An Enquiry into the Causes of the late Increase of Robbers/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
The great Increase of Robberies within these few Years, is an Evil which to me appears to deserve some Attention; and the rather as it seems (tho' already become so flagrant) not yet to have arrived to that Height of which it is capable, and which it is likely to attain: For Diseases in the Political, as in the Natural Body, seldom fail going on to their Crisis, especially when nourished and encouraged by Faults in the Constitution. In Fact, I make no doubt, but that the Streets of this Town, and the Roads leading to it, will shortly be impassable without the utmost Hazard; nor are we threatned with seeing less dangerous Gangs of Rogues among us, than those which the Italians call the Banditi.
Should this ever happen to be the Case, we shall have sufficient Reason to lament that Remissness by which this Evil was suffered to grow to so great a Height. All Distempers, if I may once more resume the Allusion, the sooner they are opposed, admit of the easier and the safer Cure. The great Difficulty of extirpating desperate Gangs of Robbers, when once collected into a Body, appears from our own History in former Times. France hath given us a later Example in the long Reign of Cartouche, and his Banditi; and this under an absolute Monarchy, which affords much more speedy and efficacious Remedies against these political Disorders, than can be administred in a free State, whose Forms of Correction are extremely slow and incertain, and whose Punishments are the mildest and the most void of Terror of any other in the known World.
For my own Part, I cannot help regarding these Depredations in a most serious Light: Nor can I help wondering that a Nation so jealous of her Liberties, that from the slightest Cause, and often without any Cause at all, we are always murmuring at our Superiors, should tamely and quietly support the Invasion of her Properties by a few of the lowest and vilest among us: Doth not this Situation in reality level us with the most enslaved Countries? If I am to be assaulted and pillaged, and plundered; if I can neither sleep in my own House, nor walk the Streets, nor travel in Safety; is not my Condition almost equally bad whether a licenced or unlicenced Rogue, a Dragoon or a Robber, be the Person who assaults and plunders me? The only Difference which I can perceive is, that the latter Evil appears to be more easy to remove.
If this be, as I clearly think it is, the Case, surely there are few Matters of more general Concern than to put an immediate End to these Outrages, which are already become so notorious, and which, as I have observed, do seem to threaten us with such a dangerous Increase. What indeed may not the Public apprehend, when they are informed as an unquestionable Fact, that there is at this Time a great Gang of Rogues, whose Number falls little short of a Hundred, who are incorporated in one Body, have Officers and a Treasury; and have reduced Theft and Robbery into a regular System. There are of this Society of Men who appear in all Disguises, and mix in most Companies. Nor are they better versed in every Art of Cheating, Thieving, and Robbing, than they are armed with every Method of evading the Law, if they should ever be discovered, and an Attempt made to bring them to Justice. Here, if they fail in rescuing the Prisoner, or (which seldom happens) in bribing or deterring the Prosecutor, they have for their last Resource some rotten Members of the Law to forge a Defence for them, and a great Number of false Witnesses ready to support it.
Having seen the most convincing Proofs of all this, I cannot help thinking it high Time to put some Stop to the further Progress of such impudent and audacious Insults, not only on the Properties of the Subject, but on the National Justice, and on the Laws themselves. The Means of accomplishing this (the best which suggest themselves to me) I shall submit to the public Consideration, after having first enquired into the Causes of the present Growth of this Evil, and whence we have great Reason to apprehend its further Increase. Some of these I am too well versed in the Affairs of this World to expect to see removed, but there are others, which, without being over sanguine, we may hope to remedy; and thus perhaps, one ill Consequence, at least, of the more stubborn political Diseases, may cease.