Yorkshire Almanac Thomas Brodrick tells Lord Middleton how John Aislabie, Ripon MP and Walpole’s chancellor, was sent to the Tower for taking bribes from the South Sea Company

9 March 1721: Thomas Brodrick tells Lord Middleton how John Aislabie, Ripon MP and Walpole’s chancellor, was sent to the Tower for taking bribes from the South Sea Company

William Coxe. 1798. Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford, Vol. 2, 1700-30. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

[Thomas Brodrick to Lord Middleton:] Yesterday night past twelve, Mr. Aislabie’s fate was determined, as you will see by the votes, almost the whole time being taken up in examining numbers of witnesses (late directors) called by him. The questions proposed was the same to them all, viz. whether they knew or had heard of any fictitious stock taken in, or held for him, or of any stock bought for his use with the company’s money, to every of which they all answered roundly in the negative, from whence he argued the certainty, and as he expressed himself even to a demonstration of his innocence, for that ’twas not to be conceived, but they must have known the thing.

As to the proceedings of the directors (to whom he gave all the hard names he could think of) his plea was ignorance.

To the charge of having great dealings in stock (pending the bill) he said nothing, otherwise than by insinuation, that doing so with his own money, he hoped would not be criminal.

His concerting with the directors taking in the 1st subscription at 300 per cent. he dropped, not saying one word to the charge; but an incident happened which gave great disgust to the house.

The second report takes notice of great dealings in stock between him and Mr. [Francis] Hawes (formerly his clerk as treasurer of the navy) who had informed the committee, that those accounts were finally adjusted in November last, when Mr. Aislabie insisted upon having Mr. Hawes’s book (of which he had a duplicate) delivered him, that no one might see it, which was done accordingly upon his giving Hawes a general release.

On Tuesday, a motion was made for his laying that book before the house as yesterday, which he opposed, as what the house could not demand, for that it related only to his own private account with Hawes, but was overruled by the house, and ordered to bring in the book; wherewith not complying, notice was taken of it in the house.

He then desired Mr. Hawes might be examined, who said at the bar, that when he delivered up the book, both that and the duplicate (in Mr. Aislabie’s hand) were burnt, of which Mr. Hawes made no mention when examined by the committee, nor did Mr. Aislabie on Tuesday; from whence ’twas concluded that this was an afterthought, and the books burnt (if at all) ex post facto. He had on Tuesday imprudently enough said, that if the committee should have demanded those books, he would have burnt them before their faces.

After his defence, the questions went without other opposition, than what was very slender, by Mr. Minshall and Mr. Fuller; sir Richard Steele said a little, not very plain in effect (as I understood him) that the examinations did not sufficiently support the question proposed, but it did not obtain. Mr. Walpole’s corner sat mute as fishes. Mr. Fuller, upon one question demanded a division, which was very artfully turned off by the speaker, and generally understood with design to obviate the difficulty those in employment might lie under, on whatever side they should divide.

Thus the matter ended, and in return for the fatigue the house underwent, we got a play day, adjourning till tomorrow, when I think sir George Caswell will have the same fate.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Since there was presumably by then no chance of his being executed, and a reasonable assumption that Walpole would see him right (he did), did Aislabie rather relish his stay in the Tower? One can imagine Johnson’s cabinet relishing the PR possibilities.

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30 May 1835: The (Tory-dominated) Leeds Corporation gives its assets to three cronies to prevent their being inherited by the new (Whiggish) town council created by the Municipal Corporations Act

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Comment

£7K was about £0.75m in May 2024 – chicken-feed for Covid-era embezzlers.

They were not the only beneficiaries:

When the functions of the late Corporation of Leeds were about to cease, by virtue of the Municipal Bill, the members voted to Mr. Adolphus jun., the son of the eminent barrister and Deputy Recorder of that Corporation, the sum of one hundred guineas, in testimony of their esteem, and as a small but grateful record of their estimation of his services. Mr. Adolphus refused to accept the tribute, excusing himself upon the plea that he could not ???? to himself the idea of allowing the last act of the corporation to be that of giving a sum of money to one of its legal advisers (Morning Post 1836/04/06)

The Spectator has a follow-up (Gale doesn’t have Leeds Mercury scans for 1836!):

The Solicitor-General has given his opinion, that the conduct of the old Leeds Corporation, in alienating their funds, was illegal and fraudulent, and that the seven thousand pounds may be recovered on an application to the Court of Chancery. We are sure the burgesses of Leeds will require their Council to institute proceedings for the recovery of the property without delay, if the old Corporation should have the audacity to persist in their wrongful act, and that the borough will support the Council in those proceedings.—Leeds Mercury.(Spectator 1836/04/09)

This was during the period of Whig rule nationally 1835-41 under Viscount Melbourne, and there is probably a Tory response to the Solicitor General somewhere. But what happened eventually? Were there sanctions for the guilty members of the Corporation? Who were they? For that at least John Mayhall has the answer:

LEEDS CORPORATE BODY, 1834-5.
MAYOR: Griffith Wright.
RECORDER: Charles Milner.
DEPUTY RECORDER: John Leycester Adolphus.
ALDERMEN:-Henry Hall, George Banks, Christopher Beckett, William Hey, Benjamin Sadler, Thomas Beckett, Thomas Blayds, Ralph Markland, Rt. William Dinsey Thorp, Richard Bramley, Joseph Robert Atkinson, William Perfect.
ASSISTANTS:-Jonathan Wilks, Joseph Ingham, John G. Uppleby, Fountain Brown, Michael Thomas Sadler, Joseph Henry Ridsdale, William Wilks, Joseph Mason Tennant, William Hey, junr., John Wilkinson, Charles Brown, William Waite, Benjamin Holroyd, William Osburn, junr., John Upton, William Gott, Thomas Motley, Francis Chorley, Robert Harrison, John Cawood, William Milnes, Thomas Charlesworth, George Hirst.
TOWN CLERK: James Nicholson.
CORONER: Robert Barr.
CHIEF CONSTABLE: Edward Read.
DEPUTY CONSTABLE: James Ingham.
SERJEANT AT MACE: George Hanson.
CLERK OF THE MARKETS, AND BILLET MASTER: James Fairclough.
BEADLE: J. Handley.
CAPTAIN OF THE WATCH. Benjamin Wool.
GAOLER: James Lancaster
TOWN’S CRIER: Benjamin Spencer.
(Mayhall 1860)