The inquiry of the Court of Bankruptcy into the mysteries of 
the Royal British Bank is well nigh drawing to a close, and a more 
complete exposure of the recklessness, the hypocrisy, the shams 
and the infamies that lie hidden under the gilded outside of 
respectable society, has perhaps not been made since the days of 
Hudson the railway king’s downfall. One of the gentlemen last 
summoned to the pillory of public opinion is Mr. Humphrey 
Brown, late M. P. for Tewkesbury, described in Dodd’s Parliamen- 
tary Companion for 1855 “as a merchant,” an “active promoter of 
railways,” a “known railway statist and traffic taker,” a “supporter 
of free-trade principles in the fullest sense,” and a “Liberal to 
boot.” Immediately after the burst of the Royal British Bank 
bubble, it became known that this influential personage had used 
his position as a Director of the Bank for swindling the latter out 
of some £70,000 sterling—which revelation, however, was not 
allowed to interfere any way with his customary State functions. 
Humphrey Brown quietly continued to make his appearance in 
the House of Commons, as well as on the benches of the “Great 
Unpaid.” °° He even gave public vent to his high sense of social 
responsibility by inflicting, in his quality as a county magistrate, 
the most severe punishment allowed by law on a poor carrier, who 
had happened to embezzle a small quantity of potatoes, and by 
administering to the culprit an unctuous sermon about the 
atrociousness of a breach of trust. A Tewkesbury paper thought 
itself warranted to improve the opportunity for finding fault with 
that peculiarity of the British institutions which makes great 
thieves the judges of small ones. Mr. Brown then threatened not 
only to bring the unhappy journalist to trial, but forever to turn 

The British Wild-Cats 267 

his back on the good town of Tewkesbury, should its inhabitants 
fail in expiating the crime of insulted innocence by some solemn 
act of contrition. Accordingly there was a triumphal procession 
offered to the “victim of an unscrupulous conspiracy,” a 
testimonial which, to judge by the descriptions printed at the time 
in the public papers, made up for its artistic shortcomings by 
metallic heaviness. Mr. Brown harangued the multitude from his 
balcony, pocketed the testimonial, declared, but for the oath 
binding him to secrecy in respect to the affairs of the British 
Bank, his innocence would appear clear as the sun at noon-day, 
and wound up his oration by calling himself a man more sinned 
against than sinning. During the last general election he stepped 
forward anew, as a parliamentary candidate for his snug borough, 
but the Cabinet, of which he had always proved a staunch 
partisan, was ungrateful enough to drop him. 

On the 29th of April this pompous gentleman felt rescued at 
last from the thraldom of the oath which till now had sealed his 
lips, and condemned him to endure the obloquy of disgraceful 
slander; the Commissioner of the Court of Bankruptcy acting as 
his confessor. It is a general rule with joint-stock companies that 
their directors should possess a certain number of their shares. 
Mr. Brown, inverting the common order of things, became first a 
director and then a stockholder; but, if he held the shares, he 
dispensed with paying for them. He got at their possession by the 
following very simple method: Mr. Cameron, the fugitive manager 
of the British Bank, handed over to him twenty shares, of the 
amount of £1,000, while he (Brown) handed over to Mr. Cameron 
a promissory note for the amount of £1,000, on account of which 
he took great care never to pay one single shilling. Having become 
a director in the month of February, 1853, he began his banking 
operations in the month of March. He deposited in the Bank the 
handy sum of £18 14s., and on the very same day borrowed from 
it on a note of hand the sum of £2,000, thus proving himself at 
once to be no new hand in the directorial management of 
joint-stock companies. In fact, before and after his connection with 
the Royal British Bank, he honored with his directorial manage- 
ment the chartered Australian Importing and Refining Company, 
the Patent Waterproof Brick and Tile and Common Brick and 
Tile Company, the Wandle Water-Works Company, a Land 
Company, a Dock Company—1in one word, companies for all the 
four elements. On the question of Linklater, the solicitor for the 
assignees, as to what had become of all these companies, Brown 
pertinently answered, “They are defunct, so far as this.” His 

account with the British Bank, which began with £18 14s. paid in 
to his credit, ended in £77,000 standing to his debit. All these 
advances were made through Mr. Cameron, without the consent 
of the “other Directors being asked for.” 

“The executive officer of the Company,” says Mr. Brown, “is the person 
through whom all the business is done. Such was the practice of this Bank, and,” as 
he adds doctorally, “a very wholesome one it is.” ? 

The truth seems to be, that the whole concern, governors, 
directors, managers, solicitors and accountants, were, after a 
preconcerted plan, playing into each other’s hands, and that every 
one affected to ignore the share of the booty accruing to each 
partner. Ay, Mr. Brown is not very far from intimating that, as a 
Director of the Bank, he was hardly aware of his own doings as its 
customer. As to the customers not belonging to the managing 
staff, Mr. Brown seems, during his examination, still to labor 
under the painful impression that some of them dared encroach 

ry the directorial immunities. Thus: he declares in respect to a 
. Oliver: 

“T have no hesitation in saying Oliver swindled the Bank out of £20,000. It is a 
very strong term to use, but I have no doubt about its correctness. He was a 
swindler.” 

On Mr. Linklater’s asking “What were your” he composedly 
replies, “Unfortunately a director much in the dark.” All his 
answers-go this same calm way. The ridiculous disproportion, for 
instance, between his deposits and his discounts, gives occasion for 
the following curious dialogue between himself and Mr. Linklater: 

Mr. Linklater—Was it not one of the regular terms of the business of the Bank, 
that no person should have a discount account who had not also a drawing 
account; and on the drawing account there should always be kept a balance of one 
fourth of the bills current upon your discount? 

Mr. Brown—It was so, and that was the Scotch system, as they told me. . 

Mr. Linklater—It was a system that you did not adopt? 

Mr. Brown—TI did not, because it was unsound. 

Whenever Mr. Brown ;condescended to tender securities to the 
Bank, they consisted of notes of hand, or of ships which he took 
good care at the same time to have mortgaged to other people, as 
he generally quite freely disposed of the securities, by what the 
Commissioner had the hardihood to call most ‘fraudulent 
transactions.” On _ the first of March, 1856, Mr. Brown had 

@ Here and below Marx quotes from the report on the inquiry into the causes 
of bankruptcy of the Royal British Bank published in The Times, No. 22668, 
April 30, 1857.— Ed. 

The British Wild-Cats 269 

virtually closed his account with the Bank; that is to say, the Board 
of Directors had decided upon no longer allowing him to run up 
his debts. Yet, on the 7th of June, we find him again getting 
£1,020 out of it. To Mr. Linklater’s question, “by what hocus- 
pocus he had managed that affair?” he coolly replies, ““There was 
no difficulty.” | 

From the following letter, addressed by him to his bosom friend 
Mr. Cameron, may be inferred his general opinion about the 
storm of indignation the Royal British Bank disclosures roused in 
the public press: