanged in
chains in Putney Bottom, the scene of his chief
exploits, and an old and nasty legend was long
current in those parts of a sergeant in a regiment
soon afterwards marching past firing at the dis-
tended body, by which (to make short of an
offensive story) the neighbourhood was nearly
poisoned. The sergeant was reduced to the ranks
for this ill-judged choice of a target.
JOHN AND WILLIAM BEATSON
THE very general idea that the highwayman ended
with the close of the eighteenth century is an
altogether erroneous one, and has already been
abundantly disproved in these pages. They not
only continued into the nineteenth century, but
were very numerously executed for their crimes.
Early among those who belong to that era were
John Beatson and William Whalley. Theirs is a
sad tale of business failure and of a desperate
recourse to the road, rather than the story of
professional highwaymen.
John Beatson was a Scotsman, who had in his
youth been a sailor in the merchant service, and
had made many voyages to India and other tropical
countries. Tired at last of the sea, he settled at
Edinburgh, where he established himself as an
innkeeper at the " College Tavern." There he
carried on a successful business for many years,
and only relinquished it at last in favour of his
adopted son, William Whalley Beatson, who for
some time carried it on happily and profitably
with his wife. Unhappily, his wife died, and
when he was left alone it was soon seen, in
the altered circumstances of the house, that it
370
JOHN AND WILLIAM BEATSON 371
was she, rather than her husband, who had in the
last few years kept the inn going. Left alone,
and incapable of managing the domestic side of
the house, he was taken advantage of by the
servants, who robbed him at every opportunity;
and, in short, in every respect the " College
Tavern " declined and ceased to pay its way. He
gave it up and went to London, with the idea of
entering the wine and spirit trade there. Arrived
in London, he took a business in Bedford Street,
Covent Garden, and, finding it uncongenial, sold
it to a man and accepted six months' bills in
payment. The purchaser went bankrupt within
three months, throwing Beatson himself into
difficulties. At this juncture of affairs he con-
sulted with his adopted father as to what was to
be done, and the upshot of their long and anxious
deliberations was that there was no help for it but
to try and retrieve their fortunes by robbing upon
the King's highway. Their first essay in this new
business was begun on July 18th, 1801, when they
travelled from London to the " Rose and Crown "
at Godstone, Surrey, staying there the night.
The next morning they set off on foot, and at
midday were at the " Blue Anchor," on the road
to East Grinstead. They dined there, and asked
questions about the mail, and did not leave until
six o'clock. Between eight and nine o'clock they
were seen on East Grinstead Common. Half an
hour after midnight, the postboy who drove the
mail-cart was stopped by two men near Forest
Row, south of East Grinstead. They produced a
372 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
pistol and threatened him with it if he refused to
give up the hags. Then, he unresisting, they led
the horse into a meadow, where they took the bags
and carried them off. It was afterwards found that
they had walked no less a distance than six miles
with them. They were afterwards found in a
wheatfield near the village of Hartfield, the letters
strewn about in the corn.
They had taken all the Bank of England notes,
and notes issued by country banks, and had left
drafts and bills of exchange worth upwards of
£9,500.
The next morning the two Beatsons appeared
at the " Chequers " at Westerham, in a very
exhausted condition, and had breakfast. With the
excuse that they were Deptford people, and under
the necessity of reaching the dockyard there in a
hurry, they hastily hired a horse and trap, paying
for their refreshment with a £2 note, and for the
hire with one for £5.
The people of the " Chequers " inn thought it
strange, when their man returned, to hear that he
had driven them, not to the dockyard at Deptford,
but to a coach-office in the town, where they had
at once taken places in a coach for London.
The fugitives did not hurry themselves when
they reached town. On the evening of their
arrival, it was afterwards discovered, the elder
purchased a pair of shoes at a shop in Oxford
Street, paying for them with a £10 Bank of
England note. They employed their time in
London in a shopping campaign, purchasing
JOHN AND WILLIAM BEATSON 373
largely and always tendering bank-notes, with the
object of accumulating a large sum of money in
gold, by way of change.
At the end of this week they procured a horse
and gig and left London, saying they intended to
travel to Ireland. Meanwhile, the loss of so
many bank-notes had been widely advertised and
the good faith of persons who presented any of
them for payment enquired into. The movements
of the men who had stopped the driver of the
mail-cart and robbed him were traced, and soon
the Holyhead Road was lively with the pursuit of
them.
