Mackcoull himself went into hiding, both from the law and from his associates, he having had the counting and custody of the notes, and told White and French the amount was but £16,000.
It now became quite evident to French, at least, that, so far as he and his friends were concerned, the remaining notes were merely so much waste-paper. Their numbers were bound to be known, and they could not safely be negotiated. So he suggested to Mrs. Mackcoull that they should propose to return the paper-money to the Bank, and save further trouble, on the understanding that they should not be prosecuted.
Mrs. Mackcoull appears to have had an influential friend named Sayer, employed in close attendance upon the King, and by his good offices secured a pardon for all concerned, on the conditions already named. Unfortunately, she could not fully carry out the bargain agreed upon, for, on the notes being counted, it was discovered that only £11,941 remained.
White, already in custody, was once more condemned to transportation for life. The procedure must by this time have become quite staled by familiarity, and we picture him going again to the hulks with an air of intense boredom.
He, of course, again escaped, and was soon again on his burglarious career: this time at Kettering among other places. But the exploit which concluded his course was the almost purely highwayman business of robbing the Leeds mail-coach, on October 26th, 1812, near Higham Ferrers. He had as accomplices a certain Richard Kendall and one Mary Howes. White had booked an outside seat on the coach, and had, in the momentary absence of the guard in front, cleverly forced open the lock of the box in which the mail-bags were kept, extracted the bags, and replaced the lid. At the next stage he left the coach. The accomplices, who had a trap in waiting, then all drove off to London, White immediately afterwards making for Bristol, where he was soon located, living with two notorious thieves, John Goodman and Ned Burkitt. A descent was made upon the house, and the two arrested, but White escaped over the roof of a shed, and through the adjoining houses.
He was traced in April 1813 to a house in Scotland Road, Liverpool, where, in company with a man named Hayward, he was meditating another burglary. The officers came upon them hiding in a cellar, and a desperate struggle followed; but in the end they were secured.
Richard Kendall and Mary Howes, alias Taylor, were already in custody, and White was arraigned with them at the ensuing Northampton Assizes, for the robbery of the Leeds mail. Witnesses spoke at this trial to having seen the men in the gig on the evening of October 26th, on the road near Higham Ferrers, and afterwards at the house of Mary Howes, who lived close by, and the keeper of the turnpike deposed to only one gig having passed through that evening. There were no fewer than forty witnesses, and the trial occupied fourteen hours.
Mary Howes was acquitted, not from lack of evidence, but merely on a technical flaw in the indictment; her offence having been committed in another county. White and Kendall were convicted and sentenced to death.
White again came near to escaping. By some unknown means, a file had been conveyed to him, and on the night before the execution he filed through his irons, and then forced a way through several doors, being only stopped at the outer gate. The following morning, August 13th, 1813—unlucky date, with two thirteens—he met his fate with an unmoved tranquility. He declared Kendall to be innocent. When the chaplain asked him earnestly if he could administer any comfort to him at that solemn moment, he replied: "Only by getting some other man to be hanged for me."