whilst i was engaged with figures of the water-birds, and the vignettes, and writing the history, i was greatly retarded by being obliged often to lay that work aside, to do various other jobs in the wood engraving, and also the work of the shop, for my customers in the town, particularly writing engraving, which, i may say, i was obliged to learn and to pursue after mr. beilby left me. the most interesting part of this kind of work was plates for bank notes; but, as one of the most important of these was a five pound note for the carlisle bank, which attracted much notice, it may be right to give some account of it. it happened, one evening, that, whilst i was in company with george losh, esq., who was in some way connected with that bank, he asked me if i could engrave a bank note that could not be easily forged. in reply, i told him i thought i could. “then,” said he, “do it immediately;” and i lost no time in beginning upon it. i had, at that time, never seen a ruling machine, nor the beautiful engine-turning lately brought into use by perkins, fairman, and heath, which were at that time, i believe, utterly unknown. i however, proceeded with my plate, and my object was to make the device look like a wood cut; and in this, though a first attempt, i succeeded; and the number of impressions wanted were sent to carlisle.
soon after this, i was told by sir t. f—, bart., that his brother, who held some office under government, and was much with the king—george iii., whose curiosity was insatiable as to everything relative to the arts—had got one of these bank notes. sir t. f—’s brother showed it to the king, who greatly admired and approved of it. about two years after this, in the year 1801, samuel thornton, esq., of the bank of england, wrote to me respecting this note, and wished to know how it was executed, and whether it was done on wood or copper, &c. i was strongly advised, by a friend, not to give the gentlemen of that bank any information whatever about my plate; “for,” said he, “as soon as they know the nature of what they are enquiring after, you will hear no more from them.” i did not take his advice; and, after a deal of trouble in writing to them, and stating amongst many other matters, that, “though my plate would do well for country banks, it would not do for the great number wanted for the bank of england,” the business ended in nothing. it may perhaps be well, while i am on the subject of bank notes, to pass over a number of years, and come down to the year 1818, when a commission was appointed to investigate the business of forgery, and to endeavour to prevent it in future. some time previous to this, i was employed by my friend, john bailey, esq., of chillingham, to engrave plates to prevent a repetition of the pen-and-ink forgeries which had been committed upon the berwick bank, which it was found had been better imitations than could be made from copper plates. in this i succeeded; and also, by a simple process, on the plates i engraved for the northumberland bank. immediately on the heel of this, and as soon as the commissioners above-mentioned had commenced their enquiries, it seemed as if the services and abilities of all the artists in the kingdom were held in requisition, to give in their specimens and their schemes for this purpose; and, willing to contribute, all in my power to accomplish so desirable an end, i, amongst many others, gave in my plan. the leading object with me was permanency, or, in other words, to aim at executing a device that would never need either alteration or repairs; and the other part of my plan was, that the device should be of such a nature, that all men of common discernment could easily recognize the note as a legitimate one. in my letters to sir joseph banks, i did not mention anything about using types, or how highly i approved of their use, because i knew that others had done so before, and to point out in which way i conceived they would be of importance would now be useless; since the commissioners, or the bank, have rejected every scheme (so far as i know) that has been laid before them. this to me has always appeared strange; as, in my opinion, there have been several proposals laid before them very efficient for the purpose of preventing forgeries, if not for setting that nefarious work at rest.
the beautiful specimens first produced by fairman, perkins, and heath, from their steel plates or blocks, were, in my opinion, inimitable, and quite sufficient to answer the end intended; and those afterwards brought forward, under the auspices of sir william congreve, are nearly of the same character and import. if an engine turner cannot set his lathe, so as to trace or copy the delicate and truly exact curves, lines, &c., which are shown in both, it is not likely that any forgery would ever be attempted upon either of them. if they had been less complex, i should have liked them better; but, as they are, the best engravers on either copper, steel, or wood, will not attempt an imitation. they may, indeed, gaze at them—but that is all.
it was always surprising to me that none of the ingenious schemes,—so long under the consideration of the commissioners,—were adopted; but, when i read, in a newspaper, that mr. pierce had stood up in the house of commons, and in answer to a question put to him there, had said, in reply, “that the commissioners were of opinion that nothing better than the old bank note could be devised to prevent forgery!”—then, indeed, i could scarcely believe my own eyes,—my astonishment was complete, and my opinion of the whole business of this “mountain in labour” was fixed.
during the time that the business of the commissioners seemed to me to be hanging in suspense, i wrote a letter to sir joseph banks, in which i endeavoured to press upon his attention, and that of his colleagues, as a means of preventing forgery, the necessity of having the blank paper for country bank notes printed with a new device in lieu of the little duty stamp then used, and which had simply in view the collection of the government duty. sometime after this, a long account of the inventions of sir william congreve, bart., were published in the “repository of arts,” for march, 1822, setting forth how much country banks, and the whole country was obliged to him, as the inventor of, or the person who first suggested, a scheme so essentially important as this for preventing forgery. as soon as i read this, i answered it in the “monthly magazine,” of may, 1822, in which i quoted my letters to the commissioners, with the dates bearing upon this very subject, and claimed for myself the merit of having first suggested the scheme. at the same time, i only requested sir william congreve would, on the word of a gentleman, say whether or not the scheme was his or mine. of this neither sir william nor any of the commissioners took any notice, excepting, indeed, something purporting to be an answer to what i had said, by a person in the employ of sir william, as an artist, which, though it begun very impudently, did not answer my letter at all. this i could not help treating with contempt. to enter into a paper war with such a person, i thought would be great folly. sir william appears to be going on prosperously, by furnishing bankers with his stamped note papers, and printing them in the way above described.
sir william congreve, as a commissioner, had the advantage of seeing the various devices, and of knowing the opinions of the various artists upon these devices, which enabled him to cull and select such as appeared to him best calculated to prevent forgery; and, i think, as he was no artist himself, he should not have taken the credit either of inventor or executor of any of these devices, nor have turned the profit arising from them to his own private account.
