Chapter IV: Part 4

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 untrustworthy. 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 consideration (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 devoted their best energies to the art of shop-lifting, 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 received 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 convictions; 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 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; whereupon 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 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 reconstituted 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.

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 marvellous 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. Fielding 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 Dartmouth 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 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 11th, 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 the 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 dangerous, but Wild eventually recovered, much to the 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.

_From an old Print._]

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 esteemèd 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 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.

"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."

_To all the Thieves,
Whores, Pick-pockets,
Family Fellons &c.
in Great Brittain & Ireland,
Gentlemen & Ladies
You are hereby desir'd to
accompany y^r worthy friend y^e
Pious Mr. I——W—d from his
Seat at Whittingtons Colledge
to y^e Tripple Tree, where he's
to make his last Exit
on, and his
Corps to be Carry'd from thence
to be decently Interr'd amongst
his Ancestors._

_Pray bring this Ticket with you_

SATIRICAL INVITATION-CARD TO EXECUTION OF JONATHAN WILD.]

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 confederates 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 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 something 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 her pocket, he would he 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 misfortunes. 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 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 compassion 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 Visitants." 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 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 Repentance, 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 Reputation 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. Remember that though Justice has leaden feet, yet she 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.

NICHOLAS HORNER

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 seventeen or eighteen years of age. He remained, however, with the attorney for three years, learning 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 mettlesome 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 "conveyancer" 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 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 sentenced 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 sentenced 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 detailed 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 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 madwoman. 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 understand, then, that nature, in making a scold, first took of the tongues and galls of bulls, bears, wolves, magpies, parrots, cuckoos, and nightingales, 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 pettifoggers, mountebanks, barbers, coffeemen, newsmongers, 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."

"Not at all," replied Horner, "for when she first begins to be 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 Horner many thanks and treating him liberally at the next inn, they continued to ride on together. At last, coming to a convenient place, Horner 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 excellent recompense for the time Horner had spent in exercising his fantastic imagination upon him.

Shortly after this exploit, Horner met a gentleman on Hounslow Heath, saluting him with the customary demand to hand over his dibs.

The traveller gave him six guineas, all he had, 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 prolong a cure. 'Tis 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 considerable 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, 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, Horner 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 Horner, "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, 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.

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 mildness 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 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 retrospect 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 companions, 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 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 celebrated with every mark of happiness and satisfaction.

For 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 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 by 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 everything 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 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 been 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 friendship. Proceeding next day, Tracey frequently remarked that his companion's valise—a prosperous-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, remarking that he was travelling to take up his degree of Master of Arts, he hinted that he had with 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 borrow 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, containing 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 highwayman's language when he discovered these treasures, and how simply he had been taken in, must have considerably astonished the landlord of that wayside 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 revivèd 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 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 highwaymen 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 intention 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.

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 inability 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 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, but 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 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 satisfaction." 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; who presently came and 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 forbearance; 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 persuasions 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 him, at a cautious interval.

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 robbed 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 that, if the highwayman was so insistent, they should fight for it, and Wicks very readily accepted this proposal; whereupon, my lord, seeing him busily preparing his pistols for the engagement, began to back out of the bargain. Wicks, perceiving 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 Cout, 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.