murdered, and not a few deaths were the outcome of private and party hatred. Municipal law was set at defiance, and any small body of desperadoes could do as they liked unchecked, unless they happened to be providentially opposed by equal or superior force, when they generally turned tail, for their practice was not to fight so much as to beat and plunder the defenceless. Here is a notice which speaks volumes for the state of affairs. It is published in the London Gazette, and bears date March 29, 1688:—
WHEREAS a Gentleman was, on the eighteenth at night, mortally wounded near Lincoln’s Inn, in Chancery Lane, in view as is supposed of the coachman that set him down: these are to give notice that the said coachman shall come in and declare his knowledge of the matter; if any other person shall discover the said coachman to John Hawles, at his chamber in Lincoln’s Inn, he shall have 5 guineas reward.