2 26 THE EXETER ROAD 



about Salisbury, the Plain, Romsey, and Southamp- 

 ton, and the several roads to London, are innumer- 

 able.' 



But what local law and order could not accom- 

 plish was effected at Birmingham, to which town the 

 confederates had made a journey in the spring of 

 1778, for the purpose of selling some of the jewellery 

 and watches they had accumulated. Boulter had 

 approached a Jew dealer on the subject, and was 

 arrested, together with Caldwell, and thrown into 

 Birmingham Prison. They were sent thence to 

 Clerkenwell, from which, having already secured by 

 bribery a jeweller's saw" and cut through his irons, he 

 escaped, with two other prisoners, carrying the irons 

 away with him, and hanging them in triumph on a 

 whitethorn bush at St. Pancras. With consummate 

 impudence he took lodgings two doors away from 

 Clerkenwell Prison, and, procuring a new outfit, set 

 olf down to Dover, to take ship across the Channel. 

 But, unfortunately for him, the country was on the 

 eve of a war w^ith France, and an embargo had been 

 laid upon all shipping. He could not even secure a 

 small sailing-boat. Hurrying off to Portsmouth, he 

 found the same difficulty, and could not even get 

 across to the Isle of Wight. Thence to Bristol, 

 haunted with a constant fear of being; arrested ; luit 

 not a single vessel was leaving that port. Then it 

 occurred to him that the desolate Isle of Portland 

 was the most likely hiding-place. Setting out from 

 Bristol, he reached Bridport, and w^ent to an inn to 

 refresh himself and his horse. When he asked what 

 he could have for dinner, he was told there was a 



