Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist

by Thomas Levenson

  Among the great mass of men and women outside the learned societies, the scientific revolution was making inroads on understanding as the world of money came fully into being. Paper money, exchangeable promises, bonds, and loans are all abstractions. To understand them, to accept them—even to suborn them—took a capacity for the kind of mathematical reasoning that was just beginning to infiltrate all kinds of new ideas, including that demanded by the new physics. Figuring out the present value of a bond, for example, or how to price the risk (likelihood) of government default, demanded and demands a quantitative, mathematical turn of mind—just as calculating the orbit of a comet did and does. William Chaloner was hardly a scientific revolutionary. But he recognized that a revolution was happening around him, and he had wit enough to seize the opportunities such radical changes in thought and practice created.

  Chaloner spent the month of June, 1698, trying to work out how to profit from the Malt Lottery without putting himself in too much danger. To get back into competition with the government he needed some tools: a properly engraved plate, the right ink, and the correct paper—much less than it took to set up a profitable criminal mint. But the blunt, brute fact of his poverty held Chaloner in a vise. Even the modest amount required to set up a print shop was beyond him. He needed help, but he had been as profligate of friends as he had of money. His most trusted partner, Thomas Holloway, was long gone, pushed into Scottish exile. And now there were only a few men left who had worked with him in the fat days of the early 1690s. Ultimately he chose to open his mind to one of them, his occasional collaborator and the reluctant receiver of his bad shillings, Thomas Carter.

  Carter told Chaloner that he knew someone with money who was willing to fund counterfeiting schemes. Chaloner was skittish. He knew—none better—how easy it was to make a good living betraying one's co-conspirators. But he had no real alternative, and so he told Carter that he could make contact as long as he kept Chaloner's name out of the proposition.

  Near the end of June, Carter met his man, David Davis, promenading on Piccadilly. They talked—apparently out in the open, on the street—for some time. At last Carter stated his business. Davis said Carter told him "he was acquainted with a man which wuld engrave very dexterously," and that his friend had "a Strong inclination to grave a Plate for Malt Tickets." All he needed was a bit of backing, Carter promised, and he and his friends would be rich men.

  Carter did his best by Chaloner, warning Davis that he "must ask noe questions," but Davis pressed him harder, saying "no person yt I ever heard off did understand taking the reverse of a fine bill upon Copper besides Chaloner." Carter replied that "if you knew who my friend was you would allow him as great a Mastter as Chalon(er)"—which was, after all, no lie. Finally they agreed: Davis would give Carter money and sample Malt tickets to guide his mystery engraver. In return, Carter promised Davis daily updates until the plate was finished.

  It took Chaloner several weeks to complete the fine work, engraving an exact copy of each side of a ticket onto a sheet of copper plates purchased with Davis's seed cash. Carter kept his end of the bargain, providing "an accot. of the every day's proceedings until the plate was finisht." He did make one mistake, however: at some point he allowed Davis to discover the identity of the third man in the scheme. As Davis later boasted, "All this time I had sufficient assurances that Chaloner was the person which engraved the plate."

  Davis was, inevitably, the Judas that Chaloner had feared. He reported to a man with whom he had done business in the past: not Isaac Newton but the Secretary of State, James Vernon. In his true guise as a paid informer and thief-taker, Davis told Vernon that Chaloner had finished the plate. Warning that time was of the essence, Davis asked Vernon for one hundred pounds—right away, he said, "to prevent the destrubutions fo Severall falce Tickets ... and to subsist the persons that had done ym." He told Vernon that he would buy up the entire print run "till I could obtaine ye advantage of Seizing Chaloner and of Securing the Plate." Mindful of his own interests, he kept Vernon in the dark as much as he could, revealing neither where he met Carter nor where Chaloner lived.

  It took Davis two more interviews to persuade Vernon to hand over the hundred pounds. Cash in hand, Davis told Carter that he had found a buyer for two hundred tickets—two thousand pounds face value—and thus needed him "to let me have all the Counterfeits that were taken off the plate." In return, Carter "& his friend should have continuall supplys till they should print all the rest."