They arrived at Knutsford, in Cheshire, only a
short time before the coming of the mail-coach
bringing particulars of the robbery. Before that,
however, they had attracted a considerable deal
of notice by their singular behaviour at the
" George " inn, where they had put up. To draw
attention by peculiarities of dress or demeanour is
obviously the grossest folly in fugitive criminals,
whose only chance of safety lies in unobtrusive
manners and appearance. That would appear to
be obvious to the veriest novices in crime. But
the Beatsons were no doubt by this time agitated
by the serious position in which they had irretriev-
ably placed themselves, and in so nervous a state
that they really had not full command of their
actions. They adopted a hectoring manner at the
inn, and on the road had attracted unfavourable
notice by the shameful way in which they had
treated their horse.
VOL. II. 41
374 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
On the arrival of the mail containing the
official notices of the robbery and descriptions of
the two men concerned in it, the appearance of
these two men with the gig seemed so remarkably
like that of the robbers, that a Post Office surveyor
was sent after them. They had already left
Knutsford, and had to be followed to Liverpool,
where they were discovered at an inn, and
arrested.
The mere hasty preliminary inspection of their
travelling valise was sufficient to prove that these
were the men sought for. Bank-notes to the
amount of £1,700 were discovered, wrapped round
by one of the letters stolen; and the purchases
of jewellery and other articles carried with them
were valued at another £1,300.
Taken back to London, the prisoners were
charged in the first instance at Bow Street, and
then committed for trial at Horsham. An attempt
they made to escape from Horsham gaol was
unsuccessful, and they were found hiding in a
sewer. Their trial took place before Mr. Baron
Hotham on March 29th, 1802. No fewer than
thirty witnesses were arrayed against them ; chiefly
London tradesmen, from whom they had made
purchases and tendered notes in payment. There
could hardly ever have been a clearer case, and
the result of the trial was never for a moment in
doubt.
The affectionate efforts of the elder man to
shield his adopted son drew tears from many
eyes, but the readiness of that " son " to take
JOHN AND WILLIAM BEATSON 375
advantage of them and to throw the guilt upon
him excited, naturally enough, much unfavourable
comment. Two statements had been prepared
and written by the prisoners, and both were read
by the younger in court. The first was by
John Beatson, who declared himself to be guilty,
but his " son " innocent. Whalley's own state-
ment, to the same effect, went into a detailed
story of how his " father " had given him a large
number of the notes, and had told him they were
part of a large remittance he had lately received
from India.
The story was so clumsy and unconvincing,
and the story told by the prosecution so complete
in every detail, that both prisoners were speedily
found guilty. They were condemned to death,
and were hanged on Saturday, April 7th, 1802, at
Horsham, before a crowd of three thousand people.
The elder Beatson was seventy years of age and
the younger but twenty-seven.
ROBERT SNOOKS
THE careers of the highwaymen were, in the vast
majority of cases, remarkably short, and they
were, for the most part, cut off in the full vigour
of their manly strength and beauty. The accursed
shears of Fate — or, to be more exact, a rope
dangling from a beam — ended them before ex-
perience had come to revise their methods and fit
them out with the artistry of the expert.
But few were so summarily ended as the
unfortunate Robert Snooks. This person, a native
of Hungerford, was in the year 1800 living at
Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire, in the
immediate neighbourhood of Boxmoor. He had
often observed the postboy carrying the well-filled
mail-bags across the lonely flat of Boxmoor, and
(he is described as having been of remarkably fine
physical proportions) thought how easy a thing
it would be to frighten him into giving them up.
Accordingly, on one sufficiently dark night, he
waited upon the moor for the postboy, stopped
him, and, adopting a threatening demeanour, in-
structed him to carry the bags to a solitary spot
and then go about his business. The frightened
official immediately hurried off to the postmaster
376
ROBERT SNOOKS 377
of the district : one Mr. Page, of the " King's
Arms," Berkhamstead, and told his tale ; leaving
Snooks to ransack the bags and take what he
thought valuable.
The bags, turned inside out, were found, the
next morning, with a heap of letters, torn open
and fluttering in all directions across the fields.
It subsequently appeared that the highwayman
had secured a very considerable booty, one letter
alone having contained £5 in notes. The post-
boy did not know the man who had terrorised
him: only that he was a "big man"; but the
simultaneous disappearance of Snooks left no
reasonable doubt as to who it was.
