The Sun.
London, England, 1842-08-20 00:00:00

44•••

EXCHEQUER BILLS FRAUD.
REPORT.
TO TILL QUEEN'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
We, the Commissioners appointed by an Act passed
in the fifth year of your Majesty reign, intituled " An
Act for appointing Commissioners to inquira as to the
Issue, Receipt, Circulation, and. Possession of certain
forged Exchequer Bills," humbly report to your Ma-
jesty, in manner following, the evidence which. we have
taken, and what we have found with respect to the
several matters into which we are directed by the said
Act of Parliament to inquire :
In our discharge of the duty committed to us, we
have never ceased to bear in mind the importance of

_ .
dispatch ; but we have aimed with still greater anxiety
at the complete elucidation of the subject on which
we were engaged. When, therefore, we have allowed
our progress to be retarded by no delays that it was
possible to avoid, and kept it free even from the in-
terruption that the pursuit of our ordinary duties
would have occasioned, we have spared no pains in
the exploration of facts, having examined altogether
MO witnesses (of whom many gave their evidence at
great length), and inspected the mercantile books, by
which the parties interested were required to support
their statements, and superintended, in several in-
stances, the preparation of tables calculated to illus-
strate the course of the transactions.
Finding much time necessarily consumed in occu-
pations like these, we considered from time to time
with great solicitude, how far it would be proper,
with a view to the interests of particular claimants,
to make certain of the cases before us the subject of a
preliminary report, reserving the remainder for a sub-
sequent occasion ; but we came with regret to the
conclusion that no arrangement of this kind could be
usefully made. It appeared to us, in reference to the
ultimate objects contemplated by the Legislature in
appointing the commission, and the nature _of. the
questions that might hereafter grow out of it, that it
would be unsatisfactory to state the case of any
claimant without at the same time adverting to such
facts as tended to throw light on the merits of ante-
cedent parties ; and we found that there was no
claimant whose case did not, in this point of view, in-
volve that of some other person or persons whose
transactions required much time for consideration.
While bent upon the full and effective performance
of the whole duty we had to discharge, we endea-
voured, at the same time, to confine ourselves with
precision to its proper limits. Upon the construction
of the Act of Parliament we apprehend it to lie
obvious that the question, whether the instruments
referred to us were genuine or not ? fell in no case
within our. province ; both because the bills were
• described in the title of the Act of Parliament itself
as " forged," and because, with respect to all bills
which the claimant was prepared to prove ge=
mine, he had a right capable of being vindicated
in the ordinary course of justice, and had no need
to resort to our Commission. We also concluded,
without hesitation, that we were not called upon to
• investigate " the manner of the issue" of the Ex=
\ chequer bills mentioned in the Act of Parliament in
any sense which would involve an inquiry into the
nature of the official regulations of the Exchequer, or
the manner in which those regulations had been ob-
served. That inquiry had been already prosecuted
under a former Commission, to whose report no
useful addition could have been made; and its result
had been declared to be, that " it was in the absence
of sufficient internal check, and the incompleteness of
general supervision" (defects that had, for nearly a
centuryy, escaped observation), that the late senior
Plerk, Idr. Beaumont Smith, had found opportunity
for his recent frauds. _ _ _

Considering then "the manner of the issue" of the
bills as regarded the guilty parties themselves, and
the subsequent "circulation, deposit, and possession"
of them, and the case of every holder or owner," to be
the only proper subject for our inquiry, we pro-
ceeded .first to the examination of some official per-
!ons, from whom it was at once entertained (the fact
indeed being otherwise sufficiently notorious) that no
other officer except Beaumont Smith had incurred
any suspicion of being connected with the fraud, and
from whom we also received such further explanations
'of a general kind as were necessary for our subse-
quent guidance. We then examined in succession the
various parties whom we judged likely, from the
notices in the schedule, to be connected with the bills,
as present claimants, prior holders, or otherwise, en-
deavouring to pursue our coarse continually from the
claimants upwards, until we reached the original
sources of the fraud ; the result of which was that
..:when we came to examine the earlier parties, we were
able to check their evidence by the aid of the informa-
tion previously obtained. At length arriving at that
Point where it became necessary to add the last link
to the chain, we judged it, after some deliberation,
desirable to obtain the testimony of Ernest Rapallo,
the person who had been apprehended as a party
to the forgeries, and discharged from prison, only
in consequence of his consent to give evidence
against his confederate, Beaumont Smith. On
the service of our summons upon this person,
at Calais, where we found him to be resident, he im-
. Inediately obeyed it (receiving only the assurance that
as far as the law might permit, we would endeavour
to secure to him the usual immunities of a witness),
and on his attendance we obtained from him some par-
ticulars necessary to complete the general outline of
the history of the fraud, with such account as he
thought fit to give of the property acquired from it by
the confederates, and received his consent to our exa-
mination of such remnants of that property as were
still under his control in this country. The tendency
of his ev;deace was in some respects unfavourable to
certain of the parties examined before us, but in ge-
neral it did not bear against them more strongly than
the statements received from themselves.