  Carter took the bait, handing over a packet of fake tickets, with which Davis, "having thus secured all wch. I understood were printed," returned to Secretary Vernon. The work was good enough to terrify the authorities. Vernon ordered Davis to be "very industrious in finding out Chaloner"—and, above all, to locate the engine of the crime, his meticulously crafted copper plate. Luckily, Carter was now so far gone in gratitude to his buyer that he seems to have been unable to stop talking. That was how Davis learned that Chaloner hid the plate in a wall between printing sessions. But which wall?

  Davis found himself caught between Vernon's pressure and Chaloner's sense of self-preservation. He played the only card he could, sticking to Carter like the man's own clothes, except for when Carter had to pass supplies to and receive finished goods from his partner. All the while, Chaloner bent to his task. Carter reported that his partner meant to keep printing until the plate wore out. And so it went: Vernon pressed Davis; Davis harassed Carter; Carter begged Chaloner to let him see the plate; Chaloner refused.

  At that pass, all of the weeks of pursuit crashed to a stop. Vernon's surveillance ran into the old problem: the right hand knew not what the left was doing. While Davis followed his line, another, completely separate operation was being run out of the Tower. Isaac Newton had not forgotten William Chaloner, not for a moment. Davis's exclusive grip on one informant, Carter, had kept news of the Malt scheme from reaching the Tower. But Newton was still working through the ruin of the Egham coining case. His prosecution had collapsed when Thomas Holloway ran to Scotland. But even if the Warden could not compel obedience across the border, he could persuade—and in early autumn 1698, Chaloner learned some deeply unwelcome news. Newton had found Holloway, and his old partner was prepared to cooperate with the Warden. Chaloner reacted immediately to the danger. He dove for the weeds, shutting down the Malt ticket production line until he could gauge the danger posed by Holloway's return.

  Davis knew what had happened, thanks to Carter. But he kept Vernon in the dark. It was hardly in his interest to hand over any information that could make him less valuable to his patron. Consequently, neither Vernon nor Newton knew that their investigations had just collided. Vernon's case was running ahead of Newton's, thanks to Davis's ability to play Carter for a fool—but the plate was still at large, and the man who knew how to use it could not be found.

  Worse, Vernon's office was leaking secrets. Chaloner learned from a man named Edwards that Davis had been seen in the Secretary of State's presence, promising to deliver up a counterfeit plate. Carter at last grew suspicious of his too helpful buyer, while Chaloner made sure that all physical evidence of his crime disappeared. With that, the case teetered on the verge of embarrassing failure.

  Davis did what he could to calm his skittish contact, reminding Carter that Edwards had cheated him out of some money. As that memory festered, Carter, incredibly, began to confide in Davis again. But the weeks were passing—it was late October—and Davis had to admit to Vernon that he still had no idea where Chaloner had hidden his tools. Vernon took the news badly, "full of displeasure saying at this rate the nation may be imposed upon."

  Davis understood. He promised Vernon that he would catch Chaloner in the act within a week, or else abandon the effort (and any profit) to "his hon[our's] discretion." Chaloner was still ahead of the pursuit, though. Carter reported that the plate was now hidden with a local midwife. She in turn took it with her thirty miles from London, beyond Davis's reach.

  Four days pa
ssed in the promised week. Davis hammered Carter for news, but all he got was a story that changed by the hour. Chaloner had said he would retrieve the plate himself, and soon. Then no—Chaloner promised to send a messenger for the plate, which would arrive in London the next morning. The printing, presumably, would start up as soon as the plate was restored.

  Suddenly it all fell apart. Carter had deceived Davis when he told him that he had handed over all the tickets Chaloner could print—or, more likely, Chaloner had cheated the ever-gullible Carter, selling some tickets out a side door. In either case, that same week a man named Catchmead pawned a packet of false lottery tickets—Chaloner's finest work—for ten pounds. The pawnbroker in turn tried to pass some of the fakes, and was arrested on the same day Carter told Davis of the impending return of the plate. "The news did astonish me," Davis wrote—which was probably true, given how much his ignorance cost him. To cover his failure, he rushed to the Secretary of State's office.

