Not long before his death, while one of the directors of this band was
confined in prison at Mr. Sidney's instigation, awaiting a preliminary
examination, he sent for Mr. Sidney and offered him one hundred thousand
dollars, if he would desist from pursuing him alone. Mr. Sidney replied,
that he had many times before been offered the like sum, if he would
cease prosecuting the directors, and that the same reason which had
inclined him to reject that proposition would compel him to refuse this.
Whereupon the director offered, as an additional inducement, one-half of
the money taken from the messenger of the Newport banks, while on his
way to Providence to redeem their bills at the Merchants Bank, and also
the mint where they had coined the composition that had passed current
for years through all the banks and banking-houses of the country, and
which stood every test that could be applied, without the destruction of
the coin itself, which mint had cost its owners upwards of two hundred
thousand dollars. All of which Mr. Sidney indignantly rejected. And it
was not till the year after his death that the coin became known, when
it was also reported and believed that a million and a quarter of the
same was locked up in the vaults of the--Government.

The United States Government sought Mr. Sidney's services, as appears of
record. Those high in authority had decided on his employment, a fact
which in less than six hours thereafter was known to the directors, and
within that space of time five of them had arrived in Washington and
paid over to their attorney the sum of thirty-five hundred dollars for
some purpose,--the attorney being no less a personage than an honorable
member of a supreme court. The service desired of Mr. Sidney he was
willing to perform, on the condition that he should not be called upon
to prosecute any other parties than those to whose conviction he had
sworn to devote his life.