October 8, 2021 • 47 mins
In the series finale, Chaloner ‘counterfeits a madman’, Newton has his day in court, and Londoners look on as Chaloner meets his fate. And, Linda connects the dots between everything going on back then in law, finance and media to where we are today.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is an I heart original. William Chaloner was raving.
His face was slick with sweat, his eyes were rolling.
He ripped off his clothes, literally tore them to pieces,
and ran stark naked around the ward At midnight, the
(00:24):
warder's managed to catch and find him hand and foot,
and confine him to his bed, where he was now
being taunted by the devil himself, crouched in the corner
of his cell, laughing and hissing at it. Don't don't
let him take me. I pray you good, sir, please?
(00:47):
Or was he the sinews of his roguedy, money being
gone to and his pretended services all blasted, he had
little hopes left, and, being of a very cowardly nature,
the apprehension of what he might come to struck him
into a fit of sickness, and wrought so strong upon
(01:08):
his brain that he was sometimes delirious, in which fits
he was continually raving that the devil was come for him.
In such frightful whimsies these intervals of lunacy, he endeavored
to improve to a height sufficient to put off his
approaching trial, counterfeiting the madman as well he could. Chowner
(01:32):
could have been faking it. After all, Faking it was
something that he was very, very good at, but he
also might not have been. When Chowner had arrived at
Newgate in October of the previous year, he was confident
that he could figure a way out of this jam.
But Chowner didn't know what he was up against. When
he arrived there, he made very light of the matter,
(01:54):
bragging he had a trick left yet, But when he
heard how many witnesses came in against him, he began
to droop. Challenger had by now spent months in Newgate, filthy,
disgusting Newgate, and without the money that had bullied him
through his last into Newgate, things were bleak. It was winter,
(02:19):
cold and wet, and the walls wet with damp. He
slept on straw covering a bare board. He couldn't afford
to send out for nicer or even palatable food, and
he was drinking the filthy, disease riddled water that everyone
else was. And in that time he'd seen his hopes
extinguished one after the other, until all he was left
(02:42):
with was the dark fact of his impending death. It
was enough to send someone mad, but in all honesty,
it didn't matter whether Challenger was really suffering a mental
health episode. It's not like there's an insanity plea in
the seventeenth century. For one thing and for another time
(03:03):
for William Challoner was running out, but alas all would
not do, the sessions came in which his long concealed
villainies were to be laid open to the world, and justice,
which often had attempted as had often been baffled by him,
(03:23):
was now ready with her iron hands to break in
two pieces for I Heart Radio, I'm Linda Rodriguez mccrabie,
and this is Newton's Law. Episode eight, our final episode
cashed out You're Act one Chaloner's defense. While Chaloner wasted
(04:31):
away in Newgate, Isaac Newton was busy. Challenger's trial would
take place at the next sessions, although when exactly that
would be was uncertain, but Newton needed the time to
make sure that his case against Challenger was rock solid.
Newton spent the first few months of deep in the
(04:53):
Challenger case, collecting the depositions of scores of witnesses who
could testify that they had seemed Challenger plying as terrible
craft and crucially, Newton made sure that these witnesses weren't
going to do a runner or get cold feet when
the sessions came around. Tom Levinson, author of Newton and
the Counterfeiter, One of the things I think Newton learns
(05:16):
from this first defeat is that he has to arrest
and confine the people who have the goods on Challenger
and offer them, you know, whatever it takes to get
them to tell the story he wanted to hear about
Challenger and not let him get away. You get to
a position where challengers techniques could could influence them. Newton's
(05:37):
principal informant was Thomas Carter, the man who had been
in with Challenger on the mult ticket scam. Carter knew
that giving the warden all the information he could was
his only chance of making it out of Newgate alive.
That all his hopes lay in giving Newton everything he
needed to hang Challenger. I can produce another to justify
(05:58):
besides myself, and I believe I can produce some of
his work all this which he has said, I can
bring good witness to justify it. I humbly lay myself
at your honest fate, hoping your honest favor as I
shall endeavor to deserve it. Carter became Newton's man on
the inside, and he connected Newton with a bunch of informants.
(06:19):
And one of the things Newton did was put informants
and spies basically next to Chaloner in the cells. And
Chaloner was clever enough to know that this was likely
to happen, so he basically disdained the first couple that
Newton put in and and sort of diagnosed them as
potential spies. But Newton just kept putting people in, and
finally Chaloner actually began to speak more openly to one
(06:44):
of Newton's agents, John Ignacious Lawson, was a former doctor
turned coiner who was desperate to be abuse. Lawson told
Newton that he was starving and that since he had
been locked up, some of his past confederates had stolen
all of his money and property and are of one
of his children to death and sent the rest of begging.
(07:04):
Lawson was the perfect spy. He and Chaloner had never
worked together, so that meant that Challenger wasn't worried that
Lawson could testify against him directly. Lawson was able to
get close to Challeoner, even sleeping in the same cell.
Lawson was later tried for coining in October, but he
got off on a technicality a matter of jurisdiction or
(07:29):
and this seems like it's more likely a matter of
past usefulness. Lawson told Newton who Challenger was worried would
testify against him. Carter, of course, and his wife Catherine,
and the Holloways, but also some new names. This gave
Newton more people to find to testify against Challenger. Lawson
(07:50):
was also the one who told Newton that Challenger was
quote feigning madness in order to delay his trial. William Chandoner,
being my chamber mate, owned to me that when the
sessions came, and if he found himself in danger, he
would pretend himself sick. Challoner obviously didn't know that Lawson
was telling Newton everything, but even if he had, there
(08:13):
was probably little he could have done to save himself.
He didn't even really know what he was being charged with,
and he had little idea of who else beyond Thomas
Carter and Thomas Holloway. Isaac Newton might be bringing his witness.
Like most people awaiting trial at Newgate, Challoner would have
been conducting his own defense. At this time, people accused
(08:34):
of most crimes were not permitted a defense lawyer. The
only exception was in cases of high treason, which technically
counterfeiting was this was to curb abuse of the charge
by the sovereign, but counterfeiting wasn't that type of high treason. Evidently,
so coiners and clippers still didn't get defense lawyers. So
Chaloner was grasping at straws. Channer wrote to Secretary of
(09:02):
State James Vernon and too Newton to claim that the
whole malt ticket scam was Carter's plot to ensnare Chander
in some quote mischief. What's more, Carter, he said, was
nothing more than a rogue and a criminal. For I
have such a man to be evidence against me that
will not stick at anything, to swear to get his
(09:24):
own liberty. He was once taken for coining and stealing
horses and put him warrick gail. He has been six
times in the pillory in London and one in the
country for forgery and perjury. He robbed his master and
was put in the counter and got out in woman's clothes.
(09:46):
He has gone by several names. He has been in
most gails in England. I discovered and convicted him of
forgery but he got out of jail, so I know
he will do me all the hurt he can. Challenger
tried to appeal directly to Newton, the man he saw
(10:07):
as both the author of all of his sufferings and
the only person who could end them. I beg you
will not continue your displeasure against me, for I have
suffered very much. I wholly throw myself upon your great goodness.
I m, Sir, your most humble and obedient servant. His
(10:32):
letters to Newton were increasingly desperate, increasingly willing to give
up whatever he could to save himself. Sir, in obedience
to your worship, I will give you the best account
I can remember. God shall be glad to do any
service to the government that is in my power. If
(10:54):
I intended to have anything to do in counterfeiting of
mult tickets, then I des God all my team. I
never received my soul. I have been guilty of no
crime these six years. If he ever said that he
could engrave plates and make coin, well that was jest.
(11:15):
It was a joke. That whole thing in front of Parliament,
accusing the Mint of corruption. He'd been forced to testify honest,
and this whole mult ticket scam. This was obviously worked
up by that David Davis to get money out of
the government. Oh, for God's sake, do not for suspicions
and suggestions seem real truth. And so let me go
(11:37):
murthered out of the world. Oh, let your great goodness
be known to the world by being merciful to me.
Chalder's mental state was clearly deteriorating by the time he
wrote to Justice Raylton, the local magistrates supervising the case.
He said, I am so very ill, I cannot hold
(11:59):
my Newton of course, never responded to any of Challenger's letters.
