The National Register. — London, England, 1820-07-17 00:00:00

• • • • @LA I.# • )° 44 7, °,l ) tit No. 1,2 55—VoL. XIII.] NEW BANK-NOTE-ACT. The drudgery of an Editor can only be compen sated by the influence he possesses, and this influence is never so valuable to a well-constituted mind as when it affords an opportunity to rescue from obli vion a Genius worthy of noon-day-splendour, or to mark for execration the unworthy attempts of a Leviathan Power to enrich itself by the Rgis of security offered to it by neglected talent. The Petition presented to the House of Lords on Thurs day last by the Earl of Lauderdale, which we insert by itself hereafter, because it possesses too much of good to follow the general channel of what is usually arranged under the head of " Parliamentary Intel ligence," may be quoted in proof of the truth of our position. The Petitioner, Mr. Alexander Tilloch, is no common man—his inventive genius is peculiar —his ability is not confined to the mechanical exhi bition of art and excellence, for his literary acquire ments are such as to justify his competition with the first Argumentatora of the age ; and what good he might have rendered to society and to human nature by the invention in question, we leave to our readers to deduce from the plain statement of the fact which appeared on his Petition, that in the year 1797 he proposed to the Bank of England the very means for the prevention of Forgeries, which, in 1820, they are on the eve of adopting. Gracious God! how many hundred victims have, in the interim, been offered up to the offended laws of their country on the shrine of the cool, calculating, saving cupidity of Threadneedle-street. "The Governor and Company" have the power of contradicting the statement, if it be not founded in fact; if it be true, we thank most fervently that Supreme Power by which our influeence was circumscribed within the limit beyond which our sedulousness or neglect might, during the last 23 years, have saved or sacri ficed the lives of thousands of our fellow-creatures. The Petition presented by the Earl of Lauderdale was as follows:-- . 4 TO THE ET. NON. THE LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEM- Rotas or THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED: 44 THE HUMBLE PETITION or ALEXANDER TILLOCII, Or ISLINGTON, Shevueth, " That in the year 1797, your Petitioner presented to the Bank of England a Specimen of a Plan of Engraving, calculated to prevent the forgery of Bank Notes, accom panied with a certificate, signed by Messrs. Francis Bar tolozzi, James Heath, Thomas Holloway, William Sharp, J. Landseee, James Fittler, William Byrne, James Basire, William Lowry, and other eminent engravers, stating, each for himself, that ' they could mot make it copy of it; and that they did not believe that it could be copied by airy of the• known Arts of Engraving;' and recommending it to the notice of the Bank of England, as an Art of great merit mid ingenuity, calculated not merely to detect, but to prevent Hie forgery of Bank Notes. "That the said specimen was executed in consequence of a written permission of Mr. Giles, then Governor of the Bank of England, and on a verbal promise from him, that your Petitioner should be well remunerated by the Bank if his specimen could not be copied, or possessed the advantages which your Petitioner ascribed to his art, and at all events that he should be paid for his trou ble and expenses. " That the Bank Engraver (then a Mr. Terry) said lie could copy it, and in about three months thereafter did produce what he called a copy. " That on the 4th of Jelly, 1797, the said pi etended copy was examined before a Committee of the Bank Director., by Messrs. Heath, Patter, l;yrue, Sharp, Landseer, and Lowry, all Engravers of the first eminence, who all &- thrice* that the pretended copy was lo more like the uri gond, than a brass counter was like a guinea. "That such of time Engravers as had signed the fist mentioned certificate baying, after the said examination, abco competed the said pretended copy with the original, also gave your Petitioner certificate, to the same effect. " That the Bank rejected the plan •tiered by your Pe titioner, followed their old plait for upwards of twenty )ears longer, to the great corruption of public moralti,and sacrifice of human lift, and uever paid your Petitioner any remuneration. " That on the appointment of a Royal Commission in the year 1818, to examine end meport emir the best means for the prevention of forgery, your Petitioner laid before the said I:untroissioners another specimen of his art, and exhibiting seine improvement ; and stated to them, that, not being a professional artist, these specimens (notwith standieg their certified merit) could give hilt an imperfect idea of the perfection of whirl, your Petitioner's al t was omreptible ; and also that the specimens otlesed to the Bank and to the Comniissioners were not intended so the form of Note that should be adopted, but only to illus trate your Petitioner's art, and the variety of execution of which it was susceptible. ." Tito( your Petitioner has since teapot, and believes in lac., that the plan now adopted b! the Bank, is Vat same Our Ling, Conlitttution an atod• MONDAY, JULY 17, 1820. with, and differs not in the principle of execution from the plan offered by your Petitioner twenty-three years ago. "That your Petitioner has seen a Bill, now before your Right Honourable House, entitled, ' A Bill for the further Preveution of Forging