The defence of an alibi was very frequently pleaded by highwaymen, and the tradition of its utility may explain why that veteran and astute coachman, Mr. Weller, suggested it in the case of "Bardell _v._ Pickwick." In one genuine case, however, it nearly failed, and two innocent men were all but sacrificed to mistaken identity. They had been arrested for having robbed, on the Uxbridge road, a learned sergeant-at-law, Sir Thomas Davenport, who swore positively to both. His evidence was corroborated by that of Lady Davenport, and by the coachman and footman. Also the horses ridden by the supposed highwaymen, one a brown and the other a gray, were produced in the Old Bailey courtyard, and sworn to. Yet it was satisfactorily proved that both the prisoners were respectable residents of Kentish town; that one, at the exact time of the robbery, was seated at table dining at some club anniversary dinner, and never left the club-room; that the other was employed continuously in the bar of a public-house kept by his mother. It was proved too that the prisoners owned a brown and a gray horse respectively. The judge summed up in the prisoners' favour, and they were acquitted. But both suffered severe mental trouble from the unjust accusation. A few years later the actual robbers were convicted of another offence, and in the cells of Newgate confessed that it was they who had stopped Sir Thomas Davenport. A very notorious highwayman, who had also been in service at one time of his varied career, was James Maclane. He was the son of a dissenting minister in Monaghan, and had a brother a minister at The Hague. Maclane inherited a small fortune, which he speedily dissipated, after which he became a gentleman's butler, lost his situation through dishonesty, determined to enlist in the Horse Guards, abandoned the idea, and turned fortune-hunter. He was a vain man, of handsome exterior, which he decked out in smart clothes on borrowed money. He succeeded at length in winning the daughter of a respectable London horse-dealer, and with her dowry of £500 set up in business as a grocer. His wife dying early, he at once turned his stock in trade into cash, and again looked to win an heiress, "by the gracefulness of his person and the elegance of his appearance." He was at last reduced to his last shilling, and being quite despondent, an Irish apothecary, who was a daring robber, persuaded him to take to the highway. One of his earliest exploits was to stop Horace Walpole when the latter was passing through Hyde Park. A pistol went off accidentally in this encounter, and the bullet not only grazed Walpole's cheek-bone, but went through the roof of the carriage. At this time Maclane had a lodging in St. James's Street, for which he paid two guineas a week; his accomplice Plunkett lived in Jermyn Street. "Their faces," says Horace Walpole, "are as well known about St. James's as any gentleman's who lives in that quarter, and who perhaps goes upon the road too."