"By the Rev. Canon Jackson, F.S.A. 203 



instead of tliirtj/-?ive. To this fictitious document Ayliffe with his 

 own hand attached Mr. Fox's name. 



Being then sued by a different person — a Mr. Cruise, upholsterer 

 of Devizes — for the sum of £300, and this, with other debts 

 amounting to £1100, being pressed upon him, he was arrested and 

 detained at an officer's house in Stanhope Street, Covent Garden, 

 for six weeks. Meanwhile he had been so irregular in payment of 

 interest to Mr. Clewer that Clewer applied to Mr. Fox to take the 

 mortgage off his hands. Mr. Fox hesitating about this a discussion 

 arose. Clewer produced the document wliich Ayliffe had given him, 

 and the fraud was, of course, immediately detected. 



Clewer then laid an indictment against him for forgery, and he 

 was removed to Newgate. A trial followed. He was found guilty 

 and sentenced to death. 



Other frauds then came to light. One of the most inexcusable 

 was his treatment of a particular friend, a clergyman of the name 

 o£ Edwards. Ayliffe had prevailed on him to become security for 

 a considerable loan : giving him a letter alleged to have been written 

 by Mr, Fox, then patron of the living of Brinkworth, in which 

 was a promise of the next presentation to Mr. Edwards. This was 

 a forgery from beginning to end. The unfortunate clergyman was 

 ruined, and died broken-hearted. In his pocket, after his death, was 

 found this memorandum :— 



" July 29, 1759. Wrote the following letter to John Ayliffe Satan Esq. 

 " Sir, I am sui-prized you can write to me after you have robbed and most 

 barbarously murdered me. Oh ! Brinkworth ! 



Yours, T. Edwaeds." 



Ayliffe w^as distracted by his situation : and in the absence of all 

 composure of mind tried all kinds of appeal to Mr. Fox to interfere 

 and save him : first menaces of disclosure of facts that would ruin 

 Mr. Fox's reputation, and then the most piteous apologies. Lady 

 Caroline Fox did what she could on his behalf, but Mr. Fox left 

 him to his fate. Ayliffe made no very distinct expressions of peni- 

 tence, except in a general way, and such as his consternation and 

 the hope of reprieve elicited. The Chaplain of Newgate considered 



