Chapter IX: Part 9

Ferguson was disappointed in not being allowed a spectacular part, but the profitable 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 highwayman, 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 of three other well-mounted travellers, who gave 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 employment.

We so rarely hear of a highwayman deriving from dishonest parents that, it would seem, even 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 highwayman, 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 Road 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 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 Faced 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 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 someone 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 frequented a public-house in Southwark, called the "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 Abershaw 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 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 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 Kennington 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 distended 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 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 consulted 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 pistol and threatened him with it if he refused to give up the bags. 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 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 irretrievably 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.

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 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 statement, 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 experience 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, instructed him to carry the bags to a solitary spot and then go about his business. The frightened official immediately hurried off to the postmaster 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 postboy 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 comparatively 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 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 11th, 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 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 miserable 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 drawn away from beneath the gallows-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 resurrected 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. 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, 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.

HUFFUM WHITE

The decay of the highwayman's trade and its replacement by that of the burglar and the bank-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 agreement 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 released, and at once, like the faithful comrade he was, set about the task of securing White's escape 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 French. 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 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 sufficiently acute to place all the remaining notes in the keeping of a certain Bill Gibbons, who combined 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 influential friend named Sayer, employed in close attendance upon the King, and by his good offices secured a pardon for all concerned, on the conditions 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.

White, already in custody, was once more condemned to transportation for life. The procedure must by this time have become quite staled by familiarity, and we picture him going again to the hulks with an air of intense 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 highwayman 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 accomplices, 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 meditating another burglary. The officers came upon them hiding in a cellar, and a desperate 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 robbery of the Leeds mail. Witnesses 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 convicted 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 tranquility. 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 replied: "Only by getting some other man to be hanged for me."

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.

Gibbet.]

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

Cottington, John ("MulledSack"), 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 Vall, 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

Frith, Mary ("Moll Cutpurse"), i. 262-268; ii. 128, 129

Gad's Hill, i. 62, 214, 217-221, 314; ii. 10

"Galloping Dick" (Robert Ferguson), 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), i. 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. 110

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 highwaymen, 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

O'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, William, 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. 236

Tyburn, i. 133, 146, 153, 155, 156-198, 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. 166-172

Wild, Jonathan, i. 137, 187, 265; ii. 126-147

Wild, Robert, i. 70-74

Wilson, Ralph, i. 231, 232, 235, 236

Witherington, Thos., i. 171

Withers, John, ii. 75-80

Wright, —, i. 231

_Printed and bound by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

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