CAPTAIN JAMES HIND, HIGHWAYMAN,

HANGED SEPTEMBER 3RD, 1652.

Captain James Hind excited considerable interest in his time ; his father was a saddler, an inhabitant of Chipping- Norton in Oxfordshire, where the captain was born. The old man lived there many years in very good repu- tation among his neighbours, was an honest companion, and a constant churchman. As James was his only son, he was willing to give him the best education he was able, and to that purpose sent him to school till he was fifteen years of age, in which time he learned to read and write very well, and knew arithmetic enough to make him capable of any common business.

After this he was put apprentice to a butcher in his native town, where he served about two years of his time, and then ran away from his master, who was a very morose man, and continually finding something or ano- ther to quarrel with him about.

When he made this elopement, he applied imme- diately to his mother for money to carry him up to London, telling her of the hardships he suffered from his master's severity. She therefore very tenderly supplied him with three pounds for his expences, and sent him with tears in her eyes.

He had not been long in London before he got a relish of the pleasures of the place, which, as far as his circumstances would allow, he pursued very earnestly. One night he was taken in companv with a woman of the town, who had just before picked a gentleman^s pocket of five guineas, and sent with her to the Poultry Compter till morning, when he was released for want of any evidence against him, he having, in reality, no hand in the affair. The woman was committed to Newgate, but what became of her afterwards we are not certain, nor does it all concern us. The captain by this accident fell into company with one Thomas Allen, a noted high- wayman, who had been put into the Compter upon sus- picion of some robbery, and was released at the same time with Hind, and . for the same reason. These two

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men going to drink together, after their confinement, they contracted a friendship which was the ruin of them both, as the reader will observe in the perusal of these

pups. t

Their first adventure was at ShooterVhill, where they met with a gentleman and his servant. Hind being per- fectly raw and inexperienced, his companion was wil- ling to have a proof of his courage ; and therefore staid at some distance while the captain rode up, and singly took from them fifteen pounds ; but returned the gentle- man twenty shillings to bear his expences on the road, with such a pleasant air, that the gentleman protested he would never hurt a hair of his head, if it should at any time be in his power. Allen was prodigiously pleased both with the bravery and generosity 01 his new com- rade, and they mutually swore to stand by one another to the utmost of their power.

It was much about the time that the murder of King Charles I. was perpetrated at his own palace gate by the fanatics of that time, when our two adventurers began their progress on the road. One part of their engage- ment together was never to spare any of the regicides that came in their way. It was not long before they met the grand usurper Cromwell, as he was coming from Huntingdon, the place of his nativity, to London. Oliver had no less than seven men in his train, who all came immediately upon their stopping the coach, and overpowered our two heroes ; so that Allen was taken on the spot, and soon after executed, and it was with a great deal of difficulty that Hind made his escape, who resolved from this time to act with a little more caution. He could not, however, think of quitting a course of life which he had just begun to taste, and which he found so profitable.

The captain rode so hard to get out of danger after this adventure with Cromwell, that he killed his horse, and he had not at that time money enougli to buy another. lie resolved, therefore, to procure one as soon as possible, and to this purpose tramped along the road on foot. It was not long before he saw a horse hung to a hedge with a brace of pistols before him ; and looking round him, he observed on the other side of the hedge a cman untrussing a point. " This is my horse,*

116 CAPTAIN HIND,

says the captain, and immediately vaults into the saddle: The gentleman calling to him, and telling him that the horse was his, " Sir," says Hind, " you may think yourself well off that I have left you all the money in your pockets to buy another, which you had best lay out before I meet you again, lest you should be worse used. 1 ' So he rode away in search of new adventures.

