The Statesman.
London, England, 1821-07-31 00:00:00

COURT OF KING'S BENCH. GLILDIIALL,Jvix 30.

COX ASP OTHERS r. TROT.
This was nu action upon a Bill of Exchange for 9391.
The bill was drawn by Messrs. Stephen Roche and Co.
ref iark, upon Matthew Tierney Itobarts and Co , of
,Itaution, at 4;i day's sight : it was payable to the order
of Michael Murphy ; and it was entlorceil by Murphy,
lifeisrs. Cos, Weston, and Co. the plaintiffs.
. ;the Stai.serrOa-Cit:xstiat, said that the action was
beroight ender circumstances of some peculiarity, and
it involved a question of great commercial importance.
The bill, received by Messrs. Cox and Co. on the 21th
of May, Is2o, was left on the same day for acceptance
at the eounting-house of the drawers, Messrs. Tierney,
Eubarts and Co. On the 27th of the same month it
wae again called for; and in the mean time, the act
had been done which gave rise to the present pro-
ceeding. The bill being left with Messrs. Tierney,
liobaets awl Co. on the •Iftle of May, wits accepted by
them on that day, payable at the house of Robarts,
Curtis awl Co. but u.i the 25th of May, news arrived
of lie failure of the drawers, Ilrsars. Ruche and Co.;
sp.! Messrs. Tierney, Italians and Co. then endea-
voured, by obliteration, to cancel their acceptance.—
The advert' note, just in the state in which it bad
teen re delivered on the 2.7 th of May to the clerk of
th. plaintiffs, would be produced in court; the
at!em;iteil obliteration was in red ink ; but the accept-
avec riolerneatli was still visible; and the words
'2;th July" (tile day when the bill fell due) had not
tern bitted out at all. Now there would be no doubt,
peon the production of the installment, that an accept-
Lyre hail been actually made; and, as titatt..r of law
(0:e Sulicitor-Genrral subtnifted) that act, once done,
could not be retrarted. The learned Counsel con-
cluded by citing two eases from Espinass's I'Diers;
--."llliornton e. Dick," an oliiiterated acceptance;
an 4 " 'fawner r. Todd," la, re an acceptance hail
been cut off. in those cases it had been decided, the
' Etat by Lord Eilenhorangh, onil the second by Lord
Kenyon, that a party accepting a biil of exchange did
at art whic:t he could not afterivaids rescind.
The bill was rig in and read. The defendant was
to be the surviving partner in the house of
IMattliew Tierney, Robins and l'o.
Mr. F. Willis was clerk to the pl.:intitfs. On the
-lth of May, lb2o, he left the bill in question at
ti-e house of the defeadaats fur acceptance. tie put it
—into' the box in the ordinary course, and :-ailed lot it
a; on the 27th of May.
Cross-examine:l.—The words "!27th July," ilenating
tt-e day upon:fief the bill uv. tild fill wire not
i-: the hand-wri ins of any of the plaintiffs, or of any
cie:-k in thpir employ. :those words were not upon
the bill (as-witness I;elietred) when he left it with the
defendants.

Mr. Coles said, I an attorney for the plaintiffs in
CAA:4 action. 1 have examined the bill Pince it came
fnmu the bands of the defendants. Fron► my know-
Ildge of the facts I em enabled to toLt;:e out. uutku
11;e red inlZobliteration, the whole accepta►►ce ; but 1
tie net think that, without such previous knowledge,
could make out so touch.

- _
• Mr.'ScAsoasr submitted that soothing which the
• fitness ptfiered kis knowledge cf facts—nothing
that he saw-deAera ties immediate paper in questiob—
couhl he evidence.

