William Hills deposed that he was servant to the Princess Amelia. He had observed Rann, whom he knew well by sight, ascend the hill at Acton, about twenty minutes before the robbery was committed.
This spot would be about where the Police Station now stands, in the main road: less troubled nowadays with highwaymen than with electric tram-cars.
In the end, Rann was found guilty and sentenced to die. Collier was also found guilty, but recommended to mercy, and was afterwards respited. Ellen Roche was sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, and her servant was acquitted.
Thus the supper grew cold and was not eaten. The brave figure moved in pea-green glory to his prison cell, and hoped there for a rescue that never came. His last days were full-packed with the revelry the lax prison regulations of the age permitted, and on Sunday, October 23rd, he had seven girls to dine with him in gaol; and he the gayest of the party. "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Or, at any rate, in a month's time. So, with an air and a jest, behold him on the fatal day, November 30th, 1774, the most admired figure in the three-miles' journey from Newgate to Tyburn. Was it the cold November air made him shiver, or the shadow of death, as, ladies' man to the last, he raised his hat to the crowded windows lining Holborn and thought how he would never come back? Whatever it was, it was no more than involuntary: for, arrived at the fatal tree, he ended manfully in his finery and his famous sixteen strings.
ROBERT FERGUSON—"GALLOPING DICK"
Robert Ferguson, who in after life became famous as "Galloping Dick," was a native of Hertfordshire. His father, a gentleman's servant, proposed a like career for him, and had a mental picture of his son gradually rising from the position of stable-boy, in which he was placed, to that of coachman. In such respectable obscurity would Robert have lived and died, had his own wild nature not pioneered a career for him. He had proved a dull boy at school, but proud, and out of school-hours showed a strange original spirit of daring, so that he was generally to be found captaining his fellows in some wild exploit.
As a stable-boy, however, he proved efficient and obedient, and was found presentable enough to take the postilion's place when the regular man had fallen ill, on the eve of the family's journey to London in their chariot. He performed that task to the satisfaction of every one, but the other servant recovered, and the lad was obliged to return to his stables and work in shirt sleeves or rough stable-jacket, instead of titupping in beautifully white buckskin breeches, silk jacket, and tall beaver hat, on one of the leading horses that drew the carriage to town. The return to an inferior position through no fault of his own was a bitter disappointment, and he determined to seek another situation.
Oddly enough, at this juncture of affairs, a neighbouring lady who was in want of a postilion chanced to ask the family who employed young Robert what had become of their smart young man, and, when informed of the situation, engaged him.