The first reputed case was that of a Bank of Scotland one-guinea note, discovered in 1811. It was not a very skilful performance, for the forged note was three-fourths of an inch longer than the genuine, and the lettering on it was not engraved, but done with pen and printing ink. But this defect was remedied, for, three weeks after the discovery, the plate of a guinea note was found by the miller in the mill lade at Stockbridge (the north side of Edinburgh), in cleaning out the lade. In 1812 a man was tried for the possession of six one-pound forged notes which had been found concealed between the sole of his foot and his stocking. His story as to how he came into possession of them seems to have satisfied the judge, and he was set free; but he afterwards confessed that he had received them from a soldier of the Cambridge Militia under the name of ‘pictures’ in the house of a grocer at Penicuik, near the Valleyfield Dépôt, and that the soldier had, at his, the accused man’s, desire, purchased them for 2_s._ each from the prisoners. In July 1812 seven French prisoners of war escaped from Edinburgh Tolbooth, whither they had been transferred from the Castle to take their trial for the forgery of bank-notes. ‘They were confined’, says a contemporary newspaper, ‘in the north-west room on the third story, and they had penetrated the wall, though very thick, till they got into the chimney of Mr. Gilmour’s shop (on the ground floor), into which they descended by means of ropes. As they could not force their way out of the shop, they ascended a small stair to the room above, from which they took out half the window and descended one by one into the street, and got clear off. In the course of the morning one of them was retaken in the Grass Market, being traced by the sooty marks of his feet. We understand that, except one, they all speak broken English. They left a note on the table of the shop saying that they had taken nothing away.’ Afterwards three of the prisoners were taken at Glasgow, and another in Dublin.