WEBVTT - Episode 7: Funny Money 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:03.320 Heart originals. 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:05.640 This is an iHeart original. 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:11.719 Isaac Newton had put dozens of people in the dock 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:16.520 the defendant stand, but now he was sitting there himself. 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:22.400 Metaphorically speaking, he was accused of trying to frame an innocent, 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:26.479 law abiding man, a man who'd long been on the 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.960 side of justice and the new Monarchy, who'd stood as 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:35.120 witness against confirmed Jacobite traders, who'd been so helpful with 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:39.199 the Bank of England's fraudulent notes, A man who'd blown 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.800 the whistle on the minse corruption, but was now being 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.800 repaid for that bravery with stints and Newgate jail and 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:56.279 worse death threats. That, at least was the case that 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:03.040 William Challoner had cooked up against doctor Isaac Newton. In 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:07.160 late October of sixteen ninety seven, Newton's case against Challoner 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:09.839 was dismissed before it could even come to trial. 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:11.199 But Challner had. 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:15.600 Already spent seven weeks in filthy Newgate. He felt he 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:20.040 was entitled to something, an acknowledgment that he'd been wronged, 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:25.320 maybe even some compensation. In February sixteen ninety eight, Challener 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:28.800 took his case to the Court of Public Opinion. He 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.319 wrote a letter to Parliament a letter that he also 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:33.520 had made into pamphlets for public distribution. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.720 Your petitioner did, in the last sessions of Parliament discover 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.080 several abuses committed in the Mint, and showed by what 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:45.039 methods false money was coined. Then some of the Mint 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.040 threatened to prosecute me and take away my life before 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.240 the next session of Parliament, telling me that this Honorable 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.440 House had no power to meddle with the affairs of 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.680 the Mint. This committee promised your Petitioner that I should 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.760 suffer no damage for these discoveries about the Mint. Yet 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.600 they committed me to Newgate and kept me in irons 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.680 for seven weeks, alleging that I had abused a Mint 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:17.120 in Parliament, and they did falsely and illegally prefer a 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.320 bill of indictment against me, but could bring no evidence. 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:26.960 I am utterly ruined by my endeavors to serve the 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:31.840 King and Kingdom, and by my discoveries against the Mint. 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:36.440 To this Honorable House, I most humbly plead that this 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:41.760 Honorable House will consider my great sufferings and ruined condition 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:47.040 as being incapable of providing for myself and family by 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.880 what I intended for the service of the public, and 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:55.600 grant me such redress as shall seem best in your honors, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:02.320 great wisdom and justice. 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:08.400 Challoner's accusations meant yet another investigation. This time it was 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.000 Warden Isaac Newton at the center of it. Newton was 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.520 forced to defend himself to a committee of senior government officials. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.600 Mister Challoner before a committee of the last Sessions of Parliament, 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:24.080 labored to accuse and vilify the Mint, and prove himself 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:28.320 a more skillful coiner than they, that he might be 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:33.560 made their supervisor, and then supply Thomas Holloway with tools 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.800 out of the tower to counter it his own milled money, 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.880 which he then concealed from that honorable committee, boastink secretly 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.920 that he would fund the Parliament as he had done 0:03:44.960 --> 0:03:46.440 the King and back before. 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.080 Challoner was a liar and a counterfeiter, and it was 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.800 for that, and not quote offending the Mint, that he 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:54.920 was being prosecuted. 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.640 If therefore he be ruined, it's by his endeavoring not 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:01.920 to say of the King and Government as he pretends, 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:05.400 but to coin false money. And if he would but 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.080 let the money and government alone and return to his 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.760 trade of japanning, he is not so far ruined that 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.120 he may still live as well as he did seven 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:19.800 years ago when he left off that trade and raised 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:21.200 himself by coining. 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.200 The committee believed Newton, it was, after all, stacked with 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:28.400 a few of his maids, to be honest, and they 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.000 dismissed Shalloner. 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.520 But Newton was pissed. 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.080 Newton is not a man to suffer insult lightly, and 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.760 he most certainly felt insulted. And if we know anything 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.400 about Newton, it's that he does not forgive and forget 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:50.400 at all. For iHeartRadio, I'm Linda Rodriguez, McRobbie, and this 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:56.520 is Newton's Law and I Heeart Original podcast episode seven, 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:01.919 Funny Money. 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:00.719 It's more. 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:07.919 You are making you. 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:44.159 Act one the Malt tickets. 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:50.000 Jallaner's attempt to publicly discredit Isaac Newton and the Mint 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.080 it was more or less a hail Mary. He had 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:55.119 to know that they weren't giving out fistfuls of cash 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.440 for wrongful imprisonment. That wasn't a thing back then. But 0:05:58.560 --> 0:05:59.680 he was desperate. 