I will not now stop to describe the organization of this band, which is as perfect as that of any corporation; nor the enormous resources at its command, being computed by millions; nor the great respectability of its directors and State agents; nor the bloody oaths and forfeitures by which the members are bound together; nor the places of their annual meetings; nor a thousand other particulars, more startling than anything in fiction or history.  Nor will I enumerate the great number of convictions of members of this gang for various offences through Mr. Sidney’s efforts.  Prosecuting no other parties than these,—­thwarting them in those defences that had never before failed,—­testifying in open court against the character of their witnesses, who appeared to be polished gentlemen, and enumerating the offences of which they had been guilty,—­and harassing them by all legal and legitimate means, he gathered around him a storm that not one man in a thousand could have withstood for an hour.  Eleven times was food analyzed that had been suspiciously set before him, and in each instance poison was detected in it; while in hundreds of instances he declined to receive from unknown hands presents about which hung similar suspicions.  Numerous were the infernal-machines sent him, the explosion of some of which he escaped as if by miracle, and several exploded in his own dwelling.  Without number were the anonymous letters he received, threatening his life, if he did not desist from prosecuting this band of robbers.  Yet not for one moment swerved from his purpose, he moved unharmed through ten thousand perils, till at last he fell a victim to the enemy that had so long been hunting his life.  On no one has his mantle fallen.

His sole object in life seemed to be the breaking-up of this villanous gang of plunderers, and he pursued it with a genius and strength, a devotion, self-sacrifice, and true heroism, that are deserving of immortality.

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.