第8章 INTRODUCTION(1)

In the beginning of August,1753,when I had taken the duke of Portland's medicine,as it is called,near a year,the effects of which had been the carrying off the symptoms of a lingering imperfect gout,I was persuaded by Mr.Ranby,the king's premier sergeant-surgeon,and the ablest advice,I believe,in all branches of the physical profession,to go immediately to Bath.

I accordingly wrote that very night to Mrs.Bowden,who,by the next post,informed me she had taken me a lodging for a month certain.Within a few days after this,whilst I was preparing for my journey,and when I was almost fatigued to death with several long examinations,relating to five different murders,all committed within the space of a week,by different gangs of street-robbers,I received a message from his grace the duke of Newcastle,by Mr.Carrington,the king's messenger,to attend his grace the next morning,in Lincoln's-inn-fields,upon some business of importance;but I excused myself from complying with the message,as,besides being lame,I was very ill with the great fatigues I had lately undergone added to my distemper.

His grace,however,sent Mr.Carrington,the very next morning,with another summons;with which,though in the utmost distress,I immediately complied;but the duke,happening,unfortunately for me,to be then particularly engaged,after I had waited some time,sent a gentleman to discourse with me on the best plan which could be invented for putting an immediate end to those murders and robberies which were every day committed in the streets;upon which I promised to transmit my opinion,in writing,to his grace,who,as the gentleman informed me,intended to lay it before the privy council.

Though this visit cost me a severe cold,I,notwithstanding,set myself down to work;and in about four days sent the duke as regular a plan as I could form,with all the reasons and arguments I could bring to support it,drawn out in several sheets of paper;and soon received a message from the duke by Mr.Carrington,acquainting me that my plan was highly approved of,and that all the terms of it would be complied with.The principal and most material of those terms was the immediately depositing six hundred pound in my hands;at which small charge Iundertook to demolish the then reigning gangs,and to put the civil policy into such order,that no such gangs should ever be able,for the future,to form themselves into bodies,or at least to remain any time formidable to the public.

I had delayed my Bath journey for some time,contrary to the repeated advice of my physical acquaintance,and to the ardent desire of my warmest friends,though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice;in which case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible.But I had the most eager desire of demolishing this gang of villains and cut-throats,which I was sure of accomplishing the moment I was enabled to pay a fellow who had undertaken,for a small sum,to betray them into the hands of a set of thief-takers whom I had enlisted into the service,all men of known and approved fidelity and intrepidity.

After some weeks the money was paid at the treasury,and within a few days after two hundred pounds of it had come to my hands,the whole gang of cut-throats was entirely dispersed,seven of them were in actual custody,and the rest driven,some out of the town,and others out of the kingdom.Though my health was now reduced to the last extremity,I continued to act with the utmost vigor against these villains;in examining whom,and in taking the depositions against them,I have often spent whole days,nay,sometimes whole nights,especially when there was any difficulty in procuring sufficient evidence to convict them;which is a very common case in street-robberies,even when the guilt of the party is sufficiently apparent to satisfy the most tender conscience.