They Hanged My Saintly Billy (33 page)

Among
the
bills
on
which
Palmer
raised
money,
in
the
course of
the
year
1854,
was
one
for
two
thousand
pounds,
which
he
discounted
with
Mr
Padwick.
That
bill
bore
upon
it
the
acceptance of
Palmer's
mother,
Mrs
Sarah
Palmer.
She
is
a
woman
of
considerable
wealth
;
and
her
acceptance,
being
believed
to
be
genuine,
was
a
security
on
which
money
would
be
readily
advanced. Palmer
forged
that
acceptance,
and
got
money
upon
it;
which was,
if
not
the
first,
at
least
one
of
the
earlier
transactions
of
that nature—for
there
are
a
large
se
ries
of
them—in
which
money was
obtained
from
bills
discounted
by
Palmer,
with
his
mother's acceptances
forged
upon
them.
I
shall
show
you,
presently,
how this
practice
involved
him
in
a
state
of
such
peril
and
emergency, that—as
we
suggest,
but
it
is
for
you
to
form
your
own
conclusions—he
had
recourse
to
a
desperate
expedient
in
order
to
avoid th
e
imminent
consequences.

By
the
summer
of
1854,
he
owed
a
very
large
sum
of
money. On
the
29th
of
September
his
wife
died;
he
had
an
insurance
on her
life
to
the
amount
of
thirteen
thousand
pounds—and
the
proceeds
of
that
insurance
were
realized.
Palmer
used
the
thirteen thousand
pounds
to
pay
off
some
of
his
most
pressing
liabilities. With
regard
to
a
part
of
these
liabilities,
he
employed
as
his
agent a
gentl
eman
named
Pratt,
a
solicitor
in
London,
who
is
in
the habit
of
discounting
bills,
and
whose
name
will
be
largely
mixed up
with
the
subsequent
transactions
I
shall
detail
to
you.
Mr
Pratt received
from
him
a
sum
of
eight
thousand
pounds,
and
disposed
of it
in
the
payment
of
various
liabilities
on
bills
which
were
in
the hands
of
his
own
clients.
Mr
Wright,
a
solicitor
of
Birmingham, who
had
also
advanced
money
to
the
prisoner,
received
five
thousand
more,
and
thus
thirteen
thousand
of
debt
was
disposed
of; but
that
still
left
Palmer
with
considerable
liabilities.
Among
others, the
bill
for
two
thousand
pounds,
discounted
by
Mr
Padwick, remained
unpaid.

This
brings
us
to
the
close
of
1854.
Early
in
1855,
Palmer effected
another
insurance
in
his
brother
Walter's
name,
Mr
Pratt acting
as
his
agent;
and
that
policy
for
thirteen
thousand
pounds was
immediately
assigned
to
Palmer.
Mr
Pratt
paid
the
first
premium
for
him,
out
of
a
bill
which
he
discounted
at
the
rate
of sixty
per
cent,
and
afterwards
proceeded
to
discount
further
bills, the
insurance
policy
being
held
by
him
as
a
collateral
security. The
bills
discounted
in
the
course
of
1855
reached
a
total
of
£
12,500.
I
find
that
two,
discounted
as
early
as
June,
1854,
were kept
alive
by
being
held
over
from
month
to
month.
In
March,
1855,
two
further
bills
of
two
thousand
pounds
each
were
discounted;
and
with
the
proceeds
Palmer
bought
two
racehorses, called
Nettle
and
The
Chicken.
These
bills
were
renewed
in
June; they
became
due
on
the
28th
of
September
and
2nd
of
October, were
then
renewed
and
became
due
again
on
the
ist
and
5di
of January,
1856.
On
the
18th
of
April,
1855,
a
bill
was
discounted for
two
thousand
pounds
at
three
months,
wh
ich
became
due
on the
22nd
of
July,
and
was
renewed
so
as
to
become
due
on
the
27th
of
October.
On
the
23
rd
of
July,
a
bill
for
two
thousand pounds,
at
three
mondis,
was
discounted,
which
became
due
on the
25th
of
October.
On
the
9th
of
July,
a
bill
for
two
thousand pounds,
at
three
months,
was
drawn;
renewed
on
the
12th
of October,
it
became
due
on
the
12th
of
January,
1856.
On
the
27th
of
September,
a
bill
for
one
thousand
pounds
was
discounted, at
three
months,
the
proceeds
of
which
went
to
pay
the
renewal
on the
two
March
bills
of
two
thousand
pounds,
due
at
the
close
of
September,
and
the
bill
of
the
23rd
of
July,
due
on
the
12th
of
October.

Thus,
in
the
month
of
November,
when
the
Shrewsbury
Races took
place,
the
account
stood
as
follows.
There
were
in
Mr
Pratt's hands
a
bill
due
on
the
25th
of
October
for
two
thousand
pounds; another
due
on
the
27th
of
October
for
two
thousand
pounds; two
bills,
together
making
one
thousand
five
hundred
pounds, due
on
the
9th
of
November;
a
bill,
due
on
the
10th
of
December
for
one
thousand
pounds;
one
on
the
1
st
of
January
for
two thousand
pounds;
one
on
the
5th
of
January
for
two
thousand pounds;
one
on
the
18
th
of
January
for
two
thousand
pounds: making
in
the
whole
£12,500.
In
July,
it
seems,
Palmer
contrived to
pay
one
thousand
pounds;
thus
in
the
mon
th
of
November bills
amounting
to
£11,500
remained
due,
and
every
one
of
them bore
the
forged
acceptance
of
the
prisoner's
mother!
You
will therefore
understand
the
pressure
which
necessarily
arose
upon him,
the
pressure
of
enormous
liabilities
which
he
had
not
a shilling
in
the
world
to
meet,
and
a
still
greater
pressure
arising from
the
knowledge
that,
as
soon
as
his
mother
should
be
resorted to
for
payment,
the
fact
of
his
having
committed
these
forgeries would
at
once
become
manifest
and
bring
on
him
the
penalty that
the
law
exacts.