The apprehension of Mr. Fauntleroy took place on the 10th of September 1824, when he was taken into custody on a warrant, issued in consequence of information being lodged at Marlborough-street police-office, that it had been discovered that in the month of September 1820, stock in the three per cents, to the extent of 10,000l., which stood in the name of himself, J. D. Hulme, and John Goodchild, as trustees for Francis William Bellis, had been sold out under a power of attorney, to which the names of Mr. Fauntleroy’s co-trustees, and of one of the subscribing witnesses, had been forged. The name of the firm with which Mr. Fauntleroy was connected was Marsh, Stracey, Fauntleroy, and Graham, and their banking-house was situated in Berners-street, where they enjoyed no inconsiderable portion of public patronage; and the apprehension of Mr. Fauntleroy, on one charge, no sooner became generally known, than, on inquiries being made, it was found that he had, under similar circumstances, sold out stock to the enormous amount of 170,000l., since the year 1814, the whole of which he had converted to his own use. The most extraordinary degree of interest was, in consequence, exhibited, and the public, unconscious of the degree of mischief which might be apprehended, became so alarmed that a run on the banking-house took place, which was checked by a suspension of payments, and eventually by a commission of bankruptcy.
Meanwhile Mr. Fauntleroy’s private character and conduct became the subject of general comment in the newspapers, and exaggerated accounts of his depravity of habit were published. He was described as a licentious libertine, and as a deep and determined gamester, and it was alleged that his extravagance knew no bounds. His private life was also inquired into, and it was found that he had been married to a young lady of respectable family named Young, by whom he had previously had a child; but that after his marriage, he had never lived with his wife; and it is not a little remarkable, that it was for a forgery, by means of which his wife’s family was defrauded, that he underwent the final dreadful sentence of the law.
His trial took place at the Old Bailey, on the 30th of October 1824, when he was indicted for forging a power of attorney for the transfer of stock in the three per cent. consols, to the amount of 5,000l., with intent to defraud Frances Young. As early as seven o’clock in the morning the doors leading to the court-house were thronged with persons anxious to obtain a glimpse of the prisoner; and on the arrival of the judges, before whom the unfortunate gentleman was tried, every corner of the court was filled with spectators. The Attorney-General was employed to conduct the case for the prosecution, and in his opening address to the jury, he described the prisoner as the acting partner in the house of Messrs. Marsh and Co. Mr. Fauntleroy, the father of the prisoner, had become a partner in that firm, at the period of its establishment, and had continued so up to the time of his death, which took place in the year 1807. The prisoner was then admitted into the concern, and became a most active member in carrying on its extensive transactions. In the year 1815, Frances Young, of Chichester, a customer of the house, lodged in their hands a power of attorney, to receive the dividends on 5,450l. stock, invested in her name in the three per cent. consols. The dividends were regularly handed over by the banking-house; but it was found, that soon after the period mentioned, another power of attorney, authorising the prisoner to sell the stock, was presented to the bank, and the sale was effected by him. To this power the prisoner had forged the names of Frances Young, and of two witnesses to it. But the most extraordinary part of the case was, that among the prisoner’s private papers, contained in a tin box, there had been found one in which he acknowledged his guilt, and adduced a reason for his conduct. The Attorney-General then read the paper, which presented the following items, &c.:—De la Place, 11,150l. three per cent. consols; E. W. Young, 5,000l. consols; General Young, 6,000l. consols; Frances Young, 5,000l. consols; H. Kelly, 6,000l. consols; Lady Nelson, 11,995l. consols; Earl of Ossory, 7,000l. four per cents; W. Bowen, 9,400l. four per cents;—Parkins, 4,000l. consols. Sums were also placed to the names of Mrs. Pelham, Lady Aboyne, W. R. and H. Fauntleroy, and Elizabeth Fauntleroy; and the learned gentleman observed, that all the sums were added together, and the sum total, 120,000l., appeared at the foot of this list in the prisoner’s hand-writing. The statement was followed by this declaration:—
“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 payment of the dividends, but made no entries of such payments in our books. The Bank began first to refuse to discount our acceptances, and to destroy the credit of our house: the Bank shall smart for it.”
The Attorney-General then called his witnesses, who confirmed in every point his statement of the case.
