They left Brompton for a while and migrated to Winchelsea, where they took the "Friars," a fine house with beautifully wooded grounds. The foremost furnishers in London, Messrs. Elliot & Co., of 97, New Bond Street, were given orders for furniture, cutlery, and a generous supply of plate, and from other firms they procured horses and carriages, finally establishing themselves at the mansion in December 1781. While in residence there the ladies conducted themselves with such propriety, and the gentlemen appeared so distinguished and so wealthy, that they soon moved in the best society of the neighbourhood. It did not, apparently, take long in those times, or in the neighbourhood of Winchelsea, for strangers to obtain a footing in local society, for all this short-lived social splendour began in December, and ended in the middle of the following April. The last, sealing touch of respectability and recognition was when George was elected churchwarden of the parish church in Easter 1782. From that pinnacle of parochial ambition, however, he and his were presently cast down, for Messrs. Elliot & Co., growing anxious about their unpaid bills for goods delivered, sent two sheriff's officers down to Winchelsea to interview the brothers. The officers met them at Rye on horseback, and endeavoured to arrest Joseph. When he refused to surrender, they tried to dismount him, but the two brothers overawed them by presenting pistols, and escaped; making their way back to Winchelsea, and thence travelling at express speed to London, in their own handsome chariot. Their identity with the Westons and the robbers of the mail was revealed in that encounter with the sheriff's officers, one of whom had observed George's peculiarly distorted thumb-nail. Information was thereupon given, and a redoubled search begun.
They went at once to their old hiding-place in the Borough, and might again have escaped detection had they been sufficiently careful. But, gambling for high stakes at the "Dun Horse," they quarrelled violently, and in the hearing of the ostler used some remarks that led him to suspect them. He communicated his suspicions to the police at Bow Street, and although they appear to have become uneasy and to have then left the Borough, they were traced on April 17th to Clements' Hotel, in Wardour Street. Mr. Clark, the officer sent to arrest them, met Mrs. Clements at the entrance and asked if two gentlemen of the description he gave were in the house. She said she would see, and went and warned them. Down they came, and, with pistols cocked and presented at him, walked past as he was standing in the passage, and, without a word, into the street. Once out of the house, they ran swiftly up Wardour Street, into Oxford Street, and then doubled into Dean Street and into Richmond Buildings. Unfortunately for them, this proved to be a blind alley, and an unpremeditated trap. They hurried out again, but already the mob was coming down the street after them, and they had only reached Broad Street when they were overtaken. Both fired recklessly upon the crowd; no one but a butcher-boy being hit, and he only slightly grazed under the left ear.
George was then knocked down by a carpenter, with a piece of wood. The carpenter, we learn, "afterwards jumping upon him, kept him down till his pistols were taken away."
Meanwhile Joseph had been vanquished in an equally unsportsmanlike way by a carrier, "who had a large stick, with which he beat him about the legs."
George was then pitched neck and crop, and still struggling, into a hackney coach; but Joseph, being more tractable, was permitted to walk to Bow Street, where, on being searched, he was found to have £240 in his pockets, all in bank-notes that had been stolen from the mail.
On the day of their arrest they gave a bill of sale to one Lucius Hughes, who disposed of plate to the amount of £2,500, at the price of old silver; and jewels to the value of £4,000 were said to have been sold to a Jew in St. Mary Axe.
After a preliminary examination, the brothers were committed to separate prisons: Joseph to Tothill Fields Bridewell, and George to the New Prison. They behaved with great insolence to the Bench, and seemed to build much upon the postboy having died since the robbery. In court they actually told Clark, who had arrested them, he was fortunate in still having his brains in his skull that morning. Their coachman and footman, attending upon them in the court, in livery, made an imposing show. They were then remanded, and their wenches were in the meanwhile arrested at Brompton, and appeared in court on the next hearing. No evidence being forthcoming against them, they were discharged; but the Westons were duly committed for trial, which began on May 15th, 1782.
They made a brave appearance in the dock, George being dressed quietly but fashionably, in black, with his hair finely curled in the latest style; while Joseph, whose taste was not so subdued, was radiant in a scarlet coat with gold buttons, and hair "queued à l'Artois."