  Vernon was out. Several hours passed before the two met. When they did, Vernon raced to regain control of the fiasco. Davis could no longer keep his secrets. It was intolerable to imagine that London might be flooded with thousands of pounds' worth of false Malt Lottery tickets. Vernon offered Davis this one kindness: he was permitted to capture the smaller and less valuable prize, Thomas Carter. The mastermind, though, was now anyone's game. The Secretary of State's office put a healthy price on Chaloner's head: fifty pounds—a useful sum, enough to keep a family in tolerable comfort for a year—to the man who brought him in, with or without the plate, as soon as possible.

  London, that enormous city, could become a terribly small town. Chaloner had made himself as invisible as possible throughout the spring and summer. But he still had to eat, buy beer, find a room. He was known, at least a little, by at least a few. It was enough. Once his person became valuable enough to make it worthwhile to find him, it was just a question of how quickly he would be collared by one or another of London's thief-takers. The size of the reward guaranteed it would not take long. Davis lost out. Frustratingly, the record of Chaloner's arrival in custody does not reveal how he was found or where he was taken. All that can be known for sure is that within days after Vernon opened the season on Chaloner, he was carried to Newgate by a man named Robert Morris, who had in the past tracked men for the Mint.

  ***

  Once Vernon had his man in jail, Newton finally learned of the parallel investigation. Though the Warden of the Mint had no official reason to worry about the Malt Lottery—that was the Treasury's problem—he managed to persuade Vernon to let him take the case. With that, every intermediary dropped away. The game was down to its essence: Isaac Newton versus William Chaloner.

  21. "He Had Got His Business Done"

  IN THIS SECOND ROUND, Isaac Newton took no chances. He made sure that the jailers held his man close. Through November and December 1698, Chaloner found himself as isolated as his captors could make him. From his cell, the accused complained that the only visitor he had been permitted was his small child, adding piteously, "why am I so strictly confined I do not know."

  Jail did not rob Chaloner of his confidence, though. The Malt ticket plate remained hidden, and Chaloner claimed he had nothing to do with it anyway. When he was taken, he had no false tickets on his person. There was Carter's testimony to consider. But faithful, garrulous Thomas Carter—now also lodged at Newgate—was the only member of the alleged conspiracy known to have been paid for passing the counterfeits. If anyone were to fall for that crime, Chaloner was sure it would not be he: in his cell "he made very slight of the matter, bragging that he had a Trick left yet."

  It pleased Newton to let him think so. The Warden had learned from the debacle of the previous year. Even before Vernon's reward brought Chaloner in, Newton had begun to reconstruct his adversary's entire career. Most of what he had learned was background, not really actionable, but useful nonetheless. For example, in May 1698, Edward Ivy (aka Ivey, aka Ivie, aka Jones) swore before Newton to having direct knowledge of an impressive range of currency criminals. Ivy was a confidant of John Jennings, one of the Earl of Monmouth's footmen, who traded in high-quality false currency; he knew Edward Brady, who "made it his constant business to utter counterfeit Gineas"; he testified against Whitehall's famous porter, the vicious John Gibbons—who, Ivy claimed, had conspired with Brady in the occasional highway robbery. He knew John and Mary Hicks and their daughter, Mary Huett, who together ran a family business clipping the old currency; he was willing to reveal name after name: "one Jacob," Samuel Jackson, George Emerson, Joseph Horster, "and other Emint. Coynes and Clippers."

  William Chaloner played only a minor role in Ivy's catalogue. Ivy mentioned the object of Newton's interest just once, when he testified that he had asked Jennings if his fakes were as good as Chaloner's, and Jennings said they were, that "Chaloner was a fool to him that made the said Gineas." Ivy added that he believed—but clearly was unwilling to swear that he knew—that Brady had received some of his supply of false guineas from Chaloner.

  Newton took dozens of depositions like Ivy's, at first concentrating on quantity rather than quality. Most of the testimony he gathered through the spring and summer of 1698 was hearsay. Many of the depositions devolved into lists of all the coiners and crimes the witness could remember. Some implicated Chaloner, some did not, but Newton was accumulating a picture of London's coining ecosystem. He was gathering names and noting the links, the web of criminal connections within which Chaloner himself had to move.

