108

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XIX.

1 ( 192 .

Street to Bloomsbury, there was no parish in which some quiet■dwelling had not been sacked by burglars.* Meanwhile thegreat roads were made almost impassable by freebooters whoformed themselves into troops larger than had before beenknown. There was a sworn fraternity of twenty footpads whichmet at an alehouse in Southwark.** But the most formidableband of plunderers consisted of two and twenty horsemen.*** Itshould seem that, at this time, a journey of fifty miles throughthe wealthiest and most populous shires of England was asdangerous as a pilgrimage across the deserts of Arabia. TheOxford stage coach was pillaged in broad day after a bloodyfight, f A waggon laden with fifteen thousand pounds of publicmoney was stopped and ransacked. As this operation tooksome time, all the travellers who came to the spot while thethieves were busy were seized and guarded. When the bootyhad been secured the prisoners were suffered to depart on foot;but their horses, sixteen or eighteen in number, were shot orhamstringed, to prevent pursuit, ff The Portsmouth mail wasrobbed twice in one week by men well armed and mounted.fffSome jovial Essex squires, while riding after a hare, werethemselves chased and run down by nine hunters of a differentsort, and were heartily glad to find themselves at home again,though with empty pockets. §

The friends of the government asserted that the marauderswere all Jacobites; and indeed there were some appearanceswhich gave colour to the assertion. For example, fifteen

* See, for example, the London Gazette of Jan. 12. 1693.

** Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary, Dec. 1692.

*** Ibid. Jan. 1693.

+ Ibid. July 1692.

•ff Evelyn’s Diary, Nov. 20. 1692; Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary; LondonGazette, Nov. 24.: llop to the Greffier of the States General, Nov.ff-j- London Gazette, Dec. 19. 1692.

§ Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary, Dec. 1692.