ated them base and inhuman. For, seldom going out with pistols
(the sight of which serves often to terrify passengers out of their
money, without offering them any other injury than what arises from
their own apprehensions) these villains provided themselves with large
sticks, loaded at the end with lead; with these, from behind a hedge,
they were able to knock down passengers as they walked along the road,
and then starting from their covert, easily plunder and bind them if
they thought proper. They had carried on this detestable practice for a
long space in almost all those roads which lead to the little villages
whither people go for pleasure from the hurry and noise of London.

Amongst many other robberies which they committed, it happened that in
the road to Bow they met a footman, whom without speaking to, they
knocked down as soon as they had passed him. The fellow was so stunned
with the fall, and so frighted with their approach, that be made not the
least resistance while they took away his money and his watch, stripped
him of his hat and wig, his waistcoat and a pair of silver buckles; but
when one of them perceiving a ring of some value upon his finger, went
to tear it off, he begged him in the most moving terms to leave it,
because it had been given to him by his lady, who would never forgive
the loss of it. However it happened, he who first went to take it off,
seemed to relent at the fellow's repeated entreaties, but Wilson
catching hold of the fellow's hand, dragged it off at once, saying at
the same time, _Sirrah, I suppose you are your lady's stallion, and the
ring comes as honestly to us as it did to you._

A few days after this adventure, Wilson being got very drunk, thought he
would go out on the road himself, in hopes of acquiring a considerable
booty without being obliged to share it with his companions. He had not
walked above half an hour, before he overtook a man laden with several
little glazed pots and other things, which being tied up in a cloth, he
had hung upon the end of a stick and carried on his shoulder. Wilson
coming behind him with one of those loaded sticks that I have mentioned,
knocked him down by the side of the ditch, and immediately secured his
bundle. But attempting to rifle him farther, his foot slipped, he being
very full of liquor, and he tumbled backwards into the ditch. The poor
man took that opportunity to get up and run away, and so soon as he
could recover himself, Wils