The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-29 00:00:00

MORNING SUN

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FRONI THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY
HERALD.—One of those cases of fraud which
involves so enormous an amount of capital as to force
the attention of Governments to the instant discharge
of long neglected duties of supervision and reform in
the economy of their fiaanciel service, has just now
been detected, under circumstances peculiarly impreg-
sive. By a chain of discoveries (of which we beg to I
refer the public, for a carefully prepared account, to the 1
communication of our City correspondent in this day's I
Herald, and to an article, dated from the same quarter,
in our publacation of yesterday), the actual issue of an
immense aggregate of Exchequer Bills, not genuine in
their character, has ben traced to a Mr. E. B. Smith, •
the Chief Clerk for issues in the office of the Comp-
troller-General of the Exchequer. Whether the aggre-
gate amount be to 100,000/., to 200,000/.. or even
to 300.000/. this gentleman declares that, he
is unable to state ! How long the wholesale
career of misappropriation, fraud and deception in
which he has been engaeed, may have continued.
neither his employers nor his friends appear to be. as
yet, prepared to state for him. Nor is the distressing
uncertainty which exist, as to these points, the on')
aggravation of the frightful mischiefs which must en.ue
frog such iniquitous operations. It seems very doubtful
whether innocent holders—private individuals—in no
way cognisant of the original fraud which had tainted
these securities—may not be left without any virtual
relief in the shape of a claim for value. upon the
Government by whom the bills purported to be issued.
Mr. Smith occupied, it should seem, precisely that
position in the Comptroller-General's-office which gave
him every possible facility for originating, and keeping
up, undetected, the issues of Exchequer Bills over and
above those actually ordered, or designed, or under-
stood, to be issued—by the Government authority.
He was the chief clerk " for issuing and making
out Exchequer Bills ;" and in that capacity the
duty was confided to him of miliing in the numbers
and dates of the Bills issued. Tnese latter, as may
be readily imagined, were genuine as to paper —of
which a peculiar quality is used, exclusively, we belhve
for this service—and as to print. Whether they were
also genuine as to signature seems to be at present a
epeeefon of very great uncertainty, as it is must assu-
redly of very grave importance. An accredited organ
of the late Government, in its fair and succinct account
of the facts of this case, hazarded, last evening,
an incidental assertion that they are net. From
that very at item:est of facts, and on the further c
mn-
sideratiens we shell presently submit. we are much
inclined to hold—propounding this view, only, as the
best opinion we can form on the evidence at present
before the public—that the signatures are genuine.
If they be—if in law, they be such as te eit e
holder of these bills (in the absence of any case
against hiin of frauthaleet possession). a lien on
the nation it treaiury ; behold a new legacy of em-
barrassment, of financial Ifileuity, of further deficit
bequeathed to the present Government by their incom-
petent and improvident predecessors in administration.
The counterfoils,—that marginal portion of the book
which is left after the bills arc cut away,—(like the
docquets of a check-book) have detected the fraud.
Of course the entries on the counterfoils do not corre-
spond with the bills, issued in excess ; aid which ex-
cess-bills it muct have been a part of the scheme
adopted, to t iket up and c ince], if possible, before
being brought in. They appear to have been, for the
most part, deposited as securities for moneys ad-
vaneed gaithling jobbers in foreign stock spe•
culation3, for the purpose of making good differ-
ences on time bargains, as well as for conducting ex-
tensive dealings in riseh funds ; and also with other
parties who lead their money at enormous interest.
