The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1826-09-22 00:00:00

will perceive that the fact of the ixisieti.ce of some of tittle
during the years for 'bleb alloectiopt or return of !duty had been
di
claimed and granted at e Stamp .ice, was clearly ascertained.
though the death or failure of semal of the parties prevented a full
report upon the whole list. A to days before this'answer from
Mr. Bremner (the Solicitor in licotland) was received in hoo-
doo. Mr. Sykes mentioned tl4 circumstance of the suspected
fraud to the Chairman ; but did not communirnte to him
the tact of the appiicetinn hiving been made to Edinburgh
until Mr. Bremner's answer Seas received, when Mr. Sykes
took it into the Board-room, where the Chairman had now resumed
his attendance. It is stated in evidence, to which we beg In refer
your Lordships for a more particular representation of whit passed
on this occasion, that the Clusintian expressed himself very watch
dissatisfied at the reftremee is Itiimberwh, and objected to the course
of following up the inquiry, except through the County Fire (Mee
itself. On the 2d of June, 11124, Mr. 31awe, clerk in the Solidi-
tor's office, was sent fin by the Chairman, for the purpose of nick-
ingsome inquiries 011 the subject of the investigation. On this oc-
ca.ton the Chairmen repeated Ain dissatiifactiou at the course which
had been taken."

What does this plainly mean to insinuate? It means to
insinuate this—that being previously aware, that possibly
an account of undue rrturns qr insurance duty might be
obtained. if inquiry was pursued in that quarter, thaL.this
dinatilfitction which T expressed arose from my finding that
Mr. Sykes, the Salicitor, had directed his inquiries in thut
channel.

Such is the imputation conveyed. Now for the fact.
I did
IMIOOIII myself Deny much dinutisfied at this. Anti
why ? Became I found that Mr. Sykes had carefully con-
cealed front' lie, as Chairman of the Board, the sup-
posed undae Teams of duty whfch some informer had
alleged to hate been fraudulently obtained by the County
Fire Office, of which I was one of the Directors ; and that
instead of at once—as it was his duty to have done—insti-
tuting a prosecution, if he had evidence to support it, he
was r.uri•i up my name as a Director with this suspected
fraud, in a correspondence carrying on, unknown to me,
with Mr. Bremner, the Solicitor cf, the Stamps in Edin-
burgh, with whom the public are by this time acquainted
(he is since dead), who, I knew, would not fail to inquire
away my character, as well as that of the County Fire
Office, under the pretext of procuring information
as to these suspected frauds ; and 1 was the more dissatis-
fied with this course of inquiry, and had the more reason
to be so, knowing tflat Mr. Sykes, having been sent down
on a special Commission to inquire into and report oil the '
conduct of this Mr. Bremner, had so managed his inquiry,
and so framed his Reports to the Lords of his Majesty's
Treasury, as not only to screen and cover up that flagrant
system of fraud and abuse, which, as has been shown, I
had already investigated and exposed, but to represent Mr.
Bremner as a man of integrity, and a deserving servant of
the public. The particulars of this I shall detail hereafter.
In the mca•t time, enough, I hope, has been said to ac-
count for my disseiliffacliwt, and to justify it.
I quote the following passage, as displaying with promi-
nent efKet the criminatinz insinuations which pervade
your Reports, while not a shadow of evidence is brought
forward to authorize or support them:—

'• In enmequenee of the Chairman of the Board of Stamps be-
ing also s Director of the County Fire Office, Mr. Sykes represents
that he had felt a difficulty in communicating with rim, in the first
instance, on the subject of a charge against this Company, nor did
the Chairman revise any intimation of An Imputed fraud from the
Commissioner to whom theauspicinn had been originally imparted.
Ely the evidence of Mr. Sykes, it appears that 112 was apprehensive
that the object of (he inquiry would be defeated by Mr. sedgwiek
being put in possession of the facts on which the charge was founded
before the necessary steps had been taken to establish the case.
This impression, founded is an avraied distrust of the conduct of
Me luad of the Department, whilst it appears to afford a striking
instance of the earl (Meta to which we have adverted, as being
likely to result from public offirem being also engaged in pit.
irate speculations, with which they are officially btought Into cam
• titizarpears afar Mtn, fn} animadversion, as being incompatible
with that co.nperAtion and confidence which it is so important to!
maintain against all Officers of the Deparunent."

