not been sacked by burglars.327 Meanwhile the great roads were made almost impassable by freebooters who formed themselves into troops larger than had before been known.  There was a sworn fraternity of twenty footpads which met at an alehouse in Southwark.328 But the most formidable band of plunderers consisted of two and twenty horsemen.329 It should seem that, at this time, a journey of fifty miles through the wealthiest and most populous shires of England was as dangerous as a pilgrimage across the deserts of Arabia.  The Oxford stage coach was pillaged in broad day after a bloody fight.330 A waggon laden with fifteen thousand pounds of public money was stopped and ransacked.  As this operation took some time, all the travellers who came to the spot while the thieves were busy were seized and guarded.  When the booty had been secured the prisoners were suffered to depart on foot; but their horses, sixteen or eighteen in number, were shot or hamstringed, to prevent pursuit.331 The Portsmouth mail was robbed twice in one week by men well armed and mounted.332 Some jovial Essex squires, while riding after a hare, were themselves chased and run down by nine hunters of a different sort, and were heartily glad to find themselves at home again, though with empty pockets.333

The friends of the government asserted that the marauders were all Jacobites; and indeed there were some appearances which gave colour to the assertion.  For example, fifteen butchers, going on a market day to buy beasts at Thame, were stopped by a large gang, and compelled first to deliver their moneybags, and then to drink King James’s health in brandy.334 The thieves, however, to do them justice, showed, in the exercise of their calling, no decided preference for any political party.  Some of them fell in with Marlborough near Saint Albans, and, notwithstanding his known hostility to the Court and his recent imprisonment, compelled him to deliver up five hundred guineas, which he doubtless never ceased to regret to the last moment of his long career of prosperity and glory.335

When William, on his return from the Continent, learned to what an extent these outrages were carried, he expressed great indignation, and announced his resolution to put down the malefactors with a strong hand.  A veteran robber was induced to turn informer, and to lay before the King a list of the chief highwaymen, and a full account of their habits and of their favourite haunts.  It was said that this list contained not less than eighty names.336 Strong parties of cavalry were sent out to protect the roads; and this precaution, which would, in ordinary circumstances, have excited much murmuring, seems to have been generally approved.  A fine regiment, now called the Second Dragoon Guards, which had distinguished itself in Ireland by activity and success in the irregular war against the Rapparees, was selected to guard several of the great avenues of the capital.  Blackheath, Barnet, Hounslow,