Mention has already been made of the fraud practised by Price on Mr. R. of Knightsbridge. One in a family was not enough for him, and Mr. R’s brother, who lived in Oxford-street, experienced the effect of Price’s ingenuity in crime. Price had been often there, and bought a variety of things, and was perfectly well known in his real person, and by his proper name. One day, however, a hackney-coach carried him thither disguised as an old man, and in that character he made some purchases. In a day or two he repeated his visit, and on a third day, when he knew Mr. R. was from home, he went again with his face so coloured that he seemed in a deep jaundice. The shopman, to whom he was full of complaints, told him that he had a receipt for that disorder, which had cured his father of it, and offered him the prescription. Price accepted it, and promised that if it succeeded he would liberally reward him. In a few days, he again appeared before the shopman perfectly freed from the complaint, and acknowledging his great obligations to him, said he had but a short time to live in the world, and having very few relations to leave any thing to, he begged his acceptance of a 50l. bank-note, at the same time, he said, he wanted cash for another. Mr. R. not being in the way, the grateful shopman stepped out, and got change for it. The next day Price having watched Mr. R’s going out, prevailed on the lad to take five other 50l. notes to his master’s banker, and there get them changed for smaller ones. Price’s notes soon got to the bank, and of course were stopped. They were traced to Mr. R’s. His lad was interrogated, and as Mr. R. positively refused to pay the 250l. to his bankers, they brought an action against him, which was tried in the court of common pleas, before Lord Loughborough, and the bankers obtained a verdict. The most extraordinary circumstances pending the suit were, that Mr. R. communicated the story to Price, who offered him all the assistance in his power, and became a principal agent in the defence. He was, of all others, the most active in procuring witnesses for Mr. R., and actually attended the trial, without the least suspicion, on the part of any individual concerned, that he was the perpetrator of the mischief.
It is an extraordinary and almost incredible fact, that during a period of six years, five of which had elapsed after the remarkable advertisement issued at the instance of the bank in December 1780, Price committed depredations of this nature on the public with impunity. The deceptions by which he circulated his forged notes through so long a period, were as varied as the nature of each new circumstance required. At last he turned another species of forgery, equally artful, and, for a time, equally successful. He went to the coffee-houses near the Royal Exchange in a new disguise, and there was accustomed to get a boy to take a sum of 10l. to the bank, with directions to receive from the teller the customary ticket to the cashier who pays; but the lad had his especial orders not to go to the cashier for the money, as the teller is accustomed to direct, but as soon as the boy was out of the teller’s sight he was to turn another way, and bring the ticket to Price at the coffee-house. There Price used to alter the teller’s tickets from 10l. to 100l. by adding an 0, or by placing a 1 before any other sum where the addition was easy, so as to make 50 into 150, &c., and then send the tickets by other hands to the cashiers, who paid the increased sums unsuspectedly.
This scheme was his last. One of the notes he had received at the bank, on a forged ticket, he had passed at Mr. Aldous’s, a pawn-broker in Berwick-street, where he was known by the name of Powel, and went two or three times a week to pledge things of value. An officer was placed at Mr. Aldous’s till his next call, which was the next day but one, when he was secured and carried to Bow-street. His behaviour there was exceedingly insolent. Mr. Bond, who, when Price kept a lottery-office in King-street, Covent-garden, was clerk at Bow-street, had visited him on account of some money due to Sir John Fielding’s maid servant, gained by insuring with Price, which he had refused to pay her; but when informed by Mr. Bond who her master was, he waited on Sir John, and satisfied her claim. He now taxed Mr. Bond, who had been made a magistrate, with prejudice against him on account of the insurance affair, and complained that he should not have justice done him. He also urged against Mr. Abraham Newland, esq., principal cashier of the bank, that he could expect nothing from him but every possible injury, on account of some former antipathy that gentleman had conceived towards him; and he imputed desire of revenge to every individual whose duty it was to render him amenable to justice.
When under examination, the chief magistrate, Sir Sampson Wright, suddenly called out “Sam;” the young man immediately answered, and at the same moment appeared before his old master, who started as at a ghost; but, recollecting himself, made a polite bow to his former servant, with a view either to awaken his sympathy, or to hint at what he might expect if he disclaimed him. Samuel, however, could only swear to his voice, for he had not the least idea of his person or features. Price was committed to Tothillfields-bridewell, where he turned his thoughts to the destruction of the implements. Well knowing that nothing could be extracted from Mrs. Price, or any of his family, to affect him, he had declared, when under examination, that he lived with them at a cheesemonger’s in the neighbourhood of Tottenham-court-road; and he was equally secure that nothing could be found there to afford the least suspicion of his being the forger described under the character of Patch. His next step was to obtain an interview with Mrs. Price and his eldest son, a youth about fifteen years of age. To his wife’s great surprise, he communicated to her the secret of his lodgings, and the circumstances respecting her aunt. He wrote a letter to Mrs. Pounteney, informing her of his situation, and desiring her instantly to destroy every atom of the apparatus, clothes, &c.; he tore up the inner sole of his son’s shoe, and putting the letter under, it passed safe.