'The Lone Cniar Jelling was not disposed to go
SO far. Ilialf the ill-writtea letters Trail in Court were
vatte out from knowledge of what the be' ►oust be.
Mr. SCARLIITT.--From the contest, perhaps, my
The Lorin CEicr JCSTICY.-1 think from more. It

I we! e to !we words indistinctly written upon that part

a a bill of csck►nge where the acceptance commonly
appears, I should more easily make cut their meaning,
lhoin if I sa►c them upon a piet.c of blank paper. The

ILjnrl leads the eve.
Examination resumed.—l can make out, from look-
ing m the paper only, awl without any knowledge as
to the fact, the words " 24th slay, ib21.)," and part
i,i tl.e word " accepted." . _

Mr. Sc tiILFTT. for the defendant, begged first to
• wreet an error into which the Learned Solicitor-
Cenearal had fallen. Messrs. Roche and Co., the
• • rawer* of the bill in question, did certainly bream.
I,:chrupts abont the of Alm-, l:4211; but that fact
v. 41 not known to Matthew Tierney, Kobarts and Co.
nta the `9th of that month; consequently, not anti:
i•cr the bill had keen re-delivered into the bands 4)1
be plai..:ttfs. Now, it teas evident, upon the test:

mony isf 111 r. Coles. that, as the paper stood, nothing
like a regular acceptances-add be disv,avered upon it;
all, therefore, that the Jury could possibly take as
proved would be, that the bill came, with blots upon
it, from the bands of the defendants. What proof
could that blotting afford of an acceptance, or even of
an iutent to accept, by Messrs. Tierney, Roberts and
Co. ? It might have been produced in twenty ways,
and without any such intent. Suppose a clerk to
have taken two bills out of the bill box at the same
time, to have been desired to write an acceptance upon
one of them, and to have begun writing it (or even to
have finished writing it) upon the wrong, would that
have been a case of acceptance ? But there was no
need, the Learned Counsel continued, to labour that
point, because be should show clearly, in despite of the
Nisi Pries decisions of his Learned Friend the Soli-
citor-General, that a bill was never an accepted bill
until it was delivered accepted. In the case of
" Bentinck o. Dory," Lord Ellenborough said an
acceptance made cannot be recalkd ; but the question
is, when does the acceptance take place ?" Not (Mr.
Scarlett contended) until after delivery.
The SOLICITOR-GRNIRAL observed, that in the case
of " Bentinck v. Dory," there bad been no decision.
;Ir. ScxeLETT referred to the case of making a bill
of exchange. It had been held over and over again,
that a bill was not made until after it was delivered.
The LORD CHIEF JuA-rwr: rho:lan the question of
law highly important: ti e bet•er coarse would be ti,
put it into the shape of a ease, leaving the fact to the
Jury whether there had or had not been an acceptance
written upon the bill.
The SuLictroa-Lit:NCIIAL admitted that the law was
doubtful.

.
r. Si.intrrr assented to his Lordship's suggestion.
The Loaf. Cum. JusTice then left the fact of a
tvtitten acceptance to the Jury. T::e evidence of Mr.
Coles. his 1.0,d,hp salt:, bad been given with great
catMour and caution. The Jury had been told that
an acceptance might be written upon a hill by miss
take. If such hail been the fact in the present case,
it would have been easy for the defendants to prove it.
The jury found a verdict for the plaintiffs—Da-
mages 93,1.
[The question whether delivery be or he not a ne-
cessary part of acceptance, of coarse remains to be
decided.)
BIRCH AND OTHERS r. Ttta AEI% OPFLET CREWE.
This was an action by ,3lessrs. Birch, Moore, and
Co., bankers. of Statio:alshire, against the defendant,
a clergyman, residing in the same county, as the en-
dorser of sundry bills of exchange. The defence was,
that the endorsements %%ere forgeries, and not in the
hand-writing of Mr. Crewe.
The case, as opened much in detail by the Solicitor
General, was substantially this :—A Mr. William
Berks, a cheese. factor and istaltster, near Stafford, be-
can, in the year Inl6, to do beisitoss with the plain-
tiffs. He began by bringing them bills drawn in his
favour by the defendant, 31r. Miley Crewe, upon
Drummond and Co., of London; and. front the known
respectability of Mr. Crewe, these bills were readily
diseminted. After scale time, Mr. Bells carded bills
to the plaintiff's, drawn by himself upon persons in
Londou ; and those bins were also discounted, the
Stafford hank taking the precaution of withholding
payment until their acceptance in Lawn %vas ascertain-
ed. To wait, h -ever, the transit of post between
Stafford and LOIVIOiI, was ineonvenient ; and Mr.
Berks fetid, "1 supp .se if Mr. Crewe would endorse
these bills for we, you would pay them at once ?"
The plaintiffs assented : and between the years ISIS
and I t. 20, notes to the ansouut of near 40,00 W. drawn
by Berks, chiefly upon a Mr. W. C. 11 right, of Lon-
don, and endnrsed by Mr. Crewe, were discounted, and,
with two exceptions, duly paid. In those two cases
(which were two bills for :011.1'. each) notice of disho-
nour was sent to Mr. Crewe, and the acceptances

