CAPTAIN HIND

JAMES HIND, the Master Thief of England, the fearless Captain of the

Highway, was born at Chipping Norton in 1618. His father, a simple

saddler, had so poor an appreciation of his son's magnanimity, that he

apprenticed him to a butcher; but Hind's destiny was to embrue his

hands in other than the blood of oxen, and he had not long endured the

restraint of this common craft when forty shillings, the gift of

his mother, purchased him an escape, and carried him triumphant and

ambitious to London.

Even in his negligent schooldays he had fastened upon a fitting

career. A born adventurer, he sought only enterprise and command: if a

commission in the army failed him, then he would risk his neck upon the

road, levying his own tax and imposing his own conditions. To one of his

dauntless resolution an opportunity need never have lacked; yet he owed

his first preferment to a happy accident. Surprised one evening in a

drunken brawl, he was hustled into the Poultry Counter, and there made

acquaintance over a fresh bottle with Robert Allen, one of the chief

rogues in the Park, and a ruffian, who had mastered every trick in the

game of plunder. A dexterous cly-faker, an intrepid blade, Allen had

also the keenest eye for untested talent, and he detected Hind's shining

qualities after the first glass. No sooner had they paid the price of

release, than Hind was admitted of his comrade's gang; he took the

oath of fealty, and by way of winning his spurs was bid to hold up

a traveller on Shooter's Hill. Granted his choice of a mount, he

straightway took the finest in the stable, with that keen perception of

horse-flesh which never deserted him, and he confronted his first victim

in the liveliest of humours. There was no falter in his voice, no hint

of inexperience in his manner, when he shouted the battle-cry: 'Stand

and deliver!' The horseman, fearful of his life, instantly surrendered a

purse of ten sovereigns, as to the most practised assailant on the road.

Whereupon Hind, with a flourish of ancient courtesy, gave him twenty

shillings to bear his charges. 'This,' said he, 'is for handsale sake ';

and thus they parted in mutual compliment and content.

Allen was overjoyed at his novice's prowess. 'Did you not see,' he cried

to his companions, 'how he robbed him with a grace?' And well did the

trooper deserve his captain's compliment, for his art was perfect from

the first. In bravery as in gallantry he knew no rival, and he plundered

with so elegant a style, that only a churlish victim could resent the

extortion. He would as soon have turned his back upon an enemy as

demand a purse uncovered. For every man he had a quip, for every woman

a compliment; nor did he ever conceal the truth that the means were for

him as important as the end. Though he loved money, he still insisted

that it should be yielded in freedom and good temper; and while he

emptied more coaches than any man in England, he was never at a loss for

admirers.

Under Allen he served a brilliant apprenticeship. Enrolled as a servant,

he speedily sat at the master's right hand, and his nimble brains

devised many a pretty campaign. For a while success dogged the

horse-hoofs of the gang; with wealth came immunity, and not one of the

warriors had the misfortune to look out upon the world through a grate.

They robbed with dignity, even with splendour. Now they would drive

forth in a coach and four, carrying with them a whole armoury of

offensive weapons; now they would take the road apparelled as noblemen,

and attended at a discreet distance by their proper servants. But

recklessness brought the inevitable disaster; and it was no less a

personage than Oliver Cromwell who overcame the hitherto invincible

Allen. A handful of the gang attacked Oliver on his way from Huntingdon,

but the marauders were outmatched, and the most of them were forced

to surrender. Allen, taken red-handed, swung at Tyburn; Hind, with his

better mount and defter horsemanship, rode clear away.

The loss of his friend was a lesson in caution, and henceforth Hind

resolved to follow his craft in solitude. He had embellished his

native talent with all the instruction that others could impart, and he

reflected that he who rode alone neither ran risk of discovery nor

had any need to share his booty. Thus he began his easy, untrammelled

career, making time and space of no account by his rapid, fearless

journeys. Now he was prancing the moors of Yorkshire, now he was

scouring the plain between Gloucester and Tewkesbury, but wherever he

rode, he had a purse in his pocket and a jest on his tongue. To recall

his prowess is to ride with him (in fancy) under the open sky along the

fair, beaten road; to put up with him at the busy, white posthouse, to

drink unnumbered pints of mulled sack with the round-bellied landlord,

to exchange boastful stories over the hospitable fire, and to ride forth

in the morning with the joyous uncertainty of travel upon you. Failure

alone lay outside his experience, and he presently became at once the

terror and the hero of England.