Why would he. He had all that he needed. The
rope wound from the testimonies of so many people was
around Challenger's neck already, It just needed a good tightening.
(12:27):
On March one, the Grand Jury met at the guild Hall,
the sort of city hall for the city of London.
This was a hearing to determine whether the indictments against
Challengers should go ahead and to give Challenger a chance
to plead. He might have been surprised to learn then
and there that he was being charged with three counts
(12:48):
of counterfeiting offenses dating back seven years and not as
he thought the Malt lottery ticket scam. At first he
refused to speak a last ditch effort to lay his trial,
then he claimed he had been mad these last three weeks,
to which a worthy justice on the bench made answer
(13:10):
that to his knowledge, he had been so for as
many years. Challenger eventually pleaded not guilty. His trial took
place just a few hours later, this time at the
Old Bailey, the open air courtroom attached to Newgate. The
judge south Field Level was infamously ruthless and corrupt, and
(13:31):
was no believer in innocent until proven guilty, which, to
be fair, wasn't really a thing back then. From the
moment Challenger was described as notorious by the judge, he
must have known things were not going to go well.
He was put upon his trial, wherein there were a
whole cloud of witnesses against him. Also, William Chalon told
(13:54):
me that he intended as more late offenses. Once swore
that she had seen him make some thousand pistols, and
I told him he would come to be hanged for
it as price. One another that she had seen him
do the like by guineas Helena would give Thomas Twin
that he knew him to have made abundance of money
of all sorts. I could be saved something very bright
(14:17):
lined before him, which look a plate. In short, the
evidence was very plain and positive to all which he
made but an indifferent defense, but was very saucy in
the court, affronting mister record a diverse times. Challoner's trial
(14:42):
probably didn't last more than half an hour. We know
that he would have had only his own word to
defend himself. That he would have stood at the bar,
the cold march air at his back, facing the judge
and jury on a raised platform in front of him.
But he would have stood as whit nous after witness.
Some people he'd once have called friends would place the
(15:04):
dies and the molds in his hands where the pewter
shillings or the gilded guineas, and they would say they
saw him do it. He was innocent. He said he
was set up. The court did not agree. Act two.
(15:29):
The end, Challoner didn't take his sentencing well. All those
times he had slipped through the iron fingers of justice,
he probably couldn't believe that this was it. After his condemnation,
(15:50):
he was continually crying out. He struggled and flunked about
for life like a whale struck with a harping iron,
so that the warrant for his exit ution being signed,
he was amongst the number appointed to die. When that
fatal story reached his ears, he bellowed and ruled worse
(16:11):
than an Irish woman at a funeral. Nothing but murder, murder,
murder was to be heard from him. Nothing could be
thought on to make him take that patiently which he
must embrace, whether he would or no. And indeed a
man who makes new conscience in his life may well
(16:34):
tremble at the approaches of death. Newton received one last
desperate letter from Chaloner just two days before his execution.
(16:56):
Oh dear sir, nobody can say of me but you.
Chaloner had crossed Isaac Newton. He had insulted him, He
had insulted the crown. Oh God, my god, I shall
be murdered unless you saved me. Newton rarely forgave, and
he damn sure I didn't forget. Oh I hope God
will move your heart with mercy and pity to do
(17:19):
this thing for me. Newton never wrote back. You're near murdered,
humble servant, w Challoner. The night before Chaloner was strung
(17:42):
up on the tyburn tree. The sexton of St. Sepulchro
Without Newgate, the church just outside Newgate's walls, ring a
handbell under his window and the windows of the others
faded to die the next day. As he rang the bell,
he repeated the same poem that hundreds of other condemned
people had heard before this night. All you that in
(18:03):
the condemned hold, do lie, prepare you for to morrow
you shall die. Watch all and pray. The hour is
drawing near that you before the Almighty must appear. Examine
well yourself and time repent that you may not to
(18:25):
eternal flames be set. And when Saint Sepica's bell tomorrow tones,
the Lord above have mercy on your soul. Chaloner probably
didn't sleep. At noon the next day the morning bells
(18:49):
of St. Sepulchro Raine, Chaloner was ushered into the Condemned
room at Newgate, where his iron shackles were removed and
hands bound the simple rope. He was in haggard, probably
coughing and undoubtedly itching with lice. Shortly afternoon, Jowner left
Newgate Prison for the last time. He was bundled into
(19:10):
an open sled dragged by a horse, open so that
everyone could see him and shame him. The procession paused
at Saint Seppel. First, the vicar was obligated to once
again remind them and everyone else watching that they were
about to die. All good people, pray heartily unto God
(19:34):
for these poor sinners who are now going to their death,
for whom this great bell doth toe. You that are
condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears, Ask mercy of
the Lord for the salvation of your own souls. Lord,
(19:54):
have mercy upon you, Christ, have mercy upon you. This
was the atmosphere that the authorities wanted, This solemnity, this
quaking terror, this public shame. This was what was supposed
to keep other people from attempting the same crimes. What
(20:17):
they got, however, was often more like a carnival. As
Chaloner and his fellow condemned made their way through the
city to the Tyburn Tree, people lined the streets and
hung from the windows. Some people threw things at the
passing procession, although what they threw depended on the crime.
(20:38):
When they convicted, were well liked, women blew kisses, and
according to one contemporary writer, many of the condemned were
quote on good terms with the mom and jokes were
exchanged between the men who were going to be hanged
and the men who deserved to be pickpockets and thieves
bide their trade throughout the crowds, even as the example
of what could happen to them if they were caught
(21:00):
processed a pact. He's going to use bush gold MESA challenger, however,
was probably not catching kisses or joking. Counterfeiters were often
among the most reviled of criminals. People hated them for
making life difficult for everyone else and for undermining trust
(21:20):
in the currency and the economy. He'd have been cursed
at hit with mud and rotten food or worse. Though
the Tyburn Tree was less than three miles from Newgate,
it took the procession more than two hours to reach it,
owing to the crowds and to that final stop at
(21:41):
the pub nearest the tree for one last point, Hey hey,
hey game. An even larger crowd awaited the notorious Challenger
when he arrived at the tree. Luckiest were those who
rented pews and benches nearest the scaffold. Everyone else had
(22:05):
to stand on tiptoe to witness the hanging. The Tiber
and Triple tree, three horizontal beams eighteen feet in the air,
was capable of executing twenty four prisoners all at once,
but it rarely had so many that you deserve you
black hearted filling. It's unknown how many others were executed
the day Challenger was, although he wasn't alone. When the
(22:29):
moment came. The Challenger stood before the tree and the
crowd's hands bound, still proclaiming his innocence. Kill them longer,
I am innocent, Lord, to have mercy upon you, Christ,
have mercy upon you murdered, but perjury. I need justice
(22:50):
and pretense of law. And by the warden of the
mint himself, you know that Challenger didn't get away with it,
and you know already that Isaac Newton wasn't there to
watch him, haye, but that anonymous biographer was. Within weeks
of Challenger's execution, the pamphlet was printed and being sold
(23:13):
on the same streets which Chaloner had only lately sold
his counterfeit coins. It concluded, thus lived and thus died,
A man who had he squared his talent by the
rules of justice and integrity, might have been useful to
the Commonwealth. But as he followed only the Dictates of
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Vice was as a rotten member cut off epilogue money
for nothing. So can I get points of London Pride please,
(24:01):
and I will come over here and pay with my
Apple pet. Yeah, okay, I put my past code in here.
There we go, just like magic, wonderful. Thank you so
(24:26):
so much. Okay. So I am just bought my point
at the Devereaux, which is a very historic pub in
central London. Um. This used to be the Grecian coffee House,
which was where Isaac Newton, Samuel Peeps so many other
people would come um to chat about royal society stuff.
(24:51):
So I'm also sitting in the Isaac Newton booth, and
I've got a great picture here of Isaac Newton on
the wall. We've got some some paintings of him and
his telescope. This is definitely a place that's dedicated to Newton.
Here at this pub, there aren't newspapers on the table.
There's pamphlets, mostly because everybody's reading stuff on their phone.
(25:13):
And the thing that I just paid with this digital
representation of the money in my bank account, that would
just be bonkers to the seventeenth century coffee lever or pubgoer.
