In sudden injuries, such as assaults on the highway, attempts to murder or to commit any felony whatsoever, there is no necessity for any legal officer to secure the person who is guilty, for every private man hath sufficient authority to seize and bring such criminal, either to a constable or to a Justice of the Peace, in order to have the fact clearly examined and such course taken therein as may conduce to the impartial distribution of Justice.  And because men are apt to be scrupulous of interesting themselves in matters which do not immediately concern either their persons or their properties, so the Law hath provided punishments for those who, for fear of risking their private safety or advantage, suffer those who offend against the public to escape unpunished; hence hundreds are liable to be sued for suffering a robber to escape, and that method of pursuit which is called hue and cry is permitted, if no probable way may be left for felons to escape.  Now a hue and cry is raised thus:  the person robbed, for example, goes to the constable of the next town, tells him the case, described the felon, and the way he went.  Whereupon the constable, be it day or night, is to take the assistance of those in his own town, and pursue him according to those directions immediately, at the same time sending with the utmost expedition to the neighbouring towns, who are to make like pursuit, and to send like notice until the felon be found.

So desirous is our Law of bringing offenders to Justice, and of preserving the roads free from being infested with these vermin.  For the better effecting of this, besides those means prescribed by the customs of our ancestors, of later times rewards have been given to such as hazarded their own persons in bringing offenders to justice, and of these, as far as they are settled by Acts of Parliament and thereby rendered certain and perpetual, I shall speak here; though not of those given by proclamation, because they being only for a stated time, people must hereafter have been misled by our account, when that time is expired.

Highwaymen becoming, some time after the Revolution, exceedingly bold and troublesome, by an Act made in the reign of William and Mary, a reward of forty pounds is given for apprehending any one in England or Wales, and prosecuting him so as he be convicted; which forty pounds is to be paid by the sheriff on a certificate of the judge or justices before whom such a felon was convicted.  And in case a person shall be killed in endeavouring to apprehend or making pursuit after such robbers, the said forty pounds shall be paid to the executors or administrators of such persons upon the like certificate.  Moreover, every person who shall take, apprehend, or convict such a person, shall have as a reward the horse, furniture, arms, money or other goods of such robber as shall be taken with him, the right or title of his Majesty’s bodies politic or corporate, lords of manors, or persons lending or letting the same to such robber notwithstanding; excepting only the right of those from whom such horses, furniture, arms, money, or goods were before feloniously taken.