Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude

by Austin Bidwell

We had made considerable preparation for our tour, when a circumstance arose that not only changed our plans, but in the sequel changed our lives as well.

We had been paying another visit to Hampton Court, and in place of dining at the Star and Garter we returned by boat on the Thames and dined at Cannon Street Hotel. Before going to the hotel we took a stroll down Lombard street, and, arriving at the intersection of streets opposite the Bank of England, we came to a halt. While watching the human whirlpool in that centre of throbbing life, I turned to my friends, and, pointing to the Bank of England, said: "Boys, you may depend upon it, there is the softest spot in the world, and we could hit the bank for a million as easy as rolling off a log." No response was made at the time, and the casual remark was apparently forgotten. Well for us if it had been.

The next day we went for a drive to Windsor, and were to dine at a famous old roadside inn. On arriving we, of course, visited the castle, and, while viewing the decorations in the stately throne room, Mac stopped us with the remark that something I had said the day before had been sticking in his mind. He went on to say that we wanted a hundred thousand apiece in order to return home in good shape; that the Bank of England had plenty to spare, and it was well for the lightning to strike where the balances were heavy. The bank would never miss the money, and he firmly believed the whole directorate of the fossil institution was permeated with the dry rot of centuries. The managers were convinced that their banking system was impregnable, and, as a consequence, it would fall an easy victim, provided, as we suspected, the bank was really managed by hereditary officials.

Here was a picture, indeed. Three American adventurers, two of them barely past their majority, standing in the throne room of Windsor Castle, and plotting to strike a blow at the money bags of the Bank of England!

The idea grew on us rapidly. After dinner we sat in the twilight of that old inn and discussed the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street from a point of view from which she had probably never been discussed before. I can imagine with what scorn the idiotically puffed and bepuffed magnates of the bank would have regarded us had they known of our discussion.

They afterwards boasted to me, as they had boasted for a century, that their system was perfect, and as a proof that it was so they widely proclaimed they had not changed it in a hundred years. They had proclaimed so loudly and so long its absolute invulnerability that they not only believed it themselves, but all the world had come to believe it as well. "Safe as the bank" was a proverb everywhere underlying the English tongue.

In our discussion we speedily came to the conclusion that any system of finance unchanged in detail for a century, belief in the perfection of which was an article of faith not alone with the officials charged with its management, but with the people of England at large, must, in the very nature of the case, lie wide open to the attack of any man bold enough to doubt its impregnability and resolute to attack.

What a figment of the imagination this boasted impregnability of the Bank of England was the sequel will show. And as for those masters of finance, those earthly Joves of the financial world who sat serene above the clouds, "the Governor and Company of the Bank of England," they soon had the whole money world shaking with laughter when they stood revealed the Simple Simons they proved to be.

We wanted a hundred thousand apiece now, and had resolved to get it from the Bank of England. Such was our confidence that we never thought failure possible. Truly, if there ever was a plan laid in ignorant enthusiasm this was one. Here we were, absolutely without any knowledge of the inner workings of the institution, strangers in London, being under assumed names, without business of any kind, and not only unable to give any references, but unable to stand any investigation.

Exactly how we were to manipulate the bank we did not know. We were inclined, now we had some fifty thousand dollars capital, to avoid so serious a thing as forgery, but had an idea for one of us to obtain in some way an introduction to the bank and to use all the money of the party to establish a credit. In the mean time all were to get in the swim in or around the exchange, and use the one who had the account in the bank for reference for the others. If some good chance offered to go into a straightforward business we could drop forever all thoughts of breaking the law again. This was the theory; in practice, we were almost certain to try on the game we had of late played so successfully.