There was nothing unusual or improper about Darcy’s buying a commission in the army for Wickham. Paying for a commission was not required in all cases—as when a militia officer brought some of his men with him, particularly at a time when the army was expanding. A commission up to the rank of lieutenant-colonel could be purchased; above that level, promotion was solely by seniority (Muir, ch. 11). Normally a young man would enter the army with his family’s purchasing a commission as an ensign (or cornet in a cavalry regiment); unless he was promoted on merit, they could subsequently sell that commission and pay the difference to acquire one of a higher rank. A letter of recommendation from a person of standing was also required. (By contrast, no similar payments were made for commissions in the navy, although that branch required patronage to obtain promotion to lieutenant on a specific ship, as occurred with Admiral Crawford’s recommending William Price for promotion as second lieutenant on HM Sloop Thrush.) The maximum prices for commissions were fixed by War Office Regulations of 14 August 1783 (Williamson 50–51) and set out in The Regimental Companion, depending on the rank and the status of the regiment concerned: the list price in 1783 for an ensign ranged from £400 in a foot regiment to £900 in the guards, and for a cornet £735 to £1,600; the highest rank, lieutenant, cost from £3,500 to £6,700 (1: 37–38). A certificate had to be provided that the list price was not exceeded, although it seems that sometimes the price was exceeded.
Henry Austen
Naturally the practice of purchasing commissions needed a system for bringing parties together. Henry Austen provided such a service through a partnership. The view expounded by some commentators is that Austen & Maunde was heavily involved in illegal transactions, in which more than the regulation prices for army commissions were paid (Caplan, “Austen & Co.,” “Missteps”). This survey of the meager available evidence demonstrates that such involvement in illegality was not the case.
Henry Austen and his banking partner Henry Maunde entered a separate partnership with Charles James for the business of “Brokerage & the Agency of half pay” on 23 November 1801. Charles James had military connections and was author of The Regimental Companion, a guide to the duties of officers, published by Egerton. “Brokerage” was bringing the parties together for the buying of commissions in the army. The partnership agreement also envisaged that there might be occasions where vacant commissions might be purchased for speculation. The other part of Austen, Maunde, and James’s business, “half-pay agency,” involved the collection of half-yearly payments for retired officers to save them from collecting these in person, a service for which the partnership received 2.5% (Clery 68).
The partnership agreement was not unusual in form and provided for sharing the profits equally after bona fide expenses. As Henry Austen was obliged to have an office in connection with his agency for the Oxfordshire Militia, rent was not an expense for which the partnership could be charged. Henry Austen and Henry Maunde were expected to attend the office, and Charles James had the right to enter it and to inspect the books at any time. When commissions were purchased as a speculation, if one partner put up the money rather than all doing so equally, he took a return of 10% as a first profit share.1 Immediately before the place for signing the partnership agreement was written, “I pledge myself upon my Word of Honour to adhere to these secret articles from this day November 23 1801.” One should not read “secret articles” as being suspicious. It was a matter for the partners if they did not want the person with whom they were dealing to know who was sharing in the profits of the transaction (and whose liability as a partner was the same as if his name had been disclosed), and there may have been good commercial reasons why the third party should not know. In this case Charles James was the author of the standard book on the duties of officers, and he would not have wanted an officer buying a commission to know that he was involved in the transaction. There was no public record of partners’ names until the Registration of Business Names Act 1916, more than a century later.
The only evidence of a completed transaction in which Austen & Maunde was involved related not to army commissions but to the purchase and sale of a writership (a junior post) with the East India Company; here they were involved as bankers, and there is no suggestion that they received any brokerage commission. A Select Committee of Parliament was appointed in 1809 to inquire into the existence of any corrupt practices regarding the appointment and nomination of writers or cadets in the Company. The Committee’s Report gives details of the appointment by purchase of three writerships (as well as many clerkships). Austen & Maunde was concerned in only one of the writerships. (At the time the partnership with Charles James subsisted, there were two partnerships called Austen & Maunde: one with Charles James, whose name was not disclosed, and a banking partnership, necessary because banking was not within the scope of the James partnership and substantial capital would have been required for a banking partnership. I have not tried to differentiate between them.)
