complained of losing his letter case and pocket book at the Royal Exchange. Walter Corbet had lost his case with £200 exchequer bills at Charing Cross when watching the pillory of three men. Another Blackwell Hall factor and a Quaker, Nathaniel Smith, having lost his pocket book to a whore, told about being taken to Temple Bar surrounding in western part of the city by the under-marshal to meet the gang of thirty to forty young pickpockets, whom he referred to by their names. As victims reported, they had placed the advertisements on their losses, offering certain amount for the recovery, in The Daily Courant (most frequently used newspaper for advertisements among others). Hitchen relying on "his great knowledge of thieves and pickpockets" required exorbitant rewards as in Cobert's case, when a 5-guinea offering turned into a 50–60-guinea reward or when Dudley Downs had to pay 55 guineas for four exchequer bills of £200 value. But others like Smith, who was asked to pay 20 guineas, did not do so and caused marshal's campaign of vilification. Nevertheless, they dared to refer to other thief-taker Joseph Billers, an experienced competitor of Hitchen's, who was the one directing them to the Court of Aldermen. Most seriously, unsurprisingly, was taken the case, which concerned a loss of the letter with 200 guineas from a member of the nobility, Lord Barnard to Richard Lawrence, an apothecary. It was he who reported Hitchen in the court on telling him, during their negotiation, about making arrangements with 2000 thieves living in the Bills of Mortality. The fullest information, though, came from the written testimony by constable Wise of Shoreditch on 2 October 1712. He named the four infamous taverns, "Three Tuns", "Black Horse", "Blue Boar" and "King's Head" and an account of marshal's actual dealings there. He also remembered having arrested six pickpockets in one of the taverns above and causing marshal's rage, who upon showing a notice declared the county within his jurisdiction and took the thieves with him to the City letting them free. At the end of September, there were two pickpockets Christopher Plummer and William Field, notably from Hitchen's entourage, brought to the Guildhall and after testifying against their master granted freedom by Sir Charles Peters on 8 or 9 October 1712. The embattled under-marshal would try hard to retain his power and after two months of being accused of the felonies,