MEMOIR OF THOMAS BEWICK. 181 



in lieu of the little duty stamp then used, and 

 which had simply in view the collection of the 

 government duty. Sometime after this, a long- 

 account of the inventions of Sir William Congreve, 

 Bart., were published in the " Repository of Arts," 

 for March, 1822, setting forth how much country 

 banks, and the whole country was obliged to him, 

 as the inventor of, or the person who first sug- 

 gested, a scheme so essentially important as this 

 for preventing forgery. As soon as I read this, I 

 answered it in the " Monthly Magazine," of May, 

 1822, in which I quoted my letters to the com- 

 missioners, with the dates bearing upon this very 

 subject, and claimed for myself the merit of having 

 first suggested the scheme. At the same time, I 

 only requested Sir William Congreve would, on 

 the word of a gentleman, say whether or not the 

 scheme was his or mine. Of this neither Sir 

 William nor any of the commissioners took any 

 notice, excepting, indeed, something purporting to 

 be an answer to what I had said, by a person in 

 the employ of Sir William, as an artist, which, 

 though it begun very impudently, did not answer 

 my letter at all. This I could not help treating 

 with contempt. To enter into a paper war with 

 such a person, I thought would be great folly. 

 Sir William appears to be going on prosper- 

 ously, by furnishing bankers with his stamped 

 note papers, and printing them in the way above 

 described. 



Sir William Congreve, as a commissioner, had 

 the advantage of seeing the various devices, and 

 of knowing the opinions of the various artists 

 upon these devices, which enabled him to cull 

 and select such as appeared to him best calculated 