(through the medium of Ilerks) were at once
taken up : no answer, however, was given by
3lr. Crewe to the I,•tt,rs of advice, nor did that
gentleman ever appear to have appeared person-
ally in any of the transactions. Between Sep-
tember and December Pst!lf, bills to the amount of ;
more than ten thousand pounds, bearing Mr. Crewe's
endorsement, were discounted at various dates for fir.
Berks. In the beginning of January in the present
year, Mr. Berk. fled to America ; awl Mr. Crewe, be-
ing applied to as endorser, declared that he hail never
hail any bill transactions with Berks—:hat the en-
dorsements purporting to be his were forgeries; and
that Jerks had been carrying on a similar tratlic (using
his, Mr. Crewe's name) with Alessrs. Sparrow, hankers,
of Newcastle; and with 3lessrs.Sproutt and Co. bankers,
at Nantwich. Now, such an allegation, the Solicitor-
General said, coming from a man of Mr. t 'rewe's for-
tune, charactet and profession, could not but carry con-
sider?ble weight with it to the minds of the Jury. At
the same time it was litnpossible (from circumstance.)
that that statement shottid be founded in truth. Abler-
tions made by that gentleman in the course of the iii-
gniry would be shown to be at variance with fact, and
witnesses most familiar with his hand-writing, would de-
clare their conviction that the i•olorsements were n fit-
ten by him. The bills upon which tits plaintiffs were
prepared to proceed were nineteen in number ; and the
gross amount was 4onlething under 9,0001. As to some
of the notes, however, formal proof was wanting, and it
was agreed to proceed upon those as to which evidence
was ready, leaving it to be determined out of Comet (in
ease of a verdict for the plaintiff') for what sums the
plaintiffs were entitled to recover. Evidence of rather
an intricate nature was then given at considerable
length. The most material points were these
'wises swore to declarationson the part of Mr. Crewe,
when first applied to &stile endorserof the hills i n question
(declarationcas to the course of his money transactions
with Berks) which stood in opposition to proem! facts.
ft also appeared that, after Mr. Crewe (according to his
his own account) knew that Ilerks bad forged upon
him in all quarters, be neglected to take measures for
his apprehension. Several witnesses, accustomed to see
Mr. Crewe's I aid-writing, and among ethers the
clerk of Alen rs Drummond and Co., his banker',
fully believed that time endorsements proceeded upon
were genuine. Upon cress-examination, however. one
if those witnesses, ilk inspector of warrants of attor-
ney and such instrutnents, said that he believed the
endorsements upon the nineteen bills (by whomsoever
bey might have been written) to have been all wriwn
with the same pen, as itli the 'auto ink, and at the
.acne time. It appeared also, from the witnesses who
poke to the declarations of the defendant, when sp-
illed to after the flight of Berks, that those declare-
ions formed part of a lengthy and snitch interrupted
onversation.
Mr. SCA. LETT, for the defendant, deser Ifoll Mr
en eas this (the Learned C. unbars) personal a