UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 REMARKS 
 
 ON THE CASE OF 
 
 LORD COCHRANE, 
 
 AND 
 
 On his Letter to 
 
 LORD ELLENBOROUGH, 
 
 The wall of brass which Horace erects upon a clear conscience, 
 
 may sometimes be raised by impudence or power. 
 
 RAMBLER. 
 
 -Vir bonus est quis ? 
 
 Qui consulta patrum, qui leges, juraque servat. 
 
 HOR. EPIST. 
 
 HonHon : 
 
 1-RINTED BY S. COUCHMAN, THROGMORTON-STBEET j 
 
 AND SOLO BY 
 
 C. CHAPPLE, 16, Pali-Mall ; J. ILBERY, 1, Titchfield-Street, 
 Cavendish-Square ; and E. WILSON, 88, Cornhill. 
 
 1815. 
 
 9 S 3S 13
 
 TO THE 
 
 COMMITTEE 
 
 en 
 
 tu OF THE 
 
 CO 
 
 2- 
 
 STOCK-EXCHAJiGJE. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 BUFFER me to crave your indulgence and 
 2> candour, while I venture, without permission, to 
 10 dedicate this imperfect production to a body of men, 
 owith whom I am wholly unconnected and unac- 
 ** quainted. But I could not refrain from expressing, 
 as one of a Public generally benefited by your exer- 
 tions, my gratitude and respect for the great zeal 
 and ability evinced in the prosecution of the late 
 fraud, a fraud invented by selfish knavery, and 
 3 defended by shameless effrontery. To persons 
 5 familiar, like yourselves, with life, it cannot have 
 ac been unexpected that detraction and misrepresenta- 
 
 .301276
 
 tion should have assailed you, while prosecuting the 
 desirable good, which has been brought to so happy 
 an issue by your industry and knowledge ; such 
 has ever been the lot of those who impeach crime : 
 the false accusations of guilt are, however, among 
 the most solid and satisfactory proofs of the necessity 
 of its punishment ; and I trust, the time will never 
 arrive, when men shall be deterred either by its threats 
 or calumnies, from associating for the protection of 
 property and character. That you may long enjoy 
 the happiness afforded by a conscientious discharge 
 of duty, and that every future effort founded on the 
 same laudable motives, as those which directed 
 your conduct in the transaction alluded to, may be 
 attended with the like success, is the sincere wish 
 of him who is with great respect and gratitude, 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 FEB. 13, 1815,
 
 1 ) 
 
 REMARKS, &c. 
 
 .STRONOMERS tell us that comets, in their 
 nearest approach to the sun, drink in such a portion 
 of the solar heat, as would involve any substance 
 like our earth in immediate destruction, were it 
 then to be near them ; but, having departed from 
 the great source of light and warmth, they gradually 
 throw off that heat, while measuring the area pre- 
 scribed to them in the regions of infinite space. 
 The state of popular feeling is often similar to this : 
 there are particular points which it cannot approach 
 and yet preserve the usual temperature ; inflam- 
 mation ensues, and it would be unsafe and useless 
 to draw near with the cool deductions of reason till 
 time has allayed the effervescence. The public 
 opinion concerning the case of Lord Cochrane, 
 has borne some analogy with the above : it has 
 been heated by passion and prejudice, but' these, 
 so unfriendly to an investigation of truth, have 
 
 B 

 
 ( -' J 
 
 now generally ceased to operate. On this acconnt r 
 and as Lord Cochrane, by continually reiterating 
 the question, appears determined that it should 
 enjoy the benefit of a sedate and cool revision, I 
 will offer some remarks on the subject. 
 
 To a nation justly appreciating and bountifully 
 rewarding public services, desirous, too, that the 
 laurels placed on the brow of its defenders should 
 be unspotted and imperishable, it is painful even to 
 doubt the purity of men thus distinguished. Grate- 
 ful, however, and liberal a& our country is to its 
 citizens for the security gained by their skill and 
 valour, it will not think that security perfect, unless 
 they who have fought in its defence, shall also be 
 found combating on the side of its laws, and re- 
 specting the public welfare in all its interests. The 
 prospect of evils threatened by war would not be 
 more disheartening than of miseries menaced by 
 the laws of a state being trampled on, and by an 
 infringement, or dissolution, of the moral obliga- 
 tions influencing society. If the forms of govern- 
 ment, i. e. of the laws which have been devised by 
 the united wisdom of the world for a preservation 
 of general harmony are valuable, the man, or body 
 of men, who wilfully interrupt the peace of the 
 community and impede a due operation of the laws, 
 ought to be regarded and treated as enemies to the 
 public happiness ; nor will any former services of 
 the offenders justify this breach of duty. That the 
 subject no\v considered is to be viewed in this light, 
 will be admitted by every rational person. Lord
 
