Contemporary literature shews how lamentably insecure life and property had become in the days of the later Stuarts, and during the early Georgian period. Luttrell's diary is one long catalogue of crimes of violence, and he remarks, from his own experience, that "footpads are very troublesome in the evening on all the roads leading to the city, which renders them very unsafe." In his history of England, Smollet declares that "thieves and robbers are now become more desperate and savage than they had ever appeared since mankind was civilized." No thoroughfare was free from the tyranny of the fraternity of highwaymen, who were allowed to terrorize whole districts, and who enjoyed an almost unlimited freedom from interference. As their depredations grew more extensive, their insolence increased. Evelyn describes how a gang of robbers succeeded in appropriating the taxes that had been collected in the northern counties, as the bags containing the money were being escorted through Hertfordshire, on their way to London: the highwaymen first stopped and secured all travellers in the immediate neighbourhood, placed them under guard in a field, and after killing the horses of their captives to prevent pursuit, attacked the escort, put them to flight, and captured the treasure. The authors of this outrage were never caught. Troops were sometimes made use of in a half-hearted sort of way to patrol the most infested localities, but the simple remedy of maintaining a properly paid and equipped police was never tried: the only expedient that the wisdom of the age could suggest was the offering of rewards to all and sundry to encourage the apprehending of highwaymen. This disastrous policy was inaugurated in 1692.[140] "Whereas the highways and roads," runs the preamble of the statute in question, "within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales have been of late times more infested with thieves and robbers than formerly, for want of due and sufficient encouragement given, and means used, for the discovery of such offenders," provision is accordingly made, that in the event of any person being killed in the act of taking a highwayman, his executors shall have the reward, and a free pardon is promised to accomplices and other criminals who shall cause such offenders to be brought to justice. The conditions under which this pardon was granted were as follows: "If any person or persons, being out of prison from and after the said five-and-twentieth day of March, commit any robbery and afterwards discover two or more persons, who already hath or hereafter shall commit any robbery, so as two or more of the persons discovered shall be convicted of such robbery--any such discoverer shall himself have, and be entitled to, the gracious pardon of their Majesties."