"Whoever shall apprehend and convict, or cause to be apprehended and convicted, the person who committed this Robbery, will be entitled to a reward of Two Hundred Pounds, over and above the Reward given by Act of Parliament for apprehending Highwaymen; or if any person, whether an Accomplice in the Robbery or knoweth thereof, shall make Discovery whereby the Person who committed the same may be apprehended and brought to Justice, such Discoverer will upon conviction of the party be entitled to the Same Reward of Two Hundred Pounds, and will also receive his Majesty's most gracious Pardon.
"By Command of the Postmaster-General,
"ANTH. TODD, Sec."
The robbery, which was graphically described by Mr. G. Hendy, of St. Martin's-le-Grand, in the 1901 Christmas Number of "The Road," does not appear to have been a very daring one as regards the act itself, but it was so as to its consequences. There was no mail coach—no driver in scarlet—no mail guard—no passengers, but only a ramshackle iron mail cart—a "postboy" as driver and carrying no arms. What a contrast is this old mail cart with a single horse, carrying the mails for all the places enumerated in the Notice, to the splendidly appointed four-horse mail coaches of a period thirty years later on, or to the present time, when on the Great Western Railway one whole train is used to carry only a moiety of the King's mail to Bristol and the West! No wonder that the postboy fell an easy victim to the highwaymen, who bound him and threw him into an out-of-the-way field. The desperadoes proved to be two brothers, young men of the name of Weston.
The Westons, after the robbery, went up and down the country on the North road very rapidly, in order to get rid of the £10,000 to £15,000 worth of bank notes and bills which they plundered from the mails. The Bow Street runners were on their track from the first, and the chase continued from London to Carlisle and back. The vagabonds were not, however, captured, and the notice was exhibited all over the country, with the addition of the description of the men wanted by the thief-catchers.
In 1782, the brothers were tried for another offence and acquitted, but they were arrested at once for the robbery of the Bristol mail and committed to Newgate. On trial they were found guilty, and paid the penalty of death by hanging at Tyburn, on the 3rd September, 1782. In later years the death penalty for robbing mails was abolished, and at least one old sinner who robbed the Bristol mail eventually did remarkably well through having committed that dire offence against the laws, and by having been transported to the Antipodes at his country's expense.
Particulars of his career have been furnished by Mr. R.C. Newick, of Cloudshill, St. George, Bristol, by means of the following extract from a work published in 1853, "Adventures in Australia, '52-'53," by the Rev. Berkeley Jones, M.A., late curate of Belgrave Chapel (Bentley, London, 1853):—"If you turn into any of the auction rooms in Sydney the day after the gold escort comes in you may see and, if you can, buy, pretty yellow-looking lumps from about the size of a pin's head to a horse bean, or, if you prefer it, a flat piece about the size of a small dessert plate. One of the greatest buyers is an old pardoned convict of the name of 'William,' or, as he is there more commonly called, 'Bill' Nash, who robbed the Bristol mail, of which he was the guard. His wife followed him—as some say, with the booty—and set up a fine shop in Pitt Street in the haberdashery line. Under the old system he was assigned to her as a servant. Her own husband her domestic! What a burlesque on transportation as a punishment! He is very unpopular with the old hands, as he returned to England and offered an intentional affront to Queen Victoria when driving in the Park, by drawing his horses across the road as her equipage was driving by. He cut a great dash in the Regent's Park, and was known as the 'flash returned convict.' We stood by him at Messrs. Cohen's auction room when the gold fraud (planting on the gold buyers nuggets made in Birmingham) was discussed. He addressed us, and we cannot add that he prepossessed us much in his favour. He looks what he is and has been. In a little cupboard-looking shop in King Street he may be seen in shirt sleeves spreading a tray full of sovereigns in the shop front and heaping up bank-notes as a border to them, inviting anyone to sell their gold to him. We believe he is now among the wealthiest men of New South Wales."
By the year 1830 the terror inspired by highwaymen had no doubt diminished, but the coach proprietors thought it prudent to guard themselves against loss, and so they put increased charges on the articles of value they had to carry. On the 1st September, 1830, a coaching notice of about 1,000 words, based on an Act of Parliament, was put forth by Moses Pickwick and Company from the White Hart, Bath. A copy of this notice on a large screen was exhibited recently at the Dickens celebration at Bath. The notice, in legal or other jargon, announced the increased rate of charge for commission by mail or stage coach of articles of value. Put into plain form, the increased rates of charge were as follows, viz.:—Additional charge for parcel or package over £10 in value.—For every pound, or for the value of every pound, contained in such parcel or package over and above the ordinary rate of carriage, not exceeding 100 miles, 1d.; 100 to 150 miles, 1½d.; 150 to 200 miles, 2d.; 200 to 250 miles, 2½d.; exceeding 250 miles, 3d.
[By permission of "Bath Chronicle."
THE WHITE HART COACHING INN, BATH.