The Sun.
London, England, 1827-04-05 00:00:00

ARIGNA MINING COMIWRIt.

REPORT FROM THE SELECT CO
MITTEE ON THE ARIGNA
aeneusC COMPANY.. Olfmmigp, RE THE Rocas Op
coD[ tONs, TO SE PrAINT/D, MARCH, 1827.
(111XTP—AcTs FROM THE REPORT.)
The Select cbmmittee appointed to inquire into the origin,
manavmett, and present state of the Arigna Iron and
Coal Mining Company, and to report the same, with
any special matter touching the conduct of any Members
o.i this Hoene, together with the Minutes of Evidence
taken before them, have examined into the matters re-
ferred to them, and now submit their Report to the
House; subjoining to it in an Appendix the evidence
both oral and documentary on which it proceeds.

(Continued from our Paper of yesterday.)

Soon after the meeting of the Ist of January, 1825, Sir
William Congreve again went abroad ; and on the 15th
of January, the second meeting of the Directors took
place, the attending Directors being Colonel (now Gene-
ral) M'Lean, Messrs. Bent, Dunston, S.urtees, and the two
Clarkes.

This meeting was distieoished by an occurrence to
which some allusion has atteady been made.
On the table before Each of the Directors present, the
Messrs. Clarke eXet:pted, Mr. Henry Clarke, as it appears
without any vrarning or preface, laid a small paper parcel,
which, on being opened, was found to contain the sum of
1,0471. bank notes and sovereigns. Something seems
to ha-v• been said of these sums being paid as a remunera-
tion for "management." Few more words passed ;
and these were chiefly spoken by Mr. Bent. He
expressed great surprise. He asked Mr. Clarke,_
" What is this ?" and, in reply, was assured that
be saw in the money his own property, and was de-
sired to pocket it without further questions. At this
crisis Mr. Dunston rose, and proposed that the fractional
sums of 47/. should be thrown into a fund to be employed
in the purchase of a piece of plate for Mr. H. Clarke,_....a
proposal which was instantly adopted by the whole party.
This donation the contributors avowedly meant as an ac-
knowledgment of the services of Mr. Clarke in the forma-
tion of the company.
No statement was at this meeting, nor for some time af-
terwards, made, whence the sums so distributed arose; but
the Messrs. Clarke now assert, as will have been antici-
pated, that the money was derived from the profit of
15,000/. gained en the sale of the Arigna property to the
Company. Mr. Power, another of the Directors, bad pre-
icenily received 1,0001., which is ascribed to the same
origin, being the net sum divided, after deducting 47/. for
the plate fund of Mr. Henry Clarke. The Messrs. Clarke
admit that they themselves respectively appropriated sums
of 1,047/. out of the same fund; a like sum was soon after-
wards given by Mr: Henry Clarke to Mr. Brogden ;
and it seems that a sum of 2,5001. produced, as alleged, in
the same manner, was credited by Mr. Clarke to Sir Wm.
Congreve in account.

Two sums of 1,0471. each were also reserved by Mr.
Henry Clarke for Mr. Schneider, jun., and 11r. Morgan,
both named Directors by Sir William Congreve ; but both
of whom were abroad. The sum for Mr. Schneider, 'or
rather 1,0001. part of it, the rest being added to Mr. Henry
(arke's plate fund, was credited to Sir William Congreve,
Mr. Holroyd, who was the brother-in-law of Mr. Morgan,
tearing of a sum held by Mr. Henry Clarke to the credit
of Mr. Morgan, applied for it to Mr. Clarke ; but the
payment of it was withheld by Mr. Clarke until (as he
said) Mr. Morgan should return to England.
No other occurrence of importance, in fact, took place
before the return of Mr. Morgan, who reached England on
the 6th of June, 1825 ; except that a bill for the regula-
tion of the Company was brought into Parliament, which
passed into a law on the 23d of June. Mr. Morgan, how-
ever, soon after his return, reas informed by Mr. Flat-
tery that 5,0001., part of the ostensible purchase-money
of the .Ari 1,
g-na property, had been appropriated by Sir Wil-
liam Congreve and. the Messrs. Clarke; and he, about the
middle of the month, communicated this statement to
Messrs. Ber..t and Brogden. It was agreed by Messrs.
Morgan, 7r-fent, and Brogden, that an inquiry should he
made ;alto the truth of this story, and they, in fact, after-
wa':ds proceeded to question the accused parties on the
%abject.