 ( 3 ) 
 
 Cochrane 1 s conduct is to be canvassed as a member 
 of civil society. In examining his Lordship's qua- 
 lifications in this character, as connected with his 
 trial and sentence, I shall keep in mind that most 
 excellent maxim, " that every man is presumed to 
 be good, till the contrary be proved by some action 
 testified*." 
 
 As the particulars of the transaction now dis- 
 cussed are too well known to need repetition, I 
 shall not trouble my readers, by giving Lord 
 Cochrane's affidavit of the 1 1th of March, which 
 contains his own account of De Berenger's visit, 
 but shall touch upon that and the evidence pro- 
 duced on the trial, in such a manner as will gene- 
 rally elucidate the principal features. It is to be 
 remarked first, that according to his own statement 
 contained in the affidavit of March the llth, Lord 
 Cochrane, who professes to have the most delicate 
 ideas and feelings of honour, did not appear at all 
 indignant at the fact of De Berenger appearing 
 before him a fugitive from justice, thereby com- 
 mitting a double fraud : first, his creditors were 
 deprived of their lawful claims, and then the 
 Marshal of the King's-Bench was left responsible 
 for his debts. A flagrant offence this ! yet not one 
 word of remonstrance or even comment on the deed 
 from Lord Cochrane, nothing of the legislator 
 about his Lordship, by way of enforcing legal 
 sanctions or prohibitions ; nothing relative to that 
 
 * Bishop Cumberland's Inquiry into the Laws of Nature.
 
 ( 4 ) 
 
 principle of common honesty due from one man to 
 another : so far from this, he provides the fugitive 
 with means of escape, thereby becoming, as it were, 
 a party to the dishonourable deed. Friendship, 
 like love, has its fits of enthusiasm ; and, like love, 
 will occasionally infringe the stricter bounds of in- 
 tegrity and discretion, in its wishes to aid a dis- 
 tressed friend : but Lord Cochrane declares he had 
 little or no intimacy with De Berenger ; it could 
 not therefore be the blush and enthusiasm of friend- 
 ship which led his Lordship without scruple to 
 provide a mere stranger with the means of eluding 
 justice. A highly honourable mind would certainly 
 have had a few struggles on the occasion. True 
 greatness is courteous, free, and complaisant ; it 
 stoops out of goodness to its inferiors, and returns 
 without constraint to itself again ; it exacts from 
 those who seek its countenance no obsequious ser- 
 vility, artifice, or flattery, nor any sacrifice of the 
 independence and dignity of our nature, in order to 
 gain its favour ; if at any time it lays aside its ad- 
 vantages, and becomes, as it were, loose and negli- 
 gent, it never loses the power of resuming them, 
 and commanding reverence when occasion demands ; 
 it does not countenance guilt, in the most distant 
 manner ; still less can it endure to be made the in- 
 strument by which guilt accomplishes its designs : 
 the spirit of mortified pride (pride in its most ho- 
 nourable sense) would pour on the head of him 
 who should dare to make such an attempt, its most 
 vivid and awful indignation. Admitting, then, 
 Lord Cochrane's explanation of De Berenger's visit.
 
 ( 5 ) 
 
 and putting the most favourable construction on his 
 Lordship's conduct ; he appears to have been most 
 lamentably deficient in the obvious duties of life 
 deficient as a legislator and guardian of the laws ; 
 deficient as an inculcator of the rules of honesty 
 between man and man ; and deficient in that self 
 respect which should have made him spurn, with 
 the utmost keenness of resentment, De Berenger's 
 proposal. Will Lord Cochrane consent to be 
 deemed the violator of several important social 
 obligations, merely that he may be thought to have 
 the amiable weakness of sympathy for a man in 
 distress, and that in a situation of the most doubtful 
 character ; are we to believe that having been 
 honoured by his sovereign with the command of a 
 ship, he would willingly have made that vessel the 
 retreat and asylum of crime ; and that, had it been 
 in his power, he would have wasted the patronage 
 due only to virtuous merit on a mere stranger 
 (as Lord Cochrane declares) who appeared before 
 him with such frail and dishonest claims ? The 
 bitterest of his Lordship's enemies could not wish 
 him a more imperfect knowledge of duty. Granting 
 him credit for being moved by a sudden impulse 
 of sensibility at the sight of a fellow-creature in 
 distress, and thereby becoming somewhat negligent 
 of the stricter rules of morality, we may readily 
 imagine how soon his Lordship would have resumed 
 his dignity and just elevation of thought and action, 
 when urged by De Berenger to give him promotion 
 and an asylum on board his ship, merely that he 
 might be enabled to deceive and defraud his credi-
 
