Engraved by T. Wright from a Drawing by A. Wivell.
London, Published August 1st, 1820, by A. WIVELL, 105, Great Titchfield Street.
“Do you know to whom you speak, sir?” he articulated.
“Know you?” was the reply. “To be sure I do. Come, be off!”
So the ‘XXX Sheriff’ was forced to make his exit by climbing ignominiously over seats and benches, to the infinite mirth and advantage of the gentlemen of the press.
At ten o’clock Justice Park and Baron Garrow come into court, followed by the Attorney-General, the great Sir John Copley, soon to be Lord Lyndhurst, who, instructed by Mr Freshfield, solicitor to the bank, has charge of the prosecution. John Gurney, afterwards a judge, who, like Scarlett and Adolphus, is one of the great criminal barristers of his day, defends the prisoner. The buzz of many voices is hushed into silence as Fauntleroy is placed at the bar. Jaggers Harmer accompanies him. For a moment he is dazzled by the glare from the inverted mirror above the dock. Making a feeble attempt to bow to his judges, he almost falls back into the arms of the attendants. With closed eyes and bent head, shrinking from the universal gaze, he stands with trembling fingers resting on the bar—a picture of unutterable shame. Thin and worn are his features, and his face is pale as death, while his hair, thrown into contrast by his full suit of black, has become white as though sprinkled with powder.
The Attorney-General proceeds with the first indictment, that which charges the prisoner with transferring under a forged deed £5450 Three per cent. Consols, belonging to Miss Frances Young. During the speech there comes a disclosure amazing to everyone in court save the man in the dock and those who defend him. In a private box found at Berners Street after his arrest, a document has been discovered containing a list of stolen securities. Upon this paper, written and signed by the hand of Fauntleroy, and dated the 7th of May 1816, are these words, which, as Sir John Copley reads them, bewilder all his hearers:—
“In order to keep up the credit of our house I have forged powers of attorney, and have thereupon sold out all these sums, without the knowledge of my partners. I have given credit in the accounts for the interest when it became due. The Bank (of England) began first to refuse our acceptances, and thereby to destroy the credit of our house; they shall smart for it.”
Attorney-General and rest of the world are much puzzled, concluding that but for unaccountable negligence the prisoner would have destroyed this seemingly incriminating document; as though a forger would not prefer that his frauds should be thought to have been actuated rather by devotion to his business and revenge against the unpopular Old Lady of Threadneedle Street than merely for the sake of self-aggrandisement. “The Bank of England shall smart for it!” Were the story credible—were Fauntleroy, in fact, a small defaulter—we may well believe that another fierce outcry would have arisen against the wicked old harridan of the City.
There is little difficulty in proving the indictment, while the poor wretch in the dock sits huddled in his chair, trying vainly to conceal his face with his handkerchief. A couple of his own clerks swear that the signature to the deed is a forgery. Tear-stained Miss Young, whom most regard as the sister-in-law of the accused man, proves that her slender store of investments has been pilfered. Officials of the Bank show that the unhappy prisoner was the thief. There crops up a curious instance of the naïveté of British jurisprudence. For Threadneedle Street has been obliged to refund the stocks belonging to Miss Young in order to make her ‘a competent witness’ lest it might seem that she has a motive in affirming or denying the forgery of the power of attorney. Thus the Old Lady confesses that she has bribed a witness in order that this witness may not be suspected of trying to obtain a bribe!