Читать книгу True Crime Chronicles - Camden Pelham - Страница 82

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GUEST was the son of a clergyman of unblemished character, of the city of Worcester, who placed him apprentice to a genteel business. He passed the term of apprenticeship to the satisfaction of his master, and then came to London, and took a shop in Holborn, where he carried on business some years with the usual success of trade. His father’s good name assisted him in procuring a clerkship in the Bank of England; and there he pursued a system of fraud which procured his execution for a crime amounting to high treason—that of diminishing the gold coin of the realm.

He took a house in Broad-street Buildings, in a room in the upper part of which he used to work. Having procured a curious machine for milling guineas, not unlike that made use of by mathematical instrument-makers, he used to take guineas from his drawer at the Bank, file them, and return them to the Bank, and take out guineas of full weight in their stead. Of the filings he made ingots, which he sold to an assayer, who, on his trial, deposed that they were of the same standard as our guineas.

About three years before his conviction he became a teller at the Bank, and Mr. Leach, who was also a teller there, observing him picking out new guineas from the old ones, and having some suspicion, watched him, to discover whether this was a frequent practice; and finding that it was, he communicated his suspicions to some others. On the 4th of July 1766, Mr. Guest paid thirty guineas to Richard Still, a servant to Mr. Corner, a dyer, at Bankside, Southwark; and Leach observing him take some gold out of a bag in the drawer, and put it among the rest on the table, went after Still, asked him if his money was right, and begged he would walk with him into the Pay-office, and let him tell it over. The man consented, and Leach found three guineas that appeared to have been newly filed, which he took away, giving Still other guineas for them. He then carried the light guineas into the hall, and showed them to Mr. Robert Bell, another teller, who carried them to Mr. Race, the principal cashier. The latter weighed them, and found that they wanted from ten pence to about fourteen pence of weight each; and he then, having examined the edges, delivered them to Leach.

It is a custom at the Bank for the cashier in waiting to take the tellers’ bags every night, and lock them up; and Mr. Race, after these suspicious circumstances had appeared against Guest, ordered his bags to be examined after they were taken away. This was done by Mr. Thompson, one of the under cashiers, and Kemp and Lucas, two in-door tellers, who found the whole sum they contained to be 1,800l. 16s. 6d.; and they found in one bag forty guineas, which appeared to have been filed on the edges, and each of which was found to be deficient in weight, from eight pence to fourteen pence.

In consequence of this disclosure, Mr. Sewallis and Mr. Humberton, servants to the Bank, went with proper officers to search Mr. Guest’s house in Broad-street Buildings, and in a room up two pair of stairs, they found a mahogany nest of drawers, which, being broken open, was discovered to contain a vice, files, an instrument proper for milling the edges of guineas, two bags of gold filings, and one hundred guineas. The nest of drawers had a flap before, to let down; and a skin was found lying at the bottom, fastened to the back part of the flap, with a hole in the front part, to fasten to a button on the waistcoat, in the manner used by jewellers.

Mr. Guest was then apprehended, and being brought to trial, was found guilty, and sentenced to be executed. He subsequently zealously applied himself to the only duty which remained for him in this life to perform—that of making his peace with God, and was hanged on the 14th of October, 1767.