Still, in the course of this merry evening, the subject of the manner peculiar to bailiffs recurred to our Jack and rankled. "You have not," he grumbled, "treated me like a gentleman. When Sir John Fielding's people come after me, they only hold up a finger, beckon, and I follow like a lamb. There's your proper civility!"
It was soon after this that he visited Barnet races, fashionably dressed; with waistcoat of blue satin trimmed with silver, and other finery to match. Crowds followed him, eager to set eyes upon so famous a person. Shortly afterwards, with perhaps some melancholic foreshadowing of approaching doom, he attended a public execution at Tyburn. In spite of opposition, he thrust through the ring formed by the constables round the gallows. "For," said he, "perhaps it is very proper I should be a spectator on this occasion." Why, he did not say, but the inference was understood by some of the crowd.
In September 1774 he was arrested, together with one William Collier, for a robbery on the Uxbridge road, and brought the next Wednesday before Sir John Fielding, when Dr. Bell, chaplain to the Princess Amelia, gave evidence that, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, when taking horse-exercise near Ealing, he observed two men of mean (!) appearance and suspicious looks, who rode past him. Presently, one of them—he thought it was Rann—turned his horse's head and demanded his money. "Give it me," he said, "and take no notice, or I'll blow your brains out!"
Dr. Bell handed over one shilling and sixpence, all he had about him, and a common watch in a tortoiseshell case. So much tremendous bluster, so paltry a booty: so poor a thing for which to throw away a life. For that day's doings served to bring Rann to the gallows.
That evening, Ellen Roche and her servant took the watch to pawn with one "Mr. Cordy," in the Oxford Road, or, as we should now say, Oxford Street. Cordy was a suspicious man. He communicated with the watchmaker, Grigman by name, of Russell Street, Covent Garden, who had made it for Dr. Bell, who, when called upon, told how he had parted with it.
The next day, Jack Rann and his doxy were arrested, and with them Collier and Ellen Roche's servant, Christian Stewart. They all figured in Bow Street dock, and later appeared on trial at the Old Bailey.
"SIXTEEN-STRING JACK" AND ELLEN ROCHE IN THE DOCK.
Handsome Jack was no less a dandy on this occasion than he had been on others, and he took the centre of the stage in his drama with a fine air. To be sure, there were none who envied him the principal part. He was dressed in pea-green coat and waistcoat, with unblemished white buckskin breeches, and again his hat was silver-laced. He stood there with every assurance of acquittal, and had taken thought to order a splendid supper, wherewith to entertain his friends that evening, to celebrate his release. But, as the grey day wore on, he grew less confident. Dr. Bell's evidence was again taken, and a Mr. Clarke told how, going to Miss Roche's lodging on that Monday night of the robbery, he found two pairs of men's boots there, in a wet and dirty condition, having evidently been worn that day. A Mr. Haliburton also swore that he had waited at Miss Roche's lodgings that night until Rann and Collier arrived.