In England there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers’ warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman, whom he stopped in his character of “the Captain,” gallantly shot him through the head and rode away;* the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, “in consequence of the failure of his ammunition” — after which the mail was robbed in peace;* that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue;* prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball;* thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms;* musketeers went into St Giles’s to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob,* and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way.
* Dickens is perhaps referring to the events of January 4th, 1775, as noted in the Annual Register. “Mr Brower, print-cutter, near Aldersgate Street, was attacked on the road to Enfield by a single highwayman, whom he recollected to be a tradesman in the city; he accordingly called him by his name, when the robber shot himself through the head.” Dickens’s ending is more alarming and less tragic.
* This happened on December 5th 1775, when the Norwich stage was waylaid in Epping Forest. “The Norwich stage was this morning attacked, on Epping forest, by seven highwaymen, three of whom were shot dead by the guard; but his ammunition failing, he was shot dead himself, and the coach robbed by the Survivors.”
* The Mayor, John Sawbridge, was assaulted in 1776, not the year before; not unreasonably, Dickens crams his sensational events into 1775 for dramatic purposes.
* On March 14th, 1775, Robert Rous, a turnkey (warder) in Southwark gaol, noticed that some inmates had sawn through their manacles. Investigation revealed more cases, and soon a full-scale riot was in progress. Rous managed to restrict the inmates to one room, but they had managed to get hold of firearms, and fired through the windows at the turnkeys and constables gathered in the prison yard. One policeman fired a blunderbuss (a kind of shotgun) in reply. The riot was quelled by troops summoned from the Tower of London.
* On June 22nd, 1775, there was a smart party for the birthday of King George III at St James’s Palace. During the festivities, “Lord Stormont’s St Andrew’s cross, set round with diamonds, and appended to his ribbon of the order of the Thistle, was cut from it, at Court, by some sharpers, who made off with it undiscovered”.
* On September 27th 1775 customs officers raided a house in Buckridge Street, St Giles, one of London’s most wretched slums, and came away with eight pounds of contraband tea. There were strict controls at the time, requiring tea to be trafficked through the Government’s partner agency, the East India Company. It was this regulation that sparked The Boston Tea Party in 1773.