Determined efforts were made from time to time to put down these robberies, which were often so disgracefully prevalent that people hardly dared to travel along the roads. Parties of horse were quartered in most of the towns along the great highways. Handsome rewards were offered for the apprehension of offenders. A proclamation promised £10 for every highwayman taken, and this was ere long increased to £40, to be given to any who might supply information leading to an arrest. Horses standing at livery in and about London, whose ownership was at all doubtful, were seized on suspicion, and often never claimed. It was customary to parade before Newgate persons in custody who were thought to be highwaymen. They were shown in their riding-dresses with their horses, and all gentlemen who had been robbed were invited to inspect this singular exhibition.[71] But the practice flourished in spite of all attempts at repression. One or two types of the highwaymen of the seventeenth century may here be fitly introduced. One of the earliest and most celebrated was Jack Cottington, alias Mulled Sack, who had been a depredator throughout the Commonwealth epoch, and who enjoyed the credit of having robbed Oliver Cromwell himself on Hounslow Heath. His confederate in this, Horne, [Illustration: “MULLED SACK.”] once a captain in Downe’s foot regiment, was overtaken, captured, and hanged, but Cottington escaped. Jack Cottington began as a chimney-sweep, first as an apprentice, then on his own account, when he gained his soubriquet from his powers in drinking mulled sack. From this he graduated, and soon gained a high reputation as a pickpocket, his chief hunting-ground being churches and puritan meeting-houses, which he frequented demurely dressed in black with a black _roquelaire_. He succeeded in robbing Lady Fairfax of a gold watch set with diamonds and a gold chain as she was on her way to Dr. Jacomb’s lecture at Ludgate; and a second time by removing the lynch-pin from her Ladyship’s carriage when on her way to the same church, he upset the coach, and giving her his arm, relieved her of another gold watch and seals. After this he became the captain of a gang of thieves and night prowlers, whom he organized and led to so much purpose that they alarmed the whole town. His impudence was so great that he was always ready to show off his skill as a thief in any public-house if he was paid for it, in a performance he styled “moving the bung.” He was not content to operate in the city, but visited the Parliament House and Courts of Law at Westminster, and was actually caught in the act of picking the Protector’s pocket. He narrowly escaped hanging for this, and on coming out of gaol took permanently to the highway, where he soon achieved a still greater notoriety. With half-a-dozen comrades he robbed a government waggon conveying money to the army, and dispersed the twenty troopers who escorted it, by attacking them as they were watering their horses.