Dreads and Drolls by Arthur Machen

-"Stephen M'Daniel, John Berry, James Egan (otherwise Gahagan) and James Salmon were indicted, for that, at the gaol delivery for our sovereign lord the King at the county gaol at Maidstone for the county of Kent, on Tuesday, the 13th of August, in the twenty-eighth year of our said sovereign lord the King, Peter Kelly and John Ellis were, in due form of law, indicted for a robbery on the King's highway on James Salmon, by putting him in corporal fear and danger of his life, in the parish of St. Paul, Deptford, in the county of Kent, and taking from him one linen handkerchief, value 4d., two pair of leather breeches, one clasp knife, one iron tobacco box, one silver pocket-piece, one guinea, and one half-crown; and that the said Peter Kelly and John Ellis were tried and convicted for that robbery; and that the said M'Daniel, Berry, Egan, and Salmon, on the 23rd of July, 1754, in the City of London, were accessories before this felony was committed; and feloniously and maliciously did aid, abet, assist, counsel, hire and command the said Ellis and Kelly to commit this robbery, against the peace his crown and dignity."

Thus in and these words were the Right Honourable Theodore Janssen, Esq., Lord Mayor of the City of London, and his Majesty's Justices of Oyer and Terminer introduced to what Mr. Sampson Brass would have called a pretty little conspiracy. And the person who unveiled it all, for good reasons, no doubt, pertaining to his comfort and peace of mind and of body was a Mr. Thomas Blee, who lodged at John Berry's house and did odd jobs, very odd jobs indeed, for him. It seemed that there was what we should call a Little Syndicate, consisting of Berry and his fellows at the bar of the Old Bailey. They all lived round and about Hatton Garden and the backways of Holborn, and they had quiet little drinks together over business in the taproom of the Bell and in other vanished taverns. The syndicate was in low water in July, 1754, and Berry sent his man Blee--how did Stevenson miss so wonderful a name while he was thinking of his pirates and villains at large?--to M'Daniel, and a sort of unofficial committee meeting was held. At the end of it they both said to Blee: "Tom, money grows scarce, you must give a sharp look out for a couple to go upon the scamp now, and if you cannot get two, you must get one." The "scamp," Thomas Blee explained, meant the highway. But Thomas was troubled with scruples. He told Berry and M'Daniel, as he swore, that Kidden's was so bad an affair that he did not choose to be concerned more. Kidden had been tried, condemned and executed a year before; and since secrecy is now valueless it may be mentioned that the business of Berry and his syndicate was to lure poor runagates into the commission of felony, to get them condemned and executed, and then to pocket the reward.