But that's all the stuff on the surface, because lots
of other things haven't changed. Those questions about money, about
(25:35):
the kinds of things that could be money, whether it's
bits of hand hammered metal with the King's head on them,
or paper or lotto tickets, those ideas coalesced into the
utterly bizarre fact that I can use my phone to
pay for my points or my dishes of coffee. Can
you tell that that was like my first time doing it,
(25:57):
because now I genuinely don't know what my actual waldy
exists for anyway, A big theme of this podcast has
been that money is only valuable because we all agree,
all believe that it has value. We thought gold and
silver had value, then it does, so it made sense
to use that as a medium of exchange. Then we
(26:20):
believe that the word of the government was actually enough.
In three FDR took the US off the gold standard,
two years after Britain had already done the same. But
the fact that US money is backed not by a
random precious metal, but by a governmental guarantee that's what's
called fiat currency, is part of the reason that people
have recently been talking about a trillion dollar coin, a
(26:45):
one trillion dollar coin, a gazillion dollar debt limit, removing
Congress from the equation. Those are among democrats proposed solutions
to the debt ceiling standoff. The idea is that the
US is once again about to hit its debt ceiling.
Now remember the national debt thing we invented back in
episode two, and by we I mean English Parliament. Anyway,
(27:06):
the US reaching its debt ceiling the amount of money
that it's allowed to borrow to keep the lights on.
This happens a bit. The conflict happens when Congress refuses
to raise the debt ceiling. Then government shutdown ensues. But
the Treasury Secretary can theoretically solve that. Janet Yellen could
(27:28):
bypass Congress an issue a single one trillion dollar coin
made from platinum. She would then deposit it in the
Federal Reserve just like it's a real account, and thus
provide the country with enough money to pay its bills,
no more borrowing necessary. As an one coin that is
worth more than the GDPs of Greece, Colombia, Poland a
(27:52):
whole bunch of other countries, a coin that is essentially performing,
albeit legally the same trick that Challenge did making money
from nothing. As of this recording, Yellen hasn't and the
Biden administration very probably won't meant that coin, although the
deadlock in Congress is certainly making this idea more appealing now.
(28:17):
Another reason that we're talking about the trillion dollar coin,
beyond the marre fact that because of the currency it's possible,
is that other thing that was becoming important in Newton's time,
mass media. The trillion dollar coin idea was floated by
the White House privately back in two thousand and eleven,
but it wouldn't really be a thing now if it
hadn't been given air on multiple platforms. Paul Krugman, in
(28:41):
an opinion for The New York Times Bloomberg Podcasts, declaring
it's not a joke hashtag meant the coin, among many others,
that these kinds of debates about monetary policy shouldn't just
happen amongst the bunch of old, rich white dudes who
make the policy most definitely has it's antecedents and pamphlets
(29:02):
like Peter Bondo's humble suggestions to the Money Here's the
money coin with the m O canal to be made
exactly a long and William Chaloner's proposals to fix the
coins now England have been more grieved with clipton counterfeit money.
So yeah, more oxygen for good ideas and boo, more
(29:22):
oxygen for bad ones. So this trillion dollar coin is
it a good idea or a bad idea? Janet Yellen
certainly thinks it's a bad idea. She said so. And
if your entire currency is based on trust, magic ng
money out of literally nothing doesn't do much to shore
up that trust. It doesn't help the inflation situation, and
(29:44):
it also rather uncomfortably blurs the lines between monetary policy,
which is meant to be independent of politics, and fiscal policy,
which is laid out by elected politicians. On the other hand,
if anyone wants to get that old counterfeit forged fired up,
now is the time. All this talk about trust and
(30:09):
made up coins and national debt has me thinking, what
if you don't want to trust the government anymore? Could
something else be money even if it's not backed by
that governmental guarantee. How about a bunch of code? How
about cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrencies are exciting because they're decentralized not tied
(30:34):
to or controlled by a government or a central bank.
The first cryptocurrencies started appearing in the mid nine es,
but e cashed had a hard time getting off the
ground because you can be all, this is money, trust
us people, but people won't unless they have a compelling
reason to. And then came Bitcoin, which solved one of
(30:54):
the main problems of digital currency, making it trustable face.
Bitcoin uses blockchain, which is a huge chain linked database
that acts as a ledger of transactions proof of value. Notably,
blockchain can be used for any data really, not just
financial services. The database is maintained by many different people,
so there's no central agency that monitors or controls it.
(31:18):
And it's open, transparent, immutable, but it's not completely bulletproof.
As WILLIAMS. Chaloner recognized back in stur Si, a big
seismic change in the landscape of really important stuff like
money is also going to throw up new opportunities for
exploiting that landscape. Tom Levinson and when you do something
(31:43):
new in the world of finance, some people will understand
it better than others. Unscrupulous people who understand it well
will take advantage of those others. When it's something really new,
and interesting. Um. Not even the people who think they
know with the best you know, will grasp all the assibilities,
including the negative possibilities, the unintended consequences. And that's something
(32:05):
that recurs over and over again. Challenger forged bank notes
and lottery tickets because these were new, weird, untried things
and he could, and some modern day challengers are basically
doing the same thing. Consider the story of one Coin.
(32:26):
Back in one Coin was going to be bigger than Bitcoin.
Founder Ruga Ignatova, from the stage at Wembley Arena in
North London to thousands of hyped up investors, promised that
it would be. This network was created to become and
to fuel the growth of one coin, which I strongly
(32:48):
believe will be the number one cryptocurrency worldwide. What one
coin actually was was a massive multi level marketing scan
them better known as a Ponzi scheme. One coin didn't
have what Bitcoin did, a blockchain, and without it, the
numbers the quote value of those one coins were meaningless.
(33:12):
One coin itself could say it was worth whatever they
wanted it to be. Now, no one knew this, though,
so people invested in it. Lots of people Exactly how
much money one Coin took in It's hard to say.
Some reports say four billion euros. Authors put it as
high as fifteen billion euros. This was money from regular people,
people who thought they were making a wise investment in
(33:34):
an up and coming market. On October two, thousand seventeen,
doctor Rugia Ignatova boarded a flight from Sophia, Bulgaria to Athens,
and that was the last anyone saw or heard of
her or the billions of euros she stole. Again. Kaig
Natova more or less got away with it. Where is
(33:58):
Isaac Newton when you need him him? All? Right? Well,
Newton might have sniffed out this kind of fraud or
he might have gotten caught up in it, just like
he did back in seventeen twenty. So what made one
Coin plausible, what made people think it was real, is
because the idea of making a lot of money very
(34:20):
quickly is always appealing, but also because of the financial
instruments that were emerging in Newton's time. And Newton may
have really understood the principles of things like representational money
and speculation, but that didn't stop him from getting burned
and what would be called the south Sea Bubble, so
(34:42):
a bubble is when an asset or commodity suddenly spikes
in value far above its quote real value. That's the
bubble inflating, and then justice suddenly pops value plummeting. I
think the dot com bubble or housing. Why bubbles happen
is a big part of behavioral economics, but suffice to
(35:02):
say they're hard to predict and even harder to ride out.
The south Sea Bubble did have approximate cause, however. In
seventeen twenty, the House of Lords gave the south Sea Company,
a joint stock company, a monopoly on trade with South
America in exchange for seven million pounds to finance a
war with you guessed it, France. The money also went
(35:25):
to underwrite the National Debt, that thing that had just
been created in sixteen ninety four with the Bank of England.
Overnight shares in the south Sea Company exploded in value.
I think, like the whole game stop situation, but Poland,
the national debt and a bunch of literal big wigs,
and you've got the idea. Tom Levinson explains, the bubble
(35:46):
was just this huge social and cultural carnival for a while,
and people went money and the fabulous cartoons and satirical
poems and nasty moralistic plays and all this the center
around this way. Greed and money mania took over England
at the time, but lots of people got snared in it.
