"The war," said Morand, "broke out between Great Britain and France; the forces of the two nations were grappling; but it appeared to me to be easier to destroy our rival by finance than by arms. I resolved, therefore, as a good patriot, to undertake that ruin, and to accomplish it in the very heart of London. If I had succeeded," he cried with enthusiasm, "France would have held me in the greatest honour; and instead of being branded as a brigand, I should have been proclaimed the avenger of my country. Scarcely had I arrived in England when I commenced my operations; and at first they succeeded beyond all my hopes. Assisted by an Irishman not less skilful than myself, and who, like me, was actuated by a noble patriotism, desiring even more fervently than I did the downfall of England, I was soon enabled to counterfeit the notes of the Bank with such perfection that it was even difficult for us to distinguish those which came from our own press from the genuine paper. I was at the very point of a triumph; all my preparations were made for inundating England with our manufactured notes; nothing was wanting except some information in regard to numbering them--when my companion, whom up till then I had regarded as AN HONEST MAN,* (* The italics are Peron's.) took it into his head to steal some of the notes, which were as yet defective, inasmuch as they lacked a few trifling but indispensable formalities. He was arrested almost immediately; and as he had behaved dishonourably towards me, he did not hesitate to relapse into sin in another aspect. He revealed everything to the authorities; I was arrested and plunged into prison with him; all my instruments, all our bank notes, were seized--and Great Britain was saved from the ruin which I had prepared for her!