Green’s Dictionary of Slang

arrested by the bailiff of marshland phr.

stricken with ague.

, 1662		Fuller Worthies II (1840) 447: The air of Marshland [...] is none of the wholesomest [...] strangers coming hither are clapt on the back in an ague. [...] When such prisoners have paid the bailiff’s fee and garnish, and with time [...] they become habituated to the air].
1772		Town & Country Mag. Supp. 675/2: When a stranger on his coming into the low fenny country is seized with an ague, they say he is arrested by the bailiff of Marshland.
1790		Grose Provincial Gloss. (1811) 84: He is arrested by the bailiff of Marshland. That is, clapped on the back by an ague; to which strangers, coming into the fenny part of this county [i.e. Norfolk] near the sea, are extremely liable.
1812		W. Richards Hist. Lynn 81: An ague is in Norfolk proverbially called the Marshland Bailiff, and a person afflicted with that disorder is said to be arrested by the Bailiff of Marshland.
1820		Encyclopaedia Londinensis XVII 140/2: Strangers, on their first residence [in Norfolk], are generally attacked with agues; on which occasion they are proverbially said to be ‘arrested by the bailiff of Marshland’.
1833		J. Gorton Topographical Dict. Great Britain and Ireland 55/2: The air in the marsh districts is cold and damp, and the climate is reckoned unhealthy, agues having been here so prevalent, as to have given rise to the proverbial expression of being ‘arrested by the bailiff of Marshland’.
1874		S. Smiles Lives of the Engineers I 15: When a man was stricken down by the ague, it was said of him, ‘he is arrested by the bailiff of Marshland’.