Under the rules relating to East India Company appointments, a director of the Company swore that he had not accepted any payment for the appointment or nomination of a person (Select Committee 7). Every writer’s petition contained a declaration that neither the petitioner nor, to the best of his knowledge, any other person had received any payment. For a cadetship the declaration was stronger, not being limited to the best of the petitioner’s knowledge and requiring a declaration by the candidate’s father (7).
The Select Committee’s Report summarized the transaction in which Austen & Maunde was involved:
Mr. Fry Magniac was nominated Writer to Bengal in the year 1807–8, by Mr. G. W. Thellusson; this appointment was also given to the same Mr. Woodford, and sold through the agency of Mr. Tahourdin. Mr. Beale was the purchaser, and the sum paid by him was 3,500 guineas, of which Mr. Woodford received £3,000, Mr. Tahourdin £150; the remainder was divided between Mr. Donovan and Mr. Garrat.2 (4)
Although Austen & Maunde is not mentioned in the summary, the partnership is referred to on twenty-five occasions in the evidence. The following summary provides details of the transaction obtained by combining the evidence to the Select Committee given by Thellusson, Emperor Woodford, Jeremiah Donovan, Gabriel Tahourdin, and Daniel Beale.3
Fry Magniac wanted a writership with the East India Company. His father approached an intimate friend, Beale, who had been in the service of the Company for four voyages (Select Committee 51) and was aware that writerships were sometimes sold (though he had never been involved in a sale before). Beale replied to a newspaper advertisement on the lines of “high civil appointments for young men properly qualified” (51), which suggested that they might relate to the East India Company although not naming it. The advertisement had been placed by Garratt, who had been a serjeant in the same regiment as Donovan (33), was subsequently an ensign in the Florida Rangers, and, according to Donovan, was currently in the King’s Bench prison. When Beale met Garratt, he commented that “Mr. Garratt did not seem at all conversant with the thing that he had to dispose of; it appeared to me to be a thing that he never had had a concern in before” (50). At a second meeting Garratt confirmed that the advertisement was for a writership; at a third meeting he indicated that he expected to receive payment if the transaction went through, which Beale refused, saying that he had not engaged him. In Beale’s words, they “parted with considerable disgust” (50). Beale then replied to a second, differently worded advertisement and found that it had again been placed by Garratt, but this time Beale was introduced to Donovan. Donovan seemed to Beale to be a “secret actor” whose purpose was to ascertain the solidity of his offer (50).
Donovan, according to his testimony to the Committee of the Whole House of Commons, was a surgeon in the army from 1778 until the reduction of his regiment in 1783, when he was put on half pay. A wound made it impossible for him to accept a commission on full pay. Lord Cornwallis and Lord Moira recommended him for the 11th Veteran Battalion. He served as lieutenant and surgeon for fifteen months in a Fencible Regiment, three years in the militia, and three years as a surgeon in an armed vessel appointed by the Treasury (Committee of the Whole 133). As a result of his financial straits, “I then perchance was led occasionally into this kind of business, I did not think it dishonourable, nor disreputable, being in that situation at the time” (38).
Donovan’s evidence was evasive and, on several occasions, when points were put to him, he withdrew what he had said earlier. Donovan initially told the Committee of the Whole House of Commons that he had never trafficked Government positions (130) but that he had forwarded three names for commissions to Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke (133), the Duke of York’s former mistress, who received payment, some above the regulation price (134). He then revised his evidence to say that he never trafficked positions other than the ones mentioned (135). He said that none of the transactions had gone through but that he would have received remuneration if they had (136). Asked whether he considered the transactions improper, Donovan said, “I knew that these transactions pass daily, and therefore, I thought that there was nothing so very heinous in the crime; but I certainly did not conceive it altogether proper” (135).
At the other end of the proposed transaction, G. W. Thellusson was a director of the East India Company. In that capacity he had patronage to nominate a given number of persons for posts. Emperor Woodford, his first cousin, applied to him for the writership, saying that the appointment of Fry Magniac would oblige a friend, Sir Walter James—who, in fact, knew nothing about it. Woodford hoped that the transaction would assist him in some way in becoming a member of Parliament (Select Committee 22) and asked his solicitor, Tahourdin, to assist him in finding a purchaser for the writership. According to Woodford, Tahourdin told him that he often negotiated seats in Parliament. Woodford said that he did not know that Donovan, whose reputation was known to him, was involved and would not have gone ahead if he had (20).
