In cross-examination he stated that although Provis had two sons, named John and Thomas, he only knew the younger, and had but little intercourse with John, who was the elder. He described his youthful life in the carpenter's house, and represented himself "as the gentleman of the place," adding that he wore red morocco shoes, was never allowed to be without his nurse, and "did some little mischief in the town, according to his station in life, for which mischief nobody was allowed to check him." After a lengthy cross-examination as to his relationship with the Marchioness of Bath and his alleged interview with Sir John Smyth, he admitted that as a lecturer he had passed under the name of Dr. Smyth. He denied that he had ever used the name of Thomas Provis, or stated that John Provis, the Warminster carpenter, was his father, or visited the members of the Provis family on a footing of relationship with them. As far as the picture, which he said the carpenter pointed out to him in his parlour as the portrait of his father, was concerned, and which, when produced, bore the inscription, "Hugh Smyth, Esq., son of Thomas Smyth, Esq., of Stapleton, county of Gloucester, 1796," he indignantly repudiated the idea that it was a likeness of John Provis the younger, although he reluctantly admitted that the old carpenter sometimes entertained the delusion that the painting represented his son John, and that the inscription had not been perceivable until he washed it with tartaric acid, which, he declared, was excellent for restoring faded writings. He was then asked about some seals which he had ordered to be engraved by Mr. Moring, a seal engraver in Holborn, and admitted giving an order for a card-plate and cards; but denied that at the same time he had ordered a steel seal to be made according to a pattern which he produced, which bore the crest, garter, and motto of the Smyths of Long Ashton. However, he acknowledged giving a subsequent order for two such seals. On one of these seals the family motto, "_Qui capit capitur_" had been transformed, through an error of the engraver, into "_Qui capit capitor_," but he said he did not receive it until the 7th of June, and that consequently he could not have placed it on the deed in which Sir Hugh Smyth so distinctly acknowledged the existence of a son by a first marriage--a deed which he declared he had never seen till the 17th of March. A letter was then put into court, dated the 13th of March, which he admitted was in his handwriting, and which bore the impress of the mis-spelled seal. Thus confronted with this damning testimony, the plaintiff turned pale, and requested permission to leave the court to recover from a sudden indisposition which had overtaken him, when, just at this juncture, the cross-examining counsel received a telegram from London, in consequence of which he asked, "Did you, in January last, apply to a person at 361 Oxford Street, to engrave for you the Bandon crest upon the rings produced, and also to engrave 'Gookin' on the brooch?" The answer, very hesitatingly given, was, "Yes, I did." The whole conspiracy was exposed; the plot was at an end. The plaintiff's counsel threw up their briefs, a verdict for the defendants was returned, and the plaintiff himself was committed by the judge on a charge of perjury, to which a charge of forgery was subsequently added.
Finance Review
Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton — Part 148
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