Maclaine was not behindhand, and seized his lordship's overcoat and the blunderbuss which was lying upon the heath. He was a frugal person, and in that particular did credit to his Scots ancestry. A curious old print shows this robbery, famous in its day, and in it Maclaine and Plunkett do certainly look most awe-inspiring in their attitudes: Maclaine, in particular, being apparently engaged in pushing his pistol through the postboy's head. But that is doubtless artistic licence.
Maclaine did a very foolish thing when he returned to his St. James's Street rooms, early that same day. He sent for a Jew dealer to come and make an offer for some clothes he wished to sell; none other, in fact, than those he had taken from the coach, and when they were shortly advertised as having been stolen, the mischief was done. As if that were not folly enough, Maclaine's frugality had led him also to remove the gold lace from one of the stolen coats and to offer it for sale. He chanced to take it to the very laceman who had recently sold it. His arrest was then a matter of course. Equally of course, he strongly protested against the indignity of a "gentleman" being arrested for theft, and then he broke down and wept in "a most dastardly and pusillanimous manner, whimpering and crying like a whipt schoolboy."
Maclaine declared that the absconded Plunkett had left the clothes with him, in part satisfaction of a debt he owed, and that he, Maclaine, was to have sold them for what they would fetch, as part liquidation of the debt.
Any so-called confession he might have made, he now declared impossible. What should a gentleman like himself know of highway robbery? "It is true enough that when first apprehended, the surprise confounded me and gave me a most extraordinary shock. It caused a delirium and confusion in my brain which rendered me incapable of being myself, or knowing what I said or did. I talked of robberies as another man would do in talking of stories; but, my Lord, after my friends had visited me in the Gate-house, and had given me some new spirits, and when I came to be re-examined before Justice Lediard, and was asked if I could make any discovery of the robbery, I then alleged I had recovered my surprise, that what I had talked of before concerning robberies was false and wrong, and was entirely owing to a confused head and brain."
He called nine witnesses to character; among them Lady Caroline Petersham, who is represented in a curious print of the trial at the Old Bailey, under examination.
The elegant Maclaine stands prominently in the dock handsomely attired, but, alas! heavily fettered, with his laced hat under his left arm. One hand holds his lengthy written defence, the other is affectedly spread over his breast, in gentlemanly protestation of his being an injured person. His is a tall, upstanding figure; but he appears, by the evidence of the print, to have had a face like a pudding: and the majority of the counsel seated at a table in front of him are shown regarding it with easily understood curiosity and astonishment.
One of the dignified persons on the bench is represented addressing Lady Caroline: "What has your Ladyship to say in favour of the Prisoner at ye Bar?"
MACLAINE IN THE DOCK.