Larwood says that robberies in Hyde Park were so common in the reign of William III. that the King ordered the Guards to patrol the Park till eleven o’clock at night, and “In addition to this a guard house was built in the Park in 1699, ‘for securing the road against footpads, who,’ according to the _London Post_, Dec. 16, 1699, ‘continue to be very troublesome.’” This assertion may be correct, but there is no mention of it in the newspaper named, nor in any other contemporaneous journal; nor can I find any account of a highway robbery in the Park in Feb., 1749. _The Penny London Post_, 12-15 May, 1749, says, “On Wednesday Night (May 10) Mr. Hoskins, a Pale Ale Brewer in Tyburn Road, was robbed by three footpads near the Serpentine River, in Hyde Park, of a purse of silver, to the amount of eighteen pounds, which he had a little before received at a Publick house at Kensington.” But a famous person, no less than Horace Walpole, was robbed in the Park, on Nov. 8, 1749, of which he gives the following account, in his _Short Notes_. “One night, in the beginning of November, 1749, as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten at night, I was attacked by two highwaymen (McLean and Plunket) in Hyde Park, and the pistol of one of them (the accomplished McLean) going off accidentally, grazed the skin under my eye, left some marks of shot on my face, and stunned me. The ball went through the top of the chariot, and, if I had sat an inch nearer to the left side, must have gone through my head.” _The General Advertiser_ of Nov. 15, 1749, says: “We hear that the Hon. Horace Walpole Esq^{re}, who was lately robb’d in Hyde Park, has received a letter, intimating that if he would send his Footman, to a House in Tyburn Road, with 30 Guineas he should have his Watch restor’d, and also that of his Coachman, provided the Footman behaved as directed in the said letter.” In No. 103 of _The World_ (Dec. 19, 1754) this robbery is commented on. “An acquaintance of mine was robbed a few years ago, and very near shot through the head by the going off of the pistol of the accomplished Mr. MCLEAN; yet the whole affair was conducted with the greatest good breeding on both sides. The robber, who had only taken a purse _this way_ because he had that morning been disappointed of marrying a great fortune, no sooner returned to his lodgings than he sent the gentleman two letters of excuses, which, with less wit than the epistles of Voiture, had ten times more natural and easy politeness in the turn of their expression. In the postscript he appointed a meeting at Tyburn, at twelve at night, where the gentleman might _purchase again_ any trifles he had lost; and my friend has been blamed for not accepting the rendezvous, as it seemed liable to be construed by ill-natured people into a doubt of the _honour_ of a man who had given him all the satisfaction in his power, for having, _unluckily_, been near shooting him through the head.”