To the crime for which this young man suffered was added a long series of duplicity and base ingratitude to his benefactor, William Storey, Esq.

This old gentleman rented the parsonage-house at Chatham, was rich, and, having no children, appeared to have adopted this ingrate as a son. The return made to this protection was the commission of forgery, in order to rob his benefactor. His fate is still less deserving of commisseration when we find that he had received every advantage from education, possessed a considerable knowledge (for his early years) of mankind, and was in the profession of the law, as an attorney, at Brewer's Hall.

This unfortunate man, at the early age of twenty-six, was indicted for feloniously forging, on the 20th of April, 1802, three papers, purporting to be letters of attorney of William Storey, of Chatham, in the county of Kent, Esq. to transfer several sums of money in the stocks of the Bank of England, and for uttering and making use of the same, knowing them to be forged.

His trial came on at the Old Bailey, before Lord Ellenborough, May 1, 1802, and occupied the greatest part of that day.

It appeared that the prisoner was a near relation to, and had received

the dividends, as they became due, for Mr. Storey, who died August 14, 1801, leaving, as he thought, considerable sums in the three and four per cents, and seven thousand pounds in the five, memorandums to that effect having been found by his executors among his papers.

Several persons to whom Mr. Storey had left different sums pressing for their legacies, Mr. Jefferies, the acting executor, drew up a kind of plan for discharging them; in which he appropriated the sums in the different funds for the payment of particular legacies, setting down seven thousand pounds as in the five per cents. among the rest. Towards the end of November, this paper was shown to, and copied by, the prisoner; who was consulted by, and acted in town for, the executor, and which copy was produced in court.

So far from informing Mr. Jefferies at that time of there being no property in the five per cents. to answer the legacies he had set down against the seven thousand pounds, the prisoner sent two or three letters to persuade him not to sell it out till after Christmas, that they might have the benefit of the dividend. This was acceded to by the executors, who, having left it beyond the time for that purpose, were at length determined to fulfil the

provisions of the will; but, on applying at the Bank, they found, to their great astonishment, that the whole of the seven thousand pounds in the five per cents. had been sold out at different periods, the last in the month of August, 1801, by the prisoner, under the pretended authority of a warrant of Mr. Storey. This warrant was produced; and Mr. Jefferies swore, to the best of his belief, that the signature was not the handwriting of his deceased friend.

Mr. Storey's coachman, whose name was down as one of the subscribing witnesses, denied it to be his writing; and added, that he never witnessed any paper for his late master during the number of years he had lived with him.

The name of Edward Bishop, described as a wharfinger at Rochester, appeared as another witness, according to the copy; but it was deposed by the tax-gatherer, and other inhabitants of Rochester, that no person of that name and description had been known there for the last thirty years.

To prove that the prisoner had made use of this paper, and had actually by that means obtained the noney, the transfer-books were produced, and the several clerks of the Bank were called to prove the identity of his person.

Benjamin Cock, brother to the unfortunate prisoner, was one of Mr. Storey's executors; and, for the purpose of justice, had the disagreeable task of appearing in court. He said he had received one hundred and seventy-five pounds at different periods for dividends: but, when asked if he had received that sum for dividends after Captain Storey's death, he said, I found in the banker's book one hundred and seventy-five pounds. It was passed to my account without my knowledge.'

The prisoner, in his defence, addressed the Court in the following elegant and able manner :—

May it please your lordships, gentlemen of the jury,Very littlecapable at any time of addressing a jury of my country, I am much less able to do so upon an awful occasion like the present; yet I confess to you my feelings have been considerably relieved by the extreme, liberal, and candid manner in which the gentlemen have conducted themselves towards me this day; and I am the better enabled to address you, because the result of this inquiry is so different from that which has gone forth to the world, and is so inconsistent, that I humbly look with confidence to an honorable acquittal, and towards being restored by your verdict to society.

Gentlemen, you have an important duty to perform: you have either to restore an individual to society, or to send him to certain death; I may say certain death, because we all know that you are the dernier resort; from your verdict there lies no appeal, and I am confident you will weigh it with judgment and with mercy, peculiarly in a case of this sort, where there is no ulterior resort whatever.

• Gentlemen, I should not have the presumption to address you, if the law of the land had not prevented the learned gentleman, who has paid such unremitted attention to the case, from doing it for me;he could do me justice in much stronger terms than I can myself; but when I look to the noble lord who presides, and to you, gentlemen, I have nothing to fear: I trust you will allow for the inaccuracies of my speech, and that you will look at the case in all its bearings; and if you are convinced, upon the evidence that has been

adduced against me, that I am guilty, let me be consigned over to the laws of my country; but if the whole tenor of my life has been according to the rule of right-if I have continued to act upon the principles of honour and honestyand if the evidence, as far as it has gone, has been consistent with that character which has been gone into then, gentlemen, I feel confident in the event of your verdict.