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.839 When Challeener had gotten out of Newgate in the autumn 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.159 of sixteen ninety seven, he was broke. 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:07.960 While he'd been in Newgate, he not only had to 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.640 pay off the witnesses who would have testified against him 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.640 and get Holloway and his family plus made out of 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.640 the country, but he also had to pay for everyday expenses, 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.839 food and bedding. Newgate wardens also charged for every visitor 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.240 who came in. So yeah, Challeener had spent pretty much 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:27.440 every penny he had to keep afloat. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:29.880 Challener needed money. 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:34.760 Big time, and as a lifelong career criminal, he really 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:39.880 only knew a few ways of getting it. Challener first 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.400 tried his hand at making some crude coins shillings over 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:44.200 the fire. 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:44.680 In his flat. 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:47.679 He was living in a rented room above a pub 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:52.160 near Covent Garden, which was then a noisy, formerly posh 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.080 market district that was home to gambling dens and brothels. 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.280 That big fancy house in nice Bridge that was long 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.520 gone probably sold all of his silver plates and his 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.920 gents clothing by now too, But not even as mates 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:07.920 would try to pass his poorly made coins into the market. 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:13.440 So Challener did some thinking making coins. Making good coins 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.720 at the quality he had been producing took raw materials. 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.280 It took well money to make money, even when your 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.080 scam is literally making money. But then Challoner remembered the 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:30.520 success that he'd had with those banknotes. By now, counterfeiting 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.560 Bank of England notes had been bumped up to a 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.160 treasonous offence, meaning you could hang for it. So trying 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.720 that again was probably not a good idea. But there 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:45.200 was another monetary innovation happening, and this one was tailor 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:51.760 made for Challeener, largely because it was bonkers and utterly chaotic. Okay, 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:56.520 so bear with me. Thomas Neil, you may remember as 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:58.160 the feckless master of the mint. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.960 This recoinage is not work well atol. It must be 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:02.960 somebody else's vault. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.400 He was a man who never turned down a chance 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.120 to gamble with someone else's money. In sixteen ninety four, 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.720 Neil set up a lottery to bring in some revenue 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.160 for the government, called and this was a real thing, 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.280 even though it sounds like a scratch off ticket, the 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:23.120 Million Adventure. Each ten pound ticket had a chance of 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.440 winning up to one thousand pounds, but when it came 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:33.960 time to pay the winners, the treasury couldn't oops. So 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.240 that worked out terribly, So terribly in fact, that Neil 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:42.400 thought let's try it again, probably because he personally made 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.880 a bunch of money out of the adventure, Let's be honest. 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:49.080 In sixteen ninety seven, with angry adventure ticket holders still 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:53.320 waiting to be paid, Neil set up the Malt lottery. 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.120 And the Treasury led him seriously. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:08:59.640 Who thought it was a good idea to let Neil 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:04.600 do literally anything at this point? But the Malt lottery 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:09.120 was even weirder than the million Adventure. Here's Tom Levinson, 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.520 author of Newton and the Counterfeiter, to explain. 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.079 It was several things at once. First of all, it 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:20.280 was basically an annuity product. People would buy it and 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.040 they would be promised a given rate of interest for 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:25.160 some number of years. They wouldn't get their principle back, 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.040 but they'd get this return for a long time. And 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.480 that interest payment was a secured payment, and it was 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.640 secured on a specific source of revenue tax on malt, 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.760 which is effectively a tax on beer. So that's, you know, 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.960 in the English context, that's a pretty secure revenue stream. 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.480 It was also an actual, just plane ordinary lottery ticket. 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.319 Every one of these small lottery tickets that were sold 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:55.760 carried entry into a drawing for significant cash prizes, think 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.520 up to one thousand pounds. I think one thousand pounds 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:02.280 is Newton's annual salary as warden to the Mint was 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.760 four hundred quid, so one thousand pounds is a lot 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:05.200 of money. 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.160 The Treasury issued one hundred and forty thousand of these 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:13.120 ten pound malt lottery tickets. Just as with the adventure tickets, 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.360 people group together to purchase shares in them, So again 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.360 there's a bit of an equity market going something that 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:22.160 had already been a part of the cultural landscape for 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:23.000 decades now. 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:24.480 So the mall lottery. 