James MacLaine

"Captain" James Maclaine (occasionally "Maclean", "MacLean", or "Maclane") (1724 – 3 October 1750) was an Irish man of a respectable presbyterian family who had a brief but notorious career as a mounted highwayman in London with his accomplice William Plunkett. He was known as "The Gentleman Highwayman" as a result of his courteous behaviour during his robberies, and obtained a certain kind of celebrity. Notoriously, he held up and robbed Horace Walpole at gunpoint: eventually he was hanged at Tyburn.

The film ''Plunkett & Macleane'' was based loosely on his exploits.

Young life

Maclaine was the younger of two sons of a Scots-Irish presbyterian minister, the Revd. Thomas (?or Lauchlin) Maclaine of 1st Monaghan Presbyterian Church in Ireland. His mother, Elizabeth (née Milling) died when he was five or six years old, and his father when he was sixteen or seventeen. He came of a family of many ministers, his grandfather (a Gaelic-speaking clergyman in the Church of Scotland) having received a calling to Ireland from Argyllshire in 1698. His elder brother Archibald Maclaine (1722-1804) was educated in Glasgow and followed his own vocation as presbyterian minister, scholar and royal preceptor in the Netherlands between 1746 and 1796, famous as the first translator (1765) of Johann Lorenz von Mosheim's ''Ecclesiastical History'' (of 1726).

Educated to become a merchant, James Maclaine frittered away his inheritance in Dublin on fine clothes, gambling and prostitutes. Such inheritance as James received had mostly been dissipated by the time he was 20, and his mother's relations soon quarreled with him and refused to give him any assistance. He attached himself to the domestic service of a Mr Howard in order to travel to England, and stayed with him for a while, but got into low company and, leaving without testimonials, returned to Ireland. His mother's kin still refusing to help, his brother sent him subsidies and letters of good advice from The Hague: these proving insufficient, he considered joining the Irish Brigade in the French army, but was told that he would make little progress with them unless he became a Roman Catholic, which he was unwilling to do.

He next persuaded his old master, Colonel T-----n, to take him to England as a domestic servant, planning to acquire his fortune through an advantageous marriage. He borrowed money from the Colonel to purchase a commission, but that went the same way, and he considered enlisting in Lord Albemarle's horse troops. He disgraced himself by having an affair with an officer's wife. His friends in London raised a small subscription to enable him to ship for Jamaica, but he took the money to the Masquerades (i.e. the public gardens) and squandered it at the gaming tables. At length he found himself a wife, the daughter of an innkeeper or horse-dealer in Oxford Road, London, whom he married in about 1746.

With the dowry of five hundred pounds Maclaine set himself up as a grocer in Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square. This was no great success, however, as he did not apply himself very much, though his neighbours could not afterwards point to any real misdemeanour in his behaviour at that time. Two daughters were born to them, one of whom survived, but his wife died within three years. His mother-in-law, who had a good opinion of Maclaine, took charge of the surviving daughter. It was during his wife's illness that he met William Plunkett, an apothecary, who attended her. His business failing, owing (by his own account) to "an unavoidable trust reposed in servants", he sold off his stock and with whatever remained he turned his mind again to a military career.

However, in passing himself off as a young gentleman in search of another wealthy wife, he had neither the funds nor the habitude necessary to rise above the accompanying inducements to profligacy. Plunkett is said to have acted the part of gentleman's assistant as Maclaine, immaculately presented, paid court to a young lady worth more than £10,000 a year; but on one occasion when they had followed her to a spa, Maclaine had an argument with an apothecary in the public rooms. This person employed a military man to kick Maclaine down the stairs, while stating publicly that he knew Maclaine had been a footman only a few years previously. Plunkett and Maclaine were obliged to make a hasty and informal departure.

Highwayman

By his own account, Maclaine embarked on his career of crime about six months after his wife's death. At his interrogation he was encouraged to lay evidence against his accomplices, and at his trial he sought to lay a good deal of the blame for his course of life upon Plunkett (who was never caught or tried), so his narrative may not be entirely accurate. He claimed that Plunkett, a fellow-Irishman, had led him to believe he had travelled abroad, and persuaded Maclaine to employ him in his household and to lend him £100, part of which was paid back sporadically. Maclaine explained his melancholy to Plunkett as his money was running out, and Plunkett replied,

"Honey, I thought, Maclean, thou hadst Spirit and Resolution, with some Knowledge of the World. A brave Man cannot want; he has a Right to live, and need not want the Conveniencies of Life, while the dull, plodding, busy Knaves carry Cash in their Pockets. We must draw upon them to supply our Wants, there need only Impudence, and getting the better of a few silly Scruples; there is scarce Courage necessary, all we have to deal with are such mere Poltroons."

