To quote all the accounts of such affairs would be to occupy many pages, but some remarkable instances may be given. A London paper of March, 1680, tells how “A Gentleman with some of his family being in the coach with six horses going to Newmarket, was set upon by some Highway-men, and robbed of all his Money, Watch, Rings, Stone Buttons, and a pair of Lac’d Sleeves. And about four hours after, two Coaches coming from Cambridge, the persons in them were robb’d of several hundred pounds; there were but five Highway-men, two of them setting upon one coach, and three on the other; but at their departure they were so noble as to give the two coachmen two Half-crowns, to drink their healths. The coaches were within a mile of Newmarket when they were robb’d, at a place called the Devil’s Ditch.” A parlous place, this Devil’s Ditch. It was the scene of a pitched battle between the Highway-men and the exasperated country folk in 1682. According to the _Domestic Intelligence_ of August 24th, in that year, five Highway-men robbed a coach on the Heath, and secured £59 and a very considerable booty in the way of gold lace, silks, and linen. Before they could make off with the plunder, the rustics had been roused, and were stationed in a body in the cleft of that bank, impracticable for horsemen, through which the road runs. The Highway-men were thus shut in by this stoppage of the only exit from the Heath. Had they retreated, they would have been captured in Newmarket town, and so they were forced to make a desperate dash for liberty. “Knowing themselves Dead Men by the Law, if they were taken, they charged through the Countrymen, and by Firing upon them Wounded four, one of which we since understand is Dead of his Wounds.” So these Knights of Industry got clear away, and the liberal art of robbery upon the highway continued to flourish; for, three weeks later, two gentlemen were duly reported to have been robbed of seven guineas and their watches while riding over the Heath. The professors of this art were so romantic in the eyes of youth that many a stable-boy or ostler “borrowed” a horse and took the road in admiring imitation. Daniel Wilkinson, advertised for in the _London Gazette_ during March, 1683, was probably one of these. The advertisement describes him as “a little short Man, about 26 years old, with short light brown Hair, a hairy Mould near his Chin, in a grey Hat, and Leather Breeches,” and goes on to state that he “Hired, on the 4th Instant, at Newmarket, a bald Gelding, Wall-Eyed, above 14 hands high, eight or nine Years old, of a Chesnut colour, a short Mane and short Tail, and some white about his Feet, with a Hog-skin Saddle, and a white Cotton Saddle-Cloth, to ride to Cambridge, but has not been since heard of. Whosoever gives notice of the Horse or Man at the Green Dragon in Bishop-Gate-street, or to Thomas Gambeling, at Newmarket, shall have 20_s/-._ and their Charges.”