(36:08):
The problem was the south Sea Company wasn't really doing
any actual trading, and soon the bubble popped. The richest
man in England, to Duke to Portland, lost his shirt
and ultimately his life to speculations in Sausia bubble. And
to me, the most striking thing is that, you know,
(36:29):
the one person in Europe you could count on to
understand the underlying mathematics of the financial transaction being proposed
in Sausia bubble, person who really really knew, you know,
how to calculate that. Yeah, in fact, the things that
were happening to south Sea stock were just unsustainable. That
man was Isaac Newton, and he lost a ton in
(36:52):
the bubble. He too got caught in the emotions of
the moment and the desire for wealth in the most
in some ways personally humilia eating way. You know, he
had had investments in the south Sea Company from for
many years before and it made a good tidy, respectable
profit on it. And when the bubble started inflating in
(37:12):
UH in the spring of seventeen. He looked at his
growing profit and said, you know, I've made enough money
and sold well the share. But the bubble continued to
expand and it went to more than double the price
to be sold his shares. That and that apparently drove
Newton bunkers. So he went back in at the very
top of the market. And he kept buying for another
(37:35):
two months as the market hovered near its top. And
you know, his last purchase of South Seas shares was
like two weeks before the crash and uh and he
lost tens of thousands of pounds, which is millions of
pounds in twenty one century money. Now, don't be too
sad for poor Newton. He wasn't left destitute. He still
(37:55):
had a very good gig with the Royal Mint, although
he was no longer the warden. Not long after Challenger's execution,
Thomas Neil, the useless master of the Mint, died. Newton,
who had basically done his job and more during the recoinage,
was offered the position he started on Christmas Day. No
(38:16):
more catching for him, although he probably didn't mind. Though
the two positions were on similar levels of authority and salary.
The master also took a fee for every pound of
metal coined at the mint. Newton had done that for years,
squirreling it away in besting some doing very well for himself,
but obviously losing his shirt was pretty irritating. He apparently
(38:39):
said to his niece, who he was very close to,
and you know, I can predict the motions of the
heavenly bodies, but not the madness of crowds, madness of
the people. I think it's the word. And you know
what's funny about that quote is, of course he was
one of the people. He couldn't predict his own madness,
but that was what so galled him. He lost control.
You know, this famously tight le wound and regid personality
(39:03):
lost his reasoning mind around money for a while. But
the whole speculation thing, the money being made handover fist,
the growing economy that had some other attendant effects. Now
this isn't exactly causal or linear, but here's some of
what was happening. People, thanks to these exciting financial instruments,
(39:24):
had more money. More money meant quite literally more problems.
The more stuff and property people had, the more, they
wanted to protect it and others wanted to steal it.
In the years after Newton was running his operations, it
was clear that something more needed to be done to
deter crime, especially property crime. But as we've said over
(39:49):
and over, there was no agency charged with dealing with crime.
So what's the eighteenth century lawmaker to do in the
face of rising property crime? Lee Goal Historian Harry Potter
explains that was when you really got the growth of
capital punishment being used routinely for minor property offenses. Because
(40:14):
John John Rotfron some sixteen nineties said that the sole
end of government is the preservation of property, and property
was undefended already a significant number of crimes were punishable
by death. Counterfeiting obviously one of them. But after the
Waltham Black Act of seventeen twenty three, upwards of two
(40:35):
hundred offenses such a pickpocketing, shoplifting, arson attempting, arson poaching
all became capital offenses. But even with all those new
capital crimes, through the nineteenth century, counterfeiting was one of
the top reasons people were executed in England and Wales
between eighteen o five and eighteen eighteen. One out of
(40:58):
every five executed criminals was a convicted forger or counterfeiter.
That stature shot up to one out of three in
London and the adjoining Middlesex County. The act was repealed
about a century later, after it was clear that the
threat of death didn't actually do much to deter crime. Policeman,
(41:19):
on their hand, could be helpful, maybe maybe not. For
all Isaac Newton's great work and stamping out counterfeit coins,
fake coin makers didn't just suddenly stop production because Isaac
Newton was on the case. Capital punishment didn't work. Policing
only sort of worked. Counterfeiting isn't called the second oldest
(41:40):
profession for nothing. Back in two thousand seventeen, we all
of us living in Britain, we're supposed to trade in
our old one pound coins. These coins had been around
since and they read around the edges decas at Taman,
But that decoration and a safe guard had evidently not
(42:01):
been enough. The reason we needed new coins was because,
according to an audit in two thousand fourteen, as much
as three of the coins in circulation were fakes. The
new twelve sided one pound coin is the most secure
coin in the world. It has a number of features
that make it much more difficult to counterfeit. It has
(42:23):
a bimetallic composition of two colors, with a gold color
nickel brass outer and a silver colored nickel plated inner.
It has a latent image on the front. The changes
from a pound symbol to the number one when the
coin is seen from different angles. The coins design reflects
United Kingdom's heritage and superb craftsmanship. The new high tech
(42:46):
coin was meant to be impossible to fake, except it wasn't.
Within a year of the coin's release, reports of fake
twelve sided coins began circulating. These figs were less detailed,
less precise than the real thing, but they did the trick.
It almost didn't matter if they were real or not,
as long as they were being traded. Now. There was
(43:09):
no warden of the Royal Mint at the time of
that recoinage. I don't know. Maybe if there had been,
I wouldn't still have a few worthless old pound coins
jangling and change cups. The job that Newton had done
so admirably was actually dissolved in eighty nine. Newton lived
in London and remained Master of the Mint until the
(43:30):
year he died. Seventy seven. He had been knighted by
Queen Anne back in seventeen o five, not surprisingly for
his services to science or the Mint, but just because
of contemporary politics. By the way, that's why we didn't
refer to him as Sir Isaac, because he wasn't one yet.
He was buried at Westminster Abbey alongside kings and queens
(43:53):
and martyrs and heroes, the great and the good. Newton's
legacy as a scientist or that didn't actually exist until
eighteen thirty three, by the way, has far outshined his
legacy as the able administrator of the mentor even as
the bane of London's counterfeiting games. It's the scientist Newton
(44:14):
whose statue stands well hunches really in the courtyard of
the British Library, and whose portrait hangs in the Newton
Corner at the Devereaux Pub with his prisons and telescope
and apple. It's that Newton who appeared on the one
pound note, in big curly wig atop his head, the
Principia open on his lap. Currency acts as symbolic representation
(44:39):
not only of monetary value, but also social values. It
tells a story about the people who use it. That's
why we put pictures on it. Newton's portrait on the
one pound note, traded for pints of beer and dishes
of coffee stashed in purses and wallets dropped in the streets,
further cemented his legacy as a sign tist. In two
(45:01):
thousand seventeen, the Royal Mint commemorated Sir Isaac Newton's three
d and seventy fifth birthday with, of course, a coin,
and once again it was Newton the scientist, not Newton
the cop or Newton the master of the mint who
was represented. Now, I know you can't fit a life
on a coin, but still maybe a coin is a
(45:25):
fitting testament to a man who not only laid the
groundwork for how we understand our universe, but who also
rescued English money from clippers and coiners. The coin piece,
featuring a map of the solar system, was never circulated,
but you can still buy it on one of those
collector websites or eBay for well a lot more than
(45:48):
fifty bents. Just make sure it's the real deal. Newton's
Law is a production of I Heart Radio. It's written
and hosted by me Linda Rodriguez, mcrabbie. Our senior producer
is Ryan Murdoch. Our producer is Emily Marina. Our executive
producer is Jason English. Original music by Alee McCoy with
(46:11):
editing help from Mary Do, Sound design and mixing by
Jeremy Thall, Research and fact checking by me and Joscelyn Sears.
Our show logo is designed by Lucy Quintanilla. Big thanks
to our voice actors throughout the series, Keith Plumbing, Mark McDonald,
Robert Jack Paul Tinto, Ruthie Stevens, Emma Falcons and our
(46:33):
favorite street urchins Austin Rodriguez mcgraby and Edwin Rodriguez mcgraby.
I got the Pots as always special thanks to our
experts Chris Barker, Dr. Patricia farre, Tom Levinson, Joe ed
Raymond and Harry Potter. Special thanks to mangest Hate Cadur,
Fineflex Sound Studios and the Modern Royal Mint. If you
(46:56):
enjoyed Newton's Law, please leave us a rating and a comment.
You might also enjoy other I Heart originals such as
Black Cowboys and Operation Midnight. Climax. In our next I
Heard original series will transport you to the nineties. The
nineties nineties to find out what happened when the world's
(47:17):
biggest movie star took over a small town in Idaho.
