On Monday, March 25, 1839, two cases of gold dust arrived at the wharf of the Dublin Steam Packet Company in London. Originating from the Brazilian mines, they had traversed the Atlantic aboard the Sea-Gull, touching at Falmouth before putting to sea a second time. They were awaited on behalf of the agents of the mining enterprise. A letter from Falmouth had announced a consignment of immense value, directing that the cases be delivered to whoever should present the proper instruments. The clerk who opened this missive, Lewin Caspar, was employed in the very house of Hartley & Co., the ship’s agents.
During the afternoon, a man presented himself at the office bearing documents that described the cases and their marks. He bore the composure of one performing an ordinary formality. He discharged the wharfage dues, bestowed a shilling upon the foreman for his civility, had the two cases placed into the waiting cab, and drove away. At that moment, no soul questioned his title to the merchandise.
A few hours later, the true representative of Marsh & Co. demanded the consignment upon the faith of his own documents. The first conveyance had already vanished. The gold dust, valued at four thousand six hundred pounds, was missing; the loss threatened to fall squarely upon the steam packet company. The agents forthwith retained the police officers Lea and Roe. The driver of the first cab recalled taking up his fare in Cheapside, then setting him down in Wood Street, where the man had entered another carriage bound for Holborn. The trail vanished almost as soon as it had begun.
The investigators pursued the scent to the man who had taken the cases. They learned he had lodged at No. 12 New Street, hard by the London Hospital, before removing to Mansell Street and subsequently disappearing. This was Henry Moss, a foreman in the employ of Hyams the watchmaker. He had known Ellis Caspar for sixteen years, having formerly worked for him; Lewin, the son of Ellis, had been bred to watchmaking before taking a clerkship at Hartley’s. Moss’s servant-maid confirmed that he had entertained both men under his roof. On the day of the robbery, he had gone forth in fine apparel; that evening, he had returned in a cab with two cases resembling those from the wharf. Beneath the parlour grate, she later discovered half-burnt fragments of the wooden boxes.
The police likewise turned their gaze upon Henry Solomons, a gold refiner of the Strand. He had disposed of twelve hundred pounds’ worth of ingots to Bull & Co., bullion merchants, asserting that the metal was derived from the melting down of snuff-boxes and other trinkets. Examined at the Lambeth Street police office on April 6, he acknowledged the sale but declined to utter another syllable. A subsequent examination placed him alongside the Caspars as a suspect. On this occasion, Henry Moss stepped forward as an accomplice turned Crown witness, having surrendered to custody upon the assurance that his testimony would be admitted against the others. His sudden appearance instantly shattered Solomons’s hitherto confident bearing.
Moss recounted that the two Caspars had contrived the enterprise several months prior, awaiting an occasion when the contents of a rich consignment might be diverted. The preceding October, Ellis had bade him meet his son. They instructed him to carry a letter to Hartley’s offices, to receive the cases delivered by Lewin, and to convey them to the father. They had chosen Moss because a common porter would have excited notice; secrecy, they informed him, demanded that Ellis be nowhere seen in the vicinity.
The scheme was postponed when the expected vessel failed to arrive as anticipated. The Caspars attributed the delay to a collision at sea, later alleging that the cases would prove too cumbersome to transport. They paid Moss but ten shillings, apprising him that his services would again be required. Soon after, they sent him several notes to transcribe, which, from his description, appeared devised for other fraudulent appropriations. On March 24, they met him in Turner Street, conducted him to his lodgings, and bade him return the following morning to the corner of Mark Lane. At half-past ten, Ellis delivered to him a letter and a blue bag. Moss proceeded to Hartley’s office, where Lewin compared his letter with another, endorsed an order upon the back to be presented at the wharf, and promised to rejoin him. At the wharf, Moss signed the receipt under the name of Dunn.
He did not carry the cases directly to his home. Having conveyed them in a first vehicle toward Wood Street, he took another, bore one case to his lodgings, and returned to fetch the second. Ellis subsequently reprimanded him for having approached too near New Street with his cab. The cases were shifted, then forced open in Moss’s back room. They contained small metal canisters, which were divided without being broken; Moss and his wife consigned the wooden boxes to the fire. On the morrow, he discovered that the canisters held gold ore. The treasure was later removed once more and concealed in diverse houses. Moss testified that the gold was brought to him at the home of his father-in-law, one Davis, where he had taken refuge; Davis and Mrs. Abrahams then carried it away in trifling quantities. Before the court, Solomons, for his part, described negotiations conducted by Emanuel Moses, the father of Alice.
Here the mutual trust of the confederates foundered. Solomons purchased gold from Moses and his daughter; in melting it, he introduced copper and silver so as to alter its appearance. When Moss perceived an attempt to defraud him of his share, he resolved to unbosom himself. Solomons, on his side, eventually detailed his purchases: Alice repaired repeatedly to his workshop, carrying the bullion secreted upon her person, Moses having previously appeared to treat for its sale. He professed to have disbursed coin and notes, while likewise acknowledging a debt of several thousand pounds to Alice. Both men were subjected to searching cross-examination by counsel for the defence; each confessed to having known the undertaking was felonious. Their depositions portrayed a division of spoil wherein every hand had sought to grasp more than its allotted portion.
The trial opened at the Central Criminal Court on June 24, 1839, and occupied eight days. Lewin and Ellis Caspar were indicted for having incited Moss to commit the felony; Ellis, Moses, and Alice were charged with feloniously receiving the gold, knowing it to have been stolen. The jury heard how the cases had arrived from the Americas, how the papers had been presented, and how Hartley’s clerk had delivered them up. Moss detailed his movements and his compacts with the two Caspars. Solomons described the smelting and disposal of the gold. The issue, therefore, did not turn merely upon identifying the man of the cab: the principal witnesses for the Crown were themselves deeply compromised in the reset and the partitioning of the plunder.
On July 2, following a lengthy summing-up from the bench, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against Lewin Caspar for inciting Moss to the robbery. The others were found guilty of receiving the stolen gold; Ellis was further convicted as an accessory before and after the fact. Alice was recommended to mercy, the jury deeming that she had acted under the dominion of her father. Yet a point of law arrested the course of justice. The indictment described the perpetrator of the theft merely as an evil-disposed person, without specifying his name. The judges reserved the objection raised by the defence, which contended, among other points, that the receivers could not be lawfully convicted without the principal felon having first been established and convicted by law.
In February 1840, the judges arrested judgment against Lewin by reason of the defect in the indictment, but affirmed the convictions of the others. Ellis and Moses were sentenced to transportation for fourteen years; Alice, to four months’ imprisonment. Lewin remained in custody. On March 6, he appeared once more upon an amended indictment, which named Henry Moss as the principal felon. Moss pleaded guilty; the prosecution stated they had no desire to press further penalties against him, he having aided the course of justice by revealing what he knew. He received but a single day’s imprisonment. On the following day, Lewin was convicted upon this new indictment and sentenced to seven years’ transportation.
The gold dust, records the chronicle, was for the most part recovered, and the shipping company suffered comparatively little loss. Yet the two cases had traversed London from cab to cab, and from chest to chest, before those who parcelled them out turned upon one another. The proceedings closed upon a conviction whose validity hung upon the amendment of an instrument; the crime itself had begun with a letter from Falmouth and a shilling left upon the wharf.