APPENDIX TO CHRONICLE. 277 



COURT OF KING S BENCH, SA- 

 TURDAY, MAY 16. 



Sittings Jbr Middlesex, before Mr. 

 Justice Abbott and a Special 

 Jury. 



The King v. Joseph Merceron, 

 Esq. — This was an indictment 

 against the defendant a magis- 

 trate, and for many years trea- 

 surer of the poor of the parish of 

 St. Matthew, Bethnal-green, for 

 a misdemeanor, in appropriating 

 to his own purposes the sum of 

 925/. \s. M. 



Mr. Scarlett opened the case 

 by first stating the offices 

 held by the defendant in the 

 parish, in which he had resided 

 for a long succession of years. 

 Besides being treasurer of the 

 poor, he was a commissioner of 

 assessed taxes, and a principal 

 commissioner of sewers, which 

 gave him such an influence, that 

 it might be truly said the inha- 

 bitants of St. Matthew, Bethnal- 

 green, had been in a state of 

 complete subserviency to his 

 despotic dominion. He was a 

 man of large property, and none 

 dared for many years to doubt 

 his infallibility. At last some 

 circumstances created suspicion, 

 and evidence was procured suffi- 

 cient to induce a grand jury to 

 findtwo bills of indictment formis- 

 demeanors in the collection of 

 the rates : the charge was for a 

 conspiracy, in receiving from 

 certain parishioners more than 

 was authorized; but when they 

 came on for trial, no witnesses 

 were produced, and an acquittal 

 was tne consequence. The law 

 expenses incurred by the defen- 

 dant amounted to 914/. ll.s. 3</., 

 being the sum charged in the bill 



of Messrs. Dann and Crosland, 

 his solicitors ; and the charge in 

 the present indictment was, that 

 he had improperly and illegally 

 procured this sum to be paid out 

 of the parish monies, together 

 with ten guineas which he had 

 added as his own coach-hire, and 

 other private expenses. The 

 bill was paid by him on the 10th 

 July, 1813, and the facts out of 

 which this proceeding arose oc- 

 curred between that date and 

 April, 1814. If it appeared sin- 

 gular that transactions of so old 

 a date were now introduced to 

 the notice of the Jury, it was to 

 be attributed to the artful and 

 too successful mode in which the 

 defendant had accomplished his 

 fraud, for the discovery was not 

 made until a disclosure was com- 

 pelled before a committee of the 

 House of Commons. Mr. Mer- 

 ceron effected his purpose in the 

 following manner : — On the 16th 

 of August, after his payment of 

 the bill of Dann and Crosland, a 

 meeting of the vestry took place 

 upon matters totally unconnected 

 with that subject: for some reason 

 or other it was adjourned until the 

 23rd of the same month, but still 

 no notice was given to the vestry- 

 men that any thing was to be 

 brought forward respecting the 

 expenses Mr. Merceron had in- 

 curred in defending the two in- 

 dictments. The meeting was 

 attended by Mr. May, the vestry- 

 clerk, and many other parishio- 

 ners; and after the ordinary busi- 

 ness had been disposed of, and 

 all but six or seven of Mr. Mer- 

 ceron's friends were gone, a reso- 

 lution was proposed by a dissent- 

 ing minister of the name of Datt, 

 whom Mr. Scarlett charged as 



being 