Keep an eye out for Haleywood on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows.
And thanks for listening.
This is an I heart original. William Chaloner was raving.
His face was slick with sweat, his eyes were rolling.
He ripped off his clothes, literally tore them to pieces,
and ran stark naked around the ward At midnight, the
(00:24):
warder's managed to catch and find him hand and foot,
and confine him to his bed, where he was now
being taunted by the devil himself, crouched in the corner
of his cell, laughing and hissing at it. Don't don't
let him take me. I pray you good, sir, please?
(00:47):
Or was he the sinews of his roguedy, money being
gone to and his pretended services all blasted, he had
little hopes left, and, being of a very cowardly nature,
the apprehension of what he might come to struck him
into a fit of sickness, and wrought so strong upon
(01:08):
his brain that he was sometimes delirious, in which fits
he was continually raving that the devil was come for him.
In such frightful whimsies these intervals of lunacy, he endeavored
to improve to a height sufficient to put off his
approaching trial, counterfeiting the madman as well he could. Chowner
(01:32):
could have been faking it. After all, Faking it was
something that he was very, very good at, but he
also might not have been. When Chowner had arrived at
Newgate in October of the previous year, he was confident
that he could figure a way out of this jam.
But Chowner didn't know what he was up against. When
he arrived there, he made very light of the matter,
(01:54):
bragging he had a trick left yet, But when he
heard how many witnesses came in against him, he began
to droop. Challenger had by now spent months in Newgate, filthy,
disgusting Newgate, and without the money that had bullied him
through his last into Newgate, things were bleak. It was winter,
(02:19):
cold and wet, and the walls wet with damp. He
slept on straw covering a bare board. He couldn't afford
to send out for nicer or even palatable food, and
he was drinking the filthy, disease riddled water that everyone
else was. And in that time he'd seen his hopes
extinguished one after the other, until all he was left
(02:42):
with was the dark fact of his impending death. It
was enough to send someone mad, but in all honesty,
it didn't matter whether Challenger was really suffering a mental
health episode. It's not like there's an insanity plea in
the seventeenth century. For one thing and for another time
(03:03):
for William Challoner was running out, but alas all would
not do, the sessions came in which his long concealed
villainies were to be laid open to the world, and justice,
which often had attempted as had often been baffled by him,
(03:23):
was now ready with her iron hands to break in
two pieces for I Heart Radio, I'm Linda Rodriguez mccrabie,
and this is Newton's Law. Episode eight, our final episode
cashed out You're Act one Chaloner's defense. While Chaloner wasted
(04:31):
away in Newgate, Isaac Newton was busy. Challenger's trial would
take place at the next sessions, although when exactly that
would be was uncertain, but Newton needed the time to
make sure that his case against Challenger was rock solid.
Newton spent the first few months of deep in the
(04:53):
Challenger case, collecting the depositions of scores of witnesses who
could testify that they had seemed Challenger plying as terrible
craft and crucially, Newton made sure that these witnesses weren't
going to do a runner or get cold feet when
the sessions came around. Tom Levinson, author of Newton and
the Counterfeiter, One of the things I think Newton learns
(05:16):
from this first defeat is that he has to arrest
and confine the people who have the goods on Challenger
and offer them, you know, whatever it takes to get
them to tell the story he wanted to hear about
Challenger and not let him get away. You get to
a position where challengers techniques could could influence them. Newton's
(05:37):
principal informant was Thomas Carter, the man who had been
in with Challenger on the mult ticket scam. Carter knew
that giving the warden all the information he could was
his only chance of making it out of Newgate alive.
That all his hopes lay in giving Newton everything he
needed to hang Challenger. I can produce another to justify
(05:58):
besides myself, and I believe I can produce some of
his work all this which he has said, I can
bring good witness to justify it. I humbly lay myself
at your honest fate, hoping your honest favor as I
shall endeavor to deserve it. Carter became Newton's man on
the inside, and he connected Newton with a bunch of informants.
(06:19):
And one of the things Newton did was put informants
and spies basically next to Chaloner in the cells. And
Chaloner was clever enough to know that this was likely
to happen, so he basically disdained the first couple that
Newton put in and and sort of diagnosed them as
potential spies. But Newton just kept putting people in, and
finally Chaloner actually began to speak more openly to one
(06:44):
of Newton's agents, John Ignacious Lawson, was a former doctor
turned coiner who was desperate to be abuse. Lawson told
Newton that he was starving and that since he had
been locked up, some of his past confederates had stolen
all of his money and property and are of one
of his children to death and sent the rest of begging.
(07:04):
Lawson was the perfect spy. He and Chaloner had never
worked together, so that meant that Challenger wasn't worried that
Lawson could testify against him directly. Lawson was able to
get close to Challeoner, even sleeping in the same cell.
Lawson was later tried for coining in October, but he
got off on a technicality a matter of jurisdiction or
(07:29):
and this seems like it's more likely a matter of
past usefulness. Lawson told Newton who Challenger was worried would
testify against him. Carter, of course, and his wife Catherine,
and the Holloways, but also some new names. This gave
Newton more people to find to testify against Challenger. Lawson
(07:50):
was also the one who told Newton that Challenger was
quote feigning madness in order to delay his trial. William Chandoner,
being my chamber mate, owned to me that when the
sessions came, and if he found himself in danger, he
would pretend himself sick. Challoner obviously didn't know that Lawson
was telling Newton everything, but even if he had, there
(08:13):
was probably little he could have done to save himself.
He didn't even really know what he was being charged with,
and he had little idea of who else beyond Thomas
Carter and Thomas Holloway. Isaac Newton might be bringing his witness.
Like most people awaiting trial at Newgate, Challoner would have
been conducting his own defense. At this time, people accused
(08:34):
of most crimes were not permitted a defense lawyer. The
only exception was in cases of high treason, which technically
counterfeiting was this was to curb abuse of the charge
by the sovereign, but counterfeiting wasn't that type of high treason. Evidently,
so coiners and clippers still didn't get defense lawyers. So
Chaloner was grasping at straws. Channer wrote to Secretary of
(09:02):
State James Vernon and too Newton to claim that the
whole malt ticket scam was Carter's plot to ensnare Chander
in some quote mischief. What's more, Carter, he said, was
nothing more than a rogue and a criminal. For I
have such a man to be evidence against me that
will not stick at anything, to swear to get his
(09:24):
own liberty. He was once taken for coining and stealing
horses and put him warrick gail. He has been six
times in the pillory in London and one in the
country for forgery and perjury. He robbed his master and
was put in the counter and got out in woman's clothes.
(09:46):
He has gone by several names. He has been in
most gails in England. I discovered and convicted him of
forgery but he got out of jail, so I know
he will do me all the hurt he can. Challenger
tried to appeal directly to Newton, the man he saw
(10:07):
as both the author of all of his sufferings and
the only person who could end them. I beg you
will not continue your displeasure against me, for I have
suffered very much. I wholly throw myself upon your great goodness.
I m, Sir, your most humble and obedient servant. His
(10:32):
letters to Newton were increasingly desperate, increasingly willing to give
up whatever he could to save himself. Sir, in obedience
to your worship, I will give you the best account
I can remember. God shall be glad to do any
service to the government that is in my power. If
(10:54):
I intended to have anything to do in counterfeiting of
mult tickets, then I des God all my team. I
never received my soul. I have been guilty of no
crime these six years. If he ever said that he
could engrave plates and make coin, well that was jest.
(11:15):
It was a joke. That whole thing in front of Parliament,
accusing the Mint of corruption. He'd been forced to testify honest,
and this whole mult ticket scam. This was obviously worked
up by that David Davis to get money out of
the government. Oh, for God's sake, do not for suspicions
and suggestions seem real truth. And so let me go
(11:37):
murthered out of the world. Oh, let your great goodness
be known to the world by being merciful to me.
Chalder's mental state was clearly deteriorating by the time he
wrote to Justice Raylton, the local magistrates supervising the case.
He said, I am so very ill, I cannot hold
(11:59):
my Newton of course, never responded to any of Challenger's letters.
Why would he. He had all that he needed. The
rope wound from the testimonies of so many people was
around Challenger's neck already, It just needed a good tightening.