Tahourdin, however, said that the idea of selling the writership to assist a parliamentary run came from Woodford (Select Committee 23). Tahourdin had previously offered Woodford estates to purchase on behalf of the trustees of Peter Thellusson’s will, and Woodford, he said, led him to believe that he was likely to be employed further “with considerable emolument to myself” (29). Tahourdin thought that Woodford (rather than Beale or Donovan) mentioned Sir Walter’s name, although he was vague about it (27). Although Tahourdin said that Magniac’s name was given to him by Woodford (29), it seems more likely that he learned of Magniac’s name from Beale and passed it on to Woodford. Tahourdin confirmed that he never told Woodford about Donovan’s involvement (27). Tahourdin also stated that he understood that there was nothing improper in selling a writership so long as a director of the Company did not take anything for it (25).
These two ends of the prospective transaction were connected by Tahourdin’s approaching Austen & Maunde, who gave him a written introduction to Donovan, who banked with them (Select Committee 34), stating that Tahourdin was a friend and a gentleman of great respectability (25, 28, 33). The introduction probably took place slightly earlier in connection with another proposed transaction in which a Mr. O’Hara was trying to acquire what seems to have been the same writership (3, 35).4 That transaction did not go through because the purchaser’s brother refused to deposit the money with Austen & Maunde that Tahourdin insisted on (Committee of the Whole 138). Presumably, a condition of the introduction was that any money had to be deposited with Austen & Maunde, meaning that Tahourdin and Donovan could not complete the transaction using another bank. In this way Austen & Maunde had the use of the funds while the formalities of the transaction were completed. It could be that they insisted on holding the money as its availability would have been the only benefit to them. Donovan’s evidence (which may not be reliable) was that Austen & Maunde said on making the introduction that “it was a business of such a private nature they did not wish to have any thing to do with it” (Committee of the Whole 3).
In the Fry Magniac transaction, Donovan agreed on a price of 3,000 guineas (£3,150) with Tahourdin (25) and 3,500 guineas (£3,675) with Beale (50). Donovan did not seem to find this discrepancy surprising, saying that “it is generally understood that you are to pay so much for the commission and to divide whatever else there is among the persons concerned,” adding, “I do not suppose that [Beale] knew any thing of what we [he and Tahourdin] were to receive” (Select Committee 34). About a day before the money was to be deposited with the bank, Donovan told Tahourdin about the higher figure and asked Tahourdin to undertake to pay him the excess 500 guineas (£525), which Tahourdin agreed to do (25–26).
Beale went with Donovan to Austen & Maunde’s banking premises, where he was introduced to Tahourdin. There was discussion in a back room about the terms of the deposit, during which Henry Austen was called in. Beale was concerned about the terms of the deposit and wanted to retain a lien on the money. His recollection was that the money was not deposited on that occasion. After a great deal of argument, it was agreed that the £3,675 would be deposited in the joint names of Beale and Tahourdin on terms that if, by the end of six months, they did not jointly authorize payment to Tahourdin, it would be repaid to Beale. Beale gave them a draft on his bankers, and Austen & Maunde gave a stamped receipt to that effect.5 Tahourdin gave evidence that the details of the transaction were not mentioned to Henry Austen but that he came into the room to discuss the terms of the deposit—although Tahourdin said that Austen & Maunde may have heard of the details of the transaction from Donovan (Select Committee 27). (Donovan was not asked whether Austen & Maunde knew about the transaction.)
