This great idea once hit out, so vigorously was it
prosecuted that they, or some of them, or one of them, produced in a
very little while no less than 3883 signatures, of which sixteen were
proved to be genuine, five were doubtful, and all the rest fictitious.
But the gentleman, whoever he was, who was the working partner in the
scheme--and I may state, by way of parenthesis, that when Gunn of Gunn
was subsequently arrested, petitions in process of signature were found
under the mattress of his bed--calculated without his host. He either
did not know, or had forgotten, that on receipt of such documents by a
superior officer, they are at once sent to the officer accused to report
upon. This course was followed in the present case, and the petitions
were discovered to be gross impostures. The ingenuity exercised by their
author or authors was really very remarkable, for it must be remembered
that not one of the signatures was forged; they were all invented, and
had, of course, to be written in a great variety of hands.
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