For Wynne Ryland’s conscience is becoming a heavy burden. In spite of his princely income, artistic improvidence is beginning to weigh him down. Over his soul the like spirit that swayed Sieur Boucher the incomparable reigns absolute. Gilded rooms, where the Eo. tables pave the road to ruin, swallow his guineas in their rapacious maw. His open hand scatters gold amidst his friends. Miss Angel, his patron saint, returns to her native land. Although he remains the kind husband and devoted father, the shadow of sin creeps over his roof-tree. A pretty girl, whose fresh young beauty has stolen his heart from the mother of his children, becomes a mistress who squanders his earnings faster than they are reaped. Those bill of exchange transactions with bankers Asgill and Nightingale grow more considerable. Friends and accommodators Ransome and Moreland often receive him in their counting-house, with his pockets full of crisp notes drawn upon the Honourable the East India Company of Leadenhall Street; for this clean, easy paper-credit is always welcomed as deposit for current coin.
At last comes the fatal crash, bursting over the town in a thunderclap, striking sorrow into the hearts of thousands. On the 3rd of April 1783, when the London merchant opens his newspaper—Morning Chronicle or Daily Advertiser—he reads there that William Wynne Ryland stands charged before the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor on suspicion of forging the acceptance of two bills of exchange for payment of £7114, with intent to defraud the United East India Company. Kind John Gwynn throws aside his plans of stately edifices, walking the streets with streaming eyes, sorrowing for his friend. Statuesque Domenico Angelo hurries to condole with poor Mary Ryland, and the sight of the agonised wife and children robs the good-hearted Italian swordsman of sleep. But the engraver had left his home at Knightsbridge on the first of the month, and although the City Marshal searches for him in the Old Bailey and in the Minories, nothing is heard of him for fourteen days.
On the morning of the 15th of April, a drunken woman reels into the ‘Brown Bear’ Bow Street, hiccupping an exciting story that entices the runners even from their pewter pots. She is the wife of a Stepney cobbler, who for many days has been harbouring a strange lodger—a man garbed in an old rusty coat, with green apron and worsted nightcap, who poses as invalid Mr Jackson who needs the country air; which same delicate invalid rests indoors all day, only venturing out after nightfall to enjoy the health-giving April east winds. But he is not Mr Jackson at all, babbles tipsy Mrs Cobbler Freeman, for, when taking one of his shoes to her husband to mend, she noticed a bit of paper pasted on the inside, and, tearing it away, she has seen written his real name—William Wynne Ryland. This is great news for the ‘Brown Bear’ runners, and Chief-officer Daly, accompanied by a fellow robin-redbreast, takes coach with Mrs Cobbler Freeman to Stepney Green.
From his garret window the guilty engraver beholds the coming of the bloodhounds. With a brief prayer for pardon he flies to his razor, and when the constables burst through the door they find him stretched upon the boards with a gash across his throat. Still, he has not cheated cruel fate. A surgeon staunches his wound, and watchers surround his bed lest he should seek to meet death once more. In the agony of that long night, while physical torture conquers even the deep, black pain of unutterable despair, the wretched sufferer atones for the sins of a lifetime. Yet on the morrow they take him rudely from his couch, and while the foul cobbler goes clamouring to the India House for his blood-money, Ryland is brought before Sir Sampson Wright, who sits in the place of blind John Fielding in the office at Bow Street. There he is given over to Governor Smith, who carries him to the Bridewell at Tothill Fields, where he lies for weeks sick almost unto death.
Newspaper canards spring up in wonted manner like mushrooms from a dunghill. Mr Ryland, who cannot recover—so they say—has confessed his crime to Sheriff Robert Taylor, naming also a pair of accomplices, and hints a third. As he cannot recover—so they say—Keeper Smith has a couple of men to watch him always, lest he should kill himself. Newspaper reason uses these odd arguments and more. Among the feasts of scandal crammed down the public gullet one fact is readily digested—Ryland is guilty beyond all refutation! Forged E.I.C. bills have been found in shoals—none but the great engraver could have been their author—he attempted self-murder because he was certain of conviction. All true, possibly; nay, probably, but where is the proof?
The trial of the poor sick artist skips a session. In tender mercy those in power do not shut him up in fetid, overcrowded Newgate, but allow him to remain under the watchful care of good Keeper Smith. His kind jailor does everything in his power to lighten his dreary lot, making him a trusted friend, allowing him to take walks with him in the open street, confident that he will not break his parole. It is not until the eve of the session that they drive him to the Old Bailey, around whose bloodstained walls he used to play with his brothers as a child.