This was Snooks's first essay in the dangerous
art, and it proved also his last. Hurrying to
London, he took up his abode in Southwark, and
presently had the dubious satisfaction of reading
the reward-bills issued, offering £300 for his
capture. After a while he thought himself com-
paratively safe, and was -emboldened to make an
effort at negotiating one of the notes he still held.
Afraid to do this in person, he thought he might
see what would happen if he tried to pass one of
the notes through the intermediary of the servant
of the house where he was lodging, and accordingly
sent her to purchase a piece of cloth for a coat,
handing her a five-pound note. The tradesman
evidently found something suspicious about the
note thus tendered, and returned it, with the
message that " there must be some mistake."
Whether the tradesman would have followed this
378 HALF- HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
up by communicating any suspicions he may have
had to the authorities does not appear ; but " the
wicked flee when no man pursueth," and Snooks
hurried off to what was undoubtedly the most
dangerous place for him. He fled to Hungerford,
his birthplace ; yet, strange to say, he long evaded
capture, and it was not until 1802 that he was
arrested, on the information of a postboy who had
been to school with him. He was in due course
brought to trial at Hertford Assizes, found guilty,
and sentenced to death. It was judged expedient,
as a warning to others, that he should be executed
on the scene of his crime, the selection of the spot
falling to Mr. Page, who, besides being postmaster
of Berkhamstead, was High Constable of the
Hundred of Dacorum. As a further warning,
and one likely to be of some permanence, it was
originally proposed to gibbet the body of the
defunct Snooks on the same spot ; so that, swinging
there in chains on the moor, it might hint to
others the folly of doing likewise. But the time
was growing full late for such exhibitions ; the
inhabitants of the district protested, and this
further project was abandoned.
Journeying from Hertford gaol on the morning
of the fatal March llth, 1802, Snooks, according
to a surviving tradition, was given a final glass
of ale at the " Swan " inn, at the corner of Box
Lane, and is said to have remarked to the rustics
hastening to the scene of execution : " Don't hurry ;
there'll be no fun till I get there."
The usual large and unruly crowd, that could
SNOOKS ADDRESSING THE CROWD AT HIS EXECUTION.
ROBERT SNOOKS 381
always be reckoned upon on such melancholy
occasions, was present, and seemed to regard the
event as no more serious than a fair. To those
thus assembled, Robert Snooks, standing in the
cart under the gallows, held forth in a moral
address :
" Good people, I beg your particular attention
to my fate. I hope this lesson will be of more
service to you than the gratification of the curiosity
which brought you here. I beg to caution you
against evil doing, and most earnestly entreat you
to avoid two evils, namely, ' Disobedience to
parents ' — to you youths I particularly give this
caution — and ' The breaking of the Sabbath.'
These misdeeds lead to the worst of crimes :
robbery, plunder, bad women, and every evil
course. It may by some be thought a happy state
to be in possession of fine clothes and plenty of
money, but I assure you no one can be happy
with ill-gotten treasure. I have often been riding
on my horse and passed a cottager's door, whom
I have seen dressing his greens, and perhaps had
hardly a morsel to eat with them. He has very
likely envied me in my station, who, though at
that time in possession of abundance, was miser-
able and unhappy. I envied him, and with most
reason, for his happiness and contentment. I can
assure you there is no happiness but in doing
good. I justly suffer for my offences, and hope
it will be a warning to others. I die in peace
with God and all the world."
The horse was then whipped up, the cart
382 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
drawn away from beneath the galjows-tree, and
Robert Snooks had presently paid the harsh
penalty of his crime. He had behaved with
remarkable courage, and, espying an acquaintance
in the crowd, offered him his watch if he would
promise to see that his body received Christian
burial. But the man, unwilling to be recognised
as a friend of the criminal, made no response, and
Snooks 's body was buried at the foot of the gallows.
A hole was dug there, and a truss of straw
divided. Half was flung in first; the body upon
that, and the second half on top. The hangman
had half-stripped the body, declaring the clothes
to be his perquisite, and would have entirely
stripped it, had not the High Constable interfered,
insisting that some regard should be had to
decency.