Accordingly, Plunkett and Mclaine joined together and went on the road as highwaymen, agreeing to share the spoils equally. They wore Venetian masks to cover their faces. Their first enterprise was on Hounslow Heath, where they held up a grazier coming away from Smithfield Market, and relieved him of £60. This was so successful that they decided to continue, and their next action was to hold up a coach on the road coming into London from St Albans. They approached on horseback from either side with pistols drawn. Maclaine said he was so nervous that it was left to Plunkett to call out the demands. Plunkett began to upbraid him for his lack of courage, and Maclaine cried out "He needs must whom the devil drives. I am over shoes and must over boots."

Afterwards, to prove himself, Maclaine alone held up a gentleman on horseback in Hyde Park and relieved him of his money and his watch. They committed around 20 highway robberies in six months, often in the then-relatively untamed Hyde Park: their victims included Sir Thomas Robinson of Vienna, and Mrs Talbot. Maclaine was only once in fear of being discovered. To allay suspicion he stayed awhile with his brother in Holland, giving him a false account of his means of living, and was introduced to polite dancing assemblies, where various purses and watches went missing.

In November 1749 occurred their most famous exploit, when, in Hyde Park between 9 and 10 o'clock at night, they held up the writer and antiquary Horace Walpole. One pointed a blunderbuss at the coachman, while the other put his pistol through the window of the carriage. Walpole wrote,

"One night, in the beginning of November, 1749, as I was returning from Holland House by moonlight, about ten o'clock, I was attacked by two highwaymen in Hyde Park, and the pistol of one of them going off accidentally, raised the skin under my eye, left some marks of shot in my face, and stunned me. The ball went through the top of the chariot, and if I had sat an inch nearer to the left side, must have gone through my head."'Letters nos. 310-314, to Sir Horace Mann', in P. Cunningham (ed.), ''The Letters of Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford'', 9 Vols (John Grant, Edinburgh 1906), II
pp. 218-230, passim
(Internet Archive).

They took his watch and purse, his sword, and some money from the footman. Soon afterwards, Maclaine sent Walpole a letter (as from "A.B. and C.D.") offering him first refusal to buy back his stolen possessions, indicating that he should send a servant with the money to a rendezvous at Tyburn, and threatening fatal consequences to Walpole if he betrayed them. He suggested he sent the footman, as he wanted to give the man his money back.

The thieves were often restrained and courteous, earning Maclaine the sobriquet "The Gentleman Highwayman". Living in St James's Street (next door to White's), he was now passing himself off as an Irish gentleman worth £700 a year, and he and Plunkett (who had lodgings in Jermyn Street) were said to be well-known figures about St James's. Maclaine kept company with some noted "Ladies of the Town", and also with certain "Women of Fortune and Reputation" who were so unguarded as to admit him to their society. He worked his way into the affections of a Lady who deserved better, but she was saved from ruin when a gentleman revealed to her Maclaine's character. He had a sufficiently low opinion of Maclaine's respectability that he was able to decline the duel which Maclaine consequently offered him. This may have been a different challenge to that which Maclaine offered to a British officer at Putney Bowling Green in the spring of 1750. The officer, who had disparaged him, declined to fight him until he should give proof of his respectable origins. Maclaine had recently obtained a certificate attesting to his descent from the nobility.Cunningham, ''Letters of Horace Walpole'', II
pp. 218-19
(Internet Archive).

Arrest and examinations

On 26 June 1750, Plunkett and Maclaine held up the coach of the Earl of Eglinton on Hounslow Heath. Plunkett went forward of the carriage and took hold of the postilion, so that Lord Eglinton, who was carrying his famous blunderbuss, could not fire at him without killing his own servant. Maclaine, who was behind, commanded his Lordship to throw his blunderbuss out of the chaise, or he would "blow his brains through his face". They took the blunderbuss, together with a portmanteau

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