But these were his last exploits in the neighbourhood of London. The position presently grew so difficult that the merest elementary instincts of self-preservation suggested a flight to other scenes.
By a proclamation issued in the London Gazette of June 25th, 1737, "His Majesty was pleased to promise his most gracious pardon to any of the Accomplices of Richard Turpin who shall discover him, so that he may be apprehended and convicted of the Murder, or any of the Robberies he has committed; as likewise a Reward of £200 to any Person or Persons who shall discover the said Criminal, so that he may be apprehended and convicted as aforesaid; over and above all other Rewards to which they may be entitled." In this proclamation, Turpin is described as being 5 feet 9 inches in height, and it further appears that he was not by any means the prepossessing and even elegant figure he presents in the engraving that shows him reclining exquisitely in his cave; dainty boots on his feet, and a ladylike hand thrown over his carbine. He had high cheekbones, his face tapered to a narrow point at his chin, and he was deeply pitted with small-pox.
TURPIN IN HIS CAVE.
From an old Engraving.
Really, he was, it will be gathered, not an engaging ruffian; but there is, unfortunately, no portrait existing which can lay the slightest claim to be authentic. A rough woodcut, no doubt from the strictly unauthentic imagination of the wood engraver, or the wood-chopper who engraved, or rather hewed it out, appears in one of the popular old chap-books, and shows him to have rather a plentiful development of chin and an expression that somewhat baffles description, but which conveys the very decided impression that he was not the kind of person one would much like to meet in a lonely lane on a dark night.
DICK TURPIN.
(From a strictly unauthentic source.)
Rowden the Pewterer, whom we have shown to have accompanied Turpin so frequently in 1735, chiefly in his adventures in Surrey, was taken about this time and transported in July 1737.