la is not necessary to enter into the particulars of the
discussion that elasned at the Board of Directors. The
sensation quickly extended to the shareholders ; Messrs:
Robert Hitehens, /demon, and other members of the body;
stood forward as the advocates of investigation ; and, in
consequence of a requisition in writing sent by these indi-
viduals to the Directors, under a clause in the Company's
Act of Parliament, a public meeting of the Company was,
after some delay, called on the sth of December, 1825. At
this meeting the aff-,ir of the 15 000/. was ma-1-
-
of _

•
Congreve, 'And certain other of the Directors, and a propo-
saliwas (submitted for removing them from the Direction,
whirrs, however, was negatived.
Afterwards, however, at a public meeting held on the
30th of May, 1826, all the Directors were removed, with
the exception of Mr. Schneider, jun., who had taken no
concern in the Company, also of Messrs. Morgan, Bent,
and Brogden, who were held to be uncontaminated by the
imputed fraud ; also of Geiieral Maclean, who had resigned
his situation of Director on the 17th of the preceding Dec. ;
—and lastly, of Sir Wm. Congreve, who likewise in Feb.
1526, had resigned his office as Chairman, and also his seat
in the direction.

A bill in Chancery is now in progress, filed by Messrs.
Robt. Hitchens, Moxen, and Parker, on behalf of themselves
and all other shareholders of the Company, against all the
original Directors, together with Mr. Flattery, and Messrs.
P. Moore, Barrett, and T. Dunaton, to whom, as trustees
for the Company, Mr. Flattery, conveyed the original pro-
perty ; praying that the 15,000/. with interest at the rate
of 5 per cent., may be refunded to the Company ; but the
cause has not yet been brought to a hearing.
Having now completed their general sketch of the mat-
ters of fact concerned in the present inquiry, the Committee
will proceed to notice more particularly certain of the pro-
ceedings which that sketch comprehends.
Their attention will principally be directed to two points :
1. To the title and also the advantages of the Arigna
property, as set forth in the prospectuses of November and
December, 1824.

2. To the division of the 15,0001. among certain of the
persona concerned in forming the Company.

Some notice will afterwards be taken of an improper and
illegal traffic in the shares of the Company's stock, alleged
to have taken place shortly after the Company was estab-
lished.

Of the title and advantages of the Arigna property, the
prospectuses issued by the promoters of the Company in
November and December, 1821, exhibited a very attractive
representation. The property was stated to abound in ex-
cejlent coal, iron-ore, and other minerals ; its command also
of good roads and other acquired facilities was strongly set
forth ; and on the nature of the interest vested in the Com-
pany, the following expressions were used :
" The Company hold the premises under the authority
of the said Acts of Parliament, for lives renewable for ever
at the option of the Company on the payment of one penny
for each renewal ; and the property may therefore be con-
sidered equal in value to a freehold estate, as it is subject
only to a quit-rent and small toll dues."
It has already been observed that the Company derived
their property through certain mesne assignments from the
families of Tenison and Latouche, and hold it subject to
certain rights rights reserved to both those families.

- -
To Mr. Latouche there was reserved by his lease to
Mr. Flattery, a power of taking at any time within ten
years a share (not exceeding one-third) of the profits of
the iron-wjks, manufactories, and collieries, he pay-
ing a propfftionate share of the actual expenditure or
outlay on the premises, to be estimated in the manner
directed in the lease. Besides this, it will be recollected,
that Mr. Flattery was entitled to one-fifteenth of the Com-
pany's profits ; and as has already been in part inti-
mated, if the business of smelting iron-ore, or making pig
iron from the ore raised, was not effectually established on
the premises within two years, or should afterwards cease
to be carried on, Mr. Latouche might avoid the lease and
re-enter.

