The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-03 00:00:00

CHARGE OP FORGERY.

Yesterday at 1 o'clock, Frederick George Heatley, other-
wise Captain Heatley, who stands charged with forging
bills of exchange to the amount of about £9,000 in the
whole, with intent to defraud the Marquis of Anglesea, the
Earl of Uxbridge, and the Earl of Westmoreland, was agais
brought before the Lord Mayor at the justice room of the
Mansion-house for further examination.

Mr. Lewis, jun., conducted the examination as before,
and the prisoner was defended by Mr. Champ, solicitor.
The evidence, as on the previous occasion, was confined
to the specific charge against the prisoner of forging and
uttering two bills of exchange for Xl,OOO and £5OO, with in-
tent to defraud the Marquis of Anglesey and the Earl of
Uxbridge ; and to render the proceedings of yesterday in-
telligible it is necessary to state that about the 10th Nov.
the prisoner was introduced as Capt. Heatley to Mr. Peters,
a commission agent, at a tavern in Bush-lane, Cannon-
street. Mr. Peters, at the request of a Mr. Knights, had
then redeemed a bill of exchange for £l,OOO by the payment
of £lO, which Mr. Wylde, of the Alhambra Palace, had ad-
vanced to the prisoner on pledge of the bill. The bill pur-
ported to be drawn by the Earl of Uxbridge and accepted
by the Marquis of Anglesey. At the interview at the public
house in Bush-lane the prisoner asked Mr. Peters to get the
bill discounted for him, but Mr. Peters told him that it was
informal, in consequence of the drawer's name and endorse-
ment being written on an erasure, and of the stamp being
damaged. The prisoner thereupon said he would get a fresh
bill
n t Laotred
terms, Uxbridge, with whom, he said, he was on
most
he was also with the Marquis of
intimate
a
Anglesey. He left with that view, and returned later in the
day with another bill of exchange for £l,OOO, dated Oct. 17,
payable at Messrs. Hoare's, the bankers, three months after
date, and purporting to be drawn by the Earl of Uxbridge
and accepted by the Marquis of Anglesey. The prisoner
said he got it direct from Lord Uxbridge ; but that, too, Mr
Peters declined to get discounted on the ground that the
date was written on an erasure. A few days afterwards he
met the prisoner at a coffeehouse in St. Martin's-le-Grand,
and the latter there and then filled in the two bills of ex-
change now in question for £lOOO and £5OO, and took thorn
away to be signed by the Marquis of Anglesey and the Earl
of Uxbridge at the Junior United Service Club. The pri-
soner met Peters by appointment at a tavern in the Hay-
market, and there handed him the bills signed " Uxbridge'
as the drawer and "Anglesey'' as the acceptor. Suspicion
bring excited as to the genuineness of the signatures, the
prisoner was afterwards given into custody, when another
bill was found upon him for £l,OOO, with the names of the
same drawer and acceptor attached.
Yesterday, on the prisoner being brought up, Mr. Lewis
desired to make an explanation with respect to Captain
Massey, said to be " Roden Massey," whom the prisoner bad
sought to connect with these forgeries. From the first the
statement of the prisoner in that respect was not for a mo-
ment believed; but Mr. Lewis said it was due to Major
Massey—for such he is, and not a captain—to state that be
left this country in July last with his regiment, the sth
Lancers, and is now serving with it in India. There could
not, therefore, have been the slightest pretence for the pri-
soner saying that Capt. Massey, if he meant thereby Major
Massey, was in any way mixed up with these forgeries,
which purported to have been committed in October last, in
this country, seeing that the Major was in India. The gal-
lant officer's reputation, which in some respects was matter
of history, was of itself sufficient to protect him from such
an imputation ; bur, still he (Mr. Lewis) should be wanting
in his duty if he did not say that, so far as he knew, from
having had to collect information necessary to this prosecu-
tion, it was utterly untrue. With respect to Mr. Peters, the
principal witness in the case, it was due to him to state that
the moment he was convinced that the prisoner had intended
to defraud him he gave information to the police, which had
resulted in the prisoner being brought to justice. He (Mr.
Lewis) did not then intend to go into the charge against the
prisoner of forging the name of the Earl of Westmoreland
to a bill of exchange. It might be thought desirable to do so
on the trial of the prisoner at the Central Criminal Court,
but in that event he should give the prisoner duo notice,
Mr. Peters, in cross-examination by Mr. Champ, said he
was a commission agent, and bad known the prisoner only
for a few days, from the 9th of November last, He met
him in a pnblichouse in Bush-lane, Cannon-street. That
was the first interview, and he saw him later in the same
day at the same publichouse. A few days afterwards he
saw him in Whitecross-street Prison. The signatures
" Anglesey " to the bills produced were net palpably dif-
ferce-et, but they differed in some respects. Ho understood

