nt, learned to what an
extent these outrages were carried, he expressed great indignation, and
announced his resolution to put down the malefactors with a strong hand.
A veteran robber was induced to turn informer, and to lay before the
King a list of the chief highwaymen, and a full account of their habits
and of their favourite haunts. It was said that this list contained not
less than eighty names. [336] Strong parties of cavalry were sent out
to protect the roads; and this precaution, which would, in ordinary
circumstances, have excited much murmuring, seems to have been generally
approved. A fine regiment, now called the Second Dragoon Guards, which
had distinguished itself in Ireland by activity and success in the
irregular war against the Rapparees, was selected to guard several of
the great avenues of the capital. Blackheath, Barnet, Hounslow, became
places of arms. [337] In a few weeks the roads were as safe as usual.
The executions were numerous for, till the evil had been suppressed, the
King resolutely refused to listen to any solicitations for mercy. [338]
Among those who suffered was James Whitney, the most celebrated captain
of banditti in the kingdom. He had been, during some months, the terror
of all who travelled from London either northward or westward, and was
at length with difficulty secured after a desperate conflict in which
one soldier was killed and several wounded. [339] The London Gazette
announced that the famous highwayman had been taken, and invited all
persons who had been robbed by him to repair to Newgate and to see
whether they could identify him. To identify him should have been easy;
for he had a wound in the face, and had lost a thumb. [340] He, however,
in the hope of perplexing the witnesses for the Crown, expended a
hundred pounds in procuring a sumptuous embroidered suit against the
day of trial. This ingenious device was frustrated by his hardhearted
keepers. He was put to the bar in his ordinary clothes, convicted and
sentenced to death. [341] He had previously tried to ransom himself by
offering to raise a fine troop of cavalry, all highwaymen, for service
in Flanders; but his offer had been rejected. [342] He had one resource
still left. He declared that he was privy to a treasonable plot. Some
Jacobite lords had promised him immense rewards if he would, at the head
of his gang, fall upon the King at a stag hunt in Windsor Forest. There
was nothing intrinsically improbable in