Curtis replied that he would make him amends; and they all then consulted how to dispose of the body. The first proposition was to bury it in a park close at hand, and to give out that the smugglers had deported Hawkins to France. But Reynolds objected. The spot, he said, was too near, and would soon be found. In the end, they laid the body on a horse and carried it to Parham Park, twelve miles away, where they tied large stones to it, and sunk it in a pond.
This crime was in due course discovered, and a proclamation issued, offering a pardon to any one, not himself concerned in the murder, nor in the breaking open of the custom-house at Poole, who should give information that would lead to the capture and conviction of the offenders.
William Pring, an outlawed smuggler, who had heard some gossip of this affair among his smuggling acquaintance, and was apparently wishful of beginning a new life, determined to make a bid for his pardon for past offences, and, we are told, “applied to a great man in power,” informing him that he knew Mills, and that if he could be assured of his pardon he would endeavour to take him, for he was pretty certain to find him either at Bristol or Bath, whither he knew he was gone, to sell some run goods.
Being assured of his pardon, he set out accordingly, and found not only Mills, but two brothers, Lawrence and Thomas Kemp, themselves smugglers and highway robbers, and wanted for various offences; Thomas Kemp being additionally in request for having broken out of Newgate.
The informer, Pring, artfully talking matters over with these three, and observing that the cases of all of them were desperate, offered the advice that they should all accompany him towards London, to his house at Beckenham, where they would decide upon some plan for taking to highway robbery and house-breaking, in the same manner as Gregory’s Gang [66] used to do.
This they all heartily agreed to, and confidentially, on the journey up to Beckenham, spoke and bragged of their various crimes.
Arrived at Beckenham, Pring made a plausible excuse to leave them awhile at his house, while he fetched his mare, in exchange for the very indifferent horse he had ridden. It would never do, he said, when on their highway business, for one of the company to be badly horsed.
He left the house and rode hurriedly to Horsham, whence he returned with eight or nine mounted officers of excise. They arrived at midnight, and found his three guests sitting down to supper.
The two Kemps were easily secured, and tied by the arms; but Mills would not so readily submit, and was slashed with a sword before he would give in.
