Regency Crime and Punishment: Bank of England Forgeries

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England notes and the many thousands who have suffered losses by being compelled to receive a paper currency without any possible mode of distinguishing the good from the bad it is absolutely necessary that the governor and directors of the Bank of England should flatly contradict the report if false or if true hesitate before they sacrifice any more lives or harras any more individuals by public prosecutions through what may be a mistake an oversight or a proper want of care and precaution in themselves their clerks or servants The story for the truth of which I do not vouch but give it only as it was told before witnesses was as follows That a relative of the narrator from the country if I recollect right from Roehampton went some little time since to the Bank of England and changed a large note for its amount in small ones Retiring from thence to a house in the vicinity to get some refreshment whilst it was preparing he once more turned over the notes he had just received and to his utter astonishment perceived that he had two one pound notes of the very same number & c He presently retraced his steps to the Bank sought out the clerk who had given them to him and stated the circumstance The clerk appeared thunderstruck too acknowledged that the notes had not been long delivered and that no probability of their having sufficient time clapsed to have enabled any one to have made a copy which however did not appear to have been the case both notes having exactly the same appearance and marks The clerk not knowing how to act said there was one of the directors at that time in the house who was sent to and acquainted with the affair For some time he persisted in declaring the impossibility of any mistake having been made in that house but the facts being too glaring and there was
unanswerable he was at length driven to confess that a mistake might have been made by the person employed to strike off the notes having forgotten to obliterate the number and struck off a second without perceiving his error Now if this be a fact and if these two notes of one number had gone before the public would not the first of them that came back have been paid and the last stopped as a forgery Would not a holder of those two notes if seen in his possession have been liable to trial to transportation and perhaps even death and would not the servants of the Bank have boldly sworn that no such mistake could possibly have originated with them I would ask the Bank directors how many notes are struck off each day and by what number of persons and whether in the hurry of doing such a number it is not possible that many such mistakes may have happened and perhaps have occasioned sach scenes as humanity would shudder to think of The die has already been sufficiently steeped in blood and it is time either that the Bank should give us a paper the value of which we can ascertain or that parliament should release us from the obligation of receiving it Either let the die rectors discover a mode of rendering their paper authentic or pay us in specie as they are bound in honour and honesty to do The result of the story as it was told was that the person who had received the two notes of one number replied to the excuse of the director in these words Then Sir we may presume that there are as many forgeries committed within the Bank of England as without At which observation the director was very indignant but the man received another note and went quietly about his business Now Sir as this story might very justly create a deep VOL I PP
sensation on the publie mind already heated on the subject it is requisite for the character of the Bank of England that they should have it in their power to refute it as a calumny if one as well as that they should re assure those who have long entertaiued doubts upon the subject that no mistake can possibly occur among their clerks and servants in manufacturing signing countersigning dating & c the notes they issue to the publice DAVID DOUBTFCL We have inserted the letter of David Doubtful but very much doubt the truth of his statement It is always customary with the Bank in giving small notes for large ones or indeed in giving or paying notes of any description to tell them by the numbers as well as counting them over fore if the circumstance occurred as stated it naturally follows that a note too many must have been paid EDITOR there The New Bon Ton Magazine, 1818

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