Gentlemen, I did think, on the part of the prosecution, there would have been a clear, consistent, statement before you; I should have thought, charging me to have forged this power of attorney, that they would have begun at the foundation of the crime, to show that that power of attorney was forged: they have shown no such thing, or attempted it; they ought to have gone on, and to have shown you that the power of attorney, in October, 1800, was a forgery :-that they have not done. What is it we then come to? The power of attorney in April, which is charged to be the forgery; and we will go to the evidence on which it is founded. There is one thing before that, because the gentleman has been pleased to say, that it afforded some strong presumption; and I admit that suspicious circumstances have been laid before you, but unfortunately I have not the opportunity, by evidence, of completely elucidating them, but will say, it is bare statement; there is not positive evidence against me. I shall pass over all the different witnesses which have been called on as to the entries in the Bank books for form's sake, and will admit that there was such a sum as five thousand pounds sold out; the only questions you have to try are, first, whether it was under a forged instrument; and, in the next place, whether, if

it was a forged instrument, I was the perpetrator of it, or uttered it, knowing it to be forged.

• Gentlemen, the first material circumstance I shall observe upon is this: in all cases, it certainly is not possible to show the perpetrator of the act; in this case they cannot, for it is impossible to show the perpetration of the deed. In order to be convinced that an instrument of this sort is a forgery, you will first look to the signature of the party himself, and, next, to those of the attesting witnesses. What is the evidence? Taking the signatures first, I think it is clear that I was in the habit of confidence sufficient to be entitled to receive under it; I think the gentlemen have produced to you a power of attorney, authorizing me to receive dividends upon the then stock; therefore you have it before you, on the showing of the prosecution, that I was in the confidence of the testator, and was allowed to receive his dividends. Was it inconsistent, therefore, that he should allow me to sell it out when necessary? And here I must make an observation upon the evidence of Mr. Peckham, who said I had received the dividends on his stock, implying that stock was gone, though it will be found, through the whole transaction, his confidence had not been broken in upon.'

Mr. Garrow here interrupted the prisoner, saying, It is but justice, it will assist you, to declare, that, respecting the servants of Mr. Storey, you conducted yourself with great fidelity.' The prisoner thanked him for correcting him, saying he might have mistaken the evidence. He then proceeded :

Gentlemen, you have the evidence before you of Mr. Jefferies that this handwriting is not, in his opinion, the handwriting of Mi Storey; there is not one other

single witness, nor is there an iota of evidence before you, that it is my handwriting. I will now resort to the attesting witnesses: the first is Robert Packham; he is called, and, from his appearance, he is little conversant in handwriting; he, however, denies that he attested it: you will recollect that it is required, at the foot of instruments of this sort, the parties should not merely subscribe their names, but their residence and professions. These forms have not been complied with: and I should like to know, if it is not the handwriting of Peckham, why they have not brought you other evidence, to show whose it is. It is not the mere signature of Robert, Peckham; and is it possible for you to conceive, if it was written by me, that they would not have got persons to prove it was my writing? They ought to have gone to that point, and shown to you that it was not merely suspected to be a forgery, but that it was a forgery created by my hand: they have attempted to effect it out of court, but they failed in effecting it in court.

Gentlemen, Mr. Francis is asked whether there was one Edward Bishop living in Rochester: he tells you there was not. I am not disposed to quarrel with that; but the solicitors who conduct this prosecution were, so soon as the circuit was over, required to give me the names of the witnesses; which was refused, and which, if it had been complied with, I would not have been contented with calling a single taxgatherer-I should not have stopped there I should have sent down persons of diligence and activity, and, if I found it was impossible to discover them, I should have put "One Hundred Pounds Reward,' in as large figures as they put for my apprehension, and called upon them, for the sake of public justice, to

come and speak before you. On this part of the question I think they have gone a very little way; they have given us very slight evidence indeed; and it merely depends upon the opinion of Mr. Jefferies that this is not the handwriting of Mr. Storey, who was a man afflicted with the gout, eighty years of age, and liable to a hundred variations in his handwriting.

Gentlemen, the greater part of this case has been occupied by inquiring not so much whether it is a forgery or not, but with reading the correspondence between me and the executors, subsequent to the death of Mr. Storey, all tending to show, most unquestionably, that there existed, at the period of Mr. Storey's death, seven thousand pounds stock, I do not mean to deny those representations; they are provid; I would have admitted them, if my counsel would have permitted me: it is unquestionably true, I have constantly admitted to the executors that seven thousand pounds were there, and have acted upon it as such; and, if the thing had remained undiscovered till this moment, I should have continued to do so: but does that prove the charge? The question is, whether it be a forgery or not? Whether their confidence was broken in upon by the conduct I pursued, and not giving me an opportunity of replacing the money, which I acknowledge is converted; but I say there is no proof of forgery, and you have a right to infer, from the confidence placed in me by Mr. Storey, with respect to his own dealings, that I might be authorized to transfer any of the stock; and I might have gone on representing it as still standing in the books, whereas it was not; for I wished to keep the deception up, and I did keep it up to the testator till his death.