14. Chaloner, the Anti-Jacobite Hero
In 1693, William Chaloner informed the authorities that he had discovered a Jacobite plot to seize Dover Castle, and offered to infiltrate the network. As he told an accomplice, if he followed Chaloner’s lead: “they would bubble the government, who were the easiest to be cheated of any men in the world“. That Dover Castle scam did not pan out, so Chaloner hit upon the idea of providing the authorities with a fake list of Jacobites, and managed to get himself employed by the government to investigate them.
In one of his scams during this period, he got an accomplice named Coppinger to write a treasonous Jacobite satire, with the idea of using it to ensnare a printer into printing it. Then Chaloner could make a beeline for the authorities and turn in the printer, now guilty of printing illegal Jacobite materials, in exchange for a generous reward. There being little honor among thieves, however, his accomplice tried to hog the entire reward for himself by getting Chaloner out of the way: Coppinger denounced Chaloner for counterfeiting, and had him sent to Newgate Prison. However, Chaloner managed to talk his way out of it. He even turned the tables on his erstwhile accomplice, and got Coppinger hanged for writing the Jacobite satire.