A slow-moving feeling of compassion for the
unhappy wretch took possession of some of the
people of Hemel Hempstead, who on the following
day procured a coffin, reopened the grave, and,
placing the body in the coffin, thus gave it some
semblance of civilised interment ; but, those being
the times of the body-snatchers, doubts have been
expressed of the body being really there. It is
thought that the body-snatchers may afterwards
have visited the lonely spot and again resur-
rected it.
Two rough pieces of the local " plum-pudding
stone " were afterwards placed on the grave, and
remained until recent years.
Boxmoor is not now the lonely place it was.
ROBERT SNOOKS
383
The traveller who seeks Snooks's grave may find
it by continuing northward from Apsley End,
passing under the railway bridges, and coming
to a little roadside inn called the " Friend at
Hand." Opposite this, on the right-hand side
of the road, and between this road and the railway
embankment runs a long narrow strip of what
looks like meadow land, enclosed by an iron fence,
SNOOKS'S GRAVE.
This is really a portion of Boxmoor. At a point,
a hundred and fifty yards past the inn, look out
sharply for a clump of five young horse-chestnut
trees growing on the moor. Close by them is a
barren space of reddish earth, with a grassy
mound, a piece of conglomerate, or " pudding-
stone," and a newer stone inscribed " Robert
Snooks, 11 March, 1802." This has been added
since 1905, and duly keeps the spot in mind.
VOL. II.
HUFFUM WHITE
THE decay of the highwayman's trade and its
replacement by that of the burglar and the hank-
robber is well illustrated by the career of Huffum,
or Huffy, White, who was first sentenced for
burglary in 1809. Transportation for life was
then awarded him, and we might have heard no
more of his activities, had not his own cleverness
and the stupidity of the authorities enabled him
to escape from the hulks at Woolwich. Thus
narrowly missing the long voyage to Botany Bay,
he made direct for London, then as now the best
hiding-place in the world. He soon struck up
an acquaintance with one James Mackcoull, and
they proposed together to enter upon a course of
burglary; but at the very outset of their agree-
ment they were arrested. Mackcoull, as a rogue
and vagabond, was sent to prison for six months,
and White was sentenced to death as an escaped
convict, the extreme penalty being afterwards
reduced to penal servitude for life.
On January 20th, 1811, Mackcoull was re-
leased, and at once, like the faithful comrade he
was, set about the task of securing White's escape
384
HUFF0M WHITE ESCAPING FBOM THE HULKS.
HUFFUM WHITE 387
from the convict ship to which he had again been
consigned. Dropping overboard in the fog and
darkness that enshrouded the lower reaches of the
Thames on that winter's evening into the boat
that Mackcoull had silently rowed under the bows
of the ship, White was again free.
An astonishing enterprise now lay before "White,
Mackcoull, and a new ally : a man named Erench.
This was nothing less than a plan to break into
the premises of the Paisley Union Bank at
Glasgow. Arrived in Glasgow, they at length,
after several disappointments, succeeded in forcing
an entry on a Saturday night, selecting that time
for the sake of the large margin it gave them for
their escape, until the re-opening of the bank on
the Monday morning. Their booty consisted of
£20,000 in Scotch notes : a large sum, and in that
form an unmanageable one, as they were eventually
to discover.
The burglary accomplished, their first care
was to set off at once for London, posting thither
by post-chaise, as fast as four horses could take
them. At every stage they paid their score,
which they took care should be a generous one,
as beseemed the wealthy gentlemen they posed
as, with a £20 note : thus accumulating, as they
dashed southward along those four hundred miles,
a heavy sum in gold.
On the Monday morning the loss of the notes
was of course at once discovered. Information
was easily acquired as to the movements of the
men who were at once suspected, and they were
388 HALF HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
followed along the road, and some days later
White was arrested in London by a Bow Street
runner, at the house of one Scoltock, a maker of
burglars' tools. None of the stolen property was
found upon White, Mackcoull having been suffi-
ciently acute to place all the remaining notes in
the keeping of a certain Bill Gibbons, who com-
bined the trade of bruiser with that of burglars'
banker.
Mackcoull himself went into hiding, both
from the law and from his associates, he having
had the counting and custody of the notes, and
told White and French the amount was but
£16,000.
It now became quite evident to French, at
least, that, so far as he and his friends were
concerned, the remaining notes were merely so
much waste-paper. Their numbers were bound
to be known, and they could not safely be
negotiated. So he suggested to Mrs. Mackcoull
that they should propose to return the paper-
money to the Bank, and save further trouble,
on the understanding that they should not be
prosecuted.