Upon the fact.; before ua, then, we come to these coo-
elusions :—`Tat there is a salaried officer of her Ma-
jesty's Fec'ucquer, called a " Comptroller-Genera',"
with 2,0001. a-year for the discharge of his duties in
thet post. 'feet there is a " Chief Clerk of Issues of
Exchequer dills," under him, but over whom the
sa'aried officer with 2,000/. a-year exercises no sort of
control at al. TWA this Clerk of Is3nes, with (as we
here shown above). I. the power of putting nut in due
farm, and in a condition, hitherto, to pass, as unques-
tionable Government securities, ants ammiount of new
Exchequer Bills othauvar ;-2. with the poser of
evading detection in his malpractices, la the office itself,
by time fabricate I are' adopted docquets on the coun-
terfoils of the bill ; and, out el Me office, by being,
sell; the party to whom any doubting holder of these
excess-hills (as we cell them for the sake of the dis-
tinction), would be referred, for "information," and
whose testimony would of course re-ify and con-
firm the character of such bills ;—that this Chief
Clerk, with a practical poser of issuing which tie
comptroller's power could not touch, was a die-
contented officer, being paid, in consideration of all
this te irful responsibility to time public, six hundreei
pounds a yea,.* That a practice has prevailed, in the
office of the Comptroller-Gerteral, of that officer's dele•
gating to no less than two other immdiriduals the power
of subscribing that very remarkuhle signature which he
himselC is paid s) liberally for (among other things)
affixing ; namely—his omen. .That to alai practice, ab-
surd in the abiatract, is directly attributable time practi-
cal mischief of an issue of sphriou=, or at any rate of
excessive and fraudulently-circulsted Government se-
curities to the amount of from one hundred and fifty
thourand to three hundred thousand pounds. Of time
conduct of the cffendcr Ms. Smith, this is not
- the place—perhaps not the season—to express our
opinions. If the most forbearing judgment should pre-
nounce his dupiicity to the Government which trust ed
him, and to the public whom he has defrauded, to have
been of the blaclie3t. character, the severest tribunal
must commend him (if our own information on this point
be correct), for the distinct and ingenuous confession
which he has made of the principal circumstances con-
nected with so deep-laid and extensive a scheme of
fraud. That confession his duty to time public un-
questionably demanded. Heartily do we hope that it
may prove to have been all that we have heard it really
was. It may be the means of exposing to a vigorous
Government, and of enabling them to counteract some
of those profligate conspiracies to ',lender the re-
sources of the State and the wealth of private capi-
talists, which are daily conc,)ct3d within and without
the Stock Exchange by hands of unprincipled jobbers,
as they are called. who swarm in every commercial
capital of E-irope, and rob, like hornete, the hived
treasures of that useful industry, in the honest labours
of which they have never contributed. The object of
those unsuccessful operations which are presumed to
Image precipita•ed the catastrophic of this discovery,
seems to have been Spanish Securities. 'co these—
as to every thing connected with the present social
and political sestens of that distracted country, in all
its domestic and foreign stations ;—its characterless
aristocracy, its ricketty constitution, its vain- glorious
legislature, its blood thirsty and treacherous chieftains
—time same disastrous principles in all their unity
and all their shame applies ;--to wit, inconstancy and
failure ; perpetual Its-nation and permanent dishonour.
feat U 3 picture to ourselves, for a moment, the over-
whelcni nes extent anal mitenitude of the " jobbing"
which (with all the advantages a T of sluice-gate to the
issue of exchever, to he raises at pleasure
_without
belie, once detected in we kahs not how um iny years,
3sy four' or five, however' and tors two or three of these
unmarked, even by the w 11
vigilance of Lord
must Argus Monteagle.)
to
I operated by the
capital thus lavishly furnisherte
have
e:tibtveennt
balances
aol of this
unprincipled stamp. What must ha, the
alternately realised anti paid on day
on speculations which, being in
the
Foreign House,
abruptly
tsho f from
interrupted, discover surreptitious appropriations
one hundred and fifty thousand to three Inuadrelndn
pounds? And how little of these appropriations, in
probability, ever reached the coffers of this unhappyor a gen-
tleman, whom the necessity for raising a loan
few hundred pounds, in order to meet ties necessi.teireYs.
entailed upon hint by his hail malsgement of an al-
ready inadequate income, is stetel to have first thrown
into the hands of one of those pests of society, who
have infested this vest metropolis in shoals ever since
the repeal of the If:eery-lass in respect of bill trans-
actions under certain circumstances,,; namely, your
bill discounters "on liberal terms, —and to have
afterwards made the reluctant but intimidated agent
of the wholesale villaoy of associates, possessed of the
fatal secret of his past weskcess Pity that some
sense of salvia was due to the name he bore, and the
renown of his illustrious relative had not inspired him
with some portion of that kindred courage and
bonds
moral
energy which woul have snapped asunder the
that hal men had bound him down withal, while there
•
was yet time, by a great effort, to retrieve himself.
and before the "iron" hal yet " er.tcred his scum .