 tors. We may run over the conversation, which, 
 under these circumstances, would have passed 
 between the parties. But there was doubtless no 
 necessity for any warning admonitions and re- 
 proaches : they would have been as irrelevant to 
 the business transacted, as the political and other 
 extraneous talk of half a dozen physicians summoned 
 by wealthy disease to consult on an irretrievably 
 hopeless case. Can any one believe that De Be- 
 renger's first visit after the perpetration of the plot, 
 was made at Lord Cochrane's house for the purpose 
 merely assigned in the affidavit : if his Lordship is 
 not guilty, he is the most unfortunate and impru- 
 dent, and De Berenger the most impudent, selfish, 
 and ungrateful man living. De Berenger was a 
 suitor for promotion and the patronage of Lord 
 Cochrane's family ; a suppliant for their bounty, 
 in distressed circumstances, and therefore the more 
 likely to fear displeasing his patrons ; he sought 
 appointment, moreover, in that very expedition of 
 which Lord Cochrane was to form a part, and where 
 he would be indebted for any future favour, or indeed 
 for existence at all, on the estimation in which his 
 character was held by his protectors. Would any 
 man thus situated, having been engaged in a ne- 
 farious plot, the discovery of which was highly 
 probable, and which when discovered would entail 
 infamy on all even appearing to be most distantly 
 connected with it, dare to make the house of his 
 intended patron his retreat and asylum from crime ? 
 Would he presume to go to that house with any tale, 
 however piteous or plausible, impossible ! If this
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
 is human life, then all that novelists, biographers, 
 and historians have successfully written to delineate 
 life, is a mere fable compared w r ith which the 
 visionary pursuits of the alchymist are substantial 
 realities ; and the source of human action is yet to 
 be discovered by future metaphysicians. 
 
 A further knowledge and comparison of circum- 
 stances lead us, however, to the true cause of De 
 Berenger's visit. He was, as is now universally 
 known, the main agent in a conspiracy to raise the 
 funds by means of false news ; and his call at Lord 
 Cochrane's was the last act in the great drama. 
 The immense stock speculations of certain individu- 
 als supplied the corrupt motive which gave birth to 
 the scheme. Lord Cochrane had engaged deeply 
 in those speculations ; and according to evidence he 
 gave his hand to the work of fraud, and partook of 
 the spoil. He had therefore a deep interest in 
 De Berenger's visit. 
 
 The mere fact of the chief agent in a plot going 
 immediately after its execution to the house of any 
 particular individual, will not criminate that person 
 though it may create suspicion ; but if that agent 
 has previously told a third person that such a plot 
 was in agitation for the benefit of the individual 
 whom he thus visits and who actually profits by the 
 scheme, w r e conclude there is something more here 
 than an accidental coincidence : if, moreover, that 
 agent goes to his friend's house in a splendid military 
 which it is unusual and which he has no
 
 ( 8 ) 
 
 claim to wear, and which would create surprise 
 and question, and no such astonishment or remark 
 are made, we conclude that the cause of that novel 
 dress being assumed is known by both parties. 
 That De Berenger was at Lord Cochrane's on the 
 morning of the fraud, we have from his Lordship, 
 and that De Berenger was Du Bourgh has been 
 amply proved on the trial ; for the learned counsel 
 who so ably led the prosecution " took him up at 
 Dover like a bale of goods, delivered him from 
 hand to hand from Dover to London, and finally 
 conducted him into the house of Lord Cochrane, 
 taking his Lordship's receipt, acknowledging the 
 delivery." We have it also in evidence, as will be 
 examined hereafter, that De Berenger, previous to 
 the plot, told a friend that it w r as in agitation, and 
 that for the benefit of Lord Cochrane and his uncle 
 Mr. C. Johnstone : but can we prove that De Be- 
 renger's dress, when he arrived at Lord Cochrane's, 
 was such as to leave no doubt that his Lordship 
 was privy to the fraud ? This is indeed of vital 
 importance, and the point Lord Cochrane is most 
 anxious to establish, if we may judge from the 
 number of affidavits with which the public have 
 been supplied on it: I must join, however, with 
 Mr. Gurney, in discouraging the influx of affidavits, 
 and think that what with those of quack doctors and 
 other empirics, we shall be inundated with these 
 loose and often unintelligible mockeries *. His 
 
