THE SHIP POSEIDON.

Westport Times, Volume II, Issue 262, 3 June 1868, Page 3

THE SHIP POSEIDON.

CONTICTIOK OF ME. CALVEBT, THE EXCONSUL AT THE DABDANELLES. Mr Calvert, the ex-Consul at the Dardanelles, has been tried at the Supreme Court, Constantinople, and sentenced to two years' penal servitude, for attempting to defraud the underwriters at Lloyd's of £12,000 insurances, effected on a vessel called the Poseidon. The frauds were committed in the early part of the year 1862, the accused, Mr Calvert, then holding the important office of Her Majesty's Consul at the Dardanelles. It was in consequence of the pressing demands he made on the underwriters to settle the loss with him that excited suspicion, and a special agent was at once despatched to Constantinople to make enquiries, tho result of which

disclosed a most novel and original fraud, whereupon the Foreign-office issued a warrant for the apprehension of Mr Calvert. However, before it reached Constantinople, Mr Calvert absconded, and he contrived to elude the vigilance of the police till last No. veinber, when he was captured and fully committed to take hia trial o-i the charges preferred. The attempted frauds were shown to have been carried out by means of official documents bearing her Majesty's Consulate seal, and upon which he founded his claim upon the underwriters. He had represented that he had been employed to effect the £12,000 insurance on the Poseidon and her cargo by a person named Hussein Aga, a Turkish friend of his. One document professed to be a certificate from the harbor-master at Tenedos, to which port the Poseidon was represented to belong, and certifying the departure of the vessel. The second document was a certificate from the Consular Agent at Tenedos confirming the departure of the Poseidon. The third document was the prisoner's certificate as to the cargo on board the vessel. And the fourth document professed to be the statement made to the Agent of Sam os by a certain captain who had passed a vessel at sea on fire, and which was supposed to be the Poseidon. A chain of evidence, however, showed that there was no such person as Hussein Aga, and no such ship as the Posiedon, neither shipper, agent, nor cargo, but that the whole was a fraud to obtain the amount of insurance. The Court found the prisoner guilty, and he was sentenced to two years" penal servitude. The prosecution, in the first instance, was taken by Lloyd's Salvage Association, but the proceedings at the trial were conducted by counsel, by order of the Foreign-office.