(12:27):
On March one, the Grand Jury met at the guild Hall,
the sort of city hall for the city of London.
This was a hearing to determine whether the indictments against
Challengers should go ahead and to give Challenger a chance
to plead. He might have been surprised to learn then
and there that he was being charged with three counts
(12:48):
of counterfeiting offenses dating back seven years and not as
he thought the Malt lottery ticket scam. At first he
refused to speak a last ditch effort to lay his trial,
then he claimed he had been mad these last three weeks,
to which a worthy justice on the bench made answer
(13:10):
that to his knowledge, he had been so for as
many years. Challenger eventually pleaded not guilty. His trial took
place just a few hours later, this time at the
Old Bailey, the open air courtroom attached to Newgate. The
judge south Field Level was infamously ruthless and corrupt, and
(13:31):
was no believer in innocent until proven guilty, which, to
be fair, wasn't really a thing back then. From the
moment Challenger was described as notorious by the judge, he
must have known things were not going to go well.
He was put upon his trial, wherein there were a
whole cloud of witnesses against him. Also, William Chalon told
(13:54):
me that he intended as more late offenses. Once swore
that she had seen him make some thousand pistols, and
I told him he would come to be hanged for
it as price. One another that she had seen him
do the like by guineas Helena would give Thomas Twin
that he knew him to have made abundance of money
of all sorts. I could be saved something very bright
(14:17):
lined before him, which look a plate. In short, the
evidence was very plain and positive to all which he
made but an indifferent defense, but was very saucy in
the court, affronting mister record a diverse times. Challoner's trial
(14:42):
probably didn't last more than half an hour. We know
that he would have had only his own word to
defend himself. That he would have stood at the bar,
the cold march air at his back, facing the judge
and jury on a raised platform in front of him.
But he would have stood as whit nous after witness.
Some people he'd once have called friends would place the
(15:04):
dies and the molds in his hands where the pewter
shillings or the gilded guineas, and they would say they
saw him do it. He was innocent. He said he
was set up. The court did not agree. Act two.
(15:29):
The end, Challoner didn't take his sentencing well. All those
times he had slipped through the iron fingers of justice,
he probably couldn't believe that this was it. After his condemnation,
(15:50):
he was continually crying out. He struggled and flunked about
for life like a whale struck with a harping iron,
so that the warrant for his exit ution being signed,
he was amongst the number appointed to die. When that
fatal story reached his ears, he bellowed and ruled worse
(16:11):
than an Irish woman at a funeral. Nothing but murder, murder,
murder was to be heard from him. Nothing could be
thought on to make him take that patiently which he
must embrace, whether he would or no. And indeed a
man who makes new conscience in his life may well
(16:34):
tremble at the approaches of death. Newton received one last
desperate letter from Chaloner just two days before his execution.
(16:56):
Oh dear sir, nobody can say of me but you.
Chaloner had crossed Isaac Newton. He had insulted him, He
had insulted the crown. Oh God, my god, I shall
be murdered unless you saved me. Newton rarely forgave, and
he damn sure I didn't forget. Oh I hope God
will move your heart with mercy and pity to do
(17:19):
this thing for me. Newton never wrote back. You're near murdered,
humble servant, w Challoner. The night before Chaloner was strung
(17:42):
up on the tyburn tree. The sexton of St. Sepulchro
Without Newgate, the church just outside Newgate's walls, ring a
handbell under his window and the windows of the others
faded to die the next day. As he rang the bell,
he repeated the same poem that hundreds of other condemned
people had heard before this night. All you that in
(18:03):
the condemned hold, do lie, prepare you for to morrow
you shall die. Watch all and pray. The hour is
drawing near that you before the Almighty must appear. Examine
well yourself and time repent that you may not to
(18:25):
eternal flames be set. And when Saint Sepica's bell tomorrow tones,
the Lord above have mercy on your soul. Chaloner probably
didn't sleep. At noon the next day the morning bells
(18:49):
of St. Sepulchro Raine, Chaloner was ushered into the Condemned
room at Newgate, where his iron shackles were removed and
hands bound the simple rope. He was in haggard, probably
coughing and undoubtedly itching with lice. Shortly afternoon, Jowner left
Newgate Prison for the last time. He was bundled into
(19:10):
an open sled dragged by a horse, open so that
everyone could see him and shame him. The procession paused
at Saint Seppel. First, the vicar was obligated to once
again remind them and everyone else watching that they were
about to die. All good people, pray heartily unto God
(19:34):
for these poor sinners who are now going to their death,
for whom this great bell doth toe. You that are
condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears, Ask mercy of
the Lord for the salvation of your own souls. Lord,
(19:54):
have mercy upon you, Christ, have mercy upon you. This
was the atmosphere that the authorities wanted, This solemnity, this
quaking terror, this public shame. This was what was supposed
to keep other people from attempting the same crimes. What
(20:17):
they got, however, was often more like a carnival. As
Chaloner and his fellow condemned made their way through the
city to the Tyburn Tree, people lined the streets and
hung from the windows. Some people threw things at the
passing procession, although what they threw depended on the crime.
(20:38):
When they convicted, were well liked, women blew kisses, and
according to one contemporary writer, many of the condemned were
quote on good terms with the mom and jokes were
exchanged between the men who were going to be hanged
and the men who deserved to be pickpockets and thieves
bide their trade throughout the crowds, even as the example
of what could happen to them if they were caught
(21:00):
processed a pact. He's going to use bush gold MESA challenger, however,
was probably not catching kisses or joking. Counterfeiters were often
among the most reviled of criminals. People hated them for
making life difficult for everyone else and for undermining trust
(21:20):
in the currency and the economy. He'd have been cursed
at hit with mud and rotten food or worse. Though
the Tyburn Tree was less than three miles from Newgate,
it took the procession more than two hours to reach it,
owing to the crowds and to that final stop at
(21:41):
the pub nearest the tree for one last point, Hey hey,
hey game. An even larger crowd awaited the notorious Challenger
when he arrived at the tree. Luckiest were those who
rented pews and benches nearest the scaffold. Everyone else had
(22:05):
to stand on tiptoe to witness the hanging. The Tiber
and Triple tree, three horizontal beams eighteen feet in the air,
was capable of executing twenty four prisoners all at once,
but it rarely had so many that you deserve you
black hearted filling. It's unknown how many others were executed
the day Challenger was, although he wasn't alone. When the
(22:29):
moment came. The Challenger stood before the tree and the
crowd's hands bound, still proclaiming his innocence. Kill them longer,
I am innocent, Lord, to have mercy upon you, Christ,
have mercy upon you murdered, but perjury. I need justice
(22:50):
and pretense of law. And by the warden of the
mint himself, you know that Challenger didn't get away with it,
and you know already that Isaac Newton wasn't there to
watch him, haye, but that anonymous biographer was. Within weeks
of Challenger's execution, the pamphlet was printed and being sold
(23:13):
on the same streets which Chaloner had only lately sold
his counterfeit coins. It concluded, thus lived and thus died,
A man who had he squared his talent by the
rules of justice and integrity, might have been useful to
the Commonwealth. But as he followed only the Dictates of
(23:35):
Vice was as a rotten member cut off epilogue money
for nothing. So can I get points of London Pride please,
(24:01):
and I will come over here and pay with my
Apple pet. Yeah, okay, I put my past code in here.
There we go, just like magic, wonderful. Thank you so
(24:26):
so much. Okay. So I am just bought my point
at the Devereaux, which is a very historic pub in
central London. Um. This used to be the Grecian coffee House,
which was where Isaac Newton, Samuel Peeps so many other
people would come um to chat about royal society stuff.
(24:51):
So I'm also sitting in the Isaac Newton booth, and
I've got a great picture here of Isaac Newton on
the wall. We've got some some paintings of him and
his telescope. This is definitely a place that's dedicated to Newton.
Here at this pub, there aren't newspapers on the table.
There's pamphlets, mostly because everybody's reading stuff on their phone.
(25:13):
And the thing that I just paid with this digital
representation of the money in my bank account, that would
just be bonkers to the seventeenth century coffee lever or pubgoer.