One word, before we have done, on the permitted
subscription of the names of responsible officers of
Government, by Secretaries, Deputies, or Clerks,
without the addition of any symbol to indicate the
substitution, or bespeak the authority of a procuration.
The practice is highly reprehensible, and should be in-
stantly abolished throughout ad the public depart
moots. It is, in itself, an ingenious device fore ffectu-
-4_l,lye extinguishing security to time pubic. In its ex cr-
" it is an admir dde means of deceiving the very part;
whose subscription. is coanterfeite byanother. The

derive this information from the following pas-
sage of atiling le article in the Globe, already referred,
s
;and quite agreeing with our Contemporary
no-
tions of the policy of remunerating responsibility as well
as actual I,thotir, have only to regret that he did not
enforce the same doctrine on the Whig-Radical Par-
liament which were so prone and so proud to follow out,
the theories of Joseph Hume, "on the reduction of
office salaries to Infinitesitnal quantities."
4, The salary of Mr: Smith was, we believe, 6001. a
year, which he had anticipated would have been ad-
vanced to 7004., but his hopes being defeated by the
economy that has been carried of late into all the pub-
lic offices, be bad recourse to forgery as a temporary ex-
pedient ; and from a stun of 500/. has been led by those
of whom it is believed he has been the dupe, to the
enormous amount of his forgery which we have above
stated. Surely remuneration should be regulated not
simply by the few hours of time required—which has
too frequently been the Treantry standard of value—
but -by the amount of trust reposed, and the extent of
integrity required..

Globe indignantly denies that Lord Monteagle was una-
ble to state whether a signature on one of the bills
shown to him was or was not his own: but the effect of
this denial is quite abolished by its admission at the
same time, that the party authorised to sign " 'Montea-
gle" for that paragon of comptrollers, could not tall
viaether or not it was his. That difficulty is all that
was wanting to show the danger and folly of the CM.- I
torn. Besides, we can undertake to say, of our own know-
ledge, that under no former Government has the prac-
tice of Secretaries and confidential clerks in the depart-
ments, accurately imitating, in notes written in the third
person, and in the signatures to the sul7erscriptions of
official letters, " the sign manual', of their principals, as
it did under the last Government. It was a fashion, al-
most universal, among them, in the same way as the
attaches to some of the foreign legations at this Court are
observed to copy, with amazing accuracy, the character of
the hand-writing of their chiefs. It is surely unnecessary
for us to add that we offer these objections to the prac-
tice without meaning the slightest disrespect to any of
the individuals whom we allude to. The foreign gentle-
men who form part of the embassies to the Court cf St.
James's have uniformly maintained, for a long time,
most honourable distinction by their general deport-
ment : and we believe that in no country of Europe are
the " public offices" filled by functionaries, high and
low, combining a greater aggregate of respectability,
intelligence, and integrity, than in this. Yet with these
convictions on our mind, we cannot see that the force of
our objection to the practice of signatures by unacknow-
ledged or unapparent delegation is at all removed, or
even invalidated.
C HRONIC LE.—lt is highly creditalsle to the cha-
racter of the British Press that there is not one influ-
ential or respectable journal—at least that we have
seen—that shrinks from condemning the conduct of the
French Government in the late rebellion in Spain.
