"Let go!" said the highwayman, "or I will shoot you."
The porter did not let go, and Joseph fired and hit him in the neck. But Davis held on until the crowd closed in, and Joseph also was soon in his cell again.
So, too, was Lepierre, who was taken in Newgate Street. Storey was more successful, and escaped altogether, although he had fetters on his legs. The crowd, seeing him calmly walking along, thought he was being re-conducted to gaol, and so did not interfere with him.
The brothers were brought to trial on July 6th, 1782, charged with robbing the Bristol mail near Cranford Bridge, on January 29th, 1781. Over a hundred witnesses appeared for the prosecution, among them, people who had been given stolen notes by them. But the postboy, Samuel Walker, having died, the prosecution failed.
They were then charged with forgery in respect of the notes and bills stolen: George being convicted and sentenced to death. Joseph was acquitted, but was then charged in the third instance with maliciously wounding John Davis, for which he was found guilty and condemned. They were executed at Tyburn on September 3rd, 1782.
Clothed quietly but fashionably in black, they went to the place of execution in two carts, in company with several other condemned criminals, but held themselves haughtily apart, as "gentlemen" should. They refused the ministrations of the Ordinary, declaring themselves to be Roman Catholics; and died firmly, and without any appearance of contrition.
JACK RANN: "SIXTEEN-STRING JACK"
John Rann, better known as "Sixteen-string Jack," was born in the neighbourhood of Bath, midway in the eighteenth century. As a boy he earned a meagre but honest living by peddling articles of everyday household consumption in the villages round about. He and his donkey were well remembered in after years, and aroused the envious anticipations of other small boys who, reckless of the appointed end of highwaymen, looked forward to some happy day when they too might perhaps blossom out from such obscure beginnings into such fame as his. He was but twelve years of age when his handsome face attracted the attention of a lady prominent in the neighbourhood. She offered him a situation, and he gratefully accepted. A little later we find him in London, occupied as a stable-helper in Brooke's Mews. From that he became a postilion, and then an officer's servant. About the year 1770 he was coachman to a gentleman living in the neighbourhood of Portman Square, and was at one time in the service of the Earl of Sandwich. In this situation he obtained the nickname of "Sixteen-string Jack," from the bunches of eight parti-coloured ribbons he gaily wore at the knees of his breeches; but by some intimates it was supposed that these "sixteen strings" were a covert allusion to his having been sixteen times arrested and charged, but on as many occasions acquitted. Such were the legends that enwrapped the career of him whom Dr. Johnson described as "above the common mark" in his line.