reinstated him in the following April, when he claimed to have a plan that would
rid the City of most of its thieves.^117 It seems likely that the aldermen were not so
much concerned to protect Hitchen himself as they were anxious to ensure that
the office of under-marshal retained its market value since the City received a
portion of the proceeds of its sale, even though the transaction was between the
holder and the purchaser. They may have been concerned that prospective
under-marshals would be discouraged from paying a reasonable sum if Hitchen
was more seriously punished. At any event, when Hitchen’s accusers reminded
the aldermen that they had ‘been at great pains in getting severall matteriall In-
formations upon Oath, laid before the said Committee, against the said Hitchin
in order to Convict him’, the aldermen simply left it to them to ‘prosecute him
if they think fit’.^118
Hitchen survived, though he was soon to be eclipsed as a thief-taker and go-
between by Jonathan Wild. Despite his obvious familiarity with some aspects of
the London underworld, Hitchen does not appear to have prosecuted actively
for rewards. He did not deal with robbers or the kinds of serious offenders whose
convictions would have brought a handsome payment from the sheriff of Lon-
don. In this he differed from Wild, who got his start in 1713 as Hitchen’s assistant
and took advantage of the marshal’s suspension to extend his activities. He soon
outstripped his master in ambition and daring. Within a few years Wild was
organizing the return of stolen goods on a much larger scale than anyone had ever
attempted, using the press to good advantage. But he also engaged in the pros-
ecution of serious offenders, partly for the rewards (which after 1720 included
the hugely attractive sum of a hundred pounds for each convicted robber who
had committed an offence in London)^119 and partly as a way of imposing con-
trol over active thieves and robbers to force them to turn their stolen goods over
to him. This pattern of extortion, prosecution, compounding, and acting as a
go-between was revealed in contemporary accounts of Wild’s career, and it has
been sufficiently examined in modern work.^120 But it is worth emphasizing
about Wild that he combined at an apparently new level the two sides of the
thief-taker’s practice as they had developed over the previous two decades: pros-
ecution for rewards; and mediation between thieves and victims in return for a
fee based on the value of the stolen objects.
It was Wild’s more elaborate and more effective organizing of the return of
stolen goods that Hitchen had attacked in a pamphlet of 1718. He wrote it to
eliminate a business rival. But its publication may also have been related to
under-marshal Hitchen’s need to repair bridges with his employers, the Court
Detection and Prosecution 255(^117) Rep 118 , pp. 55 , 219. The Court of Aldermen noted in February 1713 that Hitchen offered ‘to make
Discoveries of great Numbers ofThieves, Burglars, Pick-Pockets and other Felons in and about this City,
and of persons who receive and harbour them, and that he can propound a Method of Suppressing
them’ (Rep 117 , p. 129 ).
(^118) Rep 117 , pp. 279 – 82 ; CLRO, Papers of the Court of Aldermen, 1712 (Memorial of Billers et al.).
(^119) See Ch. 8. (^120) See Howson, Thief-Taker General.