biographer of Lord Hardwicke, "the infamy with which he had been thus covered debarred him neither from the favour of the great nor even from that of his sovereign."
Various cases of embezzlement by public officials previous to this are mentioned by Luttrell. Frauds upon the Exchequer, and upon persons holding Government annuities, were not infrequent. The first entry in "Luttrell" is dated 1697, May, and is to the effect that "Mr. Marriott, an underteller in the Exchequer, arrested for altering an Exchequer bill for £10 to £100, pleaded innocency, but is sent to Newgate;" others were implicated, and a proclamation was issued offering a reward for the apprehension of Domingo Autumes, a Portuguese, Robert Marriott, and another for counterfeiting Exchequer bills. A little later another teller, Mr. Darby, is sent to Newgate on a similar charge, and in that prison Mr. Marriott "accuses John Knight, Esq., M. P., treasurer of customs, who is displaced."
Marriott's confession follows: "He met Mr. Burton and Mr. Knight at Somerset House, where they arranged to get twenty per cent. by making Exchequer bills specie bills; they offered Marriott £500 a year to take all upon himself if discovered. It is thought greater people are in it to destroy the credit of the nation." Following this confession, bills were brought into the House of Commons charging Burton, Knight, and Duncombe with
embezzlement, but "blanks are left for the House to insert the punishment, which is to be either fine, imprisonment, or loss of estates." Knight was found guilty of endorsing Exchequer bills falsely, but not of getting money thereby. Burton was found guilty; Duncombe's name is not mentioned, and Marriott was discharged. But this does not end the business. In the May following "Mr. Ellers, master of an annuity office in the Exchequer, was committed to Newgate for forging people's hands to their orders, and receiving a considerable sum of money thereon." Again in October, "Bellingham, an old offender, was convicted of felony in forging Exchequer bills; and a Mrs. Butler, also for forging a bond of £20,000, payable by the executors of Sir Robert Clayton six years after his death." Later on (1708) I find an entry in "Luttrell" that Justice Dyot, who was a commissioner of the Stamp-office, was committed to Newgate for counterfeiting stamps, which others whom he informed against distributed. Of the same character as the foregoing was the offence of Mr. Lemon, a clerk in the Pell office of the Exchequer, who received £300 in the name of a gentlewoman deceased, and kept it, for which he was turned out of his place. Other unfaithful public servants were to be found in other departments. Robert Lowther, Esq., was taken into custody on the 25th October, 1721, by order of the Privy Council, for his tyrannical and corrupt administration when governor of the Island of
Barbadoes. Twenty years later the House of Commons fly at still higher game, and commit the Solicitor of the Treasury to Newgate for refusing to answer questions put to him by the secret committee which sat to inquire into Sir Robert Walpole's administration. This official had been often charged with the Prime Minister's secret disbursements, and he was accused of being recklessly profuse.
FOOTNOTES:
[251:1] "An inquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers," etc. London, 1751.
[259:1] Soldiers in the Guards, after long and faithful service, were granted leave of absence from military duty in order to take civil situations which did not monopolize all their time. By this means they eked out their scanty pay.
[267:1] Thornbury, in his "Old Stories Retold," calls it the King's Arms, on what authority he does not say.