At Tunbridge Wells, late in May 1825, John Peele presented himself under the name of George Watson, requesting that the bankers Messrs. Beeching and Sons open an account in his favour. He represented that he had taken a house on lease for five months. To lend his application an air of natural propriety, he tendered two bills of exchange, for thirty and thirty-five pounds respectively, purporting to have been accepted by Messrs. Coutts and Co., of London. He endorsed both under the name of Watson and received the ready money. The papers had already begun to perform the service he assigned to them: to establish confidence before subverting it.
The man who signed as Watson was in truth named John Peele. Pelham’s chronicle describes him as a former apprentice in the house of Cowley and Sancton, where he remained in employment until some six or seven years prior to his execution, before entering into partnership with one Henry in an establishment in Mark Lane. His father had previously discovered an early series of forgeries, discharged the notes, and dispatched his son first to America and thence to the West Indies, providing him with the means of subsistence in the hope of turning him from such a course. Peele returned to England. According to the intelligence gathered prior to his apprehension, he was said to have lived for two years in opulence upon fresh forged instruments, boasting even that he had left his mark in every county of the realm.
To pass from town to town, he assumed the deportment of a man of fortune. Borrowing the style of George Watson, he travelled now in a stanhope gig, now in a double-bodied phaeton. A woman met at Portsmouth accompanied him; he addressed her as Mrs. Watson, having initially spoken to her of an ample estate in America and the West Indies. To bankers, he presented foreign bills, dated from the East Indies or the United States. These remote origins rendered the verification of signatures exceedingly difficult and, according to Pelham, likewise spared him certain stamp duties. He seldom uttered large sums at any one time; often, his victims deemed that a prosecution would entail greater expense than the loss sustained. Pelham relates that he kept hundreds of blank forms upon his person, turning to his advantage the reluctance of creditors to incur costs over a single bill of trifling value. The bankers took up his pursuit only after their committee for mutual protection instituted a nationwide enquiry.
At Messrs. Beeching’s, Peele did not stay his hand with the first two bills. He likewise delivered a deposit receipt issued by the Carlisle Bank, in the amount of 275 pounds, 11 shillings, and 6 pence, requesting that it be presented through their London correspondents. The deposit note was an authentic banking document, obtained by Peele in exchange for a draft accompanied by a supplementary sum in cash. The Carlisle Bank subsequently informed their correspondents that this draft, upon arriving at maturity, had proved to be a forgery.
His method reposed upon the judicious barter of genuine paper against the false. In one town, he would carry authentic notes to a bank, demanding in exchange bills drawn upon a London house. He selected documents bearing numerous signatures, which he transcribed in varied hands—up to twenty distinct versions, according to Pelham—upon virgin sheets. Thereupon, he presented legitimate instruments in company with those he had fabricated; the former served as an ostensible guarantee for the latter. In other instances, as occurred at Carlisle, a fraudulent draft enabled him to secure an authentic document or genuine specie. This subtle confidence trick confounded the scrutiny of clerks, so long as none of the paper fell due.
At Beeching’s bank, two further bills were left “in deposit,” ostensibly for safe custody. One was purported to be drawn by Alexander and James Liddell, of Dundee, and accepted by Robinson and Brown, of Glasgow. The other, for thirty-seven pounds, eleven shillings, and sixpence, bore date from Antigua and was ascribed to Nathaniel Underwood, with acceptance by J. Bell and Son, of Leith. Peele nevertheless drew twenty pounds against these securities by means of a cheque signed Watson. When presented at maturity, none of the names purported to have drawn or accepted them corresponded to any living person, according to the official relation.
The funds once secured, Peele took his departure alongside his companion. They made for London by way of Maidstone and Rochester. At Maidstone, he passed another twenty-pound cheque drawn upon Beeching and cashed it at Widdish’s hotel. The bank subsequently honoured the draft, confident in the solidity of the collateral Peele had lodged. A day or two after his departure, the note returned dishonoured from Carlisle, and the ensuing enquiry disclosed that the other bills and securities were likewise fabricated. The fraud was no longer an isolated mishap: the bankers sought to comprehend the full web of paper he had set in motion.
The investigation traced Peele into the Midlands. An innkeeper of Derbyshire, upon whom he had passed a draft for forty-five pounds, recognized him as he sat drinking wine, and did not lose sight of him until his arrest and committal at Derby gaol. Mr. Gates, a solicitor dispatched by the bankers’ committee upon learning of his presence in the district, presently arrived to direct the prosecution. He perceived that Peele designed to plead guilty to the utterance of the innkeeper’s draft alone. By this means, that creditor might obtain restitution and support a petition for royal clemency, whilst the capital charges touching the remaining bills risked falling into abeyance.
Mr. Gates laid the matter before the Lord Chief Baron, then sitting on circuit at Derby. Upon consultation as to the most fitting course of law, it was determined that no bill of indictment should be preferred at Derby. Peele was discharged by proclamation, but immediately delivered into the custody of a peace officer armed with a warrant from Sir Richard Birnie. He was conveyed to Maidstone gaol, where the felonies committed in Kent might be brought to trial. This procedural manoeuvre prevented the prosecution from being confined to the single forty-five-pound bill discovered in Derbyshire.
At the ensuing assizes, Peele was indicted for the forgeries committed against Messrs. Beeching and his partners. The jury returned a verdict of guilty. He was sentenced to death. On the 26th of January, 1827, he was executed at Pennenden Heath, near Maidstone. Pelham records that he long nourished the hope of escaping the scaffold and maintained a cheerful countenance until the fatal hour drew nigh. He then turned his thoughts to religious duties and met his end with resignation.
Letters discovered among the papers preserved by the woman with whom he cohabited afford a glimpse into the intimate aspect of his existence under the style of Watson. In a communication dated from Liverpool, he wrote to Martha that he had suffered a loss of five hundred pounds through a bankruptcy, yet exhorted her not to despair. He portrayed himself as her devoted protector, notwithstanding his wanderings and disquietude. Thus, the epistolary record and the assumed names extended even into this domestic tie the selfsame chasm between appearance and truth.
Upon his arrest, the constables discovered upon Peele’s person blank bills of exchange, others partially filled in, and some already bearing endorsements. The store of paper that had accompanied his progress from town to town remained as the final, incontrovertible instrument of his undoing.