But that's all the stuff on the surface, because lots
of other things haven't changed. Those questions about money, about
(25:35):
the kinds of things that could be money, whether it's
bits of hand hammered metal with the King's head on them,
or paper or lotto tickets, those ideas coalesced into the
utterly bizarre fact that I can use my phone to
pay for my points or my dishes of coffee. Can
you tell that that was like my first time doing it,
(25:57):
because now I genuinely don't know what my actual waldy
exists for anyway, A big theme of this podcast has
been that money is only valuable because we all agree,
all believe that it has value. We thought gold and
silver had value, then it does, so it made sense
to use that as a medium of exchange. Then we
(26:20):
believe that the word of the government was actually enough.
In three FDR took the US off the gold standard,
two years after Britain had already done the same. But
the fact that US money is backed not by a
random precious metal, but by a governmental guarantee that's what's
called fiat currency, is part of the reason that people
have recently been talking about a trillion dollar coin, a
(26:45):
one trillion dollar coin, a gazillion dollar debt limit, removing
Congress from the equation. Those are among democrats proposed solutions
to the debt ceiling standoff. The idea is that the
US is once again about to hit its debt ceiling.
Now remember the national debt thing we invented back in
episode two, and by we I mean English Parliament. Anyway,
(27:06):
the US reaching its debt ceiling the amount of money
that it's allowed to borrow to keep the lights on.
This happens a bit. The conflict happens when Congress refuses
to raise the debt ceiling. Then government shutdown ensues. But
the Treasury Secretary can theoretically solve that. Janet Yellen could
(27:28):
bypass Congress an issue a single one trillion dollar coin
made from platinum. She would then deposit it in the
Federal Reserve just like it's a real account, and thus
provide the country with enough money to pay its bills,
no more borrowing necessary. As an one coin that is
worth more than the GDPs of Greece, Colombia, Poland a
(27:52):
whole bunch of other countries, a coin that is essentially performing,
albeit legally the same trick that Challenge did making money
from nothing. As of this recording, Yellen hasn't and the
Biden administration very probably won't meant that coin, although the
deadlock in Congress is certainly making this idea more appealing now.
(28:17):
Another reason that we're talking about the trillion dollar coin,
beyond the marre fact that because of the currency it's possible,
is that other thing that was becoming important in Newton's time,
mass media. The trillion dollar coin idea was floated by
the White House privately back in two thousand and eleven,
but it wouldn't really be a thing now if it
hadn't been given air on multiple platforms. Paul Krugman, in
(28:41):
an opinion for The New York Times Bloomberg Podcasts, declaring
it's not a joke hashtag meant the coin, among many others,
that these kinds of debates about monetary policy shouldn't just
happen amongst the bunch of old, rich white dudes who
make the policy most definitely has it's antecedents and pamphlets
(29:02):
like Peter Bondo's humble suggestions to the Money Here's the
money coin with the m O canal to be made
exactly a long and William Chaloner's proposals to fix the
coins now England have been more grieved with clipton counterfeit money.
So yeah, more oxygen for good ideas and boo, more
(29:22):
oxygen for bad ones. So this trillion dollar coin is
it a good idea or a bad idea? Janet Yellen
certainly thinks it's a bad idea. She said so. And
if your entire currency is based on trust, magic ng
money out of literally nothing doesn't do much to shore
up that trust. It doesn't help the inflation situation, and
(29:44):
it also rather uncomfortably blurs the lines between monetary policy,
which is meant to be independent of politics, and fiscal policy,
which is laid out by elected politicians. On the other hand,
if anyone wants to get that old counterfeit forged fired up,
now is the time. All this talk about trust and
(30:09):
made up coins and national debt has me thinking, what
if you don't want to trust the government anymore? Could
something else be money even if it's not backed by
that governmental guarantee. How about a bunch of code? How
about cryptocurrency? Cryptocurrencies are exciting because they're decentralized not tied
(30:34):
to or controlled by a government or a central bank.
The first cryptocurrencies started appearing in the mid nine es,
but e cashed had a hard time getting off the
ground because you can be all, this is money, trust
us people, but people won't unless they have a compelling
reason to. And then came Bitcoin, which solved one of
(30:54):
the main problems of digital currency, making it trustable face.
Bitcoin uses blockchain, which is a huge chain linked database
that acts as a ledger of transactions proof of value. Notably,
blockchain can be used for any data really, not just
financial services. The database is maintained by many different people,
so there's no central agency that monitors or controls it.
(31:18):
And it's open, transparent, immutable, but it's not completely bulletproof.
As WILLIAMS. Chaloner recognized back in stur Si, a big
seismic change in the landscape of really important stuff like
money is also going to throw up new opportunities for
exploiting that landscape. Tom Levinson and when you do something
(31:43):
new in the world of finance, some people will understand
it better than others. Unscrupulous people who understand it well
will take advantage of those others. When it's something really new,
and interesting. Um. Not even the people who think they
know with the best you know, will grasp all the assibilities,
including the negative possibilities, the unintended consequences. And that's something
(32:05):
that recurs over and over again. Challenger forged bank notes
and lottery tickets because these were new, weird, untried things
and he could, and some modern day challengers are basically
doing the same thing. Consider the story of one Coin.
(32:26):
Back in one Coin was going to be bigger than Bitcoin.
Founder Ruga Ignatova, from the stage at Wembley Arena in
North London to thousands of hyped up investors, promised that
it would be. This network was created to become and
to fuel the growth of one coin, which I strongly
(32:48):
believe will be the number one cryptocurrency worldwide. What one
coin actually was was a massive multi level marketing scan
them better known as a Ponzi scheme. One coin didn't
have what Bitcoin did, a blockchain, and without it, the
numbers the quote value of those one coins were meaningless.
(33:12):
One coin itself could say it was worth whatever they
wanted it to be. Now, no one knew this, though,
so people invested in it. Lots of people Exactly how
much money one Coin took in It's hard to say.
Some reports say four billion euros. Authors put it as
high as fifteen billion euros. This was money from regular people,
people who thought they were making a wise investment in
(33:34):
an up and coming market. On October two, thousand seventeen,
doctor Rugia Ignatova boarded a flight from Sophia, Bulgaria to Athens,
and that was the last anyone saw or heard of
her or the billions of euros she stole. Again. Kaig
Natova more or less got away with it. Where is
(33:58):
Isaac Newton when you need him him? All? Right? Well,
Newton might have sniffed out this kind of fraud or
he might have gotten caught up in it, just like
he did back in seventeen twenty. So what made one
Coin plausible, what made people think it was real, is
because the idea of making a lot of money very
(34:20):
quickly is always appealing, but also because of the financial
instruments that were emerging in Newton's time. And Newton may
have really understood the principles of things like representational money
and speculation, but that didn't stop him from getting burned
and what would be called the south Sea Bubble, so
(34:42):
a bubble is when an asset or commodity suddenly spikes
in value far above its quote real value. That's the
bubble inflating, and then justice suddenly pops value plummeting. I
think the dot com bubble or housing. Why bubbles happen
is a big part of behavioral economics, but suffice to
(35:02):
say they're hard to predict and even harder to ride out.
The south Sea Bubble did have approximate cause, however. In
seventeen twenty, the House of Lords gave the south Sea Company,
a joint stock company, a monopoly on trade with South
America in exchange for seven million pounds to finance a
war with you guessed it, France. The money also went
(35:25):
to underwrite the National Debt, that thing that had just
been created in sixteen ninety four with the Bank of England.
Overnight shares in the south Sea Company exploded in value.
I think, like the whole game stop situation, but Poland,
the national debt and a bunch of literal big wigs,
and you've got the idea. Tom Levinson explains, the bubble
(35:46):
was just this huge social and cultural carnival for a while,
and people went money and the fabulous cartoons and satirical
poems and nasty moralistic plays and all this the center
around this way. Greed and money mania took over England
at the time, but lots of people got snared in it.
