seeing an advertisement in the papers of to Day giveing an account of your being Rob’d by two Highway men on wedensday night last in Hyde Parke and during the time a Pistol being fired whether Intended or Accidentally was Doubtfull Oblidges Us to take this Method of assureing you that it was the latter and by no means Design’d Either to hurt or frighten you for tho’ we are Reduced by the misfortunes of the world and obliged to have Recourse to this method of getting money Yet we have Humanity Enough not to take any bodys life where there is Not a Nessecety for it.1 we have likewise seen the advertisem[en]t offering a Reward of twenty Guineas for your watch and sealls which are very safe and which you shall have with your sword and the coach mans watch for fourty Guineas and Not a shilling less as I very well know the Value of them and how to dispose of them to the best advantage therefor Expects as I have given You the preference that you’ll be Expeditious in your answering this which must be in the daily advertiser of monday; and now s[i]r to convince you that we are not Destitute of Honour Our selves if you will Comply with the above terms and pawn your Honour in the publick papers that you will punctually pay the fourty Guineas after you have Reced the things and not by any means Endeavour to apprehend or hurt Us I say if you will agree to all these particulars we Desire that you’ll send one of your Serv[an]ts on Monday Night Next between seven and Eight o clock to Tyburn and let him be leaning ag[ain]st One of the pillers2 with a white hankerchif in his hand by way of signall where and at which time we will meet him and Deliver him the things All safe and in an hour after we will Expect him at the same place to pay us the money Now s[i]r if by any Means we find that you Endeavour to betray Us (which we shall goe prepaird against) and in the attempt should even suceed we should leave such friends behind us who has a personall knowledge of you as would for ever seek your Destruction if you occasion ours but if you agree to the above be assured you nor none belownging to you shall Receive any or the least Injury further as we depend upon your Honour for the punctual paym[en]t of the Cash if you should in that Decieve us the Concaquence may be fattall to you–if you agree to the above terms I shall expect your answer in the following words in Mondays Daily Advertiser–Whereas I Reced a letter Dated friday Evening last sign’d A:B: and C:D: the Contents of which I promise in the most sollemn manner upon my Honour strictly to comply with. to which you are to sign your name–if you have anything to object ag[ain]st any of the above proposalls we Desire that you’ll let us know them in the Most Obscure way you Can in mondays paper but if we find no notice taken of it then they will be sold a tuesday morning for Exportation3

the same footman that was behind the Chariot when Rob’d will be Most Agreeable to Us as we Intend Repaying him a triffle we took from him–

Addressed:          To
	the Hon[oura]ble Horatio Walpole Esq[ui]r[e]

[James Maclaine and — Plunket]

Notes

• Yet we have Humanity Enough, &c: the clergyman who attended Maclaine in jail reported: ‘Murder, he said, his Soul abhorred; and that he would not have the Guilt of innocent Blood lie at his Door for a Thousand Worlds’ (— Allen, An Account of the Behaviour of Mr James Maclaine, From the Time of his Condemnation to the Day of his Execution, (London, J. Noon and A. Millar, 1750), p. 16).  [return]
• One of the pillers: that is, the upright posts of Tyburn gallows tree, where Maclaine was to suffer on 3 October in the following year. The circumstances of Maclaine’s arrest and imprisonment were described by Walpole in some of his letters of the time.  [return]
• sold ... for Exportation: The Gentleman’s Magazine for November 1749 reports that in the end, Walpole secured the return of his property for the twenty guineas he had originally offered.  [return]