and Counterfeiting of Bank Notes,' in which there arc various clauses, calculated, and, as yobr Petitioner believes. and humbly submits, intended to prevent him from exercising the art of which he was the original inventor; and which, lie humbly submits, is an act of great injustice. "That to prohibit the exercise of any modes of En graving, on the pretence of preventing forgery, stands as much opposed to the progress and improvement of the . arts, and is consequently as impolitic as it would be to prohibit die-sinking far medals, buttons, and many bran ches of inetellic 'ornament, on pretext of hindering the current coin from being counterfeited. "That since the geld Bill was introduced into the Com mons House of Parliament, your Petitioner hail au inter view wick the Right Honourable Nicholas Vansittart. • Chancellor of his Majesty's Exchequer, at which were present many of the Directors of the Bank of England, when the said Bill was abewn to your Petitioner, with different alterations intended to be made therein, by which it waa alleged that your Petitioner would be at li berty to practise his own art without incurring the penal ties of the Bill; but no alteration was proposed therein calculated to secure to your Petitioner any remuneration for Ilia invention, which, by the Bill, is now appropriated to the use of the Bank of England. " That at that interview it was contended, on the part of the Bank, that time question of remuneration (if your Petitioner aliould be found entitled thereto) was rather of a public than of a private nature—the protection which the invention affords being to the public, who bear, ex clusively, all losses b 3 Forgery of Bank Notes. " That your Petitioner, till this time, had thought, in common with the public, that it was for the interest and advantage of the Bank to have the integrity of its paper currency unimpeachable; especially as the Bank had, notoriously, for many years, incurred very great expense in prosecuting to death the forgers of their Notes. " That your Petitioner, however, humbly subunits that the Bank will derive emolument front the increased secu rity which will be given to the integrity of its Notes, as also in the article of expense for criminal prosecutions ; and that, therefore. in equity and justice, your Petitioner is entitled to receive from the Bank a competent remit aeration ; and also, he humbly conceives, is entitled to re. ceive from the public remiuseration for the benefits which will result from the diminished number of forgeries, and from the improvement in public mends, which must fol low from the increased difficulty of committing a crime, hitherto suffeted to'be perpetrated with lamentable faci lity. " That your Petitioner's Art of Printing Notes from Blocks, instead of Copper-plates, as hitherto, having been devised and contrived expressly for Iliad purpose, if the only Body in the Empire whose employment of that art could in any way remunerate the inventor, I* suffered to appropriate his art to its own rise, without compensation, it is inmossiblethat your Petitioner can ever, from being employed by Country Banks (even if the said bill did not put this out of his power), receive, at the age of upwards of threescore years, any competent remuneration for the exertions put Earth by him in expense, labour, and lintel. lect, to perfect an art by the adoption of which (by the Bank of England) the Bank itself amid the Nation will derive so ninny benefits. " That your Petitioner, therefore, prays that his case may be taken into consideration, and that be may be heard by himself, his Agent, ur Counsel, against the said Bill. " ArIitIIANDEK TILLOCH." The Certificates referred to in the above Petition are in our possession, and we hesitate not to declare, that the l'etitioner's modesty has prevented his setting them forth with half the force of which he might have availed himself. The case, in itself, is one of extreme hardship—an Underling has appro priated to himself the invention (of long standing) of a man of acknowledged science ; and not only is the praiseworthy inventor refused remunerathin by the Bank of England for the plan he originated, but by a preventive clause in the New Bank-Note•Act, he is prohibited from deriving the deserved reward of his ingenuity in any other commercial field of action.—This is altogether villanous !!! /2 • )• • „ . ratio su titittr. [PRIcs Sid. have speculators in their markets purchasing and pur suing all their objects, with information derived by the Extr.l Post, which the others could not possibly obtain. How can it be supposed that this Post would pay for its extension to Glasgow, when to reach that city, it would for near YOU miles traverse a country in which an Extra Post Letter could scarcely ever be expected. Yet a per son might leave Manchester after the extra post gets there, and he in Glasgow the day bane the mail coach letters would be delivered, to the great detriment of the mercantile interests of that city. And if it did extend to 311 the large commercial towns, how would the farm ing interest be situated? Factors and corn speculators would possess themselves of the fluctuations at Mark- Lute, and be able to traverse whole counties before the ordinary post had arrived. The landed proprietors would soon have their tenants complaining that they could never sell except to a disadvantage, to those persons who come from the towns which the extra post might embrace. •I'he sante reasoning applies to every brauch of trade. Unless the