Not only was his courage conspicuous; luck also was his constant

companion; and a happy bewitchment protected him for three years against

the possibility of harm. He had been lying at Hatfield, at the George

Inn, and set out in the early morning for London. As he neared the

town-gate, an old beldame begged an alms of him, and though Hind,

not liking her ill-favoured visage, would have spurred forward, the

beldame's glittering eye held his horse motionless. 'Good woman,' cried

Hind, flinging her a crown, 'I am in haste; pray let me pass.' 'Sir,'

answered the witch, 'three days I have awaited your coming. Would you

have me lose my labour now?' And with Hind's assent the sphinx delivered

her message: 'Captain Hind,' said she, 'your life is beset with constant

danger, and since from your birth I have wished you well, my poor skill

has devised a perfect safeguard.' With this she gave him a small box

containing what might have been a sundial or compass. 'Watch this star,'

quoth she, 'and when you know not your road, follow its guidance. Thus

you shall be preserved from every peril for the space of three years.

Thereafter, if you still have faith in my devotion, seek me again, and I

will renew the virtue of the charm.'

Hind took the box joyfully; but when he turned to murmur a word of

gratitude, the witch struck his nag's flanks with a white wand, the

horse leapt vehemently forward, and Hind saw his benefactress no more.

Henceforth, however, a warning voice spoke to him as plainly as did the

demon to Socrates; and had he but obeyed the beldame's admonition, he

might have escaped a violent death. For he passed the last day of the

third year at the siege of Youghal, where; deprived of happy guidance,

he was seriously wounded, and whence he presently regained England to

his own undoing.

So long as he kept to the road, his life was one long comedy. His wit

and address were inexhaustible, and fortune never found him at a loss.

He would avert suspicion with the tune of a psalm, as when, habited

like a pious shepherd, he broke a traveller's head with his crook, and

deprived him of his horse. An early adventure was to force a pot-valiant

parson, who had drunk a cup too much at a wedding, into a rarely

farcical situation. Hind, having robbed two gentlemen's servants of a

round sum, went ambling along the road until he encountered a parson.

'Sir,' said he, 'I am closely pursued by robbers. You, I dare swear,

will not stand by and see me plundered.' Before the parson could

protest, he thrust a pistol into his hand, and bade him fire it at the

first comer, while he rode off to raise the county. Meanwhile the rifled

travellers came up with the parson, who, straightway, mistaking them

for thieves, fired without effect, and then, riding forward, flung the

pistol in the face of the nearest. Thus the parson of the parish was

dragged before the magistrate, while Hind, before his dupe could

furnish an explanation, had placed many a mile between himself and his

adversary.

Though he could on occasion show a clean pair of heels, Hind was never

lacking in valiance; and, another day, meeting a traveller with a

hundred pounds in his pocket, he challenged him to fight there and then,

staked his own horse against the money, and declared that he should

win who drew first blood. 'If I am the conqueror,' said the magnanimous

Captain, 'I will give you ten pounds for your journey. If you are

favoured of fortune, you shall give me your servant's horse.' The terms

were instantly accepted, and in two minutes Hind had run his adversary

through the sword-arm. But finding that his victim was but a poor squire

going to London to pay his composition, he not only returned his

money, but sought him out a surgeon, and gave him the best dinner the

countryside could afford.