When Mrs. Pounteney received the letter, she burnt every article of clothes in which Price had disguised himself, and sent for a carpenter, to whom he had never been visible, to take down the wood frame, presses, and other instruments with which Price had made his paper, and printed off his notes. While the maid was gone for the carpenter, her mistress put the copper-plates into the fire, and, rendering them pliable, reduced them to small pieces. These, with a large bundle of small wires, used in the manufacture of the paper and water-marks, she desired Price’s son to take to the adjacent fields, and there distribute them beneath the dust heaps; and the pieces lay there till, by a stratagem, they were discovered and brought to Bow-street. The carpenter took down the apparatus, and being paid and despatched, every thing was brought down and reduced to ashes.
Throughout Price’s examinations, his assurance was the most remarkable feature in his conduct; but the audacity by which he sought to baffle his accusers was so reckless, as to disclose a circumstance which largely added to the grounds for believing him to be the criminal who had so long eluded justice. From the extreme art he had adopted to effectually disguise his person, while committing his enormous frauds, there was no connected proof of his identity. Long before his apprehension, he had hazarded experiments to discover whether his disguises were effectual. He would go to the coffee-houses about the ’Change, where he was thoroughly well known as Mr. Price, and in his real character inquire for Mr. Norton, write a letter, and leave it at the bar. In ten minutes he would return as Mr. Norton, receive the letter, and drink his coffee. While in Tothillfields-bridewell, a boy who had more than once taken cash for him to the tellers at the bank, together with the boy’s mother, who had also seen him, were conveyed to the prison to view him. The boy could not at all identify him: the mother was more positive, but still the proof was deemed scarcely sufficient to convict him. He had pledged things of value several times, under the name of Powel, with Mr. Aldous. Mrs. Pounteney had done the same in the character of Mrs. Powel. They had talked of each other, and each of them had at different times pledged the same article; yet Price on his examination denied the least knowledge of her; impudently threatened to bring actions for false imprisonment; and ridiculing the officers for not finding a ten pound note in his fob, under his watch, when he was searched, he heedlessly produced it—this identical note was one of the notes delivered by the cashier upon a teller’s ticket which Price had forged!
Price had been brought up three times for the purpose of being viewed, and his sagacity perceived the impossibility of his escaping the hand of justice. He told the keeper he had been “betrayed,” but this was not the fact. Meditating to avoid a public execution, he informed his son that the people of the prison came into his room sooner than he wished; and that he had something secret to write, which they might get at by suddenly coming upon him, which he wished to prevent. On this pretence he gave his son money to purchase two gimblets and a sixpenny cord, pointing out to him how he would fasten the gimblets in the post, and tie the cord across the door, which opened inwards. The poor youth obtained the implements, and Price having fastened the gimblets under two hat screws, was discovered hanging in his room, without coat or shoes, on the 25th of January, 1786.
Under his waistcoat were found three papers. One was a petition to the king, praying protection for his wife and eight children; all of whom, he said, had never offended; and stating, that he had written a pamphlet with a view to prevent a war between the crowns of England and Denmark, and to rescue the character of queen Matilda from the aspersions of the queen dowager’s party. The second was a letter of thanks to Mr. Fenwick, the keeper of the prison, for his indulgence and favours. The third was a letter to his wife, wherein he begged her forgiveness for the injuries he had done her, and intreated her attention to their offspring. In these papers, written with his dying hand, the guilty man solemnly denied every thing laid to his charge!
Immediately upon Price’s self-destruction, his unhappy wife, who had been innocent of his iniquities, was urged to discover the woman with whom he had been connected. She was assured, that though the verdict of a coroner’s inquest must be formally complied with, yet, if she rendered this act of justice to the country, his remains might afterwards receive christian burial. Her son was present and added his intreaties that she would tell, or suffer him to tell, who and where the woman was; the feelings of the widow and the mother prevailed, and she communicated the residence of her depraved aunt, who, on being taken into custody, disclosed several of the circumstances attending the destruction and concealment of the presses and implements. What remained of them were destroyed by the police, and she was delivered out of custody to the punishment of her own thoughts. It was afterwards ascertained, on a second search, that she had not discovered all the machinery. The frame with which Price had made his paper was produced to her, and she was asked what it was: “It is an instrument,” she said, “I use for mangling.” An answer which may be taken as evidence, that notwithstanding the example of Price might have taught her the folly of wickedness, and though she herself had escaped by the sufferance of extreme mercy, her mind was still disposed to evil.
Price was buried in the cross-roads, but, in about a week, his body was privately removed by night.