 * As many of my readers may not have attended to the 
 comparative value of swearing by affidavit and by oath before
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
 Lordship's own eagerness to swear an affidavit at 
 the commencement of this affair, is not to be greatly 
 approved of: if he was innocent, the public would 
 doubtless have been more satisfied with a candid 
 and fervent appeal to his honour, than with his 
 uncalled-for oath / the bare affirmation of a man of 
 rank, who has a character for truth (the chevalier 
 sans reproche) is deemed valid and taken at once. 
 Lord Cochrane should have felt this, and have also 
 recollected as an admonitory example, that Peers, 
 when giving a verdict on the trial of their equals, 
 appeal not to their oaths but to their honour. 
 
 Great men, were there no gods, would keep their 
 
 words, 
 
 In rev'rence to themselves ; but gods there are 
 Whom none needs rouse by oath to witness truth. 
 
 Still less acceptable are the affidavits of these 
 servants, destitute as they are of probability, and 
 remembering, as we must, that the people who now 
 so anxiously press forward with their testimony 
 were none of them to be found when the event first 
 happened, and that their absence was justly im- 
 puted to the desire of preventing questions necessary 
 for the sake of justice. 
 
 But wholly as my mind rejects the testimony of 
 Lord Cochrane's domestics, it shall be examined. 
 
 a Judge and Jury, subject to cross-examination by counsel, 
 I would recommend them to give the learned Blackstone's 
 opinion on this head a careful perusal. See his Commentaries, 
 book iii. chap. 23. 
 
 c
 
 ( TO ) 
 
 The credibility due to any evidence, it is well 
 known, depends upon two things : the probabilities 
 of that testimony and the character of the witnesses. 
 Let us see how far these, aided by our knowledge 
 of human life, will enable us to determine first, in a 
 general point of view, whether the landlords of the 
 inns, the post-boys, the waterman at Marsh-Gate, 
 and Crane, the hackney-coachman, or his Lordship's 
 servants, are best entitled to belief. The post-boys 
 and landlords are included in this sentence, because 
 though the chief question as to De Berenger's dress 
 when he alighted at his friend Lord Cochrane's, 
 rests with Crane, yet, the fact of the drivers having 
 delivered De Berenger into Crane's hands in red 
 attire, and his having been seen in that colour by 
 the landlords, is an important auxiliary. De Be- 
 renger had told the landlords and post-boys, or at 
 least the latter heard it from each other at the 
 different stages, that lie was a foreign officer, the 
 aid-dc-camp of a great general, and just arrived 
 with news of the highest importance ; no less than 
 that of the defeat and death of Buonaparte : four 
 horses at every stage, a very liberal distribution of 
 Napoleons, and the splendid and attractive costume 
 of a staff officer, decorated with stars, bespoke his 
 rank and character : accustomed as we have been 
 for several years to military attire, yet, was not all 
 this likely to make the landlords and post-boys 
 curious about the great man on the road, particularly 
 attentive in remarking his deportment, examining 
 his person, and observing as far as they could the 
 dress of a foreign officer decorated with Insignia 3
 
 ( 11 ) 
 
 This reasoning will apply also to Crane and Bar- 
 tholomew : a post-chaise, the importance of which 
 was announced by the rapidity with which four 
 horses hurried it along, drives up to a coach-stand, 
 an officer arrayed in military attire alights from it, 
 and having discharged the drivers of the post-chaise, 
 steps into a hackney-coach, giving directions to the 
 coachman. This is all likely to fix the attention 
 of observers interested in it in a general point 
 of view. 
 
