TOM KING.
(Skelt.)
That entirely reverses the position, and may or may not be an imperfectly recollected account of what Turpin said.
There is no doubt that a Tom King, a highwayman, was executed at Tyburn, in 1753, many years after the Tom King who was supposed to have been shot dead.
If Turpin had been really so terrified for his safety after the Whitechapel affair as represented, he must speedily have recovered himself, for he was busy all that month in his vocation. Comrades might die tragically, but his own pockets, always leaking like a colander, must be replenished. Really, however narrowly the career of this much-discussed highwayman is scanned, it seems hopeless to paint a consistent picture of him. He was, by the testimony of many witnesses, a cowardly fellow, not often with sufficient resolution to rob unaccompanied, and even on those occasions when he did play a lone hand, he wore a perfect armoury of weapons and attacked only the unarmed. One Gordon, lying at Newgate on a charge of highway robbery, told how he had once proposed to Turpin that himself and his brother, Turpin, and another should seize the money going down to pay the King's ships at Portsmouth. They were to stand in a very narrow pass and with swords and pistols attack the convoy. The scheme recalls the fine mid-seventeenth century exploits of "Mulled Sack" and his contemporaries, and if the enterprise had been undertaken, a splendid booty might have become theirs. But Turpin's courage failed him, and he backed out. Gordon said he was sure Turpin would be guilty of many cowardly actions, and die like a dog. His career, although a busy one, never touched great heights, and was commonly concerned with mean thefts and raids, but he must have been possessed of some nerve to continue actively robbing in the neighbourhood of London where he was so well known, after a hundred pounds was advertised to be waiting for any one who brought about his arrest. It is not merely a tradition that he so continued: we have the facts abundantly in the public prints of the time.
TOM KING.
(Skelt.)
Thus, the London Magazine has this note respecting him: "The noted Highwayman, Turpin the Butcher, (who lately kill'd a Man who endeavour'd to take him on Epping Forest) this Night robbed several Gentlemen in their Coaches and Chaises at Holloway and the back Lanes at Islington, and took from them several Sums of Money. One of the Gentlemen signified to him that he had reigned a long Time, and Turpin replied, ''Tis no matter for that. I am not afraid of being taken by you; therefore don't stand hesitating, but give me the Cole.'" (Or, by another account, "the coriander-seed.")
A London newspaper of the close of May is found stating that "Turpin, the renown'd Butcher-Highwayman, committed a robbery almost every day this month."