Upon the highway, a parson read Francis Bailey a sharp lesson that the seven pounds later taken from a wagon proved insufficient to efface.
Bailey was born in Worcestershire to parents of exceedingly mean condition. The original account relates that he could neither read nor write when first he entered the world. His parents had bound him apprentice to a baker, and his master took good care of him. Yet he abandoned this calling to enlist as a common soldier—a resolution which the chronicler characterizes as an escape into sheer idleness. Bailey nevertheless bore himself well enough in his regiment to rise to corporal, and subsequently to sergeant. He served therein for nearly twenty years and maintained, in the eyes of the military authorities, an unblemished reputation. The narrative contrasts this outwardly upright career with robberies he is said to have committed without arrest or suspicion until the final affair; it provides, however, neither a catalog nor a precise chronology of these depredations.
According to the memoir, this martial façade did not deter him from turning highwayman. His initial essay took place while his regiment was quartered in a town traversed by a major turnpike. Passing a great part of his days in complete inaction, and being unable to read or to find diversion in harmless talk, he knew not how to employ his idle hours. One evening, a comrade related the life of a notorious robber who, as the fellow claimed, had amassed seven hundred pounds before sailing for Jamaica to keep an inn. Bailey listened with greedy ears. The prospect of acquiring money without waiting for his pay seemed an easy path, provided he acted with sufficient circumspection. On the following day, he procured a horse and firearms, and set forth at dusk to stop the first traveler he might encounter.
The first traveler chanced to be a minister of the Gospel. Greatly terrified, the clergyman drew a few silver coins from his pocket and dropped them into the robber’s hat. Bailey let go of his reins to secure his booty. The parson instantly seized his advantage: spurring his mount, he struck his assailant so violent an elbow blow that he sent him tumbling backward from his saddle. The divine galloped off with his watch and nearly forty pounds in gold. Bailey had gained a handful of silver, but suffered far richer plunder to slip through his fingers. Gathering himself up, the highwayman remounted his beast and rode on for about a mile. The wagon he next encountered was conveying three or four servant-maids who had quitted their places in London to visit kinsfolk in the country, accompanied by three men. Bailey brought the carriage to a stand, rifled seven pounds from the company, and returned to his quarters. This success persuaded him that his initial mishap might easily be avoided by greater vigilance in the future.
Whenever money ran low, he had recourse to the highway. The chronicle observes that he chose never to engage in any lasting partnership with a confederate, though he had entertained the notion; this very caution, it was believed, shielded him from apprehension for several years. Yet an encounter at an alehouse was soon to impress upon him the peril of sharing a secret. Near Moorfields, he struck up an acquaintance with a lively, good-humored Irishman. They conversed for two hours, whereupon the stranger invited him to a tavern, promising to treat him to a bottle and a fowl. They supped together and parted toward midnight in high spirits, agreeing to meet again two evenings hence.
On the morrow, Bailey was upon the Barnet road, plying his customary trade. Peering over a hedge, he beheld his new companion stop a coach occupied by two gentlewomen, rifle them of their valuables, and make good his escape down a by-lane. A quarter of an hour later, Bailey himself intercepted a nobleman’s steward and robbed him of nine guineas. He then repaired to the petty brandy-shop in Piccadilly where he lodged, fully resolved to propose a partnership to the Irishman.
He waited the entire day and then repaired to their rendezvous. The man failed to appear. Bailey lingered for several hours and at length departed without having seen him. Halting at an alehouse in Fore Street, he recollected that the house where they had first met stood hard by, and thither he went to make inquiry. The landlady informed him that his companion had been carried, some three hours earlier, to a neighboring surgeon’s, having received a mortal hurt. Her husband was even then gone to visit him. Bailey knew full well that he incurred a hazard in pursuing the matter, yet curiosity prevailed over prudence.
The wounded man had just had his hurts dressed. He beckoned Bailey to his bedside and whispered to him lest he be overheard. He declared that he had received his death-wound while riding off after an attack upon a coach. He warned Bailey to take heed to himself: he had discerned that he was a brother of the road, and, as he confided, whoever imparted that secret to another laid himself bare to the law. Half an hour later, the wretch fell into fainting fits, lost the power of speech, and expired that same evening. Bailey was deeply shaken by the demise of this brief acquaintance.
Some months later, Bailey was apprehended for breaking and entering a dwelling-house in Piccadilly. He was charged with having carried off pewter, table linen, and sundry other domestic goods of great value. At the ensuing sessions, the indictment rested chiefly upon the oath of a woman whose reputation, the chronicler notes, was far from spotless. Bailey was found guilty. He freely acknowledged having committed numerous felonies for which no evidence could then be brought against him, but he denied to his dying breath any part in this particular burglary.
The Ordinary and other divines represented to him that he would be guilty of madness no less than of sin should he leave this world with a lie in his mouth. Yet Bailey persisted in repudiating that single accusation. He confessed that he had committed many grievous offenses and acknowledged that the Almighty might justly visit so shameful an end upon him; nonetheless, he maintained that the Piccadilly robbery was none of his doing. This denial could not overturn the verdict of the jury, any more than his avowed misdeeds could be transformed into judicial convictions.
On March 14, 1725, at the age of about thirty-nine years, Francis Bailey was executed at Tyburn alongside Jones, Barton, Gates, and Swift. He did not retract his denial concerning the burglary for which he had been condemned. Beside this final protestation, the chronicle sets the crimes he acknowledged against the verdict he disputed, refusing to confound the one with the other.