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to be atheistical and traitorous.

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 fellowtradesman

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 drawingrooms;

musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search for contraband

goods, and the mob