ROBERT SMITH. EXECUTED FOR ROBBERY.

THIS singular robber was a Scotchman, and one of those adventurers who, ingenious in wickedness, devise new plans of depredation, and make the industrious, whose hard earnings they enjoy, the chief objects of their prey.

The mode of robbery which this man adopted, was that of employing a hackney-coach to drive him to some outlet, and then robbing the coachman in the first lonesome place he came to; in which for some time he was very successful. This trade he commenced early in the month of March, 1803, when, being genteelly dressed, at night about ten o’clock, he hired a hackney-coach at Charing-cross, and ordered the coachman to drive to St. John’s Farm, near the one mile-stone on the Edgeware-road. When the coach got to the top of the lane leading to St. John’s Farm, Smith pulled the string, and told the coachman to let him get out, for he had passed the house he wanted to go to; upon which the coachman got off his box, and let him out of the coach. Smith then asking what his fare was, he told him, five shillings and sixpence; when he put his hand into a side-pocket, pulled out a pistol, and swore that he would immediately shoot him if he did not deliver his money. The coachman complied; and upon his demanding his watch, delivered that up also; and the robber succeeded in making his escape across the fields.

On Monday the 6th of March, at about eleven o’clock at night, Smith hired another coach, and ordered the driver to proceed to St. George’s-row, on the Uxbridge-road. Upon his arrival at the place of his destination, he demanded the coachman’s money and watch with the most horrid imprecations; and on some hesitation being shown to comply with his request, he produced a pistol and a tuck-stick, with the latter of which he wounded the driver in the side. Two seven-shilling pieces, and eight and sixpence in silver, were then handed over to him, and he decamped, threatening the coachman with instant death in case of his attempting to pursue him.

His career of guilt, however, was destined soon to close; for being met in King’s-road, Chelsea, by a patrole named Jones, on Sunday night, the 20th of March, under suspicious circumstances, he was taken into custody, and a pistol and sword-stick were found in his possession. Information of his capture being published, on the morning of his examination at Bow-street, he was instantly recognised by Jones and Treadwell, the two coachmen, his robberies upon whom we have described; and further proof of his identity in the former case was found in a duplicate which was taken from his pocket, referring to the pawning of the watch of the prosecutor.

Three other charges of a similar character were subsequently preferred against him by other coachmen, whom he had induced to convey him to unfrequented places in the vicinity of London; and a fourth case of robbery on the highway was proved by John Chilton, a porter at Messrs. Spode’s Staffordshire warehouse, whom he had met at Bayswater, and whom, after having maltreated and wounded, he had robbed of three shillings and sixpence.

On his trial the prisoner was recognised as a discharged artillery-man, and was identified by Treadwell, one of his prosecutors, as having been his fellow-prisoner in the King’s Bench; and he was found guilty, and sentenced to death.

He was hanged at the Old Bailey in the month of June 1803, apparently fully sensible of the enormity of the crimes which he had committed.