Thus it was his pleasure to act as a providence, many a time robbing

Peter to pay Paul, and stripping the niggard that he might indulge

his fervent love of generosity. Of all usurers and bailiffs he had

a wholesome horror, and merry was the prank which he played upon the

extortionate money-lender of Warwick. Riding on an easy rein through the

town, Hind heard a tumult at a street corner, and inquiring the cause,

was told that an innkeeper was arrested by a thievish usurer for

a paltry twenty pounds. Dismounting, this providence in jack-boots

discharged the debt, cancelled the bond, and took the innkeeper's goods

for his own security. And thereupon overtaking the usurer, 'My friend!'

he exclaimed, 'I lent you late a sum of twenty pounds. Repay it at once,

or I take your miserable life.' The usurer was obliged to return the

money, with another twenty for interest, and when he would take the law

of the innkeeper, was shown the bond duly cancelled, and was flogged

wellnigh to death for his pains.

So Hind rode the world up and down, redressing grievances like an

Eastern monarch, and rejoicing in the abasement of the evildoer. Nor

was the spirit of his adventure bounded by the ocean. More than once

he crossed the seas; the Hague knew him, and Amsterdam, though these

somnolent cities gave small occasion for the display of his talents.

It was from Scilly that he crossed to the Isle of Man, where, being

recommended to Lord Derby, he gained high favour, and received in

exchange for his jests a comfortable stipend. Hitherto, said the

Chronicles, thieving was unknown in the island. A man might walk whither

he would, a bag of gold in one hand, a switch in the other, and fear no

danger. But no sooner had Hind appeared at Douglas than honest citizens

were pilfered at every turn. In dismay they sought the protection of

the Governor, who instantly suspected Hind, and gallantly disclosed his

suspicions to the Captain. 'My lord!' exclaimed Hind, a blush upon his

cheek, 'I protest my innocence; but willingly will I suffer the heaviest

penalty of your law if I am recognised for the thief.' The victims,

confronted with their robber, knew him not, picturing to the Governor

a monster with long hair and unkempt beard. Hind, acquitted with

apologies, fetched from his lodging the disguise of periwig and beard.

'They laugh who win!' he murmured, and thus forced forgiveness and a

chuckle even from his judges.

As became a gentleman-adventurer, Captain Hind was staunch in his

loyalty to his murdered King. To strip the wealthy was always reputable,

but to rob a Regicide was a masterpiece of well-doing.

A fervent zeal to lighten Cromwell's pocket had brought the illustrious

Allen to the gallows. But Hind was not one whit abashed, and he would

never forego the chance of an encounter with his country's enemies. His

treatment of Hugh Peters in Enfield Chace is among his triumphs. At the

first encounter the Presbyterian plucked up courage enough to oppose

his adversary with texts. To Hind's command of 'Stand and deliver!' duly

enforced with a loaded pistol, the ineffable Peters replied with ox-eye

sanctimoniously upturned: 'Thou shalt not steal; let him that

stole, steal no more,' adding thereto other variations of the eighth

commandment. Hind immediately countered with exhortations against the

awful sin of murder, and rebuked the blasphemy of the Regicides, who,

to defend their own infamy, would wrest Scripture from its meaning.

'Did you not, O monster of impiety,' mimicked Hind in the preacher's own

voice, 'pervert for your own advantage the words of the Psalmist, who

said, "Bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of

iron"? Moreover, was it not Solomon who wrote: "Men do not despise a

thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry"? And is not my

soul hungry for gold and the Regicides' discomfiture?' Peters was still

fumbling after texts when the final argument: 'Deliver thy money, or I

will send thee out of the world!' frightened him into submission, and

thirty broad pieces were Hind's reward.

Not long afterwards he confronted Bradshaw near Sherborne, and, having

taken from him a purse fat with Jacobuses, he bade the Sergeant stand

uncovered while he delivered a discourse upon gold, thus shaped by

tradition: 'Ay, marry, sir, this is the metal that wins my heart for

ever! O precious gold, I admire and adore thee as much as Bradshaw,

Prynne, or any villain of the same stamp. This is that incomparable

medicament, which the republican physicians call the wonder-working

plaster. It is truly catholic in operation, and somewhat akin to the

Jesuit's powder, but more effectual. The virtues of it are strange and

various; it makes justice deaf as well as blind, and takes out spots of

the deepest treason more cleverly than castle-soap does common stains;

it alters a man's constitution in two or three days, more than the

virtuoso's transfusion of blood can do in seven years. 'Tis a great

alexiopharmick, and helps poisonous principles of rebellion, and those

that use them. It miraculously exalts and purifies the eyesight, and

makes traitors behold nothing but innocence in the blackest malefactors.