Another time Captain Hind met the celebrated regi- cide, Hugh Peters, in Enfield-Chase, and commanded him to deliver his money. Hugh, who had his share of confidence, began to lay about him with texts of scrip- ture, and to cudgel the bold robber with the eighth com- mandment. It is written in the law, says he, That thou shalt not steal. And furthermore Solomon, who was surely a very wise man, speaketh in this manner : Rob not the poor, because he is poor. Hind was willing to answer the old hypocrite in his own strain; and for that end, began to rub up his memory for some of the scraps of the bible which he had learned by heart in his minority. Verily, said Hind, if thou hadst regarded the divine precepts as thou oughtest to have done, thou wouldest not have wrested them to such an abominable and wicked sense as thou didst the words of the prophet, when he saith, Bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron. Didst thou not, thou de- testable hypocrite, endeavour from these words to aggra- vate the misfortunes of thy royal master, whom thy accursed republican party unjustly murdered before the- door of his own palace ? Here Hugh Peters began to extenuate that proceeding, and to allege other parts of scripture in his defence, and said that thieving was very unlawful : Pray, Sir, replied Hind, make no reflections on my profession ; for Solomon plainly says, Do not despise a thief; but it is to little purpose for us to dis- pute : The substance of what I have to say, is this, deliver thy money presently, or else I shall send thee out of the world to thy master in an instant.

These words of the captain frightened the old presby- terian in such a manner, that he gave him thirty broad pieces of gold, and then they parted. But Hind was not thoroughly satisfied with letting such a notorious enemy to the royal cause depart in so easy a manner. He, therefore, rode after him, full speed, and overtake

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inghim, spoke as follows: Sir, now I think of it, I am convinced that this misfortune has happened to you, be- cause you did not obey the words of the scripture, which expressly, provide neither gold, nor silver, norbrasi

in your purses for your journey. Whereas it is evident that you had provided a pretty deal of gold: however, a.s it is now in my power to make you fulfil another com- mand, I would by no means slip the opportunity — there- ton-, pray give me your cloak. Peters was so surprised, that he neither stood to dispute, nor to examine what the drift of Hind's demand; but Hind soon let him understand his meaning, when he added, you know, Sir, our Saviour has commanded, that if any man take away thy cloak, thou must not refuse thy coat also; therefore, I cannot suppose you will act in direct contradiction to such an express direction, especially now you cannot pretend you have forgot it, because 1 have reminded you of your duty. The old Puritan shrugged his shoulders for some time, before he proceeded to uncase them ; but Hind told him his delay would do him no service ; for he would be punctually obeyed, because he was sure what he requested was consonant to the scripture : accordingly Hugh Peters delivered his coat, and Hind carried all off*.

Next Sunday, when Hugh came to preach, he chose an invective against theft for the subject of his sermon, and took his text in the Canticles, chap. v. ver. 3. I have nut off my coat, how shall I put it on* An honest cava- lier who was present, and knew the occasion of his chus- ing those words, cried out aloud: Upon my word, Sir, I believe there is nobody can tell you, unless Cap* tain Hind was here ! which ready answer to Hugh Peters' scriptural question, put the congregation into such an fit of laughter, that the fanatic parson was ashamed of himself, and descended from his box, with- out proceeding any further in his harangue.

It has l>ecn observed before, that Hind was a profes- sed enemy to all the regicides ; and, indeed, fortune was avourable to his desires, as to put one or other of them often into his power.

lie met one day with Serjeant Bradshaw, who had time before sat as judge upon his lawful sovereign, and passed sentence of death upon majesty. The p where this rencontre happened, was, upon the road

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between Sherbourn and Shaftesbury, in Dorsetshire. Hind rode up to the coach side, and demanded the ser- jeanfs money; who, supposing his name would carry terror with it, told him who he was. Quoth Hind, I fear neither you, nor any king-killing vagabond alive. I have now as much power over you, as you lately had over the king, and I should do God and my country good service, if I made the same use of it; but live, villain, to suffer the pangs of thine own conscience, till justice shall lay her iron hand upon thee, and require an answer for thy crimes, in a way more proper for such a monster, who art unworthy to die by any hands, but those of the common hangman, and at any other place than Tyburn. Nevertheless, although I spare thy life as a regicide, be assured, that unless thou deliverest thy money immediately, thou shalt die for thy obstinacy.