By the aggregate effect of these reservations, it appears
that the association, though set up as a coal and iron corn-
pany,
had no power to work coal generally ; and that even
the right to work iron was a restricted right, being clogged
by the contingency of forfeiture within two years—quali-
fied by the participation of profit secured to Flattery—
greatly encroached on by the optional participation secured
to Mr. Latouche--and entirely over-ridden by the right of
Colonel Tenison to work the mines concurrently with his
lessee. Such was the interest acquired by the Company,
and so far was it from approaching to that freehold tenure,
from which the prospectus, with an apparently scrupulous
nicety of discrimination, pronounces it to differ only by
the payment of « a quit rent and small toll dues !"
It required no legal skill or elaborate research to disco-
ver these objections. Mr. Schneider, after examining the
title only frith the unassisted acuteness of a man of busi-
ness, condemned it peremptorily. Professional advice in-
deed confirmed bin doubts ; but it had not suggested them:
ime the extent of those doubts may be collected from the
fol.lowing declaration Viewing the concern as a man
of b"lncts, I should say it was worth nothing ; I would
not have embarked a penny upon such an undertaking."
finder thex circumstances it is hard to find an excuse
for those who prciacted the design, and by whcse exertions

and influents it teas nsbered into public notiee and favour.
Sir William Congreve, indeed, states that he never himself
saw the prospectus, and the Committee do not mean to
dispute the statement; but neither can they, on the other
hand, admit its importance. There can be no doubt that
Sir William Congreve was apprised of the objections of
Mr. Schneider, and that, without any regard to them, be
gave the undertaking the full credit and benefit of his zea-
lous support. It surely ought to have occurred to Sir
Wm. Congreve, that to bring out with eclat an undertak-
ing grounded on titles which he knew to he insecure, was
to bring it ont with false colours; and that to accumulate
around it the aids of power and patronage, was only to aug-
ment the means and the mass of public delusion.
The same observation, although in a mitigated degree,
plies to the less active and conspicuous abettors of the
undertaking. Mr. Brogden, in one instance, being asked
by the Committee whether he recollected that Mr.
Schneider had made any objection to the title of the Arigna
property, answered, " I never heard that till lately ; I
never heard at the time that he made any objection to it."
This was a hasty answer, undoubtedly ; for Mr. Brogden
had on a preceding day stated that, in September, 1824,
he was informed by Mr. Cox, that in his opinion the
company would not be formed, and that Mr. Cox "said
particularly that Mr. Schneider• objected much to the
title, or something."
. _ _

The Committee are indeed very willing to believe that
Mr. Brogden was not himself acquainted with the specific
points in which the title was defective ; and they will not
dispute a remark elsewhere made by him, that " in the
case of some of the most respectable companies in London
which have been established, many Directors have joined
them without going more into investigation than he him-
self did in the instance of the Arigna Company." That
men of station and influence have too frequently lent the
credit of their names and patronage to projects essentially
unsound and projectors without principle, taking the
merits both of the schemes and the men of trust, is a
fact as notorious as it is unfortunate. But, without in-
cluding in one common censure every example of such in-
cautiousness, it must at least be plain, that no man should
recommend designs to the public, of the delusiveness or
doubtfulness of which he has received express notice.
The next subject for consideration is the division of
15,000/. part of the purchase-money paid by the Company
for the Arigna property, among certain persons through
whose influence the Company was formed.
With the exception of the memorandum of agreement,
signed by Mr. Holroyd on behalf of Sir William Congreve,
and by Mr. Henry Clarke on behalf of himself and his
brother,—which, as being altogether a private agreement
between those parties, may be laid out of view,—nothing is
more remarkable in the instruments referred to, than their
complete and impenetrable silence respecting matters ad-
mitted to have formed a most important part of the pro-
ceeding to which they relate. The instruments purport to
be the successive steps or stages of a transfer of landed
property ; they wear the appearance of the utmost form
and regularity; yet throughout them not a trace appears,
either by name or reference, of the concern of certain
parties in the transaction, who are confessed to have been
most materially concerned in it, with whom it even origi-
nated, who actually appropriated to themselves three. fifths
of the purchase money, and, it may be added, under whose
special superintendence the instruments are proved to have
been prepared.