 Nowlet us consider whether any particular reasons 
 existed for Lord Cochrane's servants making peculiar 
 observation on De Berenger's dress when he arrived 
 at their master's. I must premise that it is some- 
 what remarkable that so many of the servants should 
 have seen De Berenger ; an astonishment, however, 
 which is rather abated by the recollection that they 
 were sent out of the way that very night, and that 
 possibly because they may have seen him ; but 
 making, as we ought from experience, every due 
 allowance for female curiosity, we must be surprised 
 nt the impudence of the cook, a person but little 
 connected with parlour business, going twice into a 
 parlour *, in which an officer, her master's visitor, 
 
 * It appears by the affidavit of this busy body that she went 
 into the parlour " to mend the fire :" but Lord Cochrane's 
 letter to Lord Ellenborough has furnished us with another 
 reason. De Berenger, with the pardonable familiarity of an 
 old acquaintance, it seems washed his hands and breakfasted 
 at Lord Cochrane's house before his Lordship arrived; the 
 Attentive cook therefore was in constant atteudance on
 
 ( 12 ) 
 
 and, for what she knew, a man of high rank was 
 sitting: and still more must we be astonished at 
 that almost intuitive sagacity, which, by a hasty 
 glimpse could at once fix its attention on the collar 
 of a coat. I think I hear the curious lady exclaim, 
 as she took the scrutinizing peep, 
 
 There can be no kernel in this light nut ; 
 The soul of this man is his clothes. 
 
 In High-Life Below Stairs, there is a scene in 
 which every servant is represented as refusing to 
 attend a knock at the door of their absent master, 
 because they could not settle the important and 
 mysterious question, whose duty it was to obey the 
 summons. Far different is it with his Lordship's 
 household ; all on the qui "cire ; all active, all anxious 
 to see, know, and attend their master's guest. Was 
 the presence of an officer at Lord Cochrane's, so 
 remarkable an event, that the whole household must 
 be anxious to see the foreign animal just imported? 
 It can indeed be no novelty, that an officer should 
 be seen at an officer's house, which may be likened 
 to a camp where military men may be without ques- 
 tion or remark; or walk, like the ghosts of Virgil, 
 an innumerable, and excepting here and there when 
 
 De Berenger \ but however communicative she has been of 
 some of her proceedings in her affidavit, it seems that she 
 has only let us know just so much as was deemed convenient ; 
 by whose suggestion she forgot to tell us that one reason for 
 her going into the parlour was to supply De Berenger with 
 breakfast. I will leave to the public to decide.
 
 ( 13 ) 
 
 a Tydeus, or an Ajax, a Wellington, or a Nelson, 
 flit across the scene, an undistinguished crowd. 
 We have his Lordship's own authority, for saying 
 that many officers may have been at his house that 
 morning, and that some of them may have written 
 notes in the parlour. Did the servants remark the 
 dress of all the visitors with the same minuteness 
 as they pretend to have done that of De Berenger ; 
 and if they did not, what led them to fix their 
 particular attention on his dress, concealed as the 
 greater part of it was by a great coat ? Novelty, 
 then, could have had no part in the domestic's 
 acute remarks, and taken only in a general view, 
 circumstances were more likely to make an im- 
 pression on the witnesses for the prosecution, than 
 on Lord Cochrane's servants. 
 
 But, say his Lordship and his advocate-general, 
 Sir Francis Burdett, Crane has been convicted of 
 cruelty to his horses, and therefore his word is not 
 to be taken. The sensibilities of some men are of 
 a very peculiar nature ; we are reminded by them 
 of the climate on certain high mountains ; at the 
 base and lower regions the heat is excessive ; as you 
 advance, the air becomes moderate; higher up it 
 grows cold, and, above all, the cold is extreme ; 
 eternal ice and snow crown the summit. The sym- 
 pathies of Lord Cochrane and Sir Francis Burdett, 
 have some analogy with this. They begin with 
 brutes, the lower part of animal creation ; there the 
 glow of sensibility is in its most fervid heat ; ascend- 
 ding, however, in the scale of animated beings, and
 
 ( 14 ) 
 
