Page:Life and adventures of that notorious robber and murderer, Richard Turpin.pdf/16

Rh that thicket. “No,” said Morris; “but I have found a Turpin;” and presenting his gun, required him to surrender. The other thereupon spoke to him, as in a friendly manner, and gradually retreated at the same time, till, having seized his own gun, he shot him dead upon the spot, and the higgler ran off with the utmost precipitation.

This murder being represented to the secretary of State, the following proclamation was issued by government.— “It having been represented to the King, that Richard Turpin did on Wednesday, the 4th of May last, murder Thomas Morris, servant to Mr. Henry Thompson, one of the keepers of Epping Forest, and the same Richard Turpin continually committing notorious felonies and robberies near London, his Majesty is pleased to promise his most gracious pardon to any of his accomplices, and a reward of 200l. to any person or persons that shall discover him, so that he may be apprehended and convicted. Turpin was born at Thaxted, in Essex; he is about thirty, by trade a butcher, about five feet nine inches high, very much marked with the small-pox, his cheek-bones broad, his face thinner towards the bottom, his visage short: he stands nearly upright, and is broad about the shoulders.”

Turpin, to avoid the proclamation, went farther into the country in search of his old companion, King; sending a letter to his wife, to meet him at a public-house at Hertford. She attended to this direction; and her husband coming into the house soon after she arrived, a butcher, to whom he owed 5l,