The Madisonian

AN ASTOUNDING DEFALCATION.

The following publications contain the public history of a disclosure which has just been made at Richmond, and is the general subject of conversation here and elsewhere:

By the Governor of the State of Virginia.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas it has been represented to the Executive that William B. Dabney, late first teller of the Bank of Virginia, has feloniously embezzled a considerable amount of the funds of that bank entrusted to his charge, and that he has fled from justice:

Now, therefore, I, Thomas W. Gilmer, Governor of the State aforesaid, have thought fit to issue this proclamation, hereby offering a reward of two hundred dollars to any person or persons who will apprehend the said William B. Dabney, and convey him to the jail of the city of Richmond. And I do, moreover, require all officers of the State, civil and military, and request the people of the Commonwealth, to use their best exertions to apprehend the said fugitive, that he may be dealt with according to law.

Given under my hand as Governor, and under the lesser seal of the Commonwealth, at Richmond, this 9th day of April, 1840.

THOMAS W. GILMER.

The said Dabney is about forty years of age, and about five feet high, of light complexion, hair and eyes, erect in his carriage; mild and gentle in his manners, and of good address.

$200 will be paid for the apprehension and delivery in Richmond of

Three Thousand Dollars Reward.—Three thousand dollars will be paid for the apprehension and safe delivery in Richmond of William B. Dabney, late first teller of the Bank of Virginia, who left the Bank on Friday, the 3d instant, and proceeded to Taylorsville on the Richmond and Fredericksburg road, whence he has probably gone to the West. He has embezzled or made away with a very large amount of the funds (in Bank notes of the Bank) of the Bank.

By order of the Board of Directors.

JOHN BROCKENBROUGH, President.

Defalcation At the Bank of Virginia.—The Proclamation of the Governor and the advertisement of the President of that institution to a very large amount. An official exposé of the defalcation in the First Teller department of the Bank will probably, in a day or so, as soon as all the facts are as-known at present. We believe the deficit is now known to be between $400,000 and $500,000.

Never was a community less prepared for such a development! No hint, no suspicion, appears in any quarter to have preceded the astounding annunciation. No shadow was cast before, that the most wise, after the event, pretend to have seen before it. Had a mine been sprung in the midst of the city, when no enemy was encompassing it, the surprise could not have been greater. At first, public sympathy was strongly excited for the unhappy defaulting Teller, who had been a universal favorite, and was believed to be the dupe of others. This sentiment, of course, has surrendered to successive discoveries, and to the now certain fact, that he must have taken with him an unknown, but a very large sum of money belonging to the Bank. Sympathy ends where deliberate guilt is ascertained to begin. We pause here for that official disclosure which will doubtless be made to the Commonwealth.