110

niSTORX OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

X IX.

- JGU2.

executions were numerous: for, till the evil had been sup-. pressed, the King resolutely refused to listen to any solicitationsfor mercy.* Among those who suffered was James Whitney,the most celebrated captain of banditti in the kingdom. Hehad been, during some months, the terror of all -who travelledfrom London either northward or westward, and ,was at lengthwith difficulty secured after a desperate conflict in which onesoldier was killed and several wounded.** The London Gazetteannounced that the famous highwayman had been taken, andinvited all persons who had been robbed by him to repair toNewgate and to see whether they could identify him. Toidentify him should have been easy: for he had a wound in theface, and had lost a thumb.*** He, however, in the hope ofperplexing the witnesses for the Crown, expended a hundredpounds in procuring a sumptuous embroidered suit against theday of trial. This ingenious device was frustrated by his hard-hearted keepers. He was put to the bar in his ordinary clothes,convicted and sentenced to death.f He had previously triedto ransom himself by offering to raise a fine troop of cavalry, allhighwaymen, for service in Flanders: but his offer had beenrejected.j-f He had one resource still left. He declared that he-was privy to a treasonable plot. Some Jacobite lords hadpromised him immense rewards if he would, at the head of hisgang, fall-upon the King at a stag hunt in Windsor Forest.There was nothing intrinsically improbable in Whitney’s story..Indeed a design very similar to that which he imputed to themalecontents was, only three years later, actually formed bysome of them, and was all but carried into execution. But it

* Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Dec. 22.

** Ibid. Dec. 1692; Hop, Jan. ^ 3 . Hop calls Whitney, “ den befaamstenroover in Eiigelandt."

*** London Gazette, January 2. 169}.

•j- Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary, Jan. 169}.

•H* Ibid. Dec. 1692.