Second Thoughts Are Best: or, a Further Improvement of a Late Scheme to Prevent Street Robberies is a 1729 pamphlet by Daniel Defoe. He wrote it under the name of Andrew Moreton Esq., presented as a dissatisfied middle-class old man who was extremely concerned about the increase in criminality around the 1720s.
As in other essays, such as Every-body’s Business, Is No-Body’s Business (1725), The Protestant Monastery (1726), Parochial Tyranny (1727) and Augusta Triumphans (1728), Moreton here inquiries into a range of different social and moral issues: the increase in highway robberies, the inefficiency of the night watch, the wicked trade of gin shops, and the "infestation" of prostitutes, beggars, and vagrants throughout London. Moreton's declared intention is "to break up street-robbers, nest and egg", providing practical solutions for a reformation of the night watch, manners, places and even the theatre, reforms which would improve the quality of life.
Defoe was particularly inclined to use pseudonyms, acquiring in this way the reputation as one of the most chameleon-like English writers. These multiple personalities allowed him to freely express his opinions on London's social and moral qualitiesWall C. 'Defoe and London', in Richetti J. (2008), The Cambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe, New York: Cambridge University Press, p.166. (not without an hint of criticizing humor), and at the same time to express a resolute sense of duty, felt to be an essential characteristic of the eighteenth-century English citizen.
Preface The pamphlet is dedicated to His Majesty, "the king of our hearts; the king of our wishes" George II and his Queen, Caroline, but copies were also presented to the Lords Spiritual, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Defoe had a long-lasting admiration for the House of Hanover and his address to King George as "a king naturalized to us, a king who loves us, a king whose person as well as mind, the whole hero appears" recalls his past worship of King William III of England. Defoe's schemes and social projects were actually obtaining a warm widespread approval in this period.
In the preface Moreton goes beyond the complimentary introduction and pleas to be heard conventional in such pamphlets, but he skillfully turns it into an opportunity to make criticisms and level accusations. Firstly, he denounces the abuse of "the liberty of the press, that from a benefit it becomes an evil and demands immediate regulation". This probably refers to the anti-Walpole journal The Craftsman, accused of turning an instructive and effective means of communication into an instrument used to achieve personal interests and even spread slander and scandal. Secondly, Moreton expresses his indignation concerning the anonymous gentleman author of Discovery to Prevent Street Robberies, whom he accuses of having copied and even made money out of the schemes he had presented in his earlier pamphlet, Augusta Triumphans. Describing Second Thoughts as an amended and enlarged version of his previous plan for the City of London, Moreton is eager to stress that his proposals are "humbly offered for the public welfare", nevertheless he will "stand prepared for the sneers of those who despite everything and everybody but their dear selves".
The Watch
"Decrepit, Superannuated Wretches" One critical issue addressed by Moreton in this pamphlet involves the night watch, a highly significant institution in the panorama of eighteenth-century London. As described by Moreton, the watchmen were "decrepit, superannuated wretches, with one foot in the grave and the other ready to follow" and therefore more suited to the Poor House than for patrolling of the streets: "so little terror they carry with them, that hardly thieves make a mere jest of them". He even supposes that some of them, discouraged by their low social status, might decide to make their fortunes by passing to the other side and enlarging the ranks of criminals. Along with many of his peers, Moreton believes that English society is completely at the mercy of a dramatic rise in numbers of street-robberies, burglaries, and house-breakings, crimes which are generating anxiety among all social classes in the capital. House-breaking especially seems to directly concerned the entire metropolis, including the more wealthy and fashionable parishes. Moreover, the latest changes of the urban surroundings have hardened the policing of the streets, especially with shops, taverns, coffee-houses, theatres, pleasure gardens, remaining open in the evening and such a large number of people moving around after dusk.
In the early eighteenth-century London, the night watchman was indeed an old controversial figure (established for the first time in the 1285 Statute of Winchester), deeply rooted in the belief that the individual citizen had to perform his social and moral duty for the well-being of the society. Hence, every London parish requested its householders to perform by rotation the watch-duty on an unpaid and amateur basis, from dusk until dawn, and with only a stick or an halberd as a weapon.Beattie J.M. (2001), Policing and punishment in London 1660–1750, Urban Crimes and the Limits of Terror, Oxford: Oxford University, Press, p.170, ; Tobias J.J. (1979), Crime and Police in England: 1700–1900, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, p.33, Each watchman was assigned with a short length of street to patrol every hour, and he had to examine all suspicious characters from his assigned watch box (a sentry box with half-door). The performance of such duty took away a great amount of money and energy, so by the late seventeenth century it grew up the practice to pay a substitute (often another parishioner) to take up your watch duty. The fact that this service had to be arranged locally by parish officers rose a great number of issues. Firstly, the only men willing to take on this job for a very small wage were those who had little prospect of some other employment, usually old men hired as an alternative to the poor law grant. Secondly, Moreton suggests that "parochial misapplication"Defoe D. (1729), Second Thoughts Are Best, p.13. were commonplace around constables and beadles, appointed to collect the individual fee for the night-watch. They were often accused to spend as little as possible on hiring watchmen and pocket the difference as a recompense for the unpaid service they had performed.
