The Ironical Humour Of The Passage Will Lighten A Page; And
The Plausible Character Revealed In It Might Have Escaped From A Comedy
Of Moliere.
Morand was his name, and his crime - "son seul crime," wrote
Peron in italics - was in having "wished to associate himself with the
Bank of England without having an account there."
Morand shall be permitted to tell, in his own bland, ingenuous way, how,
like a patriot, he tried to achieve financially what Bonaparte failed to
do by military genius; and doubtless in after years he reflected that if
his own efforts brought him to Sydney Cove, Napoleon's landed him at St.
Helena.
"The war," said Morand, "broke out between Great Britain and France; the
forces of the two nations were grappling; but it appeared to me to be
easier to destroy our rival by finance than by arms. I resolved,
therefore, as a good patriot, to undertake that ruin, and to accomplish
it in the very heart of London. If I had succeeded," he cried with
enthusiasm, "France would have held me in the greatest honour; and
instead of being branded as a brigand, I should have been proclaimed the
avenger of my country. Scarcely had I arrived in England when I commenced
my operations; and at first they succeeded beyond all my hopes. Assisted
by an Irishman not less skilful than myself, and who, like me, was
actuated by a noble patriotism, desiring even more fervently than I did
the downfall of England, I was soon enabled to counterfeit the notes of
the Bank with such perfection that it was even difficult for us to
distinguish those which came from our own press from the genuine paper.
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