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.680 Tickets were like a long term savings bond, and they 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.520 were also a gambling instrument. But the mall lottery tickets 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.760 had an extra feature, one that was pretty unusual. 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.200 There was a third thing that they could do. It 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.440 turned out that this particular lottery did not sell very well, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.560 so in order to try and get as much use 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.520 out of having decided to issue these things. Problem is 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.160 that these could be legal tender, or at least if 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.520 not legal tender precisely, they could be treated as money. 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:59.080 So for captive audiences like you know, sailors in the 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.560 Royal Navy, those guys were paid in lottery tickets. All 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:05.280 of a sudden you have this one piece of paper 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.880 that is at least three things at once. It's paper money, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.880 it's a gambling device, it's a completely speculative device, and 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:13.920 it's a stream of income. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.120 And it was a kind of continuation of the Bank 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.679 of England's running cash notes, just on a much much 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.959 larger scale. The Bank of England notes were issued in 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.960 one hundred pounds denominations, huge amount of money for a 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:27.680 lot of people. 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:30.240 But the Malt tickets were. 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:32.880 Only ten pounds, and there were potentially going to be 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:34.880 a lot more of them in circulation. 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.440 And you know what was great about this is as money, 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.640 they had a face value ten pounds. You knew what 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:42.880 you were getting when you got one, or if you 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.480 were a challenger, if you made one. 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.040 Challener cotton down pretty quickly. That the best thing about 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.320 this Malt lottery was that it was going to be 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.400 so so easy to exploit. 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.280 The Great Battle between Isaac Newton and William Challoner Ross 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.480 sixteen ninety six and sixteen ninety seven. By the end 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.320 of it, Challenger was really quite in desperate stakes. But 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.720 Challoner had one more great scheme in him. 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:16.360 The problem was again money, though setting up a counterfeit 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:20.079 lottery ticket operation was certainly less costly than trying to 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.560 set up a fake mint. It still took supplies, the 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:28.360 right paper, copper for creating the engraved plates, special ink. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.880 He needed a backer, someone who'd helped finance this operation 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.800 for a cut of the profits. Challenger tapped into his 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.720 dwindling network of contacts. He didn't have many people left 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.720 who weren't in jail, or who he hadn't double crossed, 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.560 or who hadn't tried to double cross him. He came 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:51.160 up with a man called Thomas Carter. Carter was a 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.880 mate from Challoner's early days as a coiner back during 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.160 his first successful run in sixteen ninety two. In June 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:03.560 sixteen ninety eight, asked Carter to procure him a malt ticket. 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.760 Procure me one of those so called malt tickets. 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.120 With what money, sir, I have but one chilling. 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:13.400 Again, these weren't cheap. 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.440 Ten pounds was more than a skilled tradesman earned in 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:17.439 three months of work. 0:13:17.920 --> 0:13:18.839 So Carter was. 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.360 Going to have to find someone who had enough capital 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:22.640 to fund the scheme. 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.080 Perhaps you can find a man of adequate means who 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:32.760 desires to increase his fortune. Well, I suppose, But whatever 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.160 you do keep my nime out of it. 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.000 Carter came up with a man called David Davis, which 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.080 sounds like a made up name, but not more so 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.080 than the unlucky Daniel Decoiner, who in sixteen eighty four 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:52.040 was executed for coining. Carter met Davis on Piccadilly, then 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.240 a major thoroughfare through Westminster. 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:59.040 Please do explain this secretive and most urgent business. 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:04.440 I am acquainted with a man which could engrave very 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:08.520 dexterously and had a strong inclination to grave a plate 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.760 for malt tickets. The copper is not yet bought, and 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:14.760 for my own part I have not been master of 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:19.200 one shilling this month, and my friend is very indigent. Besides, 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:22.400 this business requires a good stock for lodgings, provisions and 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:26.600 other necessities to complete the work. You are not to 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.240 see my workman all shall he be concerned with you. 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.080 But if you confide in me, the work shall go 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:34.360 on with all speed. 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:38.840 Suppose that your friend, after a great deal of money 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:43.280 is laid out and expended, cannot perform the plate. It's 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.760 a very curious thing, and no person that I ever 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.840 heard of did understands taking the reverse of a fine 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:50.920 bill upon copper. 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:57.880 Besides, Challoner ask no questions, Bud. If you knew who 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.680 my friend was, now he was as great a master 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:02.520 as Challoner. 