Needed a reform? Moreton proposes a pragmatic scheme (already in use in the parish of St. Giles in the Fields) for a more effective night watch. This should be "composed of stout able-bodied men",Defoe D. (1729), Second Thoughts Are Best, p.12. arranged in a sufficient number, one every forty houses "for it is observable that a man can not well see distinctly beyond the extent of twenty houses in a row". To avoid any possible abuse or misapplication in the distribution of the public money, Moreton suggests that the watch should be elected and paid by the householders themselves through an arranged rating and collecting system, and their annual wage should be increased to 20 pound,In Parochial Tyranny (1727) Moreton affirms that a watchman is paid 6d. a night, too little to attract any good candidate. (Beattie, 2001, p.190). so that "a poor man, who with frugality may live decently thereon". Furthermore, watchmen should be adequately armed with firearms and swords in order to dispose of an efficient mean to prevent crime and to protect their person if needed. They should also be equipped with a lantern and a horn to sound the alarm.
Although some kind of reform was obviously needed to contrast the criminal problems of the streets, nowadays critics believe that watchmen were actually vigorously engaged in catching offenders, and that their work might be concealed in the records because the official arrest would be recorded by the constable in charge of the watch. The Old Bailey Session Papers report many examples of watchmen being very capable and brave in confronting and arresting offenders.See: ; ; ; Probably the statutory reward to be earned from the arrest of a street robber or a burglar was quite a good incentive, not to mention possible private gratuities and local rewards.
Regardless, Moreton is sceptical about the honesty of watchmen, and he doubts about their suspicious close relation with the criminal underworld in different contemporary pamphlets.See Defoe D. (1727), Parochial Tyranny, or the Householder's Complaint, p.20. Watchmen also appear as the accused in the Old Bailey Session Papers under trials for murder and theft,See: ; ; while the bribe they received from street prostitutes was quite common knowledge in eighteenth-century London.
Reforming society
Prostitutes
In Moreton's reform for the security and prosperity of the city, a pressing issue is represented by prostitutes, depicted as agents of destruction that easily mislead men into criminality and seem to be "the first motive to their villainy, and egg them in all manner of mischief".Defoe D. (1729), Second Thoughts Are Best, p.15. London prostitutes were vigorously denounced in early eighteenth-century England, especially for their obscenities and aggressiveness. It was a common belief that these vicious women might corrupt young men, particularly apprentices and servants.
Watchmen, as guardians of the peace of the streets, were supposed to deal within the confines of their beat with drunkenness, soliciting, and petty tumults, and detaining suspicious characters. However, they were often willing to concede privileges to certain prostitutes, consequently provoking parishioners' complains about their inability to enforce the law. Indeed, even the prostitutes taken up by the watch were frequently released after a few hours in the watch house without seeing any magistrate. The circumstances changed when theft or some other kind of crimes were committed. Public opinion, and Moreton too, firmly believed that these women needed to be restrained in their liberties not only for their vices and immoralities but because they represented a real threat to common living. Unfortunately, most of the time this was easier said than done. Watchmen had the power to apprehend criminals within the boundaries of their parish, and they were liable to be reprimanded for leaving their beats. So they might not have been so inclined to chase a woman who crossed into another parish in order to avoid being taken.
Moreover, Moreton denounces night houses and cellars as places where prostitutes and thieves meet and carry on their hellish trade. Here criminals "wait for signal of their scout; here they cast their schemes, and bring in advices; here they encourage and initiate young thieves; here they barter and sell their stolen goods; these are their exchanges and asylums after mischief".Defoe D. (1729), Second Thoughts Are Best, p.17. Thus, night houses stand as wicked fortresses for criminals and they must be suppressed. They were indeed real headquarters of felons, ideal places for the arrangement of their business and for the exchange of goods and information. Apparently they functioned as an unorthodox "club" for wandering criminals where you could be sure to be welcome and to find companionship if a juicy goal just came out.
Servants