Vaughan was greatly commiserated. But despite the unskilfulness of the forgery, and the insignificant consequences which followed it, the crime was considered of too dangerous a character not to be marked, from its very novelty, with exemplary punishment. Hanging created at that time no remorse in the public mind, and it was thought necessary to set up Vaughan as a warning to all future Bank note forgers. The crime was too dangerous not to be marked with the severest penalties. Forgery differs from other crimes not less in the magnitude of the spoil it may obtain, and of the injury it inflicts, than in the facilities attending its accomplishment. The common thief finds a limit to his depredations in the bulkiness of his booty, which is generally confined to such property as he can carry about his person; the swindler raises insuperable and defeating obstacles to his frauds if the amount he seeks to obtain is so considerable as to awaken close vigilance or enquiry. To carry their projects to any very profitable extent, these criminals are reduced to the hazardous necessity of acting in concert, and thus infinitely increasing the risks of detection. But the forger need have no accomplice; he is burdened with no bulky and suspicious property; he needs no receiver to assist his contrivances. The skill of his own individual right hand can command thousands; often with the certainty of not being detected, and oftener with such rapidity as to enable him to baffle the pursuit of justice. It was a long time before Vaughan’s rude attempt was improved upon: but in the same year, (1758), another department of the crime was commenced with perfect success;—namely, an ingenious alteration, for fraudulent purposes, of real Bank notes. A few months after Vaughan’s execution, one of the northern mails was stopped and robbed by a highwayman; several Bank notes were comprised in the spoil, and the robber, setting up with these as a gentleman, went boldly to the Hatfield Post office, ordered a chaise and four, rattled away down the road, and changed a note at every change of horses. The robbery was, of course, soon made known, and the numbers and dates of the stolen notes were advertised as having been stopped at the Bank. To the genius of a highwayman this offered but a small obstacle, and the gentleman-thief changed all the figures “1” he could find into “4’s.” These notes passed currently enough; but, on reaching the Bank, the alteration was detected, and the last holder was refused payment. As that person had given a valuable consideration for the note, he brought an action for the recovery of the amount; and at the trial it was ruled by the Lord Chief Justice, that “any person paying a valuable consideration for a Bank note, payable to bearer, in a fair course of business, has an understood right to receive the money of the Bank.”