i66 THE COACHING ERA 



and his accomplice, Plunkett, robbed the Salisbury- 

 stage-coach on Turnham Green. Amongst the booty 

 they took a trunk of fine clothes belonging to one of 

 the passengers, and these Maclean sold on his return 

 to London. The rightful owner of them, however, 

 promptly advertised his loss, which resulted in their 

 recovery, and the arrest of the highwayman at his 

 fashionable lodgings in St. James's Street. Maclean 

 indignantly asked: "What should a gentleman like my- 

 self know of highway robbery?" A blunderbuss, twenty- 

 three purses and other stolen property supplied adequate 

 answer, despite the faft that several society ladies gave 

 witness as to the integrity of the "captain's" charadler. 



All fashionable London flocked to see the captured 

 highwayman in his cell. The first Sunday after his 

 imprisonment he had three thousand visitors according 

 to Horace Walpole, who says: "The chief personages 

 who have been to comfort and weep over the fallen hero 

 are Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe — I call 

 them "Polly" and "Lucy," and ask them if he did not 

 sing: "Thus I stand like the Turk with his doxies 

 around? " 



Polly and Lucy were two charafters in the popular 

 Beggar^s Opera which Gay had written to poke fun 

 at highwaymen. When it was finished Congreve said: 

 "It will either take greatly or be damned confoundedly." 

 It proved an instant success, so much so that the 

 Bow Street magistrates endeavoured to get it sup- 

 pressed on the grounds that its continued produdlion 

 would tend to increased highway robbery. 



