The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-13 00:00:00

The Roupell Forgeries.

The last act of the strange drama in which Wil-
liam Roupell, the late M.P., performed so prominent
a part, will be played out, if such a term can be
rightly applied to a transaction of this description,
at the ensuing assizes for the county of Essex. As
all the facts have been so frequently alluded to, it
will only be necessary to give a brief narrative of
some of the principal circumstances of this most
extraordinary case, in order that the public may
know what is intended to be done when the matter
comes before the Court. It will be remembered
that, in the first instance, Mr. Richard Roupell, the
heir-at-law of old Roupell, brought an action in
that capacity at the Guildford Assizes in 1862, to
recover possession of an estate worth about £15,000
at Kingston, in Surrey, on the ground that William
Roupell, who claimed the property, with everything
else that his father died possessed of under his will,
and who had disposed of it, had no right to do so,
as the will under which he claimed was forged by
William Roupell. The cause was tried before Baron
Martin, and it resulted in a compromise, the then
defendant agreeing to give the heir-at-law £7,500,
or half the value of the estate. This, of course, had
no result so far as the bulk of the property, which
was of the estimated value of nearly £300,000, was
concerned ; but, upon his own confession, William
Roupell was convicted of forgery, and sentenced to
penal servitude for life. Another action was then
tried at the Summer Assizes at Chelmsford, in 1863,
to recover an estate near Romford, the heir-at-law
being again the plaintiff ; and he sought to recover
the property on the ground that a deed of gift,
under which the estate had been conveyed to William
Roupell, during the lifetime of his father, was a
forgery. The convict was brought down to Chelms-

ford from the Model Prison, Pentonville, to give his
evidence, and he again swore that he had forged the
deed of gift in question. The cause was tried before
Mr. Baron Channell, and lasted eight days ; and the
jury, after being locked up till 10 o'clock at night,
were discharged from giving a verdict. This, of
course, left both parties in the same position they
were before, but it was competent to the plaintiff to
give notice of his intention to try the, cause a second
time at any subsequent assize. It appears, however,
that nothing has been done until recently, when
Messrs. Linklater, the solicitors for the plaintiff,
gave notice to the defendant that it was their in-
tention to set the cause again down for trial at the
ensuing Spring Assizes. It is understood that, in
the interval, every effort has been made on both
sides to obtain additional evidence with regard to
the material question in the cause, whether the sig-
nature to the deed of gift under which William
Roupell disposed of the property is a genuine sig-
nature or not. In consequence of the elevation of
Sergeant Shee to the judicial bench the plaintiff will
not have his able assistance to conduct his case as
he had on two former occasions. Every exertion,
it is understood, will be made to obtain a decision
on the present occasion, and the verdict of the jury,
either one way or the other, will be attended with
the most important results. If the plaintiff should
obtain a verdict in his favour, the necessary :result
will be that the will and the deed of gift will be
established as forgeries, and the whole of the vast
property that was made away with by Mr. Roupell
will revert to his family, and those who have paid
their money for it will be despoiled of it. On the
other hand, if the defendant should succeed, the
holders of the property will still remain in undis-

turbed possession, and Mr. William Roupell will
have to undergo the punishment to which he has
been sentenced without obtaining any benefit to his
family except the amount that was obtained by the
Guildford trial. The culprit would long before this
have been sent to one of the penal colonies, but by
an order of the Secretary of State ho has been de-