(36:08):
The problem was the south Sea Company wasn't really doing
any actual trading, and soon the bubble popped. The richest
man in England, to Duke to Portland, lost his shirt
and ultimately his life to speculations in Sausia bubble. And
to me, the most striking thing is that, you know,
(36:29):
the one person in Europe you could count on to
understand the underlying mathematics of the financial transaction being proposed
in Sausia bubble, person who really really knew, you know,
how to calculate that. Yeah, in fact, the things that
were happening to south Sea stock were just unsustainable. That
man was Isaac Newton, and he lost a ton in
(36:52):
the bubble. He too got caught in the emotions of
the moment and the desire for wealth in the most
in some ways personally humilia eating way. You know, he
had had investments in the south Sea Company from for
many years before and it made a good tidy, respectable
profit on it. And when the bubble started inflating in
(37:12):
UH in the spring of seventeen. He looked at his
growing profit and said, you know, I've made enough money
and sold well the share. But the bubble continued to
expand and it went to more than double the price
to be sold his shares. That and that apparently drove
Newton bunkers. So he went back in at the very
top of the market. And he kept buying for another
(37:35):
two months as the market hovered near its top. And
you know, his last purchase of South Seas shares was
like two weeks before the crash and uh and he
lost tens of thousands of pounds, which is millions of
pounds in twenty one century money. Now, don't be too
sad for poor Newton. He wasn't left destitute. He still
(37:55):
had a very good gig with the Royal Mint, although
he was no longer the warden. Not long after Challenger's execution,
Thomas Neil, the useless master of the Mint, died. Newton,
who had basically done his job and more during the recoinage,
was offered the position he started on Christmas Day. No
(38:16):
more catching for him, although he probably didn't mind. Though
the two positions were on similar levels of authority and salary.
The master also took a fee for every pound of
metal coined at the mint. Newton had done that for years,
squirreling it away in besting some doing very well for himself,
but obviously losing his shirt was pretty irritating. He apparently
(38:39):
said to his niece, who he was very close to,
and you know, I can predict the motions of the
heavenly bodies, but not the madness of crowds, madness of
the people. I think it's the word. And you know
what's funny about that quote is, of course he was
one of the people. He couldn't predict his own madness,
but that was what so galled him. He lost control.
You know, this famously tight le wound and regid personality
(39:03):
lost his reasoning mind around money for a while. But
the whole speculation thing, the money being made handover fist,
the growing economy that had some other attendant effects. Now
this isn't exactly causal or linear, but here's some of
what was happening. People, thanks to these exciting financial instruments,
(39:24):
had more money. More money meant quite literally more problems.
The more stuff and property people had, the more, they
wanted to protect it and others wanted to steal it.
In the years after Newton was running his operations, it
was clear that something more needed to be done to
deter crime, especially property crime. But as we've said over
(39:49):
and over, there was no agency charged with dealing with crime.
So what's the eighteenth century lawmaker to do in the
face of rising property crime? Lee Goal Historian Harry Potter
explains that was when you really got the growth of
capital punishment being used routinely for minor property offenses. Because
(40:14):
John John Rotfron some sixteen nineties said that the sole
end of government is the preservation of property, and property
was undefended already a significant number of crimes were punishable
by death. Counterfeiting obviously one of them. But after the
Waltham Black Act of seventeen twenty three, upwards of two
(40:35):
hundred offenses such a pickpocketing, shoplifting, arson attempting, arson poaching
all became capital offenses. But even with all those new
capital crimes, through the nineteenth century, counterfeiting was one of
the top reasons people were executed in England and Wales
between eighteen o five and eighteen eighteen. One out of
(40:58):
every five executed criminals was a convicted forger or counterfeiter.
That stature shot up to one out of three in
London and the adjoining Middlesex County. The act was repealed
about a century later, after it was clear that the
threat of death didn't actually do much to deter crime. Policeman,
(41:19):
on their hand, could be helpful, maybe maybe not. For
all Isaac Newton's great work and stamping out counterfeit coins,
fake coin makers didn't just suddenly stop production because Isaac
Newton was on the case. Capital punishment didn't work. Policing
only sort of worked. Counterfeiting isn't called the second oldest
(41:40):
profession for nothing. Back in two thousand seventeen, we all
of us living in Britain, we're supposed to trade in
our old one pound coins. These coins had been around
since and they read around the edges decas at Taman,
But that decoration and a safe guard had evidently not
(42:01):
been enough. The reason we needed new coins was because,
according to an audit in two thousand fourteen, as much
as three of the coins in circulation were fakes. The
new twelve sided one pound coin is the most secure
coin in the world. It has a number of features
that make it much more difficult to counterfeit. It has
(42:23):
a bimetallic composition of two colors, with a gold color
nickel brass outer and a silver colored nickel plated inner.
It has a latent image on the front. The changes
from a pound symbol to the number one when the
coin is seen from different angles. The coins design reflects
United Kingdom's heritage and superb craftsmanship. The new high tech
(42:46):
coin was meant to be impossible to fake, except it wasn't.
Within a year of the coin's release, reports of fake
twelve sided coins began circulating. These figs were less detailed,
less precise than the real thing, but they did the trick.
It almost didn't matter if they were real or not,
as long as they were being traded. Now. There was
(43:09):
no warden of the Royal Mint at the time of
that recoinage. I don't know. Maybe if there had been,
I wouldn't still have a few worthless old pound coins
jangling and change cups. The job that Newton had done
so admirably was actually dissolved in eighty nine. Newton lived
in London and remained Master of the Mint until the
(43:30):
year he died. Seventy seven. He had been knighted by
Queen Anne back in seventeen o five, not surprisingly for
his services to science or the Mint, but just because
of contemporary politics. By the way, that's why we didn't
refer to him as Sir Isaac, because he wasn't one yet.
He was buried at Westminster Abbey alongside kings and queens
(43:53):
and martyrs and heroes, the great and the good. Newton's
legacy as a scientist or that didn't actually exist until
eighteen thirty three, by the way, has far outshined his
legacy as the able administrator of the mentor even as
the bane of London's counterfeiting games. It's the scientist Newton
(44:14):
whose statue stands well hunches really in the courtyard of
the British Library, and whose portrait hangs in the Newton
Corner at the Devereaux Pub with his prisons and telescope
and apple. It's that Newton who appeared on the one
pound note, in big curly wig atop his head, the
Principia open on his lap. Currency acts as symbolic representation
(44:39):
not only of monetary value, but also social values. It
tells a story about the people who use it. That's
why we put pictures on it. Newton's portrait on the
one pound note, traded for pints of beer and dishes
of coffee stashed in purses and wallets dropped in the streets,
further cemented his legacy as a sign tist. In two
(45:01):
thousand seventeen, the Royal Mint commemorated Sir Isaac Newton's three
d and seventy fifth birthday with, of course, a coin,
and once again it was Newton the scientist, not Newton
the cop or Newton the master of the mint who
was represented. Now, I know you can't fit a life
on a coin, but still maybe a coin is a
(45:25):
fitting testament to a man who not only laid the
groundwork for how we understand our universe, but who also
rescued English money from clippers and coiners. The coin piece,
featuring a map of the solar system, was never circulated,
but you can still buy it on one of those
collector websites or eBay for well a lot more than
(45:48):
fifty bents. Just make sure it's the real deal. Newton's
Law is a production of I Heart Radio. It's written
and hosted by me Linda Rodriguez, mcrabbie. Our senior producer
is Ryan Murdoch. Our producer is Emily Marina. Our executive
producer is Jason English. Original music by Alee McCoy with
(46:11):
editing help from Mary Do, Sound design and mixing by
Jeremy Thall, Research and fact checking by me and Joscelyn Sears.
Our show logo is designed by Lucy Quintanilla. Big thanks
to our voice actors throughout the series, Keith Plumbing, Mark McDonald,
Robert Jack Paul Tinto, Ruthie Stevens, Emma Falcons and our
(46:33):
favorite street urchins Austin Rodriguez mcgraby and Edwin Rodriguez mcgraby.
I got the Pots as always special thanks to our
experts Chris Barker, Dr. Patricia farre, Tom Levinson, Joe ed
Raymond and Harry Potter. Special thanks to mangest Hate Cadur,
Fineflex Sound Studios and the Modern Royal Mint. If you
(46:56):
enjoyed Newton's Law, please leave us a rating and a comment.
You might also enjoy other I Heart originals such as
Black Cowboys and Operation Midnight. Climax. In our next I
Heard original series will transport you to the nineties. The
nineties nineties to find out what happened when the world's
(47:17):
biggest movie star took over a small town in Idaho.
Keep an eye out for Haleywood on the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite shows.
And thanks for listening.
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