extra post be as • •ersal as the mail coaches and cot iiiii on horse posts, it never can be freed from this objection; and while it is most unlikely to create any new revenue of importance, the expence will be enormous for conveyance; for new offices, clerks, letter earners, &c. and in this way to be sure it may be a new source of patronage. In expence, and in its exposurf to rob bery, it is liable to the two great objections which the esttblishment of mail coaches overcame. The Metro polis may be grievously pe-plexed by the arrival of two daily posts, one over-running the other, and if it can be supposed that the measure were attended with any suc cess, the post hours in London would be materially shortened, for though the ordinary mails would remain, many persons would be compelled as it were to the use of the other, and a new taxation would ensue for what very few appear to desire. The sale of London News papers hoist be greatly diminished , for when those by the Extra Post have been read at the Subscription Room,. which would have one at any expellee, what interest could people take its those by the common post, which would be one .lay old? In short, there is hardly j any general interest which this Extra Post %mild not tend to injure, though its benefit even to a few great capitalists is obvious, in the advantage which it would gke them over the mass of the coin 1111 l NEW EXTRA POST. The objections to the Extra Post Plan cannot Iv! too generally known, nor too strongly insisted upon.—The projector had proposed to include all the principal com merciol districts, but changed his mind on a supposiiimi that they might not .1 1 .1 rvpay the great expence of the new conveyance. I lany private person were to form this post,of course he would not extend it except where it would be attended with a profit, nor can Government, if it makes the measure own, be expected to act on any other principle. It is understood, that at the Post Office they do not calculate in a financial view that this meature can ever succeed mi our extended scale, and its injurious operatum oli places to winch it dots not extend, is ma nifest. lt, for instance, the Extra Post should ply its expenses to Manchester and Literpool, but not further, iii what a situation would niefeliaitta and manufacturer , ut 411 the t.i..tql•Wourl Ng man let; ha placed. who would HERTFORD ASSIZES. On Wednesday evening Mr. Baron Wood arrived here, and the Commission was soon afterwards opened wills the usual form, !itctswiv ROMBERY.—Hugh Carbill, a robust-looking young man, aged YO, was capitally indicted for feloni ously assaulting the Rev. F. W. Franklin, Clerk, ou the highway, ■od taking from his person a witch, chain and seals, and other articles, his property; eau following cis - commences were proved in evidence. On the evening of the Vd of April last, Mr. Franklin, who is a Clergyman at Hertford, was remitting home front London in his gig, and had reached about one mile this side of Hut:Meador', when two men suddenly rushed into the road, one of whom seised the horse's head, and the other jumped into the gig, and demanded his mon"y. The prisoner war the man who held the horse. As Mr. F. was feeling is his pocket for his parse, the maul in the gig saw his watch-chain, and immediately seised it, and attempted to draw it from the lob. Mr. F. made some resistance to this, ripOli which the robber called out to Iris companion (the prisoner) •u Give one a pistol, and I will blow out his brains." The prisoner then left the horse's head, and jumped into the gigs and the other pulling Mr. Franklin over to one side, the prisoner seised him by the legs, and threw him over into the road. They got down, and were proeeeding to ride his pockets, when a womais, named Coalmine Hancock, cause up, and seizing the prisoner, dragged him off Mr. F. eaclaiming, " In Goil's name, what are you going to do with the gentleman?"—The other ran away, and the prisoner, as soon as he coind release liimerlf, followed his example, but not until Mrs, Hancock hail compelled him to twit sound, so that she had a full view of hi. features. It was snacked at the Inn . that are offenders spoke with a strong Irish accent, and a pursuit been soon afterwards raised, they were overtaken by a trade sman of Stanstead, and asked them where they were gcmg, and they said to March. He Wit puttit. some further quentiOtta, When they troth ran away, but the prisoner was pursued and scented, and in a d.rch, a few yards from the spot where lie W.V. 1.1k../1, Mr. Franklin's watch was found. The other fellow effected his escape. They were both natives of Ireland. 0.1 u e prisoner two steam pistols wets tOnod, which were farm ed of brass, nailed on to pieces of wood, bat were not calculated to do any serious injury-. The July, %skirt:let hesitation, found the prisoner Guilty—Death; hilt re commended him to mercy oil account of his youth. Peter Parrott and John Olney were indicted for steal ing a hiackansilli'n anvil, the proprrty of John Lila's.— Pan ott was found guilty, and sentenced to twelve months' inipsisonmetit in the House of Correction, and to be kept to hard labour.—O u.. was acquitted. _ _ . Tuesday the Lord Mayor held a Court of Alder men. James %I'dlimns, Esq. one of the Sheriffs elect, attending, gale the usual bond to take tivni himself that race at Michaelmas next ; and time was allowed Alilertaan fOr 0ti.: . '41 1 14:V0 rtareSe. . • ..„ . „..., ~,Ate, - 14.1. , 1,e :..., 7 ,, 4,-, 0 4.,,.. 4,1 ) ...........,.., \ i:...‘ : , ..