Another word-play joke by JA.

The Laurel familywere neighbours of JA's cousin ,Mrs Cooke,who lived at Great Bookham in Surrey. Mrs Lauel is going to marry a Mr Hinchman.

As Le Fayes states in the notes to this letter:

JA goes on to joke delibreately confusing this Mr H with a maternal couisn of Mary Lloys' a Mr John Hinx-, Hinch- or Henchman who lived in Glouscestershire

JA could have maent that he may have been feared missing on Wantage Downs( hills) or alternatively, he was left swinging on a gibet as a convicted criminal. Gibbets, a type of gallows with one arm,where criminals were hung and left after death without burial,to serve as a warnign to the rest of the populace,and for the birds to pick the flesh from their bones, which then presumably bleached in the sun,were a common sight in Georgian England.