Undeterred by the well-merited punishment which had overtaken Francis, a third miscreant made a similar but far less serious attempt in the month of July following. As the Queen was driving from Buckingham Palace to the Chapel Royal, a deformed lad among the crowd was seen to present a pistol at Her Majesty’s carriage, in the Mall, about half-way between Buckingham and St. James’s Palaces. Only one person saw the movement, a lad named Dasset, who at once collared the cripple, and taking him up to two policemen, charged him with the offence. The policemen treated the matter as a hoax, and allowed the culprit to make off. Later on, however, Dasset was himself seized and interrogated, and on his information handbills were circulated, giving the exact description of the deformed youth, who had “a hump-back, and a long, sickly, pale face, with light hair;” his nose was marked with a scar or black patch, and he was altogether of a dirty appearance. It happened that a lad named Bean had absconded from his father’s home some weeks before, whose description, as given by his father to the police, exactly tallied with that of the deformed person “wanted” for the assault on the Queen. A visit to the father’s residence was followed by the arrest of the son, who had by this time returned. This son, John William Bean, was fully identified by Dasset, and presently examined by the Privy Council. He was eventually charged with a misdemeanour, the capital charge having been abandoned, and committed for trial. Much the same motives of seeking notoriety seem to have impelled Bean, who was perfectly sane, to his rash act; but it was proved that the pistol was not loaded with ball, and he was only convicted of an attempt “to harass, vex, and grieve the sovereign.” Lord Abinger sentenced him to eighteen months’ imprisonment in Newgate, but the place of durance was changed, to meet the existing law, to Millbank Penitentiary.
I shall mention briefly one more case, in which, however, there was no murderous intent, before I pass on to other crimes. On June 1850 the Queen was once more subjected to cowardly outrage, the offender being a Mr. Pate, a gentleman by birth, who had borne the Queen’s commission, first as cornet, and then lieutenant, in the 10th Hussars. Pate was said to be an eccentric person, given to strange acts and antics, such as mixing whiskey and camphor with his morning bath-water, and walking for choice through prickly gorse bushes. He always kept the blinds down at his chambers in Jermyn Street; and as the St. James’s clock chimed quarter-past three, invariably went out in a cab, for which he always paid the same fare, nine shillings, all in shillings, and no other coin. But this was not sufficient to constitute lunacy, nor was his plea of “momentary uncontrollable impulse” deemed valid as any palliation of his offence. That offence was a brutal assault upon Her Majesty, whom he struck in the face with a small stick just as she was leaving Cambridge House. The blow crushed the bonnet and bruised the forehead of the Queen, who was happily not otherwise injured. Pate was found guilty, and sentenced to seven years’ transportation, the judge, Baron Alderson, abstaining from inflicting the penalty of whipping, which was authorized by a recent act, on account of Mr. Pate’s family and position in life.
I have already remarked that as violence was more and more eliminated from crimes against the person, frauds indicating great boldness, extensive design, and ingenuity became more prevalent. The increase of bank forgeries, and its cause, I referred to in a previous chapter.[106] At one session of the Old Bailey, in 1821, no less than thirty-five true bills were found for passing forged notes. But there were other notorious cases of forgery. That of Fauntleroy the banker, in 1824, caused much excitement at the time on account of the magnitude of the fraud, and the seeming probity of the culprit. Mr. Fauntleroy was a member of a banking firm, which his father had established in conjunction with a gentleman of the name of Marsh, and others. He had entered the house as clerk in 1800; in 1807, and when only twenty-two, he succeeded to his father’s share in the business. According to Fauntleroy’s own case, he found at once that the firm was heavily involved, through advances made to various builders, and that it could only maintain its credit by wholesale discounting. Its embarrassments were greatly increased by the bankruptcy of two of its clients in the building trade, and the bank became liable for a sum of £170,000. New liabilities were incurred to the extent of £100,000 by more failures, and in 1819, by the death of one of the partners, a large sum in cash had to be withdrawn from the bank to pay his heirs. “During these numerous and trying difficulties”—it is Mr. Fauntleroy who speaks—“the house was nearly without resources, and the whole burthen of management falling on me, ... I sought resources where I could;” in other words, he forged powers of attorney, and proceeded to realize securities lodged in his bank under various names. Among the prisoner’s private papers, one was found giving full details of the stock he had feloniously sold out, the sum total amounting to some £170,000, with a declaration in his own handwriting to the following effect. “In order to keep up the credit of our house, I have forged powers of attorney for the above sums and parties, and sold out to the amount here stated, and without the knowledge of my partners. I kept up the payments of the dividends, but made no entries of such payments in my books. The bank began first to refuse our acceptances, and to destroy the credit of our house; the bank shall smart for it.”
Many stories were in circulation at the time of Fauntleroy’s trial with regard to his forgeries. It was said that he had by means of them sold out so large an amount of stock, that he paid £16,000 a year in dividends to escape detection. Once he ran a narrow risk of being found out. A lady in the country, who had £13,000 in the stocks, desired her London agent to sell them out. He went to the bank, and found that no stocks stood in her name. He called at once upon Fauntleroy, his client’s bankers, for an explanation, and was told by Mr. Fauntleroy that the lady had desired him to sell out, “which I have done,” added the fraudulent banker, “and here are the proceeds,” whereupon he produced exchequer bills to the amount. Nothing more was heard of the affair, although the lady declared that she had never instructed Fauntleroy to sell. On another occasion the banker forged a gentleman’s name while the latter was sitting with him in his private room, and took the instrument out to a clerk with the ink not dry. It must be added that the Bank of England, on discovering the forgeries, replaced the stock in the names of the original holders, who might otherwise have been completely ruined. A newspaper report of the time describes Fauntleroy as “a well-made man of middle stature. His hair, though gray, was thick, and lay smooth over his forehead. His countenance had an expression of most subdued resignation. The impression which his appearance altogether was calculated to make was that of the profoundest commiseration.”
The crime, long carried on without detection, was first discovered in 1820, when it was found that a sum of £10,000, standing in the name of three trustees, of whom Fauntleroy was one, had been sold out under a forged power of attorney. Further investigations brought other similar frauds to light, and fixed the whole sum misappropriated at £170,000, the first forgery dating back to 1814. A run upon the bank immediately followed, which was only met by a suspension of payment and the closing of its doors. Meanwhile public gossip was busy with Fauntleroy’s name, and it was openly stated in the press and in conversation that the proceeds of these frauds had been squandered in chambering, gambling, and debauchery. Fauntleroy was scouted as a
licentious libertine, a deep and determined gamester, a spendthrift whose extravagance knew no bounds.[107] The veil was lifted from his private life, and he was accused of persistent immorality. In his defence he sought to rebut these charges, which indeed were never clearly made out, and it is pretty certain that his own account of the causes which led him into dishonesty was substantially true. He called many witnesses, seventeen in all, to speak of him as they had found him; and these, all respectable city merchants and business men, declared that they had hitherto formed a high opinion of his honour, integrity, and goodness of disposition, deeming him the last person capable of a dishonourable action.