Mrs. Mackcoull appears to have had an in-
fluential friend named Sayer, employed in close
attendance upon the King, and by his good offices
secured a pardon for all concerned, on the condi-
tions already named. Unfortunately, she could
not fully carry out the bargain agreed upon, for,
on the notes being counted, it was discovered that
only £11,941 remained.
HUFFUM WHITE 389
White, already in custody, was once more
condemned to transportation for life. The pro-
cedure must by this time have become quite
staled by familiarity, and we picture him going
asrain to the hulks with an air of intense
O
boredom.
He, of course, again escaped, and was soon again
on his burglarious career : this time at Kettering
among other places. But the exploit which
concluded his course was the almost purely high-
wayman business of robbing the Leeds mail-coach,
on October 26th, 1812, near Higham Ferrers. He
had as accomplices a certain Richard Kendall and
one Mary Howes. White had booked an outside
seat on the coach, and had, in the momentary
absence of the guard in front, cleverly forced open
the lock of the box in which the mail-bags were
kept, extracted the bags, and replaced the lid.
At the next stage he left the coach. The accom-
plices, who had a trap in waiting, then all drove
off to London, White immediately afterwards
making for Bristol, where he was soon located,
living with two notorious thieves, John Goodman
and Ned Burkitt. A descent was made upon the
house, and the two arrested, but White escaped
over the roof of a shed, and through the adjoining
houses.
He was traced in April 1813 to a house in
Scotland Road, Liverpool, where, in company
with a man named Hayward, he was medi-
tating another burglary. The officers came upon
them hiding in a cellar, and a desperate
390 HALF-HOURS WITH THE HIGHWAYMEN
struggle followed ; but in the end they were
secured.
Richard Kendall and Mary Howes, alias
Taylor, were already in custody, and White was
arraigned with them at the ensuing Northampton
Assizes, for the rohbery of the Leeds mail. Wit-
nesses spoke at this trial to having seen the men
in the gig on the evening of October 26th, on the
road near Higham Ferrers, and afterwards at the
house of Mary Howes, who lived close by, and
the keeper of the turnpike deposed to only one
gig having passed through that evening. There
were no fewer than forty witnesses, and the trial
occupied fourteen hours.
Mary Howes was acquitted, not from lack of
evidence, but merely on a technical flaw in the
indictment ; her offence having been committed in
another county. White and Kendall were con-
victed and sentenced to death.
White again came near to escaping. By some
unknown means, a file had been conveyed to him,
and on the night before the execution he filed
through his irons, and then forced a way through
several doors, being only stopped at the outer gate.
The following morning, August 13th, 1813—
unlucky date, with two thirteens — he met his
fate with an unmoved tranquillity. He declared
Kendall to be innocent. When the chaplain
asked him earnestly if he could administer any
comfort to him at that solemn moment, he re-
plied : " Only by getting some other man to be
hanged for me."
HUFFUM WHITE
39 *
Kendall was then brought to the gallows,
declaring himself to be innocent, and a murdered
man.
Mackcoull, the earlier associate of White,
disappeared for years, but was arrested for a
robbery in 1820, and died in prison soon after
receiving sentence.
INDEX
Abershaw, Jeremiah, i. 104 ; ii.
361-369
Adams, Richard, ii. 122
Allen, — , i. 123
- Robert, i. 276, 278-281
Arnott, Lieut., i. 97
Avery, — , ii. 121
Beatson, John and William, ii.
370-375
Beggar's Opera, The, i. 240 ; ii. 296
Belchier, William, i. 224
Berkeley, 5th Earl of, i. 237-240
Bird, Jack, ii. 86-97
Blake, Joseph (" Blueskin "), ii.
