The Sun.
London, England, 1840-11-12 00:00:00

POLICE PiTLLLIGENCE.

MANSION-HOUSE.
Oa Tuesday Alderinan Pirie appeared as one of the

S;,uth Australian Lazid Association to bring a charge
against Mr. Frederic Boucher, the Manager of the con-
cern called the British and Australasian Bink, of whose

:ondoet, i4Tr. Ashurst, the solicitor, bad complained on

Saturday last.
Micl3,3ddome, solicitor to certain claimants ❑pon a

Bank, attended to state the substance of the ziccusa.
tioa as regarded them, and Mr. Frederic Boucher
the Manager of the Bank, and Mr. Thomas, of the

,wise of Kersey, Hughes, and Thom.is, presented them.
;elves, upon being sent for by the late Lord Mayor, cvll4
. .

sat upon the occasion.. Aldermen Copeland and Gibbs

were also present to hear Mr. Ashurst, who attended to

watch the proceedings.
Mr. Beddorne said that he appeared before the Lon
Mayor in consequence of the report in the newspap2r,
respecting the traniaetions of the Briti.h and Australasia:

aznk, No. 55, Mnotgate-street. IL represented the
holder of a bill of ex-chango- for 9551., and twelve other
parties, wbose money' had been ulten by the B.tnk in
Moorg,ate-strut, in September and October of last year,
and who had received in return a bill and money order::,

payable at Atklaide. They were as follows :---
No. 2. The British and Australasian Bank._
Exchange for 9851. sterling. London, Oct. 14,1839.
At thirty days after sight of this first of exchange
(second-and third of the saute tenor and date being tin,
paid), pay to the order of Francis Grote, Esq., the sotn
of nine htindred and .eighty-five pounds sterling, i:alue.
}received.
i-. ~ , _ FRED. BOUCHER,
', W. H, BUR,NAND, Directors.
GEO. WIIITCONII3,
To the Local Directors of the British and
Australasian Bank, Adelaide, South Aus-
tralia.
Entered, Samuel Hill, Accountant.
Apply to Charlis Boucher, Adelaide.
The British and Australasian Bank.
' No. 12. 2361.83. London, 10th September, 1939.

Not transferable.

SIR,—You will be pleased to hold at the disposal of
Mr. Philip Butler the sum of two hundred and thirty-
six pounds eight shillings, and place the amount when
paid to the debit of this office.
Your obedient servants,
FRED. BOUC HE R,
W. H. BURNAND, Do ectors.
GEO. WHITCOMB,
To the Managers of the British and Aus-
tralasian Bank, Adelaide,South Australia.
Entered, Samuel Hill, Accountant.
Apply to Charles Boucher, Esq., Adelaide.
All the other eleven money orders were in the form
of that just quoted, and were for the following amounts,
so that the money orders stood thus—Philip Butler,
236/. Ss. ; John Gifford, 160/. ; John Reynell, 1501. ;
Esher Butler, 1471. 15s. ; Thos. Donaghue, 1281. Is. ;
William Moore, 981. 10s. ; Richard Perkins, 1081. 7s. ;
James Stokes, 128/. ls.; Patrick Hughes, 98/. 10s. ;
John Davis, 95/. 10s. ; George Fitzgerald, 981. 10r. ;
John Bond Phiper, 251. Now on the arrival of these
individuals at the colony with their families, many of
them possessed of no property in the world, except the
paper for which they had given their money, they in vain
looked about for the Agent of the British and Austrae
lasian Bank ; there appeared nobody to honour the bills
of the Company and back the bills for 985/., and all the
money orders were sent to England for recovery, most
of the unfortunate persons who had reliance upon the
representation of the Company being in a state of desti-
tution 10,000 miles from England. At first, badly as
he (Mr. Beddome) thought of the case as it affected
the British and Australasian Bank, he considered that
the only remedy was by civil action, and he proceeded
accordingly on several of the bills and drders, but when
be saw by Mr. Ashurst's statement in the newspapers of
the day before that a counter-game was playing here of
dishonouring bills drawn from the colony, and that while
the Bank was taking money at both ends of the world
they were not honouring their bills at either, he
thought it indispensable to bring the case, which
was much stronger than Mr. Ashurst's, before his
Lordship. He should show that five weeks be-
fore Mr. Boucher's bank took these monies and
granted these orders, letters were in London, stating that
Mr. Charles Boucher had left the colony, and made no
provision whatever for honouring the drafts sent out
there, but even at the very date of the bill the Manager
of the British and Australasian Bank was writing to
his brother not to use the letter of credit of which Mr.
Ashurst had made such an exhibition on Saturday, but
only to "exhibit it in case of need;" that earfy in De•
cember 1839 he wrote to Mr. Wheeler, the Manager of
the South Australian Bank, stating that his brother
had left the colony without making any arrangement
whatever on behalf of the Bank, and after most dis-
graceful delays in the civil actions which had been
brought, and refusal to abide by what his attorney
agreed to, he pleaded to Mr. Grote's bill of exchange
five false pleas, in order to drive the plaintiffs back
;loin to Australia, three of the pleas being such as he
supposed could only be negatived in the colony. Ho
(Mr. Beddome) had in his hand a document, too, which
testified pretty evidently to the system. It was Mr.
Frederic Boucher's letter, offering, only last week, bills
on Sydney, in discharge of these poor people's bills,
which had already twice traversed the Atlantic. His
Lordship could not long be in doubt AS to the term that
could be most properly applied to such transactions.
Every honest mind must feel extreme indignation
at it. Mr. Beddome here put in the dishonoured
bill for 9851., and the twelve money-orders, and read
Mr. Frederic Boucher's letters to Mr. Charles Boucher,
already referred to by Mr. Ashurst, relative to drawing
and merely exhibiting, which bore date nine and eleven
days after Mr. Grote's bill. He also read the follow-
ing extract of a letter from Mr. Stephens, in this colony,
to Mr. Wheeler, in Lohdon, which had been received
in London on the 6th September, 1839, long before
the dates of the bill and orders,showing that Mr.eharles
Boucher lied left the colony, without making any pro-
vision whatever for the Bank : " e notice your obser-
vations on the Australasian Loan Company. Thu ma•
nagement of that concern here (should
,they open
branch at this place) cannot devolve on Mr. Charles
Boucher, as that, gentleman has just returned to 'the
Mauritius, per Caroline." The next document to which
reference was made, was an extract from Mr. Frederic
Boucher's own letter of the 12th of December, 1839,
as follows :—" Mr. Charles Boucher, it appears, was
shipwrecked on his voyage to Adelaide, and through
such shipwreck his wile died, utter much suffering ; and
it further appears. that, in consequence of this event, he
left the colony of South Australia shortly after his ar-
rival there, and without making any arrangements what-
ever on behalf of this 8.,nk." From those documents