Robert Walpole | document signed, ordering a payment, 7 August 1723

Robert Walpole

Document signed ("R. Walpole")

to George, Earl of Halifax, auditor of the Exchequer, ordering a payment of £500 to Richard Score "for special service by him performed to his Majesty", also signed by George Baillie and Richard Edgcumbe, 1 page, SIZE, Whitehall, 7 August 1723

Richard Score had been Collector of Customs at Penzance in Cornwall, a county long notorious as a haven for smugglers. He brought to light widespread avoidance of duties on East India goods, and even resigned his post to pursue the prosecution of this abuse. Through the later 1710s and early 1720s Score repeatedly petitioned the Treasury for recompense for his loss of income as well as a reward for the additional revenue that would come to the exchequer as a result of his actions, which he calculated as being many thousands of pounds.