134-136
Boulter, Thomas, ii. 238
Bow Street Patrol, i. 123
" Bowl " Inn, St. Giles-in-the-
Fields, i. 166, 177-181
Bracy, — , i. 76
Bradshaw, Jack, ii. 101
Brown, Thomas, i. 211
Bunce, Stephen, ii. 117-120
Carrick, Valentine, i. 145
Catnack, James, i. 127-130
Caxton, Gibbet, i. 201-204
Cherhill Gang, i. 117
Clarke, Sir Simon, Bart., i. 97
Clavel, John, i. 307-316
" Clever Tom Clinch," i. 166, 177
Clewer, Revd. William, ii. 81
" Clibborn's Post," i. 119-121
VOL. II. 393
Cottington, John ("Mulled Sack"),
i. 158 ; ii. 26-34, 210
Cox, Tom, i. 166, 254
" Cutpurse," Moll (Mary Frith),
i. 262-268 ; ii. 128, 129
Darkin, Isaac, ii. 264-270
Davis, William (the " Golden
Farmer "), i. 317-332, 341
Denville, Sir Josselin, i. 17 ; ii. 55
Dickson, Christopher, i. 102
Dorbel, Tom, ii. 72
Dowe, Robert, i. 148, 153, 154
Drewett, Robert, i. 211
— William, i. 211
Dudley, Captain Richard, i. 387-
397 ; ii. 55
Dun, Thomas, i. 17-22
Du Vail, Claude, i. 175, 214, 224,
254, 334, 342-355 ; ii. 173, 249,
272
Edwards, William, ii. 79
Elms, The, Smithfield, i. 157
— St. Giles-in-the-Fields, i.
158, 165
Lane, Lancaster Gate, i. 158
Tyburn, i. 162
Everett and Williams, i. 254
Falstaff, i. 62, 64, 217, 221
Ferguson, Robert (" Galloping
Dick "), i. 105 ; ii. 353-360
Finchley Common, i. 245-249,
253-255, 319 ; ii. 122
43
394
INDEX
Frith, Mary ("Moll Cutpuree"),
i. 262-268 ; ii. 128, 120
Gad's Hill, i. 02, 214, 217-221, 314;
ii. 10
" Galloping Dick " (Robert Fer-
guson), i. 105 ; ii. 353-360
Gibbets, i. 122, 199-212, 214, 363
Gibson, John, i. 202
Giles, St., i. 157
" Golden Farmer," The (William
Davis), L 317-332, 341
Hackney Marshes, i. 91 ; ii. 182,
208
Haggarty, — , i. 243
Hal, Prince, i. 62, 64, 217
Hall, John, i. 154 ; ii. 110-116
" Hand of Glory," The, i. 49-57,
210
" Hangman's Highway," i. 156-
198
Harris, James, i. 89
Hartley John, i. 101
Hawes, Nathaniel, i. 253
Hawke (or Hawkes), William, i.
147, 224
Hawkins, John, i. 229-236
- William, i. 229, 231, 232, 236
Hill, Thos., i. 66
Hillingdon Heath, i. 323, 324
Hind, Capt. James, i. 65, 214,
273-306, 334 ; ii. 173, 249
Holborn, i. 163-175
- Bars, i. 172
-Hill, i. 164, 170, 171
Holloway, i. 243
Hood, Robin, i. 23-48, 57
Horner, Nicholas, ii. 148-157
Hounslow Heath, i. 89, 121, 122,
123, 224-244, 267, 346, 388 ; ii.
29, 51, 71, 248, 252, 259
Jackson, Francis, i. 356-386
Johnson, Charles, Historian of
Highwaymen, i. 14, 17, 18,
124, 235, 270, 335, 339, 392 ;
ii. 41, 158, 166, 233
— Joe, ii. 167
Joiner, Abraham, i. 67
King, Augustine, i. 84
- Matthew, ii. 206, 208, 209
- Robert, ii. 206
- Tom, ii. 198-203, 205-210, 228
Knightsbridge, i. 222-224
Lansdowne Passage, i. 1 10
Lewis, Paul, ii. 316-319
Lorrain, Rev. Paul, i. 132-134
Low, Richard, ii. 115-117
Maclaine, James, ii. 249, 271-300
Maidenhead Thicket, i. 59, 295 ; ii.
38
Marlborough Downs, i. 118
Mary-le-Bourne, St., i. 159-161
Mellish, Mr., Murder of, by high-
waymen, i. 121
Miles, Edward, i. 210
Morgan, — , i. 99-101
" Mulled Sack " (Cottington,
John), i. 158 ; ii. 26-34, 210
Nevison, John, or William
(" Swiftnicks "), ii. 1-25, 229,
231, 232, 234
Newgate, i. 145, 146, 148-154, 156
246, 249-254, 302 ; ii. 62, 63,
131, 268, 296, 334-338, 352
— Ordinaries of, i. 124-126, 131-
139, 142-145, 169, 187, 365 ;
ii. 117, 143, 272
Newmarket, i. 78-82, 173-175 ; ii.