'Tis a mighty cordial for a declining cause; it stifles faction or

schism, as certainly as the itch is destroyed by butter and brimstone.

In a word, it makes wise men fools, and fools wise men, and both knaves.

The very colour of this precious balm is bright and dazzling. If it

be properly applied to the fist, that is in a decent manner, and a

competent dose, it infallibly performs all the cures which the evils

of humanity crave.' Thus having spoken, he killed the six horses of

Bradshaw's coach, and went contemptuously on his way.

But he was not a Cavalier merely in sympathy, nor was he content to

prove his loyalty by robbing Roundheads. He, too, would strike a blow

for his King, and he showed, first with the royal army in Scotland, and

afterwards at Worcester, what he dared in a righteous cause. Indeed, it

was his part in the unhappy battle that cost him his life, and there is

a strange irony in the reflection that, on the self-same day whereon Sir

Thomas Urquhart lost his precious manuscripts in Worcester's kennels,

the neck of James Hind was made ripe for the halter. His capture was due

to treachery. Towards the end of 1651 he was lodged with one Denzys, a

barber, over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street. Maybe he had

chosen his hiding-place for its neighbourhood to Moll Cutpurse's own

sanctuary. But a pack of traitors discovered him, and haling him before

the Speaker of the House of Commons, got him committed forthwith to

Newgate.

At first he was charged with theft and murder, and was actually

condemned for killing George Sympson at Knole in Berkshire. But the day

after his sentence, an Act of Oblivion was passed, and Hind was put upon

trial for treason. During his examination he behaved with the utmost

gaiety, boastfully enlarging upon his services to the King's cause.

'These are filthy jingling spurs,' said he as he left the bar, pointing

to the irons about his legs, 'but I hope to exchange them ere long.'

His good-humour remained with him to the end. He jested in prison as he

jested on the road, and it was with a light heart that he mounted the

scaffold built for him at Worcester. His was the fate reserved for

traitors: he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, and though his head was

privily stolen and buried on the day of execution, his quarters were

displayed upon the town walls, until time and the birds destoyed{sic}

them utterly.

Thus died the most famous highwayman that ever drew rein upon an English

road; and he died the death of a hero. The unnumbered crimes of violence

and robbery wherewith he might have been charged weighed not a feather's

weight upon his destiny; he suffered not in the cause of plunder, but

in the cause of Charles Stuart. And in thus excusing his death, his

contemporaries did him scant justice. For while in treasonable loyalty

he had a thousand rivals, on the road he was the first exponent of the

grand manner. The middle of the seventeenth century was, in truth, the

golden age of the Road. Not only were all the highwaymen Cavaliers,

but many a Cavalier turned highwayman. Broken at their King's defeat,

a hundred captains took pistol and vizard, and revenged themselves as

freebooters upon the King's enemies. And though Hind was outlaw first

and royalist afterwards, he was still the most brilliant collector of

them all. If he owed something to his master, Allen, he added from the

storehouse of his own genius a host of new precepts, and was the first

to establish an enduring tradition.

Before all things he insisted upon courtesy; a guinea stolen by an

awkward ruffian was a sorry theft; levied by a gentleman of the highway,

it was a tribute paid to courage by generosity. Nothing would atone for

an insult offered to a lady; and when it was Hind's duty to seize part

of a gentlewoman's dowry on the Petersfield road, he not only pleaded

his necessity in eloquent excuse, but he made many promises on behalf of

knight-errantry and damsels in distress. Never would he extort a trinket

to which association had given a sentimental worth; during a long career

he never left any man, save a Roundhead, penniless upon the road; nor

was it his custom to strip the master without giving the man a trifle

for his pains. His courage, moreover, was equal to his understanding.