the Marquis of Anglesey and the Eirl of Uxbridge resided
in London, but he believed what the prisoner had said about
the bills, and he did not think it worth his while to go to
them, Ile occasionally gave the prisoner a shilling and
half-a-crown while the transaction was pending. The pri-
soner did not appear to be rich, and notwithstanding that
witness did not think it extraordinary that such a man
should have in his possession two bills for £l,OOO and £5OO,
purporting to be drawn and accepted by the Marquis of
Anglesey and the Earl of Uxbridge.
By Mr. Lewis—The prisoner had told him that he was on
most intimate terms with the marquis and the earl, and that
he had actually seen them siga the bills in question.
Sergeant Huggert, in cross-examination, said the prisoner
was in a deplorably destitute condition when he took him
into custody.

The Marquis of Anglesey was called. He said—l reside
at 48, Albermarle-street. The acceptances to the four bills
produced are certainly not in my handwriting, either one or
other of them, nor were they written by my authority. I
do not know the prisoner. lam not a member of the
Junior United Service Club. Messrs. Hoare are not my
bankers.

By ➢lr. Champ—Tho acceptances arc not in the least like
my signature.

Mr. Mark William Lyndon, clerk in the Guards• depart-
ment of Messrs Cox, the army agent in Craig's-court, said
the Earl of Uxbridge kept an account with them. He was
well acquainted with the handwriting of the earl, and the
signatures to the endorsement of the bills produced did not
in the least resemble it.

By ➢ir. Champ—lf anybody had come to him with those
bills he should at once have pronounced them to be for-
geries.

Mr. Charles Arnow, clerk to Messrs. Clack, army agents
in Leicester-square, deposed that Major Massey, known as
" Redan" Massey is now attached to the sth Lancers. The
regiment left Plymouth in July last for Calcutta in the ship
Newcastle, and Major Massey went with it. He was not
in England in October last.
Mr. Champ addressed the Court for the prisoner. He
submitted that the mere writing the name of a person to a
document did not constitute a forgery, unless it could be
shown there was an intention to defraud. Was it at all
likely that he could have expected, in his then destitute con-
dition, to palm off on a man with the experience of Mr.
Peters two bills for £l,OOO and £5OO, purporting to be signed
by two noblemen within easy reach ? It was as little likely
that Mr. Peters, meeting the prisoner for the first time in
an obscure public house in Bush-lane, could have believed
the bills were genuine, or that he could have got them dis-
counted, the prisoner being then without shoes, and desti-
tute to all appearance. The prisoner was a man with re-
spectable family connexions, but unfortunately he had be-
come addicted to the vice of drunkenness, and to that his
present position was attributable. He did not believe that
any jury would convict the prisoner, considering that there
could have been no intent en his part to defraud Mr. Peters
—and no other person had complained of having been de-
frauded—intent being the very essence of all crime.

Mr. Lewis said that when a man attempted, as the pri-
soner had done, to put into circulation bills to the amount of
£9,000, and asked another to discount them, he must have
intended to defraud somebody.
Mr. Goodman said in the case of "the Queen v. Beaed,"
8, C. and P. 143, Mr. Justice Coleridge said, " As to the
intent, I must tell you that every man is taken to intend
the natural consequences of his own act. If I present to
you a bill with the name of my friend upon it, knowing it
to be forged, it would be idle to say that I had no intent to
injure him."
Mr. Champ said that was a very old case, and that there
had been a different decision since.

Mr. Goodman—lt is Standard law in the city of London
at all events.

Mr. Lewis explained that the Marquis of Anglesey and
the Earl of Uxbridge had only been actuated in coming for •
ward in this matter by the desire to prevent a man of whom
they knew nothing going about London to defraud people,
though they could not but regret his destitute condition.
The prisoner, on being cautioned from the bench as to
anything he might say, reserved his defence.
The Lord Mayor committed him to Newgate for trial,
and declined, as not being within his power, to entertain an
application by his solicitor to admit him to bail in the
meantime.