301
New Oxford Street, i. 163, 176
INDEX
395
j'Brian, Patrick, ii. 81-85
Ogden, Will, ii. 98-104
" Old Mob " (Thomas Simpson), i.
254, 333-341
Ovet, Jack, ii. 105-109
Oxford Street, i. 163, 181, 192 ; ii.
279, 332
Page, William, ii. 249-263
Parsons, Wniiam, ii. 241-248
Peace, Charles, i. 6-11
Peine forte et dure, i. 249-254
Phillips, Thos., i. 249-253
Piccadilly, Highwaymen in, i. 109
Plunkett, — , ii. 280-283, 286-290
" Poor Robin," ii. 90-93
Popham, Sir John, i. 62
Porter's Block, Smithfield, i. 158 ;
ii. 63
Poulter, John, ii. 301-315
Pressing to Death, i. 249-254
Price, James, i. 211
Pureney, Rev. Thos., i. 132, 133,
135-139, 142 ;ii. 117, 143, 147
Rann, John (" Sixteen-string
Jack "), ii. 340-352
Ratsey, Gamaliel, i. 14-17
Reresby, Sir John, i. 82
Reynolds, Capt., i. 66
- Tom, ii. 98, 104
Rizpah, i. 204-206
Robin Hood, i. 23-48, 57 ; ii. 233
" Rowden the Pewterer," ii. 196,
198, 215
Rumbold, Thomas, ii. 35-40
St. Giles-in-the-Fields, i. 157, 176-
181
St. Mary-le-Bourne, i. 159-161
St. Sepulchre, i. 148-155, 163, 165
Salisbury Plain, i. 114, 117, 214,
318 ; ii. 41, 266
Shakespeare, Highwaymen in, i.
62-64, 217, 221
Sheppard, Jack, i. 137, 140, 183,
246, 247
Shooter's Hill, i. 214-217, 276 ; ii.
101, 189, 260
Shotover Hill, i. 255 ; ii. 30
Shrimpton, John, i. 256-258
Simms, Harry, i. 97
Simpson, Thomas (" Old Mob "), i.
254, 333-341
" Sixteen-string Jack " (Rann,
John), ii. 340-352
Smith, Capt. Alexander, Historian
of Highwaymen, i. 11-14, 75,
124, 235, 270, 335, 339, 391 ;
ii. 41, 81-83
Smith, Rev. Samuel, i. 132, 367
Smithfield, i. 157 ; ii. 63, 281
— Rounds, i. 158 ; ii. 34
Snooks, Robert, ii. 376-383
Spiggott, Wm., i. 248-253
Stafford, Capt. Philip, i. 269-272
Steele, Mr., Murder of, i. 240-244
Stratford Place, i. 158-161
Sunday Trading Act, i. 60
" Swiftnicks " (Nevison, John, or
William), ii. 1-25, 229, 231,
232, 234
Sympson, George, i. 229, 231
Taylor, Tom, ii. 123-125
Tooll, " Captain " Edmund, i. 246
Tracey, Walter, ii. 158-165
Turpin, Richard, i. 124, 129, 215.
245,247; ii. 1, 173-240,249
Turpin's Oak, i. 245
Twm Shon Catti, ii. 65-72
Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe, i. 230
396
INDEX
Tyburn, i. 133, 146, 153, 155, 150-
198, 245, 249, 254, 281, 354
397 ; ii. 46, 59, 97, 116, 122,
147, 168, 248, 257, 284, 299,
319, 339
Waltham Cross, i. 87
Watling Street, i. 159
Westons, The, ii. 320-339
Weymouth, Charles, i. 102
White, Huffum, ii. 384-391
Whitney, Capt. James, i. 86, 158 ;
ii. 41-64, 173
" Who goes Home ? " i. 92-95
Wickes, Edward, i. 254; ii. 100-172
Wild, Jonathan, i. 137, 187, 265 ;
ii. 126-147
Wild, Robert, i. 70-74
Wilson, Ralph, i. 231,232, 235,230
Witherington, Thos., i. 171
Withers, John, ii. 75-80
Wright, — , i. 231
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