 arriving at man, the lord of all sublunary creature?, 
 their ardent benevolence gradually cools, and finally 
 settles in torpid and cheerless frigidity. His Lord- 
 ship contemplated without any pangs of remorse, 
 the wretchedness which he knew must be brought 
 on numerous families if his fraud succeeded, and the 
 Hon. Baronet pronounces that fraud and its probable 
 consequences to be a trifling concern ; yet when two 
 brute animals are said to be ill-treated, their keenest 
 sympathies are immediately excited, and they turn 
 pale with the affecting narration. A charge of 
 cruelty to animals, however, heinous as the crime 
 is, will, I believe, go but little way to discredit a 
 man's evidence on any subject entirely different. 
 \Vhen stigmatized by a conviction of certain crimes, 
 such as treason, felony, and every species of what 
 is called in the books, crimen falsi, as perjury, 
 conspiracy, barratry, attaint of false verdict, &c. 
 the evidence of a witness is wholly inadmissible, 
 and he becomes what the law calls an incompetent 
 witness ; but other crimes, though much detracting 
 from the character of a man, do not prevent him 
 from being heard in a court of justice. The charge 
 of cruelty to animals, we thus see, is no reason for 
 disbelieving Crane, and unless he isprovedby other 
 witnesses to be unworthy of credit, we are bound to 
 believe his testimony, and not to suffer the accusa- 
 tion of one crime to affect him in the whole of his 
 character*. Will Lord Cochrane agree to have his 
 
 * The competency and credibility of witnesses, is a delicate 
 subject for Lord Cochrane or his friends to touch upon. Do
 
 ( 15 ) 
 
 own character assayed by the same rule ? Will he 
 consent that his former services should all be merged 
 in the disgrace of his present situation ? Has not one 
 part, the favourable side of his character, operated 
 to his benefit, against the unfavourable one, by ex- 
 empting him, though guilty, from the ignominious 
 pillory. The validity of this reasoning, Lord 
 Cochrane acknowledges by his varied attempts, to 
 destroy the value of Crane's evidence. Finding 
 that the charge of cruelty does not affect this witness's 
 credit, his Lordship has brought forward, since the 
 trial, the affidavits of several persons, who declare 
 that Crane's word is unworthy of belief, and his 
 character wholly infamous. Before any other re- 
 mark is made on these affidavits, it is to be observed 
 that neither at the trial, nor when Lord Cochrane 
 applied for a re-hearing, was any such testimony 
 insisted on : no such evidence was then offered to 
 
 they know that his Lordship himself will not henceforth be 
 deemed in the eye of the law a competent witness ? Let us hear 
 a lawyer of repute on this head : " According to the ancient 
 notion, every offence which subjected a man to the pillory, and 
 for which he was sentenced to stand there, whether followed by 
 that punishment or not, was considered as infamous ; but the 
 modern practice has with more propriety been to consider the 
 offence and not the punishment, as that to which infamy is 
 attached ; and it is now held, that unless a man i sentenced 
 to the pillory for a crime partaking of fraud, the mere circum- 
 stance of an infamous punishment being inflicted does not destroy 
 his competency." Words these, most singularly applicable to 
 the case now considered. 
 
 Peake's Compendium of the Law of Evidence, chap. iii. 
 p. 133, &c. See also Gilbert on Evidence.
 
 ( 16 ) 
 
 destroy Crane's deposition. Now, though in some 
 instance-, defendants may be surprised by finding a 
 witness in the box, of whom they have no previous 
 knowledge, yet this rarely happens ; and particu- 
 larly it did not happen with respect to Crane. The 
 defendants knew that he must be a principal and 
 most important witness ; he was generally known to 
 be the person who took De Berenger from Marsh- 
 Gate to Lord Cochrane's ; and this must have been 
 more especially known by the defendants themselves : 
 it would therefore have been an easy task to have 
 discovered his character, and instead of publishing 
 affidavits*, which his Lordship is pleased to call 
 " the voluntary and disinterested acts of the respec- 
 tive deponents," he might have found persons to 
 be examined before the Judge and Jury, but this 
 was not done. Lord Cochrane, however, in his own 
 unyielding predilection for affidavits, and forgetting 
 the number of false ones, which it can be proved have 
 been sworn on this occasion, claims for this irre- 
 sponsible and often superficial mode of deposition, 
 that credit alone due to the more solemn forms and 
 obligations of evidence made in a Court of Justice. 
 
 Let us, notwithstanding, consider the faith due 
 lo the affidavits of Miller, Rayment, and King ; 
 Miller and Rayment, a butcher and fishmonger, 
 the one residing opposite Marsh-Gate coach-stand 
 and the other some yards from it, being, according 
 to their affidavits, instead of attending to their busi- 
 
 * Sec Affidavits published by Lord Cochniiie, Aug. 10, 1814.
 