Since he was afraid of nothing, it was not his habit to bluster when he

was not determined to have his way. When once his pistol was levelled,

when once the solemn order was given, the victim must either fight

or surrender; and Hind was never the man to decline a combat with any

weapons and in any circumstances.

Like the true artist that he was, he neglected no detail of his craft.

As he was a perfect shot, so also he was a finished horseman; and his

skill not only secured him against capture, but also helped him to the

theft of such horses as his necessities required, or to the exchange

of a worn-out jade for a mettled prancer. Once upon a time a credulous

farmer offered twenty pounds and his own gelding for the Captain's

mount. Hind struck a bargain at once, and as they jogged along the road

he persuaded the farmer to set his newly-purchased horse at the tallest

hedge, the broadest ditch. The bumpkin failed, as Hind knew he would

fail; and, begging the loan for an instant of his ancient steed, Hind

not only showed what horsemanship could accomplish, but straightway

rode off with the better horse and twenty pounds in his pocket. So

marvellously did his reputation grow, that it became a distinction to be

outwitted by him, and the brains of innocent men were racked to invent

tricks which might have been put upon them by the illustrious Captain.

Thus livelier jests and madder exploits were fathered upon him than

upon any of his kind, and he has remained for two centuries the prime

favourite of the chap-books.

Robbing alone, he could afford to despise pedantry: did he meet a

traveller who amused his fancy he would give him the pass-word ('the

fiddler's paid,' or what not), as though the highway had not its code

of morals; nor did he scruple, when it served his purpose, to rob the

bunglers of his own profession. By this means, indeed, he raised the

standard of the Road and warned the incompetent to embrace an easier

trade. While he never took a shilling without sweetening his depredation

with a joke, he was, like all humorists, an acute philosopher. 'Remember

what I tell you,' he said to the foolish persons who once attempted to

rob him, the master-thief of England, 'disgrace not yourself for small

sums, but aim high, and for great ones; the least will bring you to the

gallows.' There, in five lines, is the whole philosophy of thieving, and

many a poor devil has leapt from the cart to his last dance because he

neglected the counsel of the illustrious Hind. Among his aversions were

lawyers and thief-catchers. 'Truly I could wish,' he exclaimed in court,

'that full-fed fees were as little used in England among lawyers as the

eating of swine's flesh was among the Jews.' When you remember the terms

of friendship whereon he lived with Moll Cutpurse, his hatred of the

thief-catcher, who would hang his brother for 'the lucre of ten pounds,

which is the reward,' or who would swallow a false oath 'as easily as

one would swallow buttered fish,' is a trifle mysterious. Perhaps before

his death an estrangement divided Hind and Moll. Was it that the Roaring

Girl was too anxious to take the credit of Hind's success? Or did he

harbour the unjust suspicion that when the last descent was made upon

him at the barber's, Moll might have given a friendly warning?

Of this he made no confession, but the honest thief was ever a liberal

hater of spies and attorneys, and Hind's prudence is unquestioned.

A miracle of intelligence, a master of style, he excelled all his

contemporaries and set up for posterity an unattainable standard. The

eighteenth century flattered him by its imitation; but cowardice and

swagger compelled it to limp many a dishonourable league behind. Despite

the single inspiration of dancing a corant upon the green, Claude Duval,

compared to Hind, was an empty braggart. Captain Stafford spoiled the

best of his effects with a more than brutal vice. Neither Mull-Sack nor

the Golden Farmer, for all their long life and handsome plunder, are

comparable for an instant to the robber of Peters and Bradshaw. They

kept their fist fiercely upon the gold of others, and cared not by

what artifice it was extorted. Hind never took a sovereign meanly;

he approached no enterprise which he did not adorn. Living in a true

Augustan age, he was a classic among highwaymen, the very Virgil of the

Pad.