Sometimes, however, they were estimated at an even extravagant value. Mr. A. Baring said, in the course of a debate in Parliament on the subject, that he would have given 15,000_l._ for one of the licences issued, which, owing to a clerical error in the substitution of one word for another, became of that marketable value. No wonder that the merchants importuned the government for these licences, when they not only served as a protection to their property, but might, by a lucky error, become the means of making a man’s fortune. In this point of view the licences were wholly and entirely unjustifiable. It seems further that where applications were made, a considerable amount of control and interference were exercised in framing them before they were granted. Mr. Brougham drew a picture of the President and Vice-President of the Board of Trade laying their heads together, and passing a whole morning in determining with the utmost gravity “whether one cargo should consist of cotton or of wool, whether scissors should be added, whether nails should be added to the scissors; whether the nails or the scissors should be left out, or whether the commerce of the country might or might not be ruined by throwing in a little hemp with the nails and the scissors to make up the cargo.”[286] But this was not all. [Sidenote: Working of the licensing system in England.] [Sidenote: Simulated papers.] The licence to sail from port to port, for example, contained the following clause: “_The vessel shall be allowed to proceed, notwithstanding all the documents which accompany the ship and cargo may represent the same to be destined to any neutral or hostile port, or to whomsoever such property may belong._” With this licence, the ship which carried it, foreign or British, was enabled to pass through the British fleet; every vessel thus authorized being permitted to take on board another set of papers, which were, in point of fact, a forgery from beginning to end. Should the vessel be overhauled by English cruisers, she nevertheless continued her voyage unmolested. If, for example, she had actually cleared out from London, it was stated in the simulated papers that she had cleared out from Rotterdam. With this view, the proper description was made out as nearly as possible in the handwriting of the Custom-house officer at Rotterdam; and, if it were necessary that the signature of the French minister of state should be affixed, as in the case of Holland, this was skilfully forged, and even the fantastic signature of Napoleon himself was sometimes attached to these forged documents![287] These forgeries were not done perfunctorily or by halves, for not only were the names forged, but the seal was admirably engraved, and the wax closely imitated. Indeed a regular set of letters were frequently also forged, containing a good deal of fictitious private anecdote, with a mixture of such news from Rotterdam as might be supposed to be interesting to mercantile people,