With this, probably having quite exhausted himself, he haughtily pistolled the six horses that drew Bradshaw's carriage, and so left the unfortunate regicide, stripped of his money, deprived of all means of locomotion, and stunned by his flow of verbiage.
This, like the most of Hind's exploits, was robbing on the grand scale. To be sure, he rarely stooped to little larcenies, for he was a practical philosopher among the "skilful surveyors of highways and hedges" that he and his kind were pleased to style themselves. "Remember what I tell you," he would say; "disgrace not yourselves for small sums, but aim high, and for great ones; the least will bring you to the gallows."
There spoke the "Prince of Prigs," who was indeed so notable in his own lifetime that he had the honour accorded him of a play written around his exploits while yet he survived to add to them. It is not a good play, but that is no fault of our "gentleman" highwayman: the thing is that it should have been written and printed at all. Thus runs the title-page, that he himself may have read:
An Excellent Comedy
called, The
PRINCE OF PRIGGS
Revels:
or
The Practises of that grand Thief Captain
JAMES HIND
Relating
Divers of his Pranks and Exploits, never
heretofore published by any.
Repleat with various Conceits, and Tarltonian Mirth,
suitable to the Subject
Written by J. S.
London, Printed for G. Horton, 1651.
Seventy pounds he took from Colonel Harrison, another of the regicides, on the Bath Road, at Maidenhead Thicket; and so at one and the same time avenged his King and full-lined his pockets. A hue-and-cry was raised immediately, and the "Captain" was in danger long before he suspected it. It was an innkeeper who warned him—for the taverners and tapsters of that, of earlier, and of succeeding ages were ower sib to the gentlemen of the high-toby trade, and stood them in good stead whenever possible.
In this situation, it seems, Hind experienced an unwonted access of nervousness, and was apprehensive of every person he met upon the road. He had reached Knowl Hill, some four miles only from the spot where he had held up Harrison in his carriage, when a gentleman's servant, George Symson by name, riding at full speed after his master, came dashing by. With his mind full of the hue-and-cry raised after him, Hind, supposing this to be one of his pursuers, turned about, and raising his pistol, shot the unfortunate man dead: the only occasion of his taking life.
In May 1649, he was at The Hague, in the councils of Charles the Second. Thence, after a three days' stay, he crossed to Ireland and was made a corporal in the Duke of Ormonde's Life Guards. Wounded in action with Cromwell's troopers before Youghal, he escaped to Dungannon, but plague raged there, and he sailed for Scilly, which had a clean bill of health, and was, moreover, the safest place in which a hunted Royalist, highwayman or not, could at that time find himself. For, when all else had failed, even in the staunch and long-enduring West, the Scilly Isles still held out for the cause. The King was dead, but his son reigned in the hearts of the Cavaliers, and a faithful band, captained by Sir John Grenville, retired to that remote archipelago, fortified the islands, and made them a privateering base. It was not until June 1651, that Blake's flotilla forced them to surrender.
Meanwhile, so famous had Hind become, that rumour posted him everywhere where highway robberies were reported. He was already in his lifetime a kind of bogey, or will-o'-wisp sort of a fellow, who could miraculously be in at least two places at one and the same time. Thus, while he was certainly in Scilly, The Perfect Weekly Account of September 13th, 1649, reports from Bedford: "Last night was brought into this gaol, two prisoners taken up upon pursuit by the county, for robbing some soldiers of about £300 upon the way, in the day-time: there were five in the fact, and are very handsome gentlemen: they will not confess their names, and therefore are supposed to be gentlemen of quality, and 'tis conceived they are of the knot of Captain Hind, that grand thief of England, that hath his associates upon all roads. They strewed at least £100 upon the way, to keep the pursuers doing, that they might not follow them."
No doubt this would have been an enterprise entirely after Hind's own heart; but he was not there, nor were the highwaymen of his company.
Again, September 20th: "Yesterday about 20 horse of Hind's party (the grand highway thief) in the space of two hours robbed about 40 persons between Barnet and Wellin. They let none pass, to carry news while they staid about this work, by which means they all escaped before the county could be raised, but the Lord General's horse are diligent in seeking after them."