Then there was Biss, perhaps a descendant of the Reverend Walter Biss, minister of Bishopstrow, near Salisbury, in the reign of Charles the First. Biss the highwayman was hanged at Salisbury in 1695, and was not succeeded by any very distinguished practitioner until Boulter appeared on the scene.

The distinguished Mr. Thomas Boulter was born of poor but dishonest parents at Poulshot, near Devizes, and ran a brief but brilliant and busy course which ended on the gallows outside Winchester. Mr. Boulter’s parentage and the deeds that he did form splendid evidence to help bolster up the doctrine of heredity. He came of a very numerous clan of Boulters and Bisses, whose names are even to this day common at Chiverell and Market Lavington, on the Plain. His father rented a grist mill at Poulshot, stole grain for years, and was publicly whipped in Devizes market-place for stealing honey from an old woman’s garden. Shortly after that unfortunate incident, in 1775, on returning from Trowbridge, he stole a horse, the property of a Mr. Hall, and riding it over to Andover sold it for £6, although worth at least £15. This injudicious deal aroused the suspicions of the onlookers, so that he was arrested, and being convicted was sentenced to death. But the Boulters and the Bisses made interest for him, so that his sentence was commuted to transportation for fourteen years.

Mrs. Boulter, the wife of this transported felon and the mother of the greater hero, is said to have also suffered a public whipping at the cart’s tail, and Isaac Blagden, his uncle, also did a little in the footpad line on Salisbury Plain between the intervals of agricultural labouring. He never attained eminence, having met in an early stage of his career with a sad check while attempting to rob a gentleman near Market Lavington. The traveller drew a pistol and lodged a couple of slugs in his thigh, leaving him bleeding on the highway. Some humane person passing by procured assistance, and had him conveyed to the village. The wound was cured, but he remained a cripple ever afterwards, and being unable to work was admitted into Lavington Workhouse. He was never prosecuted for the attempted crime.

Thomas Boulter, junior, the daring outlaw who shared with Hawkes the title of the ‘Flying Highwayman,’ and whose name for very many years afterwards was used as a bogey to frighten refractory children, was born in 1748. He worked with his father, the miller, in the grist-mill at Poulshot until 1774, when, his sister having opened a millinery business in the Isle of Wight, he joined her there, and embarked his small capital in a grocery business.

THE BEGINNING OF A CAREER

But the business did not flourish. Perhaps it could not be expected to do so in the hands of so roving a blade, for he only gave it a year’s perfunctory trial, and then, being pressed for money, set out to find it on the road. He went to Portsmouth, procured two brace of pistols, casting-irons for slugs, and a powder-horn, and, lying by a little while, started in the summer of 1775, on the pretence of paying his mother a visit at Poulshot. Setting out from Southampton, mounted on horseback, he made for the Exeter Road, near ‘Winterslow Hut.’ In less than a quarter of an hour the Salisbury diligence rewarded his patience and enterprise by coming in sight across the downs. The perspiration oozed out of his every pore, and he was so timid that he rode past the diligence two or three times before he could muster sufficient resolution to pronounce the single word ‘Stand!’ But at length he found courage in the thought that he must begin, or go home as poor as he came out, and so, turning short round, he ordered the driver to stop, and in less than two minutes had robbed the two passengers of their watches and money, saying that he was much obliged to them, for he was in great want; and so, wishing them a pleasant journey, departed in the direction of Salisbury and Devizes. By the time he reached Poulshot he had robbed three single travellers on horseback and two on foot, and had secured a booty of nearly £40 and seven watches.

This filial visit coming to an end, he returned home to Newport, Isle of Wight, by way of Andover, Winchester, and Southampton. On his way across Salisbury Plain he stopped a post-chaise, several farmers on horseback, one on foot, and two countrywomen returning from market, going in sight of the last person into Andover, and putting up his horse at the ‘Swan,’ where he stayed for an hour.

This successful beginning fired our hero for more adventures, and the autumn of the same year found him, equipped with new pistols, a fine suit of clothes, and a horse stolen at Ringwood, making his way to Salisbury, with the intention of riding into the neighbourhood of Exeter before commencing business. But between Salisbury and Blandford he could not resist the temptation of robbing a diligence and a gentleman on horseback, resulting in the rather meagre booty of a gold watch, two guineas, and some silver. He then pushed on through Blandford towards Dorchester, robbing on the way; all in broad daylight. When night was come he thought it prudent to break off from the Exeter Road and lie by at Cerne Abbas until the next afternoon, when he regained the highway near Bridport, very soon finding himself in company with a wealthy grazier who was jogging home in the same direction. The grazier found his companion so sociable that he not only expressed himself as glad of his society, but gossiped at length upon the successful day he had experienced at Salisbury market, where he had sold a number of cattle at an advanced price. He was well known, he said, for carrying the finest beasts to market, and could always command a better price than his neighbours.

Boulter broke in upon this self-satisfied talk with the wish that he had been so lucky in his way of business. Unhappily, repeated misfortunes had at last reduced him to distress, and he had taken to the road for relieving his distresses, and was glad he had had the fortune to fall in with a gentleman who appeared so well able to assist him. Suiting the action to his words, he pulled out a pistol, and begged he might have the pleasure of easing his companion of some of the wealth he had acquired at Salisbury market.

ROBBERY BY WHOLESALE