 ( 17 ) 
 
 ness, on the look out for what was passing on the 
 road ; both happened to see De Berenger when he 
 came up to the coach-stand. Miller says that he 
 " saw a Dartford chaise and four stop at the coach- 
 stand, when several persons assembled and inquired 
 of the post-boys, whom they had brought in the 
 chaise ;" they answered, " A messenger from 
 France, and bearer of dispatches that Buonaparte 
 was killed, &c." That deponent (Miller) saw the 
 supposed messenger, dressed in green with a grey 
 great coat, get out of the said chaise into a hackney- 
 coach ; and deponent positively declares that he 
 saw no red upon any part of his dress. That depo- 
 nent asked the waterman who attends the coach- 
 stand, where the gentleman was going to ? and he 
 replied, " The coachman is ordered to drive over the 
 bridge." Rayment, too, it seems, got a peep at 
 the uniform, for " De Berenger's great coat being 
 partly open while he was getting out of the chaise 
 into the hackney-coach, enabled deponent to see the 
 coat underneath, and it appeared to him to be dark 
 green ; deponent fancied he was a foreign officer, as 
 the dress was like that of the sharp-shooters." 
 Rayment elated with the sight immediately ran, 
 like a good husband, to " that Christian comfort, 
 called a wife," and told her all the wonderful things 
 he had seen. This good lady being blessed, it 
 appears, with a most excellent memory, is willing 
 and able at this distance of time, to swear to the 
 accuracy of her communicative husband's account. 
 
 both alike inspir'd 
 
 To slug, or answer, as the song requir'd, 
 
 D
 
 ( 18 ) 
 
 It is this testimony contradicted, as we shall find 
 by other evidence, and by all probability, which 
 Lord Cochrane considers as justifying his unquali- 
 fied assertion, that it is satisfactorily proved that 
 De Berenger changed his dress, not in the hackney- 
 coach, as his Lordship at first most strenuously 
 maintained, but in the post-chaise which conveyed 
 him from Dartford to Marsh-Gate. Now it is first 
 to be remarked, that his Lordship for a long while 
 supported the belief that De Berenger changed his 
 dress in the hackney-coach, after he left Marsh- 
 Gate ; but finding it generally thought improbable, 
 that a man should change his attire in a coach, 
 which was passing through crowded streets, he has 
 dexterously stepped out of one vehicle into another, 
 and discovered De Berenger's dressing-room to be 
 in the post-chaise. I am not surprised at his Lord- 
 ship doing this ; he is lavish of his money on parti- 
 cular occasions, and that he can reward service we 
 have on record in the trial : some of his Lordship's 
 legal advirers have probably been employed by him 
 to look over the trial as reported, and see if any 
 part of the evidence would not help him out of the 
 dilemma; and they have discovered that the fact of 
 Shilling (the post-boy who drove De Berenger from 
 Dartford), having deposed that De Berenger pulled 
 up tlie side-blind of the chaise some time or other, 
 enabled Lord Cochrane to discharge the hackney- 
 coach for the chaise, and declare that De Berenger 
 shifted his dress in the latter. The " voluntary" 
 affidavits of " the two disinterested 1 ' tradesmen 
 came inas seasonable auxiliaries. The time in which
 
 ( 19 ) 
 
 Miller and Rayment saw De Berengef, was the 
 very same instant that Bartholomew the waterman 
 saw him. He let De Berenger, who to prevent 
 discovery was expeditious in his movements, into 
 the hackney-coach. Bartholomew says (Trial p. 1 18, 
 119, 120), that the chaise and four arrived at the 
 stand, between nine and half-past nine o'clock ; that 
 it drove up to the coach-stand ; that the gentleman 
 (De Berenger) got out of the chaise into the hack- 
 ney-coach, by stepping from one into the other ; that 
 he (Bartholomew) opened the coach-door, and let 
 down the steps for De Berenger, who had on a scarlet 
 coat, a brown cap and a sort of band on it, with a mili- 
 tary sort of great coat ; that the gentleman ordered the 
 coach to drive to Grosvenor-Square (he did not say 
 over the bridge, as Miller deposes upon oath), and 
 being asked in court, whether he saw any person there 
 like the gentleman whom he let into the hackney- 
 coach ; he, after some hesitation, such as an honest 
 man similarly placed might feel, declared upon Ms 
 word, looking at De Berenger, " that he was like 
 him," and that he could speak to his person; such 
 is the testimony of Bartholomew the waterman, 
 who from his situation must have been the nearest 
 of all others to De Berenger, when he stepped out 
 of the chaise into the coach ; he must have touched 
 De Berenger. It may reasonably be asked, who 
 caji so well observe the dress, figure, and whole 
 person of any man alighting from one carriage to 
 another, as the person who stands at the door 
 of each, offers his arm by way of assistance, and 
 finally before he shuts the coach door, looks up at the
 