For this singular circumstance it affords no solution to
say, that it may have been caused by some technical pe-
culiarity in the forms of conveyancing. The solicitors
who were professionally employed in the transaction, state
that the shape in which it was made to take place, is
contrary to all practice, and such as they would never
have advised. Nor yet could the irregularity be the effect
of accident or carelessness ; for it is uniform and syste-
matic. There is even evidence that the principal deed
had originally been so framed as to disclose some of those
circumstances which have since disappeared. At the same
time Mr. Henry Clarke, the person chiefly engaged in the
conduct of the operation, was one eminently inured to
business, acute, and cautious ; his attention to the suc-
cessive steps of the matter is proved to have been minute
and unremitting ; and the irregularity of the instruments
is of a sort that could not but be obvious to the plainest
understanding.
The sum of the whole is this, that a company consisting
of the Messrs. Clarke and other persons, purchased certain
mines for a very considerable sum of money, those other
persons according to the bargain chiefly or solely on the
authority of the Messrs. Clarke,—that the purchase-money
was ostensibly paid to Mr. Flattery"as the seller,—but that
the Messrs. Clarke, who were the principal actors in these
transactions, reserved to themselves and certain of their
friends the larger portion of it, which circumstance was net
only not known to the members of the company in general,
(e__~ t,ll;!!t.:„Fcgy,t

together without example.

After this, it cannot be thought surprising that the so-
licitor, who was principally implicated in this transac-
tion, and who, as a young man, might in some degree be
misled by a deference for his clients and the other parties
concerned, should declare that he has never since been able
to forgive himself.

The Committee would leave this proceeding without
further remark, were it-not for the gloss which has stu-
diously been thrown over it. The argument of the Messrs.
Clarke is, that having bought the mines absolutely from
Mr. Flattery, they had a right to sell them at a fair profit,
whether it were to a Company or a❑ individual. They
were not, they contend, purckasiir in the character of
trustees or agents for the Company, for no Company then
existed. They were independent parties, who, on com-
mercial principles, purchased the property on speculation,
to resell it a premium ; and who, in fact, resold it at a
price not exceeding its value.
There is but one farther topic to be noticed in this
branch of the report. The Messrs. Clarke, it will be ob-
served, received between them only 2,094/. of the 15,0001.
the rest being distributed among the other Directors and
the Agents ; and they remark the absurdity of the supposi-
tion that, to cover a fraud of 15,0001. they should have
given away 1%906/.

Whatever may be thought of this argument in reference
to the case of Sir William Congreve, it seems to be but a
limited application to that of the Messrs. Clarke. It is in
evidence that those gentlemen, at the very outset, objected
to the admittance of any person not being a co-purchaser
of the property with themselves, into a participation of the
15,0001. and that in this objection they tv,re over-ruled
only by the peremptory determination of Sir Wm. Con-
greve. In compliance with that determination, it was by
the agreement of the 30th of October, 1824, between Mr.
Holroyd and Mr. Henry Clarke, provided that a certain
portion of the 15,0001. should be divided among the other
Directors and the Agents. Afterwards as Mr. Henry
Clarke states, but not till December, 1824, Sir William
Congreve insisted on an alteration of the proportions in
which the distribution was to be made, to the effect of
securing to the other Directors much larger sums than by
the agreement last-mentioned they were entitled to receive ;
and the matter was so arranged accordingly. But Mr.
Clarke states that he submitted to the dictation of Sir
Wm. Congreve in this instance, only because he had ex-
pectations from Sir William which it was not for his in-
terest to relinquish; that he submitted most reluctantly;
that he even considered the conduct of Sir Wm. Congreve
as oppressive, and the sums distributed as suing " with
which only imperious circumstances forced him to part."
These statements seem scarcely consistent with that
credit for liberality which the Messrs. Clarke are desirous
of founding on the distribution that took place out of the
15,000/. Nor, perhaps, is it unimportant to observe, that
the larger part of the sacrifice which they claim praise for
having made, is stated to have been compelled by the dicta-
tion of Sir Wm. Congreve so late as December, 1824 ; by
which time the Company was conclusively formed ; the
purchase of the property for 25,0001. definitively resolved
upon ; the fraud, if any, already committed, and when all
retreat had become impossible.
On the whole, therefore, and without reference to the
legal character of this transaction, with which the Com-
mittee feel that they have no concern, they cannot in a
moral view designate it otherwise than as a deliberate
fraud ; and it remains only to be seen in what degree the
Members of Parliament whose names have been mentioned
in connexion with the proceeding are really implicated in
that which constituted its impropriety.
(TO BE CONCLUDED TO-MORROW.)

