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

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)°447, °,l

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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 !!!