rash action committed when in drink, and which he should certainly have
set right again when he was sober. In this frame of mind he suffered, on
the 29th of April, 1724, being then about fifty years of age.

The Life of FREDERICK SCHMIDT, Alterer of Bank-Notes

When persons sin out of ignorance there is great room for pity, and when
persons suddenly become guilty of evil through a precipitate yielding to
the violence of their passions there is still room for extenuation. But
when people sin, not only against knowledge but deliberately, and
without the incitement of any violent passion such as anger or lust,
even as nothing can be said in alleviation, so there is little or no
room left for compassion.

Frederick Schmidt was a person born of a very honourable and wealthy
family at Breslau, the capital of the Duchy of Silesia in the north-east
of Germany. They educated this their son not only in such a manner as
might qualify him for the occupation they designed him, of a merchant,
but also gave him a most learned and liberal knowledge, such as suited a
person of the highest rank. He lived, however, at Breslau as a merchant
for many years, and at the request of his friends, when very young, he
married a lady of considerable fortune, but upon some disgust at her
behaviour they parted, and had not lived together for many years before
his death.

He carried on a very considerable correspondence to Hamburg, Amsterdam
and other places, and above a year before had been over in England to
transact some affairs, and thought it, it seems, so easy a matter to
live here by his wits, that he returned hither with the Baron Vanloden
and the Countess Vanloden. It is very hard to say what these people
really were, some people taking Schmidt for the baron's servant, but he
himself affirmed, and indeed it seems most likely, that they were
companions, and that both of them exerted their utmost skill in
defrauding others to maintain her.

The method they took here for that purpose was by altering bank-notes,
which they did so dexterously as absolutely to prevent all suspicion.
They succeeded in paying away two of them, but the fraud being
discovered by the cheque-book at the bank, Schmidt was apprehended and
brought to a trial. There it was sworn that being in possession of a
bank-note of L25 he had turned it into one of L85, and with the Baron
Vanloden tendered it to one Monsieur Mallorey, who gave him goods for
it, and anothe