The original Horn box being thus ornamented, additional cases were provided by the Senior Overseers for the time being,--namely, silver plates engraved with emblematical and historical subjects and busts. Among the first are a View of the Fireworks in St. James's Park, to celebrate the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1749; Admiral Keppel's Action off Ushant, and his acquittal after a court-martial; the Battle of the Nile; the Repulse of Admiral Linois, 1804; the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805; the Action between the San Fiorenzo and La Piémontaise, 1808; the Battle of Waterloo, 1815; the Bombardment of Algiers, 1816; View of the House of Lords at the Trial of Queen Caroline; the Coronation of George IV.; and his Visit to Scotland, 1822.
There are also--Portraits of John Wilkes, Churchwarden in 1759; Nelson, Duncan, Howe, Vincent; Fox and Pitt, 1806; George IV. as Prince Regent, 1811; the Princess Charlotte, 1817; and Queen Charlotte, 1818. But the more interesting representations are those of local circumstances; as the Interior of Westminster Hall, with the Westminster Volunteers, attending Divine Service at the drum-head on the Fast Day, 1803; the Old Sessions House; a view of St. Margaret's, from the north-east; and the West Front Tower, and altar-piece. In 1813, a large silver plate was added to the outer case, with a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, commemorating the centenary of the agglomeration of the Box.
The top of the second case represents the Governors of the Poor, in their Board-room, and this inscription: "The original Box and cases to be given to every succeeding set of Overseers, on penalty of fifty guineas, 1783." On the outside of the first case is a clever engraving of a cripple.
In 1785, Mr. Gilbert exhibited the Box to some friends after dinner: at night, thieves broke in, and carried off all the plate that had been in use; but the box had been removed beforehand to a bedchamber.
In 1793, Mr. Read, a Past Overseer, detained the Box, because his accounts were not passed. An action was brought for its recovery, which was long delayed, owing to two members of the Society giving Read a release, which he successfully pleaded in bar to the action. This rendered it necessary to take proceedings in equity: accordingly, a Bill was filed in Chancery against all three, and Read was compelled to deposit the box with Master Leeds until the end of the suit. Three years of litigation ensued. Eventually the Chancellor directed the Box to be restored to the Overseers' Society, and Mr. Read paid in costs £300. The extra costs amounted to £76. 13_s._ 11_d._, owing to the illegal proceedings of Mr. Read. The sum of £91. 7_s._ was at once raised; and the surplus spent upon a third case, of octagon shape. The top records the triumph: Justice trampling upon a prostrate man, from whose face a mask falls upon a writhing serpent. A second plate, on the outside of the fly-lid, represents the Lord Chancellor Loughborough, pronouncing his decree for the restoration of the Box, March 5, 1796.