The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-11 00:00:00

THE EXCHEQUER BILL AFFAIR.!

It is, we apprehend, not less the duty of an honest
and independent press to state to the Government from
time to time such movements of the public mind as re-
quire attention, than to inform the public at large of the
purposes and plans of Government, so far as they may
be accurately ascertained and usefully imparted. Such
considerations as these induce us to say a few words on

the present position of the Exchequer bill affair.
There can be no doubt that the recent disappointment
of the public curiosity has operated prejudicially on the
character of the Government. That disappointment
may have been inevitable ; it may have been morally
impossible for the affair to have been with propriety
worked in any other way ; but not the less certain is it,
that the sudden fall of the curtain, and disappearance of
the chief performers, without the least disclosure or ex-
planation, has furnished an opportunity for calumnious
invention and the spread of scandalous reports which has
scarcely ever been equalled.
People had generally taken it into their heads that in
transactions of this magnitude there must have been
other and greater criminals than Smith and Itapallo.
They waited with patience for the public trial, believing
that in the course of such an investigation the whole
facts of the case would, somehow or other, be developed.
But, lo I in one short half-hour, the whole scene passes
off ; the accused appears, makes his bow, reads his ad-
dress, is sentenced, and retires, and his fellow-prisoner
is permitted to depart unquestioned ; the eager public
knowing, if possible, almost less of the real history of
the transaction than they did a week before
That the mere force of disappointment should produce
" evil surmisings," was almost inevitable. Accordingly,
the ill-disposed towards the Government have instantly
embraced the opportunity of declaring everywhere that
" there were those implicated in the affair whom it was
convenient to screen ; that at least two Noble Lords,
more or less connected with the Administration, were
involved with the affair ; and hence it was contrived to
cut the whole investigation short, and to suppress all
the evidence."

It is impossible to be surprised, considering what hu-
man nature is, and how unwilling men always are to be
balked of a tale: of romance, or a promised discovery—
it is impossible, we repeat, to wonder that imaginative
invention on the one hand, and eager malice on the
other, should create such fictions as these out of what was
probably a very common-place affair.
The main ground on which these assumptions are or-
dinarily found to rest does not appear to us to be a suffi-
cient one. " What can have become of so large a sum
of money ?" it is asked ; " Smith has it not—Rapallo is
poor ; who, then, has had all this vast amount ?".

. ,
To those who are unaccustomed to the scenes which are
daily passing in the Bankrupt Court this question was
likely to carry the inevitable conviction that some more im-
portant persons than Smith andßapallo must have been con-
cerned, and that somegreat hoard of wealth.must still exist,
the result of "the Exchequer bill conspiracy." But to those
who have been used sometimes to read and hear of city
failures, whether mercantile or on the Stock Exchange,
there will appear nothing strange or unaccountable in
the utter dissipation of 300,0001. without any gain to the
parties ; nor any expectation that a hoard could be dis-
covered, even by tracking every single bill through all
its stages to its ultimate resting-place.

The present autumn has already witnessed several, nay,
many failure*, in London and the larger towns, of amount
equalling, or even exceeding, the Exchequer bill fraud.
and in each of which it might with quite as much pro-
priety ha asked, " What can have become of all this mo-
ney ? We have seen bankers worth 300,0001., or
400,0001., now deficient, perhaps nearly as much ; book-
sellers, in a few years, minus 100,0001. or 150,0001. ;
and warehousemen who, in two years have dissipated
80,0001.1 Yet none of these occupations offers so easy
and rapid a method of getting rid of money as the time-
bargain system on the Stock Exchange. Where, then,
h the wonder, that two or three persons, without exciting
any great observation, should, in the time which seems

tolit've been spent in the work, have got rid of the sum
now in question ?—not 300,0001. we apprehend ; but
only such amount as may have been advanced on Ex-
chequer-bills apparently of that value ? •
For our own part, therefore, we discern no facts which
lead to the conclusion that " there must be something in
the back-ground." But at the same time we think it
our duty to point out to the Government the use which
is being made of the recent occurrences by those who
bear them no good will ; and we 'will venture to add the
recommendation, that if any means can be found, whether
through the medium of the Bank of England, or by any
other channel, of letting the public understand the real
character and full extent of the transaction, such a
course should at once, and with all possible frankness, be
taken.— Times.