On Saturday, the 26th of July, he is brought to face his accusers. Not until the last moment do Crown lawyers intimate the terms of indictment, for there are several forged bills laid to his charge, and, conviction appearing a matter of doubt, the Honourable E.I.C. wishes to be certain of its prey. So Crown lawyers select a minor charge—a small bill for £210—which they assert Ryland has copied and engraved from a true document, uttering it knowing it to be forged. Both bills have been lately in the prisoner’s possession—this is made clear—but which is the counterfeit? A hard nut for Crown lawyers, since both are like as two peas. Unless they show that the first which Ryland had received is the true one, their case falls to the ground, for no man can copy what he has not seen. A breathless crowd, whose hearts are all for the man in the dock, watch the ghastly duel of keen wits, for it is death to one if he is vanquished. Witnesses come and go, but tierce and parry keep the defendant unscathed. Witnesses advance and retire, but Crown lawyers find them weak reeds. Banker Ammersley swears to his signature on the first bill, but this proves nothing, as Banker Ammersley’s autograph is not the seal of Company John. One Holt, late E.I.C. secretary, whose brain is not so clear as it was, makes a dismal display in the box, while the courage of Ryland’s friends mounts high. One Omer, E.I.C. clerk, tries to spot the true bill, but counsel Peckham involves him in a maze of legerdemain. All the gallant little host of well-wishers, who have drunk deeply of newspaper canards, and still more insidious City gossip, are amazed that Hicks’s Hall should have deemed such evidence worthy of a true bill—amazed, moreover, that their friend seems to have a chance of escape.
Suddenly the quick shadow of despair flits across the face of the prisoner. For a moment the brave, easy self-confidence leaves him naked to his enemies. Crown counsel Sylvester—who lives in fame as the judge of maiden Fenning—has played his last card, calling to the witness-box a calm, unemotional man of commerce, Mr Waterman of Maidstone, papermaker for twenty years. Then the reason of the Hicks’s Hall opinion is made clear. Papermaker Waterman brushes aside all doubts—he made the sheet upon which one of the bills is printed, recognising the marks of his moulds, distinguishable only by expert eye. Since this Maidstone Waterman is positive that the paper on which one of the E.I.C. acceptances is stamped did not reach London till May 1783, it is certain that the first bill which came into the possession of Ryland was the true one accepted by the Company. Thus two counts of the indictment are decided—the last bill is the spurious one, and it was uttered by the prisoner.
Yet what is the whole significance of this carefully accumulated evidence! Merely that an amazing forgery has been wrought, and that Ryland alone, who had the motive and the skill, possessed also the opportunity. Every heart within the crowded court is filled with pity for the accused man. Bankers Moreland and Ammersley, though called by the Crown, have striven to assist the defence. Prosecutors Sylvester, Rous, and Graham have shown no vindictive spirit. Even stripping Judge Buller—he who drew up a specification of rod for the benefit of wife-beaters—strives to find a “chasm in the evidence,” endeavouring to prove that the honourable servants of the E.I.C. have made a mistake. Finally, when this big-brained lady-whipping Buller comes to instruct the jury, he specially commends the prisoner’s defence—read by the clerk of arraigns, as poor Ryland’s throat is too sore for the effort—for its matter and good sense.
Then mercy hides her face, for the youthful judge lays down calmly the most astounding of eighteenth-century judicial dogmas. “It stands prisoner,” declares this Buller, “to show how he came by the bill in order to prove he did not know it to be forged.” So—musty old twiners of red tape—they cannot fasten the guilt upon the man, thus with impotent tu quoque they demand that he shall prove his innocence. Since they cannot rip him open in the witness-box, they shift their own burden upon his shoulders. Since he cannot prove his innocence, they deem him guilty, forgetting the good British legal converse of this proposition. Bewildered by judicial hair-splitting, the jury at last withdraw. No direct evidence convicts him—circumstances, prejudice rather, the whispered stories of numerous E.I.C. bills (forgeries all) that have passed through the hands of the engraver. If one indictment does not draw, others will follow—he had the motive, means, and opportunity, and he flew to his razor when the runners came to take him. Half an hour of such reasoning kneads the brains of jury into proper hanging shape, and they decide that to Tyburn the prisoner must go.