On being asked what he had to say in his defence, the prisoner read from a paper the following address:—
“My lord, and gentlemen of the jury,—Overwhelmed as I am by the situation in which I am placed, and being uninformed in what manner I should answer the charges which have been alleged against me, I will endeavour to explain, so well as the poignancy of my feelings will enable me, the embarrassments of the banking-house in which I have been for many years the active and only responsible partner, and which have alone led to the present investigation; and although I am aware I cannot expect to free myself from the obloquy brought upon me by my anxiety to preserve the credit and respectability of the firm, still I trust that an impartial narrative of the occurrences will obtain for me the commiseration of the well-disposed part of the community.
“Anticipating the Court will extend its indulgence to me, I will respectfully submit such observations as I think will tend to remove from influenced minds those impressions, which, with sorrow I say, must have been made upon them by the cruel and illiberal manner in which the public prints have untruly detailed a history of my life and conduct; hoping therefrom I may deserve your compassion, and although I may be unable to justify my proceedings, and secure my liberation, by a verdict of the jury, yet they may be considered, in the mercy of the court and a discerning public, as some extenuation of the crimes with which I stand arraigned.
“My father established the banking-house in 1792, in conjunction with Mr. Marsh, and other gentlemen. Some of the partners retired in 1794, about which time a loss of 20,000l. was sustained. Here commenced the difficulties of the house. In 1796, Mr. Stracey and another gentleman came into the house with little or no augmentation of capital. In 1800 I became a clerk in the house, and continued so six years; and although during that time I received no salary, the firm were so well satisfied with my attention and zeal for the interest and welfare of the establishment, that I was handsomely rewarded by them. In 1807 my father died; I then succeeded him; at this time I was only twenty-two years of age, and the whole weight of an extensive, but needy, banking establishment devolved upon me; and I found the concern deeply involved in advances to builders and others, which had rendered a system of discounting necessary, which we were obliged to continue in consequence of the scarcity of money at that time, and the necessity of making further advances to those persons, to secure the sums in which they already stood indebted. In this perplexed state the house continued until 1810, when its embarrassments were greatly increased, owing to the bankruptcies of Brickwood and others, which brought upon it a sudden demand for no less a sum than 170,000l. the greater part being for the amount of bills, which our house had either accepted or discounted for those parties said to have become bankrupts. About 1814, 1815, and 1816, from the speculations with builders, brickmakers, &c. in which the house was engaged, it was called upon to provide funds to the extent of near 100,000l. to avert the losses which would otherwise have visited it from those speculations. In 1819 the most responsible of our partners died, and we were called upon to pay over the amount of his capital, although the substantial resources of the house were wholly inadequate to meet so large a payment. During these numerous and trying difficulties, the house was nearly without resources, and the whole burden of management falling upon me, I was driven to a state of distraction, in which I could meet with no relief from my partners, and, almost heartbroken, I sought resources where I could, and so long as they were provided, and the credit of the house supported, no inquiries were made, either as to the manner in which they were procured, or as to the sources from which they were derived. In the midst of these calamities, which were not unknown to Mr. Stracey, he quitted England, and continued in France, on his own private business, for two years, leaving me to struggle as well as I could with difficulties almost insurmountable. Having thus exposed all the necessities of the house, I declare that all the moneys temporarily raised by me were applied, not in one instance for my own separate purposes or expenses, but in every case they were immediately placed to the credit of the house in Berners-street, and applied to the payment of the pressing demands upon it. This fact does not rest on my assertion, as the transactions referred to are entered in the books now in the possession of the assignees, and to which I have had no access since my apprehension. These books, I understand, are now in court, and will confirm the truth of my statement; and to whatever account all the sums may be entered, whether to that of stock, or of Exchequer bills, or to my own private account, the whole went to the general funds of the banking-house. I alone have been doomed to suffer the stigma of all the transactions; but tortured as I have been, it now becomes an imperative duty to explain to you, gentlemen, and through you to the world at large, that the vile accusations heaped upon me, known to be utterly false by all those who are best acquainted with my private life and habits, have been so heaped upon me for the purpose of loading me with the whole obloquy of those transactions, from which, and from which alone, my partners were preserved from bankruptcy. I have been accused of crimes I never even contemplated, and of acts of profligacy I never committed; and I