Soon after, finding the south of England ringing uncomfortably with the fame of his doings, he took ship for Scotland, but landed at Scarborough, where, at the fashionable spa, he gambled heavily and strutted awhile as a man of considerable fortune. But he must have been at last really alarmed and prepared to consider turning over a new leaf, for he went north to see his former master, the Earl of Glencairn, who, he thought, would be able to recommend him to employment in the plantations. The Earl, however, received him coldly, and he came south again, to resume his chosen profession, in company with Darwell, whom he had by constant alternate threats and persuasions seduced from the reformed life he was leading and the respectable situation he held, to take up again this hazardous calling.
Together they scoured the road to Tonbridge, Darwell forming, as it were, a rearguard. Page was pursued beyond Sevenoaks by five mounted men armed with pistols, and a blunderbuss, who dashed past Darwell, and after a struggle seized his leader, who presently escaped again. In their return, disappointed, they made a prisoner of Darwell, who, suspecting something of the kind would happen, had already thrown away his pistols. In spite of his indignant protestations that he was a private gentleman, and would not endure such an outrage, he was searched and a part of Captain Farrington's watch was found upon him, with the maker's name and most of the distinguishing marks more or less carefully obliterated. Questioned closely, he declared he had picked it up upon the road. As for the highwayman they had just now nearly captured, he knew nothing of him: had never set eyes on him before.
But, in spite of these denials, Darwell was taken off in custody and examined before a magistrate, who so plied him with questions, threats of what would happen to him if he continued obstinate, and promises of clemency if he would make discovery of his companion, that he at last turned King's evidence. During the interval, he was lodged in Maidstone gaol.
A fortnight later, Page was arrested in one of their old haunts in London, the "Golden Lion," near Grosvenor Square. He was at first taken to Newgate, but afterwards remitted to Maidstone, and tried there for the robbery of Captain Farrington. Convicted and sentenced to death, he was hanged on Penenden Heath, April 6th, 1758.
ISAAC DARKIN, ALIAS DUMAS
Isaac Darkin was the son of a cork-cutter in Eastcheap, and was born about 1740; too late to appear in the stirring pages of Alexander Smith or Charles Johnson, in which he would have made, we may be sure, an admired figure. All those who knew him, on the road or in the domestic circle, agreed that he was a handsome fellow; and travellers, in particular, noticed his taking ways. These were first displayed in 1758, when he robbed Captain Cockburn near Chelmsford. No less taking, in their own especial way, were the police of the neighbourhood in that time, for they speedily apprehended Isaac, and lodged him in Springfield gaol. He was duly arraigned at the next assizes, and no fewer than eight indictments were then preferred against him. He pleaded guilty to the robbing of Captain Cockburn, but not guilty on the other counts; and was, after a patient trial, found guilty on the first and acquitted on the others. He was then sentenced to death, but was eventually respited on account of his youth, and finally pardoned on condition that he enlisted in the 48th Regiment of foot, then serving in the West Indies, at Antigua. Drafted with others aboard a ship lying in the lower reaches of the Thames, presently to set sail for that distant shore, he effected his escape, almost at the moment of up-anchor, by dint of bribing the captain of a merchant vessel lying alongside, to whom he promised so much as a hundred pounds to help him out. He was smuggled aboard the merchantman, and so cunningly disguised that when a search-party, suspecting his whereabouts, boarded the ship, and searched it, even to the hold, they did not recognise him in a particularly rough and dirty sailor who was swearing nautical oaths among the ship's company on deck. So the transport-vessel sailed without him, and he, assuming the name of Dumas, rioted all through the West of England, robbing wealthy travellers and gaily spending his takings on what he loved best: fine clothes and fine ladies. He was so attentive to business that he speedily made a name for himself, the name of a daring votary of the high toby. This reputation rendered it politic on his part to enlist in the Navy, so that in case of being arrested for highway robbery, he could prove himself to have a respectable occupation, that would help to discredit the charge of being a highwayman.
He soon became a valued recruit, and was promoted to midshipman; and it is quite likely that if he had been sent on active service he would have distinguished himself in a more reputable career than that in which he was so soon to die. But his duties kept him for considerable periods in port, and he seems to have had ample leave from them; for we find him hovering near Bath and gaily robbing the wealthy real or imagined invalids going to, or returning from, the waters.
On the evening of June 22nd, 1760, he fell in with Lord Percival, travelling by post-chaise over Clarken Down, near Bath, and robbed him of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen guineas—my lord could not positively swear to the exact amount. He then made off in the gathering twilight, and galloped across country, to Salisbury Plain and the little village of Upavon, where he was arrested in a rustic alehouse, and sent thence to Salisbury gaol. At his trial he indignantly denied being a highwayman, or that he was an Englishman. He declared his name was Dumas, that he had lately come from Guadaloupe, where he had taken a part in the late military operations; and said that the so-styled "suspicious behaviour" and damaging admissions he was charged with, when arrested at the inn, were merely the perplexities of a foreigner, when suddenly confronted by hostile strangers.