Prisoner name: Henry Weiller (or Henry Weller). Prisoner age: 48. Prisoner occupation:...

Prisoner name: Henry Weiller (or Henry Weller).

Prisoner age: 48.

Prisoner occupation: Hamburg quill merchant.

Court and date of trial: Surrey Adjourned Quarter Sessions, Newington, April 1831.

Crime: Obtaining goods by false pretences by offering Robert Hill five gross of fraudulent Brookman and Langdon's pencils in exchange for sundry reams of writing paper.

Initial sentence: Seven years transportation.

Gaoler's report: Character etc unknown.

Annotated (Outcome): To be discharged at the end of six months confinement. Free pardon prepared 10 October 1831.

Petitioner(s): The prisoner, undersigned by 17 people including the jurors, with copy petition, stated to be undersigned by the prosecutor, the jury and others.

Robert Hill of 71 Borough, Southwark, the prosecutor, and four others.

Grounds for clemency (Petition Details): Good character; unaware items were fraudulent; the prosecutor and jury recommend mercy; family dependent on his earnings; sentence severe for crime; first offence.

Other papers: Two letters from John Lucas, solicitor to the prosecutor, and Edward Allford of Old Kent Road, foreman of the jury, recommending mercy.

Two letters from Edward Cohen of 3 Suffolk Place, Islington, and 11 Great St Helen's, forwarding the prisoner's petition and recommending mercy.

Letter from J P Heath of 50 Jermyn Street, forwarding copy petition and stating that 'the usual legal remedy in this kind of fraud is by civil action & not criminal prosecution'.

Letter from Frederick Thesiger, the prisoner's counsel, expressing opinion that the verdict 'furnishes one instance more to the numerous occasions in which I have witnessed the danger of trusting discretionary punishments to such a tribunal as our bench at Newington' with accompanying letter from Lady Morley.

Additional Information: Prisoner a German Jew of Tenter Street, Goodman's Fields, Middlesex. Held in Horsemonger Lane gaol, Surrey, then on Cumberland hulk, Chatham.