The total amount of bills and drafts recovered amounted to ninety thousand dollars, and made the robbery the largest ever attempted. A few days later a third brother Hare was arrested, and thirteen hundred dollars was found in his house. The third robber proved to be John Alexander.
A Baltimore newspaper dated May 18, gives an account of the sentence of the three men after their interesting trial:--
"On Thursday last John Alexander, Joseph T. Hare, and Lewis Hare were brought before Court to receive sentence. Judge Duval presided--first addressed Lewis Hare and sentenced him to ten years' imprisonment--J. T. Hare and Alexander sentenced to death. As Jos. T. Hare was proceeding from the Court House to prison accompanied by the constable, they had to cross Jones' Falls, over which the trunk of a tree was laid for foot passengers to walk on; when they arrived in the middle of the creek Hare made an attempt to release his hands from his irons, and to knock the constable into the creek; it proved fruitless, but in the scuffle Hare tore off the lappelle of the constable's coat. After he reached prison he made an attack on the turnkey and nearly bit off his finger."
I have seen an amusing old chap-book entitled _The Life of the Celebrated Mail Robber and Daring Highwayman Joseph Thompson Hare_, and it has a comical illustration of "The Scuffle between Hare and the Constable," in which the constable, much dressed up in tight trousers, tailed coat, and high silk hat, struggles feebly with the outlaw as they balance like acrobats on the narrow tree-trunk.
The whole account of this mail robbery has a decidedly tame flavoring. The pale tailors, so easily overcoming a presumably brave naval officer and a government mail-carrier; the leisurely ransacking of the mail-bags; the speedy and easy arrest of the tailors and recovery of their booty, and the astonishing simplicity of transporting the scantily guarded felon across a creek on a fallen tree as though on a pleasant country ramble, all combine to render it far from being a tale of terror or wild excitement.
The account of the death of the highwayman is thus told in the _Federal Republican and Baltimore Telegraph_ of September 11, 1818.