"All other propositions, as subject to far more casualties
and hazards, soon gave place to that of the Rye, in Herefordshire,
a house then inhabited by the foresaid Richard Rumbold, who
proposed that to be the seat of the action, offering himself to
command the party, that was to do the work. Him, therefore, as the
most daring captain, and by reason of a blemish in one of his eyes,
they were afterwards wont, in common discourse, to call Hannibal;
often drinking healths to _Hannibal and his boys_, meaning Rumbold
and his _hellish crew_.
"Immediately upon the coaches coming within the gates and hedges
about the house, the conspirators were to divide into several
parties; some before, in the habit of labourers, were to overthrow
a cart in the narrowest passage, so as to prevent all possibility
of escape: others were to fight the guards, Walcot chusing that
part upon a punctilio of honour; others were to shoot at the
coachman, postillion, and horses; others to aim only at his
Majesty's coach, which party was to be under the particular
direction of Rumbold himself; the villain declaring beforehand,
that, upon that occasion, he would make use of a very good
blunderbuss, which was in West's possession, and blasphemously
adding, that Ferguson should first consecrate it." ... "But whilst
they were thus wholly intent on this barbarous work, and proceeded
securely in its contrivance without any the least doubt of a
prosperous success, behold! on a sudden, God miraculously
disappointed all their hopes and designs, by the terrible
conflagration unexpectedly breaking out at Newmarket.
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