HIGHWAYMEN 165 



The " High Toby" profession was, in fa6l, filled to 

 overflowing ; Macaulay says mounted highwaymen were 

 to be found on every main road, Hounslow Heath, 

 Finchley Common, Epping Forest, Maidenhead 

 Thicket, and Gadshill^ being of special ill-repute. 



Horace Walpole wrote that, if the squires did not 

 leave off shooting partridges and take to shooting high- 

 waymen instead, society would be dissolved. In a letter 

 to Sir Horace Mann, he declared "Our roads are so 

 infested by highwaymen that it is dangerous stirring out 

 almost by day. Lady Hertford was attacked on Houn- 

 slow Heath at three in the afternoon. Dr. Eliot was 

 shot at three days ago, without having resisted, and the 

 day before yesterday we were near losing our Prime 

 Minister, Lord North; the robbers shot at the postilion, 

 and wounded the latter. In short all the free-booters 

 that are not in India have taken to the highway. The 

 ladies of the Bedchamber dare not go to the Queen at 

 Kew in the evening. The lane between me and the 

 Thames is the only safe road I know at present, for it is 

 up to the middle of the horses in water." 



Walpole was himself robbed by Maclean "the gentle- 

 man highwayman," who excused his condudl by saying 

 that he had that morning been " disappointed of 

 marrying a great fortune." Maclean was a poor high- 

 wayman, but possessing a good figure and fine clothes, 

 he sought industriously for an heiress, and then in 

 despair took to "the road." On June 26th, 1750, Maclean 



^ It is on Gadshill that Falstaff and his companions rob the 

 travellers in King Henry IV. Act II. Scene II. 