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:11.200 Davis agreed to back the enterprise. He provided three legitimate 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.760 malt tickets and a bit of working money to Carter, 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.400 who then passed them on to Challoner. It took Challoner 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.600 the better part of two weeks to engrave the copper plates, 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:26.440 laboriously etching the ticket in reverse, hunched over a tabletop 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.080 in his rented lodgings above the Golden Lion in. 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:30.920 Wilde Street near kevent Garden. 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.720 Carter kept Davis in the loop, updating him on progress 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:38.840 almost daily. When the plates were ready, Chaloner did a 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:42.840 test run. Six score that's one hundred and twenty malt 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:47.200 lottery tickets, so finely wrought as to be indistinguishable from 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:51.320 the real thing. Challoner and Carter sold Davis about one 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:56.520 hundred tickets, the first of many more they promised. Challoner 0:15:56.640 --> 0:16:01.440 stood to make hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds off 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.880 the scheme. It was like printing money, because it was 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:20.840 printing money. Easypasy lemon squeeze at two the silver tungued man. 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.920 By the time Davis was handed that big stack of 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.440 mat lottery tickets. He was sure that Challoner was the 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:33.720 man who'd engraved the plate. But David Davis had a secret, 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:39.760 a big one. Davis was an undercover agent, and he 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:45.600 was after Challoner, but he wasn't working for Newton. He 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:49.040 was working for the Secretary of State, James Vernon. The 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.440 Secretary of State was a cabinet ministerial position, but it 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.400 was just at this moment shifting from being like an 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.680 actual secretary to dealing with bigger domestic and civil issues. 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:03.640 When Davis made that deal with Carter, it was Vernon's money, 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:06.720 the State's money, that he paid him with, And when 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.040 Carter brought him news that the plates were finished, Davis 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:11.880 went straight back to Vernon. 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:17.159 I addressed myself to the right Honorable Secretary Vernon, and 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.639 did acquaintum that a malt ticket plate was counterfeited, and 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.200 that to prevent the distributions of several false tickets, there 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.840 was a necessity to secure some that were done and 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.760 to subsist the persons that had done them till I 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.639 could obtain the advantage of seizing Challoner and of securing 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:35.159 the plate. 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:38.920 Davis and Vernon worked out the next part of their 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:40.639 plan to catch Challenge. 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.399 I returned to Carter, telling him I had a friend 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.520 that would take two thousand pounds worth of false tickets, 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:49.600 desiring him to let me have all the counterfeits that 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.720 were taken off the plate, upon which Carter gave me 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:58.000 a considerable parcel. Having thus secured all which I understood 0:17:58.160 --> 0:17:59.400 were printed. 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.200 Davis and Vernon believed that they had the situation contained. 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.439 They believed that they had all the fake tickets that 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.840 had been printed. Davis's next job was to find those plates, 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.280 but Davis couldn't get a straight answer about where the 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:19.440 plates were. He proposed that the engraver, actually Challener, print 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.880 as many tickets as the plates could handle, and then 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.160 break the plate in two so that no one could 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.639 copy his work. Challener didn't know, obviously that Davis wanted 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:32.440 to use the broken plates as evidence against him, but 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.680 Carter kept putting him off, and Vernon was getting pissed. 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:42.240 The right Honorable Secretary Vernon seemed very much dissatisfied at 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.200 these delays, which I hoped to bring to a period 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:46.000 every day. 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:51.320 And here's where things start to get really complicated. As 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.199 it turns out what was keeping Challeener from printing those 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:59.920 last tickets was that he was being pursued by Elizabeth Halla. 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:06.400 That's right, Thomas Holloway's wife and the gang's former utterer. 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.399 Hell hath no fury like a woman shorted out of 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:16.200 her fair share. When Challoner bribed her husband to light 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.800 out for Scotland. He'd stiffed them, didn't give them what 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:24.199 he promised. Elizabeth, back from Scotland, was now using what 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.520 she knew to threaten Challoner. She'd turn him over to 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:29.960 the warden of the Royal Mint if he didn't pay up. 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.639 So Davis waited and waited, and Vernon got more irritated, 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.040 and the whole thing was starting to look like an 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:42.240 expensive mess, thousands of pounds lost and nothing to show 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:44.280 for it except some bits of colorful paper. 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.800 At this rate, the nation may be imposed upon. While 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:48.800 you're talking to. 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.800 Me, I will either find Challoner a printing with the 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.639 plates in a week's time, or otherwise it will be 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:55.760 in your honest discretion. 