Fry Magniac attended on Thellusson in India House with his father and a letter from Tahourdin. On the appointment being duly made, Beale and Tahourdin went to Austen & Maunde and authorized payment of the whole deposit to Tahourdin. Out of the £3,675, Tahourdin paid Donovan 500 guineas—£500 in cash and £25 by cheque (31, 35)—and an initial £1,000 on account of £3,000 to his client Woodford (who did not know of the existence of Donovan or of the 500 guineas paid to him), retaining the balance on Woodford’s client account. At Woodford’s request Tahourdin received the remaining £150 (Select Committee 26–27). Donovan paid £250 by check on Austen & Maunde to Garratt and said that Tahourdin was aware of this payment (34–35). Beale did not receive anything from the transaction, a favor to his friend, and Fry Magniac’s father would not have known about the payments. Nobody who gave evidence suggested that Austen & Maunde received anything. As a result of the facts coming to light in the Committee’s Report, Fry Magniac’s appointment as writer was annulled, and he was dismissed from the service of the East India Company by a resolution of the directors of 12 May 1809.6 He must have been subsequently appointed to a different post, however, as he had a successful career as a judge in India.7
Woodford seems to have kept his cousin Thellusson in the dark about the fact that he sold the writership. Tahourdin, Woodford’s solicitor, had breached his duty to his client by failing to disclose that the price was really 3,500 guineas and that he had paid 500 guineas to Donovan, whose existence was not known to Woodford.8 In summary, Woodford, Donovan, Tahourdin, and Garratt each took a share, but nobody suggested that Austen & Maunde did so too.
Donovan also gave evidence to the Committee of the Whole House of Commons in its investigation of whether Mary Anne Clarke, the former mistress of the Duke of York, George III’s second son and Commander-in-Chief of the army, had been selling commissions in the army and using her influence with the Duke to have him recommend them.9 Donovan was one of Mrs. Clarke’s contacts. His evidence concerning Austen & Maunde covered the above two (potential and actual) cases relating to the East India Company (which, in fact, were irrelevant to this Committee) plus one transaction that was potentially relevant but that never took place. After interrogation about five cases not concerning Austen & Maunde in which payments had been made to Mrs. Clarke beyond the regulation price for commissions, Donovan was asked, “Do you recollect in the year 1804 or 1805, offering Captain Tuck a Majority [i.e., a commission as major] at a very low price?” (Committee of the Whole 134–35). His reply was that Austen & Maunde told him that they expected to be appointed agents to a regiment that was to be raised by a Colonel Dillon and that commissions would be available in that regiment, for which Donovan was given a price list. Donovan told Tuck that if he would raise a number of men wanting commissions, or pay a sum of money, he might get a majority.
In this case, the question concerned payment of “a very low price” for a major. There was, therefore, no suggestion that Austen & Maunde was involved with sales of commissions in excess of the regulation price. It also seems unlikely that a schedule would contain prices above the regulation amount in case the list got into the wrong hands; in any case, prices for a new regiment might well be lower than for an established one. In the previous cases dealt with in Donovan’s evidence, a separate payment was made to Mrs. Clarke in addition to the regulation price. In any case, since Austen & Maunde was never appointed to the agency, the partnership did not take part in any such transactions.
The only occasion where one could say that Austen & Maunde was likely to have been directly involved in a transaction that paid above the regulation price for an army commission was one about which Henry Austen wrote to Charles James on 8 April 1811, telling the story of the eldest son of Colonel Gore Langton, a politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1795 to 1847 and a colonel in the Oxford Militia. His son, William Gore Langton of the 4th Dragoons, whose ill health had forced his return from Portugal, was said by Henry to be “not very desirous of again submitting to the drudgery of a subaltern’s duty, & there seems no probability of promotion by purchase or otherwise in his own Corps, he being tenth lieutenant.”10 He was looking for a commission in another regiment in order to later return to his cavalry regiment with the same rank. Colonel Gore Langton was said to be attached to the person and politics of the Prince Regent, who might be willing to favor his son. Henry ends the letter: “I am well aware that promotion is of late so purely administered by purchase that I forbear saying ‘that money would be no object.’” No such purchase of a commission took place. William Gore Langton is listed as a lieutenant in the 4th (or the Queen’s own) Regiment of Dragoons in the army list for 1811 but is not listed anywhere for the following years, indicating that he must have left the army (List 78).11
Another letter from Henry Austen to Charles James, unfortunately dated only “Thursday evening,” may be also relevant.12 In it he says to James, “if you can get a respectable field officer to give the usual certificate,” he would pay the officer £10. A friend of Henry’s required a certificate for the purchase of a commission. He offers to give James any details about the person concerned, assuring that James can call the person his friend with safety. This communication suggests that some officers would take money for giving false certificates, presumably stating that nothing in excess of the authorized price was paid.