 ( 20 ) 
 
 passenger's face and asks where the coachman is 
 to drive, waiting, too, till he has received the 
 waterman's iffual perquisite from his employer ; but 
 says his Lordship (glad to find any subterfuge how- 
 ever awkward), the waterman must have stood 
 behind the coach-door, and therefore could not have 
 had a clear view of De Berenger. His Lordship is 
 a man of rank, and though we hare it in evidence 
 that he occasionally condescends to ride in a hired 
 coach, cannot be supposed much used to the customs 
 of watermen ; but I and others, who are not lucky 
 enough to have amassed by various means such a 
 fortune as will keep a carriage, and are in conse- 
 quence compelled to put up with a hackney-coach, 
 know that watermen do not stand either wholly or 
 partly behind the door of a coach, while letting 
 persons in, whether they are getting out of one 
 vehicle into another or not; they stand parallel 
 w ith the door when opened, offer their arm to assist, 
 and look up in the face for a direction to the driver 
 and their own perquisite. Besides, are we to set 
 down nothing on this particular occasion to a natu- 
 ral curiosity ? Would Bartholomew have been 
 content to remain behind the door, while the 
 important gentleman who arrived in a chaise and 
 four got out ; no, he would have his peep as well 
 as Miller and Rayment, with the other people 
 assembled round the carriages ; and a better peep 
 too ; for they were at a comparative distance, and had 
 none but a general interest in the affair ; their ob- 
 servation was distracted by each other's remarks, to 
 v.iy nothing of a slight confusion occasioned by a
 
 < 21 ) 
 
 little of that elbowing and jostling of each other, 
 which John Bull will exercise for priority of place 
 when any thing curious is going forward : and is 
 the evidence of Miller and Rayment to be put in 
 competition with that of a man situated as Bartho- 
 lomew was ? A man, moreover, whose character 
 is unimpeached, and we may be sure that Lord 
 Cochrane and his agents have not left it without 
 inquiry. 
 
 But I will give my readers, another very strong 
 reason, for believing that neither Miller nor Ray- 
 ment did see any green dress, and that reason shall 
 be furnished by his Lordship himself; who in this, 
 as well as other instances, is, as the law terms it, 
 the best witness against himself. It is not, indeed, 
 derived from evidence on the trial, though that 
 sufficiently proves De Berenger to have got out of 
 the chaise into the coach in red / but is taken from 
 his Lordship's letter to the noble and learned Judge, 
 and as Lord Cochrane occasionally uses what w r as 
 not in evidence in court ; and as Miller and Ray- 
 ment's affidavits have been sworn since the trial, I 
 am justified in requesting my readers to turn to 
 page 14 of his Lordship's letter. Lord Cochrane, 
 there charges the prosecutors with suppressing 
 some evidence, which Shilling, the post-boy (who 
 seems to have had the honour of having been lately 
 very often closeted with my Lord) gave before the 
 committee of the Stock- Exchange; and this evidence 
 is, that when De Berenger stepped from the chaise 
 into the coach, he placed his portmanteau or parcel
 
 ctose to his breast, wrapping his great coat over it ; 
 that he threw his sword with his rig-lit hand on the 
 front seat of the coach, and sat down on the back 
 seat, giving- Shilling two Napoleons with his left 
 hand. His placing the portmanteau close to his 
 breast, and wrapping his great coat over it, says his 
 Lordship, were probably for the double purpose 
 of concealing the coat he then had on, and that 
 which he had just taken off, which in the hurry 
 in whicli the change was effected, he probably had 
 not had time to secure sufficiently in the portman- 
 teau. Thanks to his Lordship, for this two-fold 
 probability ; and for thus " making assurance dou- 
 ble sure." If De Berenger did thus place his port- 
 manteau so close to his breast, and wrap his great 
 coat round it, what becomes of the deposition of 
 those " two respectable and disinterested gentle- 
 men," Messrs. Miller and Rayment ; how could 
 they possibly in any situation have seen the green 
 dress of De Berenger, and more especially standing 
 on the further side of the chaise ? Rayment says, 
 *' that De Berenger's great coat being partly open, 
 he was enabled to see the coat underneath, and that 
 it appeared to him to be