The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
The crime soon became public. Mate, carpenter, and crew were eager to
disavow complicity, and voluntarily gave information. The Wallaces were
arrested, committed to Newgate, and tried at the Old Bailey. The case
was clearly proved against them, and both were sentenced to
transportation for life. While lying in Newgate, awaiting removal to the
convict ship, both prisoners made full confessions. According to their
own statements the loss of the 'Dryad' was only one of six intentional
shipwrecks with which they had been concerned. The crime of fraudulent
insurance they declared was very common, and the underwriters must have
lost great sums in this way. The merchant Wallace said he had been led
into the crime by the advice and example of a city friend who had gone
largely into this nefarious business; this Wallace added that his friend
had made several voyages with the distinct intention of superintending
the predetermined shipwrecks. The other Wallace, the sailor, also traced
his lapse into crime to evil counsel. He was an honest sea-captain, he
said, trading from Liverpool, where once he had the misfortune to be
introduced to a man of wealth, the foundations of which had been laid by
buying old ships on purpose to cast them away. This person made much of
Wallace, encouraged his attentions to his daughter, and tempted him to
take to fraudulent insurance as a certain method of achieving fortune.
Wallace's relations warned him against his Liverpool friend, but he
would not take their advice, and developing his transactions, ended as
we have seen.
A clergyman nearly a century later followed in the steps of Dr. Dodd,
but did not under more humane laws lose his life. The Rev. W. Bailey,
LL.D., was convicted at the Central Criminal Court, in February 1843, of
forgery. A notorious miser, Robert Smith, had recently died in Seven
Dials, where he had amassed a considerable fortune. But among the
charges on the estate he left was a promissory note for £2875, produced
by Dr. Bailey, and purporting to be signed by Smith. The executors to
the estate disputed the validity of this document. Miss Bailey, the
doctor's sister, in whose favour the note was said to have been given,
then brought an action against the administrators, and at the trial Dr.
Bailey swore that the note had been given him by Smith. The jury did not
believe him, and the verdict was for the defendants. Subsequently Bailey
was arrested on a charge of forgery, and after a long trial found
guilty. His sentence was transportation for life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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