COLOMBIA.—A letter was received yester-
day from La Guayra, of the date of the 6th of February,
in which it is stated with much confidence that Bolivar
meditated an expedition against the island of Porto Rico,
and that he only waited for the arrival of some ships at
Carthagena, to proceed on that enterprise in person. It is
well known to those who have been in personal communi-
cation with Bolivar, and so far it may seem to lend credi-
bility to the present account, that he considered the inde-
pendence of Colombia imperfectly assured, while Spain
remained in possession of Cuba and of Porto Rico, and
added, that an attempt ought to be made at the earliest
opportunity that offered, to annex them to the Republic._
It will be a bad omen, however, for the creditors of Co-
lombia, if that energy which ought to be directed in the
first instance to the restoration of credit by a reform in its
financial system, shall be wasted in enterprises' of very
doubtful result, and attended at all events with much ex-
lance. It is said, that La Torre, the Spanish Governor of
Porto Rico, is brother-in-law to Bolivar.

EXPLOSION of the POWDER MAGAZINE

AT BOMBAY.

(From the Bombay Gazette of August 23.)
Most of our readers at the Presidency must have heard
of the dreadful explosion which took place on Friday night,
of the Company's powder works at Mazagon, the cause of
whick is not yet ascertained, and will probably for ever re-
main a mystery, owing to the guard in charge of the pre -
raises having, it is said, been blown up in the general con-
flagration. The Shock was felt all over the island, but the
damage was chiefly confined to the neighhourhoed of Maze-
gon, the Mount and Chintzpoogly, or within a circle of half
a circle in radius from the point of explosion. Fortunately
the weakest side of the building appears to have been on
that fronting Mazagon dock-yard, the principal part of the
stones having been thrown in that direction, but the shock
alone has been sufficient to destroy every building, amount-
ing to eleven in number, in the ground connected with
the powder-works. The only places left entire being a
small open guard-house and the grand magazine. Of the
magazine and composition-house in which the powder was
deposited in different states of preparation, the quantity of
which we have been unable to ascertain, not a vestige re-
mains, a hollow in the earth like the crater of a small
volcano, being the only indication of its position. The.
Sulphur, Saltpetre, anti Charcoal Houses have all been
destroyed, and we may perhaps add with their contents,
since from the specimen of what we saw clearing from
the ruins when we visited the grounds, we would
say they could be of very little use. The first place
outside the walls of the powder-wake, where the
damage sustained is most apparent, is where the
native vessels are laid up during the rains ; here the
havoc has been very great, hardly one having escaped
injury, the sides of some large Dhows and Boats
are completely riddled as if from shot, and so great has been
the force by which the stones were impelled that they
have actually gone through both sides—here only one life
has been lost and that in a most singular manner—a man
known to have been asleep on the deck of a small pleasure
boat at the time was found the next morning hanging across
the gun-whale of a boat at a short distance, with his back
broken. In a line with the boats is the Dock-yard at
3lazagon, and here the shower of stones was very great
and the damage done considerable—a most dreadful ac-
cident occurred by a stone being impelled through
the Governor's Snake boat Balloon, by which two men
were killed and one wounded, out of four who were then
asleep ; the bowels of one were torn out, and the other
man killed had his head literally cut in half; three Sepoys
were also wounded in different parts of the yard, and a
man on board of the Governor's yacht, asleep on the deck
of the vessel, was thrown into the hold, but escaped with-
out injury. It is difficult to ascertain how many lives have
been lost on this occasion, but we are informed that the
bodies of seven men have been found.

The loss of property to individuals in the neighbourhood,
by the fracture of doors, windows, and glass-ware, is very
considerable, and particularly so by these whose houses are
situated on Alazagon Hill, Chintzpoogly, and the Mount-
road. A gentleman's house, in the neighbourhood of the
Dock-yard, suffered so much by the shock, as to render it
scarcely habitable ; every article of glass-ware in it was
destroyed.