“Wanted,—A partner of character, probity, and extensive acquaintance, upon a plan permanent and productive. Fifty per cent. without risk, may be obtained. It is not necessary he should have any knowledge of the business, which the advertiser possesses to its fullest extent; but he must possess a capital of between five hundred and one thousand pounds to purchase materials, with which, to the knowledge of the advertiser, a large fortune must be made in a very short time.
“Address to P. C., Cardigan Head, Charing Cross.
“P. S. None but principals, and those of liberal ideas, will be treated with.”
To this advertisement the famous comedian, Samuel Foote, paid attention. Eager to seize what he thought a golden opportunity, he advanced the sum of five hundred pounds for a brewery; we need not add, that the sum soon disappeared, and Foote retired from the concern, having gained nothing but experience and disappointment. Price, however, had the impudence to apply to him again, wishing him to unite in the baking trade; but the comedian archly replied, “As you have brewed, so you may bake; but I’ll be cursed if ever you bake as you have brewed!”
After this unfortunate business, Mr. Price turned methodist preacher, and in this character defrauded several persons of large sums of money. Advertising in order to get gentlemen wives, he swindled a person of the name of Wigmore of fifty guineas, for which he was indicted; but having refunded a part, he effected his escape.
With astonishing impudence he afterwards again set up a brewery in Gray’s Inn Lane; and after various frauds, he became a bankrupt in 1776. Ever fruitful in resources, he set out for Germany, where he engaged in some smuggling scheme, for which he was imprisoned; but he returned to England, having managed to pocket three hundred pounds in the course of his trip. A brewery in Lambeth was then again tried, but ineffectually; and he was afterwards successively a begging-letter impostor and a lottery office keeper; and then he assumed the trade by which he qualified himself to become the subject of remark in the Newgate Calendar. Having leagued himself with a number of adventurers whose business consisted in making and selling forged notes, he entered into their schemes; but, fearful of being himself employed in the dangerous act of putting off the notes, in the year 1780, memorable for the riots in London, he assumed the name of Brant, and engaged a plain, simple, honest fellow, as a servant, whom he converted into the instrument of passing his forged notes without detection. He advertised for this servant, and conducted himself in a manner truly curious towards him. The young man, having answered the advertisement, heard nothing relative to it for about a week. One evening, however, just about dusk, a coachman was heard inquiring for him, saying there was a gentleman over the way in a coach who wanted to speak to him. On this the young fellow was called, and went to the coach, when he was desired to step in; and there he found an apparently old man, affecting the foreigner, seemingly very much afflicted with the gout, as he was completely wrapped up in flannel about the legs, and wearing a camlet surtout, buttoned over his chin, close up to his mouth; a large black patch over his left eye; and almost every part of his face so hid, that the young fellow could scarcely discover a feature except his nose, his right eye, and a part of that cheek. The young man’s character was found to suit, and he was engaged; but his surprise may easily be imagined, when on his next seeing his employer, he found him a thin, genteel-looking young man.
The simplicity of the young man whom he had thus duped into his service was such, that Price found no difficulty whatever in negotiating through his means notes to the amount of about fifteen hundred pounds, which were principally expended in the purchase of lottery-tickets and shares; but the unfortunate wretch was eventually taken into custody, and was left by his employer to suffer all the fears likely to arise in his mind upon the contemplation of the supposed consequences of his crime. His innocence was, however, at length proved, and he was set at liberty, but not until he had suffered nearly twelve months’ imprisonment. His late master in the mean time had retired from public life, and nothing more was heard of him until the year 1782, when, having exhausted the proceeds of his former villanies, he was compelled to come forth again to renew his depredations on the public. He began by employing a lad named Power as the instrument of his minor proceedings, but emboldened by success, through the medium of his disguises, he succeeded occasionally in obtaining very large sums. The following anecdote is related of the success with which he carried on his trade. He had frequently been at the shop of a Mr. Roberts, grocer, in Oxford Street, where he now and then bought a few articles, and took many opportunities of showing his importance. Upon one occasion he called in a hackney-coach, disguised as an old man, and bought some few articles: a day or two afterwards he repeated his visit; and on a third day, when he knew Mr. Roberts was not in the way, went again, with his face so painted that he appeared to be diseased with the yellow-jaundice. The shopman, to whom he enumerated his complaints, kindly informed him of a prescription for that disorder, by which his father had been cured of it. Price gladly accepted of the receipt, promising that if it succeeded, he would call again, and handsomely reward him for his civility: in conformity with which he entered the shop a few days afterwards, apparently perfectly free from the complaint, and acknowledged his great obligations to the shopman; after which he expatiated freely on his affluent circumstances, the short time he had to live, and the few relations he had to leave his property to, and made him a present of a ten-pound bank-note. It will naturally be conceived this was a forgery, but it had the desired effect with Price; for at the same time he said he wanted cash for another, which was a fifty-pound note. This the obliging and unsuspecting shopman got change for at an opposite neighbour’s. The next day, during Mr. Roberts’s absence, he called again, and entreated the lad to get small notes for five other notes of fifty pounds each: the lad, however, telling him his master was not at home, Price begged he would take them to his master’s bankers’, and there get them changed. This request was immediately complied with. The bankers, Messrs. Burchall and Co., complied with Mr. Roberts’ supposed request, immediately changed them, and small notes were that day given to Price for them.
He practised his frauds with equal effect upon Mr. Spilsbury, the vender of a celebrated quack-medicine, with whom he traded in the name of Wilmot, and upon many others; and so great was his success, that in one day he negotiated sixty 10l. notes, and besides, exchanged fourteen 50l. for seven 100l. notes of the Bank of England.
In his last attempt on the Bank, which ended in his detection, he assumed the name of Palton, pretending he was an Irish linen factor, and employed two young men to circulate his notes, whilst he, still greatly disguised, kept back in obscurity.
By means of a pawnbroker, he was found out with great difficulty; and on his seizure he solemnly declared his innocence, and before the magistrate behaved with considerable insolence. His detection took place on the 14th of January, 1786; and notwithstanding his disguises, he was soon sworn to by more persons than one; and seeing no way to escape, he pretended, to his wife in particular, great penitence. The Bank was fully intent on his prosecution, and there appeared no doubt of his dying by the hands of the executioner; but even this he managed to avoid, for one evening he was found hanging against the post of his door, in the apartment allotted him in Tothillfields’ Bridewell. In this situation he was discovered by the keeper of the prison, who cut him down quite dead, and found in his bosom three letters; in one of which, addressed to the directors of the Bank, he confessed everything relative to the forgery, and the manner of circulating the notes; another, addressed to his wife, was written in a most affecting style; and in the third, directed to the keeper, he thanked him for the very humane treatment he had experienced during his confinement.