Bradshaw began to be sensible that the case was not now with him, as it had been when he sat at Westmin- ster Hall, attended with the whole strength of the parlia- ment. He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out about forty shillings in silver, which he presented to the captain, who swore he would that minute shoot him through the heart, if he did not find coin of another species. The serjeant at last gave the captain a purse full of Jacobuses.

Hind, having thus got possession of the cash, he made Bradshaw yet wait a considerable time longer, while he made the following eulogium on money ; which, though in the nature of it, it be something different from the harangues which the serjeant generally heard on a Sun- day, contains, nevertheless, as much truth, and might have been altogether as pleasing, had it come from another mouth.

This, Sir, is the metal that wins my heart for ever ! O precious gold, I admire and adore thee as much as either Bradshaw, Pryn, or any other villain of the same stamp, who, for the sake of thee, would sell their Redeemer again, were he now upon earth. This is that incomparable medicament which the republican physicians call the wonder-working plaister. It is truly catholic in operation, and somewhat of a kin to the Jesuits 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, as easily as Castile-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. It is a great Alexiopharmick, and helps

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poisonous principles of rebellion, and those that use them. It miraculously exalts and purifies the eye-sight, and makes traitors behold nothing but innocence in the blackest malefactors. It is a mighty cordial for a declining cause; it helps faction and schism as certainly as the itch is destroyed by butter and brimstone. In a word, it makes fools wise men, and wise men fools ; and both of them 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 above- said cures, and many others too numerous to be here mentioned.

The captain having finished his panegyric, he pulled out his pistol, and said further : —

You and your infernal crew have a long while run on, like Jehu, in a career of blood and impiety, pretending that zeal for the Lord of Hosts has been your only motive. How long you may be suffered to continue in the same course, God only knows. I will, however, for this time, stop your race in a literal sense of the words.

With that he shot all the six horses which were in the serjeanfs coach, and then rode off in pursuit of another booty.

Sometime after, Hind met a coach on the road be- tween Petersfield and Portsmouth, filled with gentle- women ; he went up to them in a genteel manner, and told them, that he was a patron of the fair-sex, and that it was purely to win the favour of a hard-hearted mistress, that he travelled the country : but ladies, added he, I am at this time reduced to the necessity of asking relief, having nothing to carry me on my intended prosecution of adventures. The young ladies, who most of them read romances, could not help imagining they had met with some Quixote, or Amadis de Gaul, who was saluting them in the strain of knight errantry ; Sir knight, said one of the pleasantest among them, we heartily commiserate your condition, and are very much troubled that we cannot contribute towards your support ; but we have nothing about us but a sacred depositum, which the laws of your order will not suffer you to violate. Hind was pleased to think he had met with such agreeable gentlewomen, and, for the sake of the jest, could freely have let them pass un- molested, if his necessities at this time had not been very pressing. May T, bright ladies, be favoured with the knowledge of \n hat this sacred depositum, which you speak of, is, that so I may employ my utmost abilities in its defence, as the laws of knight-errantry require ?

ISO CAPTAIN HINB,

The lady who spoke before, and who suspected the least of any one in company, told him, that the depositum she had spoken of, was 30001. the portion of one of the company, who was going to bestow it upon the knight who had won her good will by his many past services. My humble duty be presented to the knight, said he, and be pleased to tell him, that my name is Captain Hind ; that out of mere necessity, I have made bold to borrow part of what, for his sake, I wish were twice as much ; that I promise to expend the sum in defence of injured lovers, and the support of gentlemen who profess knight- errantry. At the name of Captain Hind, they were Sufficiently startled, there being nobody then living in England who had not heard of him. Hind however bade them not be affrighted, for he would not do them the least hurt, and desired no more than one thousand pounds out of the three. This the ladies very thank- fully gave in an instant (for the money was tied up in separate bags) and the captain wished them all a good journey, and much joy to the bride.

