The position in which they were placed was curious enough. It was plain that a most disgraceful fraud was in existence; but while no act of insolvency was committed, the law could not interfere. There was, indeed, no way of stopping them; and it was evident that they would only cease business when the public ceased to pay its money. While they discharged the annuities as they became due, and paid the life or fire policies which fell in, they were utterly uncontrollable, save by the moral power of the press. This power, so far as Mr. Mackenzie was concerned, was most unsparingly used; but he availed himself of another weapon. The name of Peter Mackenzie is rarely mentioned in England in connection with this company, that of Sir Peter Laurie and the West Middlesex being always associated; and this is owing to the fact that, not content with the powerful articles in his paper, he sent a letter, with the report of the trial, to Sir Peter, to inform him that “the company called the West Middlesex was a company of swindlers,” begging him to use his influence as chief magistrate of the city of London, to stop this crying iniquity. Sir Peter went to the Bank of England, and inquired if they knew anything of the company. “Yes,” was the reply, “they are the greatest swindlers that ever existed in London.” “On this hint he spake;” and from his seat at the Mansion House the “first Scotch Lord Mayor” let all England know that the Independent and West Middlesex Insurance Company was a sham, and that Sir Peter was going to put it down. The declarations he openly made, and the information he procured, produced an enormous number of letters from the victims. The company became a theme of public conversation—the assurance offices rejoiced at the discovery of their rival’s infamy—and those who were insured were rudely startled from their dream of security.
In the mean time, Mr. Mackenzie pressed them closely in Glasgow. He defied them and the damages they sought to obtain. There was no word too bad to give them—no assertion which had its foundation in truth, which he was not bold enough to publish. Actions involving damages to the extent of 20,000l. were brought against him in vain—he was indomitable in determination and invincible in spirit. Week after week he poured forth the vials of his wrath; and it is scarcely possible to say how much longer he must have continued his attacks, had not intestine strife assisted his endeavours. The worthy Mr. Knowles and the excellent Mr. Hole quarrelled, and the latter wrote the following elegant epistle to his coadjutor:—
“Knowles,—
“Thou art a scoundrel, and thy son no better. I shall print and publish all the by-laws and proceedings which relate to any transactions which I had with the company, and expose your villainy to Mackenzie and others; and I give you and your lying rascal of a —— notice, that if you or he should dare to publish any slander relative to my character, I shall instruct my solicitor to prosecute you, you d—d perjured scoundrel!—you base wretch! Swear against your own hand-writing! What! swear you never borrowed any money of me for the office! O wicked wretch! I have your signature, and my solicitor has seen it. Base! base! base! Hang thyself, with thy friend Williams.
“Truth,
“William Hole.”
Another letter of this gentleman concluded in the following manner:—“Whoever said I had more than this is a liar; and like unto Peter, who denied his Master, and afterwards went and wept; or, like unto Judas, who betrayed his Master, and went afterwards and hanged himself. All that I have said or written I can prove.”
By this time it became pretty clear that the career of the Independent and West Middlesex was run; the valuables were removed from Baker Street; two waggons were necessary to remove the wine only; and the bubble burst. The loss sustained by the public is difficult to estimate. The confederates boasted of taking 40,000l. in one year; and it is probable that from 200,000l. to 250,000l. is no exaggeration. But whatever the pecuniary loss, the moral effect was much worse. It would be impossible to enumerate the examples of sorrow and suffering which ensued; yet it is equally painful to think that the cause of insurance was considerably injured. Some degree of blame rests with the other offices. They knew—they could even have demonstrated—that an institution charging such low premiums on assurances, and allowing such large sums as annuities, must fail; that it was a mathematical impossibility that it would answer; and when they found, in addition, that Hole offered their agents half the year’s premiums as commission, it was a “confirmation strong as proof of Holy Writ.” Had they applied, like Mr. Mackenzie, to the Lord Mayor, it would have been stopped in its outset, and many excellent people saved from ruin. Had he not opened the eyes of the public, there is no saying to what extent they might have carried their transactions; for though Sir Peter Laurie indisputably aided him, it is equally true that Mr. Mackenzie lost 1300l. by his exposure of the “Independent and West Middlesex Life and Fire Insurance Company.”
The death of Mr. Beaumont, in 1841, recalls the name of one who, for nearly half a century, was a very noticeable man. But though for the last thirty years of his life he controlled the movements of a large fire and life assurance office, he was not rendered narrow-minded by his devotion to business; nor will a brief review of his career be unacceptable to those who remember his name as one of the earliest apostles of life assurance.