appear at this bar with every prejudice against me, and almost prejudged. To suit the purposes of the persons to whom I allude, I have been represented as a man of prodigal extravagance: prodigal indeed I must have been, had I expended those large sums which will hereafter be proved to have gone exclusively to support the credit of a tottering firm, the miseries of which were greatly accelerated by the drafts of two of its members to the amount of near 100,000l. I maintained but two establishments, one at Brighton, where my mother and sister resided in the season—the expenses of which to me, exclusive of my wine, were within 400l. per annum, and one at Lambeth, where my two children lived, from its very nature private and inexpensive, to which I resorted for retirement, after many a day passed in devising means to avert the embarrassments of the banking-house. The dwelling-house in Berners-street belonged solely to my mother, with the exception of a library and single bed-room. This was the extent of my expenditure, so far as domestic expenditure is concerned; I am next accused of being an habitual gambler, an accusation which, if true, might easily account for the diffusion of the property. I am, indeed, a member of two clubs, the Albion and the Stratford, but never in my life did I play in either, at cards or dice, or any game of chance; this is well known to the gentlemen of these clubs—and my private friends, with whom I more intimately associated, can equally assert my freedom from all habit or disposition to play. It has been as cruelly asserted, that I fraudulently invested money in the funds to answer the payment of annuities, amounting to 2,200l. settled upon females. I never did make any such investment; neither at home or abroad, in any funds whatever, have I any investment; nor is there one shilling secretly deposited by me in the hands of any human being. Equally ungenerous, and equally untrue it is, to charge me with having lent to loose and disorderly persons large sums which never have, and never will be repaid. I lent no sums but to a very trifling amount, and those were advanced to valued friends. I can, therefore, at this solemn moment declare, most fervently, that I never had any advantage beyond that in which all my partners participated in any of the transactions which are now questioned. They indeed have considered themselves as partners only in the profits, and I am to be burdened with the whole of the opprobrium, that others may consider them as the victims of my extravagance I make this statement not with a view to criminate others, or to exculpate myself; but borne down as I am by calamity, I will not consent to be held out to the world as a cold-blooded and abandoned profligate, ruining all around me for the selfish gratification of vice and sensuality, and involving even my confiding partners in the general destruction. Gentlemen, I have frailties and errors enough to account for. I have sufferings enough, past, present, and in prospect; and if my life were all that was required of me, I might endure in silence; though I will not endure the odium on my memory, of having sinned to pamper delinquencies to which I never was addicted. Thus much has been extorted from me by the fabrications which have been cruelly spread amongst the public,—that very public from whom the arbiters of my fate were to be selected. Perhaps, however, I ought to thank the enemy who besieged the prisoner with his slanders, that he did so whilst my life was spared to refute them, and that he waited not until the grave, to which he would hurry me, had closed at once on my answer and my forgiveness. There is one subject more connected with these charges to which I am compelled to advert, and I do so with great reluctance. It has added to the other charges made against me, lest the world should think there was any vice in which I was not an adept. I have been accused of acting treacherously towards the female who now bears my name, having refused to make reparation until threatened by her brother, and of having deserted her at a moment when she had the greatest claim on my protection. Delicacy forbids me entering into an explanation on this subject further than to declare, that the conduct I adopted on that occasion was uninfluenced by the interference of any individual, and arose, as I then considered, and do still consider, from a laudable and honourable feeling on my part; and the lady’s brother, so far from coming forward at the time alluded to, was on service in the West Indies. Could all the circumstances be exposed, I feel convinced that every liberal-minded man would applaud my determination; and I feel satisfaction in saying, that the lady in question has always been, and still is actuated by the best feelings towards me. I have now to apologise to the court for having entered so much at length into the statement of my unfortunate case, and, in conclusion, I have to express my perfect confidence that it will receive every favourable consideration at your hands; and I fully rely that you, gentlemen of the jury, will give an impartial and merciful decision.”
The unfortunate gentleman having completed the reading of this document, sat down, and wept with much agitation. Seventeen gentlemen of the highest respectability were then called, and they all attested their high opinion of his honour, integrity, and goodness of disposition, and that he was the person whom, of all others, they would have supposed incapable of a dishonourable action. During their examination the prisoner buried his face in his handkerchief, apparently anxious to conceal his features from their view.