Another time, Hind was obliged to abscond for a con- siderable time in the country, there being great inquiries made after him; during this interval, his money began to run short, and he was a great while before he could think of a way to replenish his purse. He would have taken another turn or two on the highway, but he had lived so long here that he had sold his very horse. While he w r as in this extremity, a noted doctor in his neighbourhood went to receive a large sum of money, for a cure which he had performed, and our captain had got information of the time. It was in the doctor's way home to ride directly by Hind's door, who had hired a little house on the side of a common. Our adventurer took care to be ready at the hour the doctor w r as to return, and when he was riding by the house, he addressed himself to him in the most submissive style he was master of, telling him that he had a wife within, who was violent bad with a flux, so that she could not live without present help ; intreating him to come in but two or three minutes, and he would shew his gratitude as soon as he was able. The doctor was moved with compas- sion at the poor man's request, and immediately alighted, and accompanied him in, assuring him that he should

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glad if it was in his power to do him any service. Hind conducted him up stairs, and as soon as they were IfltO the chamber, shut the door, and pulled out a led pistol and an empty puree, while the doctor was ing round lor his patient. This, quoth Hind, hold- up the pane, is my wife ; she has had a flux so long, that there is now nothing at all within her. I know, Sir, von have a sovereign remedy in your pocket for her distemper, and if you do not apply it without a word, this pistol shall make the day shine»into your body. The doctor would have been glad to have lost a consider- able fee, provided he might have had nothing to do with the patient ; but when he saw there was no getting off, he took forty guineas out of his pocket, and emptied them out of his own purse into the captain's, which now seemed to be in pretty good health. Hind then told the doctor that he would leave him in full possession of his house, to make amends for the money he had taken from him. Upon which he went out and locked the door upon the doctor, mounting his horse, and riding away as fast as he was able, to find another country to live in, well knowing that this would now be too hot to hold him. Hind has been often celebrated for his generosity to all sorts of people; more especially for his kindness to the poor, which it is reported was so extraordinary, that lie never injured the property of any person who had not I complete share of riches. We shall give one instance, instead of a great many which we could produce, which will sufficiently confirm this general opinion of his tenderness for those that were needy.

At a time when he was out of cash (as he frequently

tn, !>v reason of his extravagance,) and had been

upon the watch a pretty while, without seeing any worth

his notice, he at last espied an old man jogging along

the road upon an ass. He rides up to meet him, and

d him verv courteously where he was going ; to the

market, said the old man, at Wantage, to buy me a cow,

I may have some milk for my children. — How

Idren, quoth Hind, may you have ? the old man

i ten.*- And how much do you think to give

id Hind. 1 have but forty shillings, master,

that I have been saving together these two years,

the poor wretch. Hind s heart ached for the poor

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122 CAPTAIN HIND,

man's condition, at the same time that he could not help admiring his simplicity ; but being in so great a strait as we have intimated, he thought of an expedient, which would both serve him, and the old man too. Father, said he^ the money you have got about you, I must have at this time, but I will not wrong your children of their milk. My name is Hind, and if you will give me your forty shillings quietly, and meet me again this day s'en- night at this place, I promise to make the sum double. Only be cautious that you never mention a word of the matter to any body between this and that. At the day appointed the old man came, and Hind was as good as his word, bidding him buy two cows instead of one, and adding twenty shillings to the sum promised, that he might purchase the best in the market.

Never was highwayman more careful than Hind to avoid blood-shed, yet we have one instance in his life, that proves how hard it is for a man to engage in such an occupation, without being exposed to a sort of wretched necessity some time or other, to take away the life of another man, in order to preserve his own ; and in such a case, the argument of self-defence can be of no service to extenuate the crime, because he is only pursued by justice ; so that a highwayman who kills another man, upon whatever pretence, is as actually guilty of murder, as a man who destroys another in cold blood, without being able to give a reason for his so doing.

