This absurd story had its origin in the financial adventures of one Alexander Trotter, Paymaster of the Navy, who, despite the facts that his salary was a mere five hundred a year and that he had no other means, passed some fifteen million pounds through Coutts' Bank and speculated hugely on the Stock Exchange, his transactions amounting in one day to £300,000. In giving evidence in the trial of Lord Melville, the treasurer of the Navy, in 1806, he said: "I certainly made use of that part which was not likely to be claimed for my own benefit, generally by lending it at interest, and at times by investing it in Exchequer or Navy Bills, or other Government securities. The whole profit and emolument derived from that mode of laying out the money were entirely my own." He gave as his reason for passing the money through his private account, instead of through the Bank of England, that, after the removal of the Navy Office from Broad Street to Somerset Place, it was "safer and more convenient to give orders on a bank in the Strand." He also affirmed that he never drew for a million of money but once in his life, "And that money went into the hands of Coutts, for I drew a draft, as usual, upon the Bank of England, but instead of giving the draft to Coutts, I gave it to a clerk, who carried it to the bank, and, the notes being divided into a great number of small notes, he took them to Coutts"--a very singular proceeding. Lord Melville stated that, to the best of his recollection, "He never authorised the application of any of the Navy money for his own benefit or advantage, but that, owing to the way in which the pay-master had blended his own money and the public money, it was impossible to ascertain with precision whether the advances he had made to the treasurer were from one source or the other." An important point in the trial turned upon the disposal of a certain sum of £30,000, and it could not be determined as to whether the money came from the Navy, or, as a loan, from Messrs Coutts. Hence arose the apocryphal story of the staid banker, to whom caution was second nature, wishing to lend this large amount on the frail security of an I.O.U.