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.119 Carter then had more bad news for Davis, because, as 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.040 of the heat Elizabeth was applying, Challoner had stashed the 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:05.480 plates with a lady friend, a midwife by the name 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:09.199 of Samson from over Clare Market Way, near Drooling, and 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.760 she'd gone into the country, no idea when she'd be back. 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.040 Things got worse for Davis. He learned that Carter had 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.240 sold some of the fake tickets to someone other than him, 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.520 meaning that there were fake lottery tickets out in the streets, 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.440 precisely the situation that the Secretary of State was trying 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:32.879 to avoid. Vernon had had enough. He told Davis to 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.400 arrest Carter, and then Blates or no Plates put out 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:40.639 a reward for the capture of William Challoner, fifty pounds 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:46.920 of real, actual money. In October sixteen ninety eight, Challoner 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:53.840 was arrested again and again remanded to Newgate Jail. Disappointingly, 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:57.720 there was no dramatic scene in the Lord's Justices. 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.720 Isaac Newton didn't get to yell arrest that man down 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:02.160 a hall. 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.920 In fact, we don't even know how Challoner was found, 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.560 just that a thief taker called Robert Morris became fifty 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:10.040 pounds richer for bringing him in. 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:14.840 But at no point. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.520 During the search for William Challoner did anyone in the 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.640 Secretary of State's office communicate with the mint. I mean, 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:25.679 why would they This isn't modern policing we're talking about. Technically, 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.240 Challenger's arrest was Secretary of State James Vernon's big catch 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:33.280 that made Challener his problem. Moreover, the crime of counterfeiting 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:37.679 the mat lottery tickets was an actuality, not a mint problem, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:42.440 because it wasn't coin whose problem, wasn't whoa that was 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:43.160 an open question. 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.880 Isaac Newton, however, was ready and eager. 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.720 To make it his problem once he found out about 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:55.639 Challenger's arrest. 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.760 That is, we don't know how he found out. 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:01.320 It was either through his own agents or through his 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.640 other contacts, but we do know that he was not 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.040 going to let William Challoner wriggle off. 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:08.359 The hook this time. 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:18.000 Act three, the case against mister William Challoner. 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.560 The defeat in that first court case really stung Newton. 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.680 That's Tom Levinson, author of Newton and the Counterfeiter. 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:28.720 From the point that Challeoner gets off that first time, 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:33.639 Newton really spends a lot of effort tracking Challenger's movements, 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:38.360 trying to identify the different schemes he's in, trying to 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:40.040 put the bite on his associates. 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.119 Newton convinced Vernon to let him be the one to 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:46.200 prosecute Challoner once again. 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:48.440 However, the evidence was thin. 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:51.600 Challoner had been smart to ditch the plates when he did, 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.119 and when he was arrested, he didn't have any of 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.639 the counterfeit tickets on him. The best evidence that Newton 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:01.800 had was Carter's testimony. Carter, who was one of the 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:06.080 gang who'd actually been caught passing the counterfeit notes. Newton 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:09.639 realized that while the plates remained at large, convincing a 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:13.760 jury that Challeener was guilty of that specific crime was 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:16.119 going to be much more difficult than convincing a jury 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:18.879 that Challeener was guilty of a whole bunch of counterfeiting 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:19.720 related crimes. 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:23.880 But the prosecution, they're the agent who would to devise 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:25.120 what the charge would be. 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:27.359 That's legal historian Harry Potter. 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:30.399 What was neaded to a Javid conviction was to present 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:32.000 everages of guilt. 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:33.440 What Newton needed. 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:37.000 What he was looking for was evidence in the form 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:40.719 of eyewitnesses, people who would be willing to swear before 0:23:40.760 --> 0:23:44.960 the jury and judge that they saw Challenger counterfeiting. 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.800 Some of the rules of law were not yet established, 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:51.359 so we didn't really have a presumption. 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:55.120 Of innuss by modern standards, the evidence of eyewitnesses who 0:23:55.160 --> 0:24:00.000 maybe saw something in the distant past would likely be contestable. 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:03.359 But this is the late seventeenth century, so as. 0:24:03.240 --> 0:24:07.680 Long as the jury were convinced that they were sufficient 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:09.800 debutence to convict, they would do so. 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:16.120 Newton decided to just find as many people as possible 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:20.520 willing to testify that they had seen Challoner doing something anything, 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.520 at some point, So he started in on everyone who'd 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:26.520 ever been associated with Challoner. 0:24:26.800 --> 0:24:31.040 Oh, Missus Matthews's maid Mary Ball. In June or July 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:35.640 last mister Challoner and mister Davis came to my mistress's lodgings, 0:24:36.119 --> 0:24:38.800 and mister Challoner locked himself in a room upstairs. 0:24:39.480 --> 0:24:43.480 Or I was curious, so well through the keol I. 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:45.840 Saw mister Challoner sitting with his back to me and 0:24:45.880 --> 0:24:49.280 his face towards the window. As he turned his head aside, 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:52.440