| Sumario: | On 5 April 1797, Blake signed a certificate attesting to the efficacy of Alexander Tilloch's method for producing forge-proof banknotes. Tilloch's scheme was designed to obviate the human cost of forgery, which was a capital offence. Predicated on a stereotype printing process, Tilloch's method was technically and conceptually analogous to Blake's experiments in illuminated printing. While motivated by different political, economic, and aesthetic ideals, both men used experimental engraving/etching technologies to challenge systemic repression. This essay examines an overlooked context for Blake's poetic responses to repression, documents a previously unrecorded manuscript certificate dated 5 April 1797 containing Blake's signature, as well as two hitherto unrecorded instances of Blake's name being published in connection with Tilloch's 1797 scheme, and suggests another context for the 'black net' that Blake describes smothering London in 1800. The trial records show that those convicted of banknote forgery had access to engraving equipment. As an engraver with a copperplate rolling press, Blake would have come under suspicion when large quantities of counterfeit notes were discovered in 1797, 1800, and 1818.
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