The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance

The following is from the 'Annual Register' of 1761:--"Murders, robberies--many of them attended with acts of cruelty and threatening letters--were never perhaps so frequent about this city [London] as during last month. One highwayman in particular, by the name of the Flying Highwayman, engrosses the conversation of most of the towns within twenty miles of London, as he has occasionally visited all the public roads round this metropolis, and has collected several considerable sums. He robs upon three different horses. He has leaped over Colnbrook turnpike a dozen times within this fortnight, and is now well known by most of the turnpike men in the different roads about London." Again, it is recorded that "even the toll-house keepers in London were so liable to be robbed, that they had to be furnished with arms, and enjoined to keep no money in their houses after eight o'clock at night. The boldness with which street robberies still continued to be committed was evinced so late as 1777, when the Neapolitan ambassador was robbed in his coach in Grosvenor Square by four footpads armed with pistols." But highway robbery had long been practised, even by individuals in the higher stations; and it is recorded of Sir John Falstaff, one of Shakespeare's heroes, that he was the terror of travellers on every road for a hundred miles out of London. The place chiefly identified with his exploits, however, was Gad's Hill, in Kent. Thus it will be seen that the roads leading out of London were infested by disorderly characters; and robberies of the mails proceeding to and from London were of frequent occurrence, as appears from official records referring to the close of last century and the commencement of this.