396 Crime and the State
to victims of offences about the prosecution system in London and to save them
from ‘the oppressive and dishonest Practices of the Tribe of Sollicitors, in pros-
ecutions of Felony about this City’.^88 Though not a lawyer, as he said, the author
had clearly had some experience of the courts. He had also read William
Hawkins’ Pleas of the Crown, the first volume of which had been published ten
years earlier, for his notion of how trials ought to be conducted repeats Hawkins’
arguments, and the second half of the pamphlet consists very largely of long
passages on the rights and powers of juries quoted directly from Hawkins’s
work.^89 The author’s overriding concern was with the level of robbery and other
serious offences in London, and one of the sources of his anxiety about the in-
trusion of the men he called ‘sollicitors’ into the early stages of the criminal
process was that they would drive up the costs of prosecution and so make
victims of property crimes even more reluctant than they already were to bring
charges against those who stole their goods. In line with the slippery-slope view
of crime, he believed that robbers abounded because minor offenders were not
dealt with properly. It was, he said,
frequently a matter of Complaint, that the Prosecution of a Thief costs more Money
than the Value of the Goods stolen amounts to; which makes People chuse rather to sit
down with the first Loss, than be at the extravagant Expence which attends a Prosecu-
tion. By this means a Villain often escapes Justice, and is thereby encourag’d to perse-
vere in his wicked Practices, till, from Trifles, and little pilfering Tricks, the Wretch
audaciously takes to the Highway, or robbing in the Streets: Which Violences might
have been prevented and the Villain’s Life saved, if his Villainy had been nipp’d in the
Bud, and he sent abroad for his petty Larcenies, according to Act of Parliament. And let
a thousand plodding Heads be laid together in drawing up Schemes to prevent Street
Robberies, in my humble Opinion, the most effectual Method will be, to prosecute the
Law vigorously against all Offenses whatsoever.^90
Who these solicitors were who were driving up the costs of prosecution, he
does not say, other than they were ‘several very active Gentlemen, if the New-
gate Sollicitors deserve that Application [sic]’.^91 At one point he uses language
that conjures up thief-taking: they were a ‘Sharping Troop’, he said, and com-
plained about the ‘Tricks and Abuses they live by’.^92 Further, they got the names
of their clients (especially the victims of robberies) from the newspapers—like
thief-takers who mediated between thieves and victims and negotiated the re-
turn of stolen goods. They were ready to act that part too, he thought, if given
the opportunity, or to act for the defendant if there was profit to be made. As for
helping the victim to prepare for trial, they did little in his view that was useful
or necessary. They might gather the prosecution witnesses together to arrange
to his ‘Integrity, Reputation, and Abilities’ and his ‘Zeal for the due Execution of the Laws’ (p. i).
This pamphlet, and other criticisms of the changing nature of prosecution are analysed in Langbein,
‘Prosecutorial Origins of Defense Counsel’, 335 – 8 , 340 – 2.
(^88) Directions for Prosecuting Thieves, ii. (^89) Ibid., 15 – 27. (^90) Ibid., 1 – 2.
(^91) Ibid., 2. (^92) Ibid., ii.