gmertca, , ?|emp, an& JUapoleon - Vote Hemp

Fraudulent Tradingnotorious that w e are carrying on the whole trade of the worldunder simulated and disguised papers. . . . 14 English craftsmen learned to reproduce the seal of the United States and thesignatures of Jefferson and Madison with near perfection. Oneof the leading forgers of American documents was a certainVa n Sander, a Londoner wh o kept his atelier near Whitehall. 15Another wh o dealt in forgeries, although probably as a dealerrather than creator, was Peter Vander, also of London. Whe nhe went bankrupt in 1812 (alas, in 1812 the ContinentalSystem so decayed that it was hard for an honest forger to makea living), his assignees put u p for auction—besides "severalcapital charts," among which were charts of the Northern Seaand the Cattegat, and the Baltic Pilot—thirty-four boxes containingsimulated ships' papers and seals for foreign countries,various colored inks, foreign writing paper, etc. 16Americans occasionally assisted British merchants in theirmasquerade by selling them American vessels—keel to truck,papers,flag, and all. Th e "Manhattan," of Ne w York, and the"Tw o Friends," of Charleston, were two dishonored in thisfashion. 17 Sometimes the transactions allowing British merchantsto hide behind the Stars and Stripes were rococo masterpiecesof casuistry. For instance, in 1809, Mr . John Thomas , ofBaltimore, U.S.A. , sold to a Mr . Worthy, of Liverpool, GreatBritain, a power of attorney, irrevocable, over the Americanvessel "Thomas," and made him supercargo of that vessel. In181 o, Worthy bought a cargo at Ne w York as an agent of JohnThomas, but paid for the goods with bills of exchange upon aLiverpool house. Worthy, with a passport—real or forged—asa United States citizen, then sailed the vessel "Thomas" toArchangel, where she was admitted as American. There one of