The very general idea that the highwayman ended with the close of the eighteenth century is an altogether erroneous one, and has already been abundantly disproved in these pages. They not only continued into the nineteenth century, but were very numerously executed for their crimes. Early among those who belong to that era were John Beatson and William Whalley. Theirs is a sad tale of business failure and of a desperate recourse to the road, rather than the story of professional highwaymen.

John Beatson was a Scotsman, who had in his youth been a sailor in the merchant service, and had made many voyages to India and other tropical countries. Tired at last of the sea, he settled at Edinburgh, where he established himself as an innkeeper at the "College Tavern." There he carried on a successful business for many years, and only relinquished it at last in favour of his adopted son, William Whalley Beatson, who for some time carried it on happily and profitably with his wife. Unhappily, his wife died, and when he was left alone it was soon seen, in the altered circumstances of the house, that it was she, rather than her husband, who had in the last few years kept the inn going. Left alone, and incapable of managing the domestic side of the house, he was taken advantage of by the servants, who robbed him at every opportunity; and, in short, in every respect the "College Tavern" declined and ceased to pay its way. He gave it up and went to London, with the idea of entering the wine and spirit trade there. Arrived in London, he took a business in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, and, finding it uncongenial, sold it to a man and accepted six months' bills in payment. The purchaser went bankrupt within three months, throwing Beatson himself into difficulties. At this juncture of affairs he consulted with his adopted father as to what was to be done, and the upshot of their long and anxious deliberations was that there was no help for it but to try and retrieve their fortunes by robbing upon the King's highway. Their first essay in this new business was begun on July 18th, 1801, when they travelled from London to the "Rose and Crown" at Godstone, Surrey, staying there the night. The next morning they set off on foot, and at midday were at the "Blue Anchor," on the road to East Grinstead. They dined there, and asked questions about the mail, and did not leave until six o'clock. Between eight and nine o'clock they were seen on East Grinstead Common. Half an hour after midnight, the postboy who drove the mail-cart was stopped by two men near Forest Row, south of East Grinstead. They produced a pistol and threatened him with it if he refused to give up the bags. Then, he unresisting, they led the horse into a meadow, where they took the bags and carried them off. It was afterwards found that they had walked no less a distance than six miles with them. They were afterwards found in a wheatfield near the village of Hartfield, the letters strewn about in the corn.

They had taken all the Bank of England notes, and notes issued by country banks, and had left drafts and bills of exchange worth upwards of £9,500.

The next morning the two Beatsons appeared at the "Chequers" at Westerham, in a very exhausted condition, and had breakfast. With the excuse that they were Deptford people, and under the necessity of reaching the dockyard there in a hurry, they hastily hired a horse and trap, paying for their refreshment with a £2 note, and for the hire with one for £5.

The people of the "Chequers" inn thought it strange, when their man returned, to hear that he had driven them, not to the dockyard at Deptford, but to a coach-office in the town, where they had at once taken places in a coach for London.

The fugitives did not hurry themselves when they reached town. On the evening of their arrival, it was afterwards discovered, the elder purchased a pair of shoes at a shop in Oxford Street, paying for them with a £10 Bank of England note. They employed their time in London in a shopping campaign, purchasing largely and always tendering bank-notes, with the object of accumulating a large sum of money in gold, by way of change.

At the end of this week they procured a horse and gig and left London, saying they intended to travel to Ireland. Meanwhile, the loss of so many bank-notes had been widely advertised and the good faith of persons who presented any of them for payment enquired into. The movements of the men who had stopped the driver of the mail-cart and robbed him were traced, and soon the Holyhead Road was lively with the pursuit of them.

They arrived at Knutsford, in Cheshire, only a short time before the coming of the mail-coach bringing particulars of the robbery. Before that, however, they had attracted a considerable deal of notice by their singular behaviour at the "George" inn, where they had put up. To draw attention by peculiarities of dress or demeanour is obviously the grossest folly in fugitive criminals, whose only chance of safety lies in unobtrusive manners and appearance. That would appear to be obvious to the veriest novices in crime. But the Beatsons were no doubt by this time agitated by the serious position in which they had irretrievably placed themselves, and in so nervous a state that they really had not full command of their actions. They adopted a hectoring manner at the inn, and on the road had attracted unfavourable notice by the shameful way in which they had treated their horse.

On the arrival of the mail containing the official notices of the robbery and descriptions of the two men concerned in it, the appearance of these two men with the gig seemed so remarkably like that of the robbers, that a Post Office surveyor was sent after them. They had already left Knutsford, and had to be followed to Liverpool, where they were discovered at an inn, and arrested.

The mere hasty preliminary inspection of their travelling valise was sufficient to prove that these were the men sought for. Bank-notes to the amount of £1,700 were discovered, wrapped round by one of the letters stolen; and the purchases of jewellery and other articles carried with them were valued at another £1,300.

Taken back to London, the prisoners were charged in the first instance at Bow Street, and then committed for trial at Horsham. An attempt they made to escape from Horsham gaol was unsuccessful, and they were found hiding in a sewer. Their trial took place before Mr. Baron Hotham on March 29th, 1802. No fewer than thirty witnesses were arrayed against them; chiefly London tradesmen, from whom they had made purchases and tendered notes in payment. There could hardly ever have been a clearer case, and the result of the trial was never for a moment in doubt.

The affectionate efforts of the elder man to shield his adopted son drew tears from many eyes, but the readiness of that "son" to take advantage of them and to throw the guilt upon him excited, naturally enough, much unfavourable comment. Two statements had been prepared and written by the prisoners, and both were read by the younger in court. The first was by John Beatson, who declared himself to be guilty, but his "son" innocent. Whalley's own statement, to the same effect, went into a detailed story of how his "father" had given him a large number of the notes, and had told him they were part of a large remittance he had lately received from India.

The story was so clumsy and unconvincing, and the story told by the prosecution so complete in every detail, that both prisoners were speedily found guilty. They were condemned to death, and were hanged on Saturday, April 7th, 1802, at Horsham, before a crowd of three thousand people. The elder Beatson was seventy years of age and the younger but twenty-seven.