3-074-829 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The King's Highway, drawn by F. Dadd, 1883. 'In those very good old days...when the invalid officer from the Peninsular War...was met at Dover by his father, the Rector, with his mother, sister, and little brother...it was quite possible for the travelling party to have a disagreeable adventure on the road...there were [also] two outside passengers, a lawyer and a farmer, each carrying a pretty sum of money...while the Major had just drawn his pay; so that the total amount of plunder for the highwaymen would be nearly a thousand guineas. A couple of those romantic rascals, mounted on fine blood horses, and armed with the long-barrelled flint-lock pistols of the period, their faces partially veiled..., have ridden after the coach, and, by threats of shooting the driver, have brought it to a stand. The Major has jumped out and valiantly striven to disarm the foremost assailant, but has received a disabling wound in the right hand, perhaps by the cut of a knife, while endeavouring to wrest away the pistol from the robber's grasp...the clergyman and the attorney...and the sturdy countryman...consent to give up the contents of their purses, with their silver watches and seals, rather than get a bullet lodged in the vital organs of the body'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.