I shall content myself here with merely challenging Mr.
Sykes, as Solicitor of the Board of Stamps, to produce one
single act of my conduct as Chairman—or he may take, if he
will, the whole range of my public life—that can warrant
the slanderous imputation which is here conveyed, and
which the wording of the Report endeavours to point with
such effect. Having said thus much, I hold it unworthy
of any other answer or of any further comment.
I will cam: now to the imputation, conveyed in a manner
to give it with Parliament and with the public all the effect
of a proved and positive charge, of having destroyed the
evidence necessary to prove the fraudulent returns of duty
alleged to have been procured by the County Fire Office, of
which I was one of the Directors, and to which it is sug-
gusted, too broadly to be mistaken, that I was accessary as
Chairman of the Stamp Board.

6' It will remain also for your lordships to consider how far it
may be expedient to direct the Board of Stamps to institute a pro+
secu•ion against the County Fire Office, for the allowances soil re-
turns unduly obtained in the manner above described. The pro.
pricty of such a measure had, we understood, occurred to the Soli-
citor of Stamps in an early period of the investigation ; hut that
Officer states himself to have born checked in his preparations fur
such • proceeding by the difficalty he found in obtaining the ac-
counts which it would be necessary to produce, in order to establish
his case. It is only since the appointment oi the present Comp-
troller that these accounts 11,:ve been kept with any degree of order
or regularity; previously to th;s time they were nominally in the
charge of a distinct dike, called the Insurance Office; hut i: ap-
pears that no attention was paid by the oriicer Stimediately in
charge, or by hi+ superiors, to their proper cu+totly. On our call-
ing fire the annuli returns subsequent to Mil. it was found that
no copies of then; had been preserved for many of the years. that
the account had been lost, anti that others were in so incomplete a
state us to be hiogoher useless. On our specially applying for
the Distributor's Accounts of the County ire Office for the year
1819, nothing could he produced to us but the fragments of the
corer, and a part of one of the pages. The neglect and inatten-
tion with respect to these accounts is the more worthy of remark,
in reference to a statement made by the Chairman in his evidence,
• that without them it is impossible to trace any frsud.'"

Now the intent of this statement manifestly is—and it I
could not fail of its effect—to impress the minds of the
Lords of the Treasury, of Parliament, and of the Country,
with the opinion, that having been corruptly colluding
with the Managing Director of the County Fire Office in-
procuring undue returns of duty on policies insured by
that Office, I had contrived, should the transaction ever
be brought to light, to leave no clue to them behind,
by having, in some way, been accessary to the destroy.
ins the accounts, and thus effectually defeating the ends
of justice. This is not affirmed in so many words, but
I .
I it is implied so strongly in the above passage of the
itvort, as to lead the mind of every one that reads it to
this conclusion. It is the conclusion which was intended
to be drawn fro-n it, anti it is the conclusion which every
where has been drawn from it.
I now entreat the attention of the public to the plain and
brief statement of the case.

With regard to these accounts, as they are termed, they
are nothing mare than the copies of their quarterly ac-
counts, lodged at the Stamp Office by all the different In-
surance Cotnpatsies, as directed by Act of Parliament.
It NI not thiaceounts of the County Fire Office exclu-
sively—and this is an itnilertant fact—that were damaged
or lest ; they suffered day from the same general negli-
gent*, in common with those of, every otter Insurance
Offic, ; whereas every one would be led M tondude, from
the Report, that this negligent superintendence was con-
fined, for whatever reason, to the accounts uf, the County
Fire Office alone.

Formerly, alad until the year 1824, there was an officer,
Mr. Becket, whose duty it was to compare those copies
with the original accounts. lie was in that year superan-
nuated; and as the Board were of opinion that he had of
late years performed his duty very negligently, and that
the office itself was, upon the whole, superfluous, it was