particularly the clerk of the warden, who by the 1670 s was prosecuting coiners
at the Old Bailey and travelling the country to manage the trials of counterfeit-
ers and clippers at the assizes. His recompense, like the payments to private in-
dividuals, depended on the accounts he submitted to the Treasury and the
judgment of the warden of the Mint as to the legitimacy of the claims put
forward.^20
The prevalence of coining offences had the effect of increasing the number of
rewards paid in the reign of Charles II, though they remained irregular at best
and were usually late in coming.^21 Secretary Williamson did not have a great
deal of money at his disposal for the prosecution of property offenders (the pros-
ecution, for example, of robbers and burglars and housebreakers), though he
was deeply interested in combatting such crime and closely in touch with a
number of agents. Resources for such purposes became more plentiful after the
Revolution of 1689 , especially when parliament engaged more actively than
ever before in seeking solutions to the problems of crime and the weaknesses of
prosecution. Undoubtedly, the regularity with which parliament began meeting
after the Revolution provided opportunities for members with an interest in
matters of domestic social policy to initiate discussions and to offer legislation.
A large number of bills on crime and related matters were introduced in the
reigns ofWilliam and Anne, and several significant statutes were passed—many
more, certainly, than in the previous hundred years altogether.^22 Parliament
provided a platform and an opportunity for expression of new ideas and new
approaches to what appeared to be serious levels of crimes against property,
both violent offences in the streets and on the highways, and more petty and
pervasive thefts from shops and houses.
Some of the responses embodied in statutes were important for the policing
issues we are concerned with here—most especially those that aimed at pre-
venting crime by improving detection and stimulating prosecutions. Of particu-
lar importance in this regard was the introduction by statute in the reigns of
William and Mary and of Anne of a range of rewards that would be paid at the
local level by sheriffs on the presentation of a certificate signed by the trial judge.
They included forty pound rewards for the conviction of highwaymen ( 1692 ),
coiners and clippers ( 1695 ), and burglars ( 1706 ). Another statute granted a cer-
tificate of exemption from local office, popularly known as a Tyburn Ticket, for
the conviction of burglars, horse-thieves, and shoplifters ( 1699 ).^23
The introduction of rewards paid by the state for the conviction of serious of-
fenders altered the context of prosecution. A number of other developments in
Detection and Prosecution 231(^20) CTB 1669 – 72 , pp. 952 – 3 , 966 , 979 , 990 , 1,023, 1,096, 1,102, 1,107, 1,135, 1,156, 1,181, 1,337, 1,298;
CTB 1672 – 5 , p. 483.
(^21) CTB 1672 – 5 , p. 427 ; CTB 1681 – 5 , pp. 531 – 2 ; CTB 1685 – 9 , pp. 673 , 1330 , 1379.
(^22) Beattie, ‘London Crime and the Making of the “Bloody Code” ’, 49 – 76 ; and below, Ch. 7.
(^234) & 5 Wm and Mary, c. 8 ( 1692 ), s. 2 ; 6 & 7 Wm III, c. 17 ( 1695 ), s. 9 ; 10 & 11 Wm III, c. 23 ( 1699 ),
s. 2 ; 5 Anne, c. 31 ( 1706 ), s. 1. For the reward system, see Radzinowicz, History, ii. ch. 3 ; Langbein, ‘Struc-
turing the Eighteenth-Century Criminal Trial’, 106 – 10 ; Beattie, Crime and the Courts, 50 – 5.