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.
But courts of justice know nothing of a cause more than what is
told them on oath by a witness; and the most flagitious villain
upon earth is tried in the same manner as a man of the best
character who is accused of the same crime. Meanwhile, amidst
all my fatigues and distresses, I had the satisfaction to find my
endeavors had been attended with such success that this hellish
society were almost utterly extirpated, and that, instead of
reading of murders and street-robberies in the news almost every
morning, there was, in the remaining part of the month of
November, and in all December, not only no such thing as a
murder, but not even a street-robbery committed. Some such,
indeed, were mentioned in the public papers; but they were all
found on the strictest inquiry, to be false. In this entire
freedom from street-robberies, during the dark months, no man
will, I believe, scruple to acknowledge that the winter of 1753
stands unrivaled, during a course of many years; and this may
possibly appear the more extraordinary to those who recollect the
outrages with which it began. Having thus fully accomplished my