Throughout this series of inquiry we were our•
selves the only examiners : for though at the outset
we made it known that all the parties interested were
at liberty to avail themselves of professional assist-
ance, none of them thought fit to employ counsel, or
With a single and unimportant exception) to be at-
tended by a solicitor; and it gives us pleasure to be
able to add, that though the parties were thus brought
into immediate contact with us, and had in many in-
stances to sustain examination of a most searching
kind, upon points tending to affect their personal cha-
racter, they never failed to observe the most perfect
Propriety of demeanour, and always rendered, with
the greatest readiness, the accounts which we directed
them to prepare.
It seems right further to remark, that, through she
Whole course of the investigation, which has been de-
teribed, we were co. tinually engaged in the search
after evidence, as well as in its reception. For,
though we were indebted to your Majesty's Govern-
ment for the valuable assistance of Mr. Bush (who
had been engaged, under Mr. Maule, in the prosecu-
tion of Smith and Rapallo, and svgliested to us, from
time to time, some important litres of inquiry), yet, in
the main, we had to explorefor ourselves the sources of
information,aud were frac/Imlay obliged to call a witness
without being aware of the precise points to which he
Was competent to speak. This consideration will not only
serve to account in part for the manner in which our
time has boo* occupied, but will also explain why
our exactions could not always pursue an un-
broken arid methodical course. Under such circum-
btances,_ it naturally often happened that, after a wit-
bait had been once examined, we had occasion to
summon him again, and sift him further with regard
to statements that had been in the meantime made by
offer witnesses, or statements made by himself, the
Importance of which had not been at first fully ap-
Parent.
In conducting the examinations, the peculiar cha-
racter of the inquiry induced us also to swerve occa-
sionally from the strict law of evidence, as applicable
to the trial of issues arising in the common law courts.
Thus we received, without hesitation, the statements
of parties as witnesses in their own behalf; and where
a correspondence was offered in evidence, for the pur-
pose of explanation only, or with reference to points
of subordinate importance, we deemed it proper to
allow the party to put in copieS of his own letters as
blade by himself, or his clerk, without producing, or
Proving any endeavour to procure, the originals. We
conceived that to enforce the ordinary rule in suchcases
Wduld tend to no useful object; and, on the other
hand, might materially retard the progress •of our in-
quiry. But any deviation from the strict course of
Proof were permitted with great caution ; and, upon
Points immediately connected with the main subject
of inquiry, we observed a greater rigour than on
those of a collateral kind. Thus, in putting the
claimants to show that the 7 had given a value for
the bills, we were not satisfied with their own state-
lue.nt on oath, supported by their books, or even by
the admission of the party to whom the payment was
alleged to have been made, but called upon them to
confirm it by such other proof as the case conveniently
Permitted ; for example, where the payment was
Inade through the medium of 'a bank, by the evidence
of the bankers clerk who entered the transaction in his
Looks.
Hiving now given the explanations which ap•
Peered to be material with respect to our course of
Prpoee6ng, we shall, in the next place, submit to your
4a.jesiy a . general account of its results, so far as
regards the° pi.,'2acipal circumstances connected with
the fraud in question.
That fraud related exchi..4-ve..,17 to the species of
chequer bills called supply which,
.as is well
4o own, have been latterly issued from 4schequer
twice . sneces-
_ in every year, under the authority of ,
Stye Acts of Parliament. The periods are March anu
°be, and each bill is either paid off or exchanged
(at' the option of the holder) at the Office of the Pay-
asters of the Exchequer, at the expiration of about
t,Car from its date, the precise Period• for bringing
bn_c.re in with a view to such payment or exchange
first publicly advertised. ft follows of course
from
i this, that there are two exchanges of Exchequer
b, n every year, the first in March and the second
" June • •
of These instruments have a blank left for the name
e payee, and, except where the blank is filled up