Writers of all parties admit the impossibility of resist-
ing the conviction that the governing powers of France
were instigators and abettors of the insurrection ; and
by writers of all parties is this nefarious conduct unre-
servedly censured. We believe that in this feeling the
British Government participates. Lord Aberdeen can-
not shut his eyes to the representations he must have
received from Madrid and from Paris. Of the guilt of
the French Court he must feel as convinced as he is
of his own existence, though the courtesy of di-
plomatic intercourse may forbid the direct avowal of
such conviction. The Foreign Minister of England may

know that at the solicitation of the French Government

the ex-Regent Christina abandoned her intention of
permanently residing in Italy, and deigned to become
the centre of a rebel intrigue in Paris ; the Foreign.
Minister of England must know that the French Go.
vernment proffered the assistance of its Minister at
Madrid and its Foreign-office in Paris, to establish a
secret correspondence between that capital and the
Queen of Spain ; he must know that whi'e the out-
break in Spain was organising in Paris, she, who was
the nominal head of it, was the constant guest of the
French Court ; that when the outbreak took place, the
avowed organs of that Court adopted it, and boldly
avowed its object of aggrandisement—personal and
political. All this, even though strengthened by the
conduct of tee French authorities o❑ the frontier, may

not, indeed, be a sufficient ground for Lord Aberdeet.'s
demanding explanation from the French Government,
but it must convince him of the base treachery of the
Power in which, by some parties, he is told to put his con-
fidence. "No proof," indeed, is offered to sustain this
accusation. So says the journal which still continues
its noisy billings for the small secrets of Downing-
stmt. " Proof," indeed, there may not be, conclu-
sive enough to prevent a sharp attorney from picking a
hole in an indictment at the Old Bailey ; but proof "
there is, such as must bring conviction to any mind
that is free to judge the circumstances by the rules of
evidence aoplicable to the ordinary affairs of life.
Louis Philippe is neither so inexperienced nor so mil-
adroit as to leave himself open to detection in case of
the failure of any intrigue in which he may engage. The
mine may explode, but you cannot say—that is you
cannot " prove"—that by his band it was laid and fired,
though the nature of his previous connection with the
convicted conspirators, and his openly avowed interest in
the success of their operations, render his guilt a matter
of moral certainty. The conduct of the King of the French
in this matter is of more importance to England than
may at this moment be imagined. We believe that
he sought to repay himself in Spain for supposed diplo-
matic reverses in the East. And repay himself he will
when and wherever he may have the opportunity. At-
tempts will be made to lull suspicion by hireling writers
here and in Paris. Peace—peace—give us peace, they
es-y, ,Fier striving in vain for ten years to goad us into
war. Yes, by all means, give us peace ; but do not buy
it upon ruinous terms. Year after year you kept cla-
mouring as an opposition for an increase of our navy,
and you are not three months a Government when you
threaten to reduce it. But France, you say, sets the
example. Already has the French Government ordered
six ships of the line int 3 harbour preparatory to their
being laid up. Will France reduce the number of her
seamen ? Or does she not tell you that she will draft
the crews of her first-rates into frigates? And wl:ile
these vessels, iutint&y more troublesome than line-
of bottle-ships, are skulking about our colonies,
carrying the French fl to into waters in which it is
seen for the first time, we are told, indeed, that the
French Government takes the initiative of disarmament!
Sir Robert Peel, we know, must have money, and re-
trenchment is one way of getting it. He dare not take
a single ship out of commission while the French fleet
remains at its present complement. Will he dare to
take a single ship nut of commission while the number of
French seamen is still unreduced? Nor should the
present Government calculate too sanguinely upon the
eff,ct of even a bona fide reduction in the French fleet.
That it ought to be met by a corresponding reduction in
ours no person will deny. But even this evidence of
pacific intention, backed by the noisome adulation of
time-servers, w.ll not, we tell Lord Aberdeen,
create sufficient confidence in the character of Louis
Philippe to reconcile Englishmen to his being
selected to sit in judgment upon any question of English
interests. Courtesies and compliments if you will, or
if you want them for your peace-speech of February
next ; but if there be any question of vitil interest at
issue between Great Britain and any other nation, it is
not the decision of an irritated and perfidious Power
that should be sought, or accepted as a satisfactory
settlement. Our fleet is still unreduced.