The sum of this evidence is that Austen & Maunde was involved in a number of ways. First, they acted as bankers in connection with the East India Company transaction in which no payments should have been made and were reported as saying that “it was a business of such a private nature they did not wish to have any thing to do with it.” Second, they might have been involved with Donovan in potential purchases of commissions, including one at “a very low price,” suggesting that the prices on the list were not in excess of the regulation price, but as they were never appointed agents for Colonel Dillon’s regiment, no such transactions took place. Third, they were willing to be involved in a “money no object” transaction for Colonel Gore Langton’s son that never took place. Fourth, they were willing to pay for “the usual certificate”—which might mean a false certificate. None of these suggests more than a willingness to engage in minor infractions. Certainly, there is no evidence of wholesale illegality.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am grateful to Jan Fergus and Peter Sabor for their helpful comments on a draft of this article.
NOTES
1The agreement had “Ten” crossed out then “Five” crossed out, then “Ten” written again. The reason for the discarded second thoughts may have been that it was then thought that there was no profit until the 5% usury rate had been paid on partners’ capital. A sentence was included in the agreement that this 5% deduction did not apply, with the result that 10% was the correct figure.
2Garrat is spelled with one t in the Select Committee Report and with two in the Evidence. Woodford and Tahourdin feature in all three cases, but this case is the only one affecting Austen & Maunde.
3For Tahourdin’s evidence, see 23–33, 40, 211; Donovan’s 33–38, 151–53; Woodford’s 19–22, 38–40; Thellusson’s 17–19, 40, 211; Beale’s 49–52. Donovan also gave evidence to the Committee of the Whole House of Commons.
4In the transaction proposed by O’Hara, the introduction may have been the other way round—Donovan’s approaching his bankers Austen & Maunde, who introduced Tahourdin, who also banked with them (Select Committee 34–36; Committee of the Whole 140)—but the order makes no difference. Beale said that Garratt denied that this transaction related to the same writership (Select Committee 51). Tahourdin said that he did not know of O’Hara’s name (32). Donovan told the Committee that the O’Hara transaction was the only one with which he was concerned (Committee of the Whole 137–38), but he must have known that the Fry Magniac transaction was a different one as he negotiated a price with Beale. His evidence to the Select Committee on Corrupt Practices was much fuller in this respect.
5The ad valorem stamp duty on receipts would have amounted to 5s ([1804] 44 Geo 3 c 98).
6British Library IOR/Z/E/4/39/M390, IOR/E/4/903, 181.
7Fry Magniac is listed in the Registers of Employees as a civil servant appointed in 1809, arriving in India on 14 October 1810, and becoming Officiating Assistant to the Register of the Sudder Dewanny and Nizamut Adawlut. In 1810 he was awarded a medal for proficiency in Arabic and a first class for proficiency in the Arabic, Persian, and Hindoostanee languages. In 1811 he was appointed Assistant to the Magistrate of Hooghly; in 1812 Register of Agra and then of the City Court of Moorshedabad; in 1813 Officiating Joint-Magistrate of the City Court of Moorshedabad; and in 1814 Joint Magistrate there. An 1826 directory lists him as judge and magistrate in that court. He died on 15 July 1830 with the rank of Senior Merchant.
8Tahourdin confirmed that he never told Woodford about the 500 guineas paid to Donovan (Select Committtee 27, 29). Woodford said that he was not told by Tahourdin that the price was in excess of 3,000 guineas, adding, “I did not consider Mr. Tahourdin as a common dealer in these things” (39). Although he was involved with Woodford in all three transactions in writerships, in the Committee’s Report Tahourdin claimed that “I am not a trafficker in these things” (32).
9The charges against the Duke are set out in Of the Investigation of the Charges. Again, Austen & Maunde is not mentioned, except in the transcript of the evidence. See Caplan (“Austen & Co.”) for more about the scandal.
10Hampshire Record Office (HRO) 28A11/B12.
11I searched the following three years without finding his name.