Hind had one morning committed several robberies in and about Maidenhead Thicket, and, among others, had stopped Colonel Harrison, a celebrated regicide, in his coach and six, and taken from him seventy odd pounds. The colonel immediately procured a hue-and- cry for taking him, which was come into that country before the captain was aware of it. However, he heard at a house of intelligence, which he always had upon every road he used, of the danger he was in ; and there- upon he instantly thought of making his escape, by riding as fast as he could from the pursuers, till he could find some safer way of concealing himself.

In this condition, the Captain was apprehensive of every man he saw. He had got no farther than a place called Knole-Hill, which is but a little way off the thicket, before he heard a man riding behind him full

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speed. It was a gentleman's servant endeavouring to overtake his master, who was gone before, with some- thing that he had forgot. Hind, just now thought of nothing but his own preservation, and therefore resolved either to ride off, or fire at the man, who he concluded was pursuing him. As the other horse was fresh, and Hind had pretty well tired his, he soon perceived the man got ground of him, upon which he pulled out a pistol, and just as the unfortunate countryman was at his horse's heels, he turned about and shot nim through the head, so that he fell down dead on the spot. The Captain, after this act, got entirely off; but it was for this that he was afterwards condemned at Reading.

After King Charles I. was beheaded, .the Scots re- ceived and acknowledged his son King Charles II. and resolved to maintain his right against the reigning usur- pation. To this end, they raised an army, and marched towards England, which they entered with great precipi- tation. Abundance of gentry, and others who were loyal in their principles, flocked to the standard of their Sovereign, and resolved to lose their lives in his service, or restore him to his dignity. Among these, Hind, who had as much natural bravery as almost any man that ever lived, resolved to try his fortune. Cromwell was sent by the parliament into the north to intercept the royal army, but in spite of that vigilant traitor's expedi- tion, the King advanced as far as Worcester, where he waited the enemy's coming.

Oliver came to Worcester soon after, and the conse- quence of the two armies meeting was a very fierce and bloody battle, in which the royalists were defeated. Hind had the good fortune to escape at that time, and came to London, where he lodged with one Mr. Denzie, a barber, opposite St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet-street, and went by the name of Brown. But he was discovered by a very intimate acquaintance. It must be granted, that he had sufficiently deserved the stroke of justice ; but there yet appears something so shocking in a breach of friendship, that we cannot help wishing somebody else had been the instrument.

As soon as he was apprehended, he was carried before the speaker of the House of Commons, who then lived

g2

1^4 CAPTAIN HIND,

in Chancery-lane, and after a long examination was committed to Newgate, and loaded with irons. He was conveyed to prison by one Captain Compton, under a strong guard ; and the warrant for his commitment com- manded that he should be kept in close confinement, and that nobody should be admitted to see him without orders.

On Friday the 12th of December, 1651, Captain James Hind was brought to the bar of the Sessions House in the Old Baily, and indicted for several crimes, but nothing being proved against him that could reach his life, he was conveyed in a coach from Newgate to * Reading in Berkshire, whereon the first of March, 1651, he was arraigned before Judge Warberton, for killing one George Sympson, at Knole, a small village in that county. The evidence here was very plain against him, and he was found guilty of wilful murder ; but an act of oblivion being issued out the next day, to forgive all former offences but those against the state, he was in great hopes of saving his life ; until by an order of council he was removed by habeas corpus to Worcester Jail.

At the beginning of September, 1652, he was con- demned for high treason, and on the 24th of the same month, he was drawn, hanged and quartered, in pur- suance of the same sentence, being thirty-four years of age. At the place of execution, he declared that most of the robberies which he had ever committed, were upon the republican party, of whose principles he professed he always had an utter abhorrence. He added, that nothing troubled him so much, as to die before he saw his royal master established on his throne, from which he was most unjustly and illegally excluded by a rebel- lious and disloyal crew, who deserved hanging more than he himself.

After he was executed, his head was set upon the bridge gate, over the river Severn, from whence it was privately taken down, and buried within a week after- wards. His quarters were put upon the other gates of the city, where they remained till they were destroyed by wind and weather.

HIGHWAYMAN. ]25

TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN HIND

By a Poet of his own Time.