twenty-two years of age.

The Life of ANTHONY DRURY, a Highwayman

This unfortunate man, whose fate made a great noise in the town at the
time it happened, was born of parents neither mean in family nor
fortune, in the county of Norfolk, where he received his education, on
which no little pains and expense were bestowed. As to the particular
circumstances of his life in his most early years, as no exact accounts
have come to my hands, so I do not think myself obliged to frame any
adventures for the entertainment of my readers, a practice very common,
yet I think unjustifiable in itself. All that I can is that it appears
he lived at Oxford and Bicester before he came to Wendover, at which
place he had a house and family at the time of his death.

He was not, as far as I am able to learn, bred up to any particular
profession whatever, his parents leaving him in circumstances capable of
supporting himself. However, whether he arrived at it after some
misfortunes, or had it discovered to him before, certain it is that he
gained some knowledge in the act of curing smoking chimneys, by which
he got very considerably, and from whence be derived the name of the
Smoky Chimney Doctor, by which he was commonly known in the county of
Bucks.

Some few years before his death, he married a widow gentlewoman at
Oxford, of a considerable fortune. The world (though something too
largely) reported that she had fifteen hundred pounds. However it were,
he still addicted himself to women, and in all probability made her but
an indifferent husband, since she took so little care about him, when in
the midst of so great calamities. However it were, he maintained a
tolerable character in the neighbourhood, and his credit had not been
impeached in any degree when he committed the fact I am going to relate.

On the twenty-fifth of September, 1726, he attacked the Bicester wagon
as it was coming from London, and committed the following robberies
therein, viz., he took from Thomas Eldridge, fifteen moidores, two
hundred and ten guineas, eighty half-guineas, and the goods and money of
Mr. Burrows. He was likewise indicted and found guilty for assaulting
Sarah, the wife of Robert King, on the highway, and robbing her of two
shillings and sixpence. As likewise on a third indictment, for
assaulting the aforesaid Thomas Eldridge, and taking from him a calico
gown and petticoat, value twenty shillings, the goods of Giles Betts.
There was a fo