  Over the months, more and more of the people to whom those names attached turned up in their own depositions—which meant, in practice, they waited on Newton's pleasure in Newgate or some other jail. Those scattered references led to more witnesses, and then to yet more—a scaffolding of information received on which Newton planned to hang William Chaloner.

  By January 1699 Newton was spending almost all of his working days at the Mint, conducting the interrogations that would form the heart of the prosecution. By February, his commitment had become total—at one point he spent ten days in a row questioning witnesses. The record is far from complete, but more than 140 surviving statements give a sense of his procedure.

  The form of Newton's interrogations was always much the same. Most began by identifying the witness, usually by trade or profession and parish, though some of the women were identified merely as wives or companions of other targets of Newton's inquiries. Newton's questions do not survive, but his approach seems to have been more or less chronological: when did the deponent meet Chaloner; what crimes did he or she witness or hear of, and in what order. The witnesses all talked, often at length, telling tales of crimes the better part of a decade gone by—every detail they could remember, and perhaps some invented to satisfy the terrifyingly persistent man who bent to every word. When Newton was done, he would dictate a summary of what he had heard to a clerk. Either Newton or the clerk would read back this gloss on the testimony to each witness, who could then add to or alter the account. Once both were satisfied, Newton and his witness signed the document and the clerk would produce a fair copy to be entered into the Mint's records.

  Over time, Newton found that some of his best leads came from the wives or mistresses of the men Chaloner had partnered with and betrayed. Elizabeth Ivy, identified only as "Widdow"—presumably Edward's—said she had known Chaloner to make false coins at the very start of his career. More important, so did Katherine Coffee, wife of Patrick Coffee, the goldsmith who had first taught Chaloner the rudiments of coining.

  Here was the kind of testimony a jury loved to hear: that of an eyewitness who had observed an actual criminal act. Katherine Coffee swore that "abot. 7 or 8 years ago she hath seen Will[iam] Chaloner now prison[er] in Newgate often coyn French pistolls with stamps and a hammer in Oat Lane by Noble street up 3 pair of staires." Katherine Matthews, Thomas Carter's wife, backed up her husband's stories with a meticulous memory for detail. She had seen with her own eyes, she said, Chaloner g
ilding false guineas "at the lodging she had hired for him at Mr. Clarkes behind Westmr. Abby." What's more, she had held those coins in her hand, "abot 10 of thes counterfeit Gineas from Chaloner, and gave him 8s a piece for them."

  The parade of witnesses lengthened, and with it the catalogue of incriminating testimony. A Humphrey Hanwell added details to the story of the pistoles; Chaloner hammered them out of silver, he said, to produce coins that could be gilded by both Coffee and "one Hitchcock." Hanwell went further, adding that he had seen Chaloner clip coins in the late 1680s, and that soon after, Chaloner had showed him counterpunches for making shillings and "either Ginea Dyes or half Crown Dyes but which the Depont doth not now rem[em]ber."

  This last may have been a fantasy, or rather, a desperate attempt to please the interrogator. If pressed, Hanwell would probably have connected Chaloner to Monmouth's uprising, the Gunpowder Plot, and perhaps even to the archer who pierced Saxon King Harald's eye. For his part, Newton was by now experienced enough not to believe everything he was told. In his summary dossier of the investigation, a document he titled "Chaloner Case," he emphasized the Coffee-Chaloner connection and the manufacture of the pistoles as the first coining crime to be laid at his prisoner's feet, passing over in silence Hanwell's wilder claims.

  Newton persisted, moving on to the central witness in Chaloner's most recent crimes. In January, Thomas Carter told Newton that while he was at work on the Malt Lottery scheme, the metal trader John Abbot had conspired with Chaloner to make better versions of the pewter shillings that had failed to pass muster the previous June. Two weeks later, Newton hauled Abbot into the Tower, and Abbot poured out everything he knew: Chaloner had shown him his set of coining dies; Chaloner had bought silver from him as raw stock for false guineas; Chaloner had once told him that he and his brother-in-law produced six hundred pounds of false half-crowns in just nine weeks.