Three months later a party of highwaymen—no doubt the same dare-devil rogues—secured between £1,500 and £2,000 out of a waggon "near Barnet," and in November the Oxford coach was pillaged in mid-day, after a bloody fight. About the same time, we read in Narcissus Luttrell's diary, fifteen butchers, going to Thame market to buy cattle, were robbed by nine highwaymen, who carried them over a hedge, made them drink King James's health in a bottle of brandy, and bid them sue the county: a remedy open to travellers who were robbed on the roads in daylight "between sunrise and sunset."
Military force was found necessary for the suppression of these outrages. Detachments of Dragoons were sent out all round London and posted at a distance of about ten miles out, on the great roads. The captures effected by these patrols were numerous; but at some spot not more clearly identified than as being "near Barnet" they had an armed encounter with the band led by "Captain" James Whitney, December 6th, 1692. One Dragoon was killed, but Whitney was captured and duly executed, and the roads, in the north, at any rate, for awhile had peace.
Not, however, for very long. Robberies may not have been again committed on so astonishing a scale; but highwaymen reappeared when the Dragoons were withdrawn, and found their occupation, not only lucrative, but pretty safe.
But as the years went on, things grew steadily worse. Unemployment was the principal cause of the enormous increase of highway robberies in 1698. Highwaymen, as we have already seen, were numerous before, but they now grew more than ever daring. The Peace of Ryswick, which had the year before ended an inglorious war, caused great numbers of soldiers to be disbanded, and, finding no livelihood to be obtained in honest work, they naturally chose to plunder the travellers whom they observed journeying to and from London, often with well-filled purses, ready to become the property of any bold fellow who could command a good horse, a pistol or sword, and courage to stop men on their lawful business. Near Waltham Cross, bandits to the number of thirty built themselves huts amid the leafy coverts of Epping Forest, and, without waiting for the kindly obscurity of night, came forth at all hours with deadly weapons and held up the traffic along the Cambridge and the Newmarket roads.
They did not hesitate to slay, and often the bodies of slaughtered wayfarers affrighted the next travellers, who, warned by such sights of the futility of resistance, rendered unto these highway Cæsars whatever they had about them: satisfied to escape, with empty pockets indeed, but with a whole skin. For a while this settlement of reckless men was abolished by a raid, under the direction of the Lord Chief Justice, but the expedition, raiding in the interests of law and order, had not long departed when the outlaws again occupied the spot. They even had the impudence to send a written and signed defiance to Whitehall. There they went too far, for that would have been no Government worthy of the name which consented to receive such a document and to idly pass it by. Another Dragoon expedition, somewhat similar to that of 1692, was equipped, and while some of the soldiers patrolled the roads in that direction, others encamped for a time in the Forest itself. Thus it is probable that soldiers still in service were employed against those others not so fortunate, who had been disbanded and obliged to seek these ways of existence.
This fraternity was certainly broken up, and we do not hear again of such numerous, or such highly organised, bands; but when the Dragoons were again withdrawn, the roads once more became extremely dangerous.
The Dragoons themselves were, individually, not above suspicion. No doubt they learned some useful things when engaged on this kind of duty; and when such unskilled persons in the use of arms as ruined gamesters took to the road to replenish their pockets, it was perhaps not remarkable that soldiers should seek to add to their scanty pay by like means. The Guards regiments numbered many experts in the "Stand and deliver" way. Opportunity helped them. They were already armed, and, as they did not live in barracks until about 1790, and were merely quartered on the inhabitants of London and Westminster, they were free at all hours of the night to "labour in the calling of purse-taking."
Thus we read of a quite typical affair in January 1704, on Hounslow Heath, in which James Harris, a trooper in the Horse Guards, was principally concerned. It seems that on the 26th of that month a certain George Smith, Esquire, and a Major Wade, of Bristol, were travelling westward in a postchaise. They halted at the "Pack Horse" at Turnham Green, "for refreshment," and appear to have refreshed so well that by the time their equipage was crossing Hounslow Heath they had fallen fast asleep. From this slumber of repletion they were rudely awakened by stern voices saying, "D—n you, give me your money!" and "D—n you, give me your watch!"
"Who's that a-calling?" asks the songster. In this case it was James Harris and a companion, who robbed them effectually after a rough-and-tumble with the servant of Mr. Smith, who sprang at Harris and pulled him off his horse. There they struggled, and presently the highwayman's mask was torn off, disclosing his scarred face. Mr. Smith then declared he would give up all his valuables if the highwayman would spare his man's life, and the affair ended.
Mr. Smith afterwards, hearing that a man answering to this description had been arrested on suspicion of being concerned in other robberies, came forward, entirely in the public interest, and identified him at the military mews. "Sir, do you know me?" Harris impudently asked, advancing upon him with insolent braggadocio. Mr. Smith did.