John Thomas Barber Beaumont, more familiarly known as Barber Beaumont, was born in 1773. As a youth he was devoted to historic painting, the talent which he evinced being recognised both by the Royal Academy and by the Society of Arts, from each of which he won the medals awarded to excellence in their several departments. He soon, however, abandoned historical for miniature painting, where again his ability was acknowledged by his appointment to the post of portrait painter to the dukes of York and Kent. His connection with royalty probably stimulated him to raise a rifle corps in defence of England, when the first Bonaparte threatened invasion. Like all which he undertook, he gave his heart and soul to it. He published a couple of pamphlets, the first “by Captain Barber,” and the second anonymously. He recommended that the people should be armed as sharpshooters and pikemen, and pointed out the special advantage of the invaded over the invaders; and so devoted was he to the cause, that he established a paper—the “Weekly Register”—to stimulate the exertions of others by recording his own. The corps of which he was captain became an evidence of his personal zeal. In a trial of skill between the various regiments he won the first prize; and so satisfied was he of the efficiency of his men that, on one occasion, in Hyde Park, he held the target while the entire corps, one after the other, discharged their rifles into the bull’s eye at the distance of 150 yards. In his hatred of the French emperor, in his love of boxing, and his belief in Queen Caroline, he was a “distinguished Englishman.” These were three articles of faith of that day, and he believed in all.
In 1806, Mr. Beaumont found his true vocation; and the active spirit which had distinguished itself in painting and in defending his country, in abusing Bonaparte and lauding our “injured Queen,” turned its attention to the poor. In conjunction with the County Fire and Provident Life Offices, he attempted to establish an association for the working man. Though this did not succeed, it was not for want of devotion. In every part of the country, agents explained its benefits. Many thousand pamphlets were distributed, but the artisan and labourer could not be induced to join it.
The mind of this class was less cultivated and less cared for then than now, and wherever they got high wages, they spent them recklessly. They regarded the workhouse as their natural refuge, and claimed its privileges as their inalienable birthright. We owe the presentation of many facts concerning them to Mr. Beaumont, who after ten years’ trial, finding that his association failed in its purpose, interested the inhabitants of Covent Garden and the neighbourhood, in the establishment of a savings bank. To compass this he presided at various public meetings, where he spoke with much energy, addressing the poorer class in an easy familiar tone, and speaking to them as only one who understood their wants could have spoken. He necessarily won their confidence by his zeal, and all which he wrote on the subject evinces a spirit of benevolence, being evidently the production of an acute and energetic mind. He was the first to point out the various objections to benefit societies, and his exertions in the cause of savings banks, though now almost forgotten, were productive of good; nor is it too much to add, that habits of industry and frugality were excited, or that the happiness of the working class was increased by his exertions. That which has hitherto been related of Mr. Beaumont was but the result of his leisure hours; for he was the originator of an office, to the service of which he gave the principal part of his time, and in which he found his reward. There was, indeed, something very significant in his resolute, earnest spirit, and there must, too, have been something very honest in the man; for in the outset of his own pet office, when the members were excited by success, he told them that the early accounts were not to be relied on, that they were flattering from the nature of the business, and that they showed more success at the beginning than the future would confirm. He was an open foe to all fraudulent offices, and did all he could to stay the progress of the concocters of the West Middlesex. He called attention to their proceedings in the “Times;” he proved that the enormous commission they offered, argued a foregone conclusion of swindling; he attacked them in a Scotch paper, and drew their wrath upon him, in the shape of an action for damages, which cost him 100l., and for which an additional claim of 600l. was made on his executor.
Unlike many business men, he had both taste and talent for literature. He wrote a tour in South Wales, and he has given us a very instructive work on Buenos Ayres, in the colonisation of which he was interested. The pamphlets he published are principally on social subjects, and time has confirmed the opinions he expressed. The people and their requirements seemed his special care, and he appears to have borne in mind the Divine commission “the poor always ye have with you.” Besides a close attention to their physical wants, he originated a literary institution; for he had received too much solace from art, science, and literature himself, not to spread its moral and mental advantages among those in whose cause he laboured. Nothing could exceed the ardour he evinced, or the fatigue he underwent, in carrying out his plan. “He was on the spot at all times, and in all weathers. His attention was indefatigable and his vigilance excessive. He paid little regard to meat, or drink, or sleep; and the consciousness that he was about to effect a great and lasting good inspired him with augmented energy in the midst of waning health and a decaying frame.”