TIMES.—EarI de Grey seems to have alighted
upon Ireland like a bird of calm upon a tempestuous
sea. Too long, indeed, has she been distracted and
convulsed by el ery evil which the virulence of political
faction and religious intolerance on either side could en-
gender ; but if we do not egregiously misinterpret the
altered phenomena now discernible in Irish affairs, his
Lordship's benign administration is already the harbin-
ger and the immediate cause of a better order of things.
Our neighbours across the Channel, no matter what be
their poletical or religious creed, are now:ff'etting heart-
ily sick of the unprofitable agitations which have so long
divided and distracted them. Even among the-nume-
rous tribe of ignorant and self-willed dupes who have
heretofore followed O'Connell, the symptoms of a re-
lexed fealty are, here and there, beginning to appear.
The popular enthusiasm which formerly hailed him
wherever he went, has of late grown wonderfnlly frigid.
A large proportion, too, of the more judicious Clergy
of the Romish Church, coinciding with the sensible
views of the Rev. Mr. Bermingham, seem honestly de-
termined, as befits their sacred calling, to withdraw
from turbulent meetings. and henceforth to lead " quiet
and peaceable liver." Moreover, your callow brood of
Liberal barrister's, whose cravings for Whig appoint-
ments impelled them to court O'Connell's favour, have
latterly shown a good deal of docility in selecting a
more eligible path to promotion ; while, with reference
to the immense majority of cultivated and independent
Irishmen, professing various shades of political
opinion, we have the happiness to know that there
nory prevails among them an almost universal wish
to extricate themselves from party broils, and to
exert their concurrent efforts in restoring Ireland to
a condition of prospeirty and repose. Nor need we
wonder that such a disposition should at length have
begun to
be exemplified. Experience, though some-
times a slow teacher, is always an able and successful
one. Immediately subsequent to the passing of the
Emancipation Act, which gave every reasonable pro-
mise of restoring tranquillity in Ireland, the Govern-
ment of that country passed into the hands of the
But owing to they,
Whigs, where, till very
itnhfae7nkiletedeedlnptlayr,tiistahnashsipsinocreLroermdaioed.
emancipation was fitted anti'
Mel-
bourne's Ministry, iinnflteunednecdes
tow hdiciffhnCseathhoalviec
been completely frustrated by a system o
whereby the exclusive pampering er fonef partiality,
lclass and
the virulent proscription of another
viaed their previous animosities, instead oafggra-
ex-
tinguishing or abating them. Accordingly, during
the last six years, the social condition of the Irish
peo-
ple, as regards the friendly reciprocities of life, has been
incomparably worse than at any former period of their
history. The good agreement which previously sub-
sisted between landlord and tenant has been superseded
by jP ilousies, defiences, ejectments, mutilations, and
murders. All the harmonious feeling between `the
Protestant rector and the Catholic priest, which for-
merly wrought so beneficially fur the temporal comfort
of the population, has been violently broken up. The
inerchange of mutual benefits in matters of business has
been supplanted by the odious system of exclusive deal.
•
tog In large towns, and even in peaceful villages, the
.
amicable intercourse long prevalent among many Protes-
tants and Roman Catholics has given place to cell es-
trangements, and more frequently to the repulsive scowl.
Now, that such a state of things, so utterly subver-
sive of all the interests and enjoyments of human
society, could not possibly continue, without sooner or
to every re-
later bringing a re-action, must be evident
of fleeting person. Social happiness, and the means
of mankind.
at-
taining it, constitute the universal pursuit •
Political theories, as subservient to that end, isaay, for a
length of time, be ardently struggled for ; nay, in the
hope of eventually realizing it, temporary inconveniences
may be cheerfully encountered and serious sacrifices
may be made. But, after a long period of disappointed
expectation, when it is found that all the disadvantages