Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. IVarious
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. I
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Vaughan urged in his defense, that his sole object was to deceive his
affianced, and that he intended to destroy all the notes after his
marriage. But it had been proved that the prisoner had asked one John
Ballingar to change first one, and then twenty of the notes; but which
that person was unable to do. Besides, had his sole object been to
dazzle Miss Bliss with his fictitious wealth, he would, most probably,
have intrusted more, if not all the notes, to her keeping.
He was found guilty, and passed the day that had been fixed for his
wedding, as a condemned criminal.
On the 11th of May, 1758, Richard William Vaughan was executed at
Tyburn. By his side, on the same gallows, there was another forger:
William Boodgere, a military officer, who had forged a draught on an
army agent named Calcroft, and expiated the offense with the first
forger of Bank of England notes.
The gallows may seem hard measure to have meted out to Vaughan, when it
is considered that none of his notes were negotiated, and no person
suffered by his fraud. Not one of the forty-eight notes, except the
twelve delivered to Miss Bliss, had been out of his possession; indeed,
the imitation must have been very clumsily executed, and detection would
have instantly followed any attempt to pass the counterfeits. There was
no endeavor to copy the style of engraving on a real bank note. That was
left to the engraver; and as each sheet passed through the press twice,
the words added at the second printing, "For the Governor and Company of
the Bank of England," could have fallen into their proper place on any
one of the sheets, only by a miracle. But what would have made the
forgery clear to even a superficial observer, was the singular omission,
of the second "n" in the word England.[20]
The criticism on Vaughan's note of a bank clerk examined on the trial
was: "There is some resemblance, to be sure; but this note" (that upon
which the prisoner was tried) "is numbered thirteen thousand eight
hundred and forty, and we never reach so high a number." Besides there
was no water-mark in the paper. The note of which a fac-simile appeared
in our eighteenth number, and dated so early as 1699, has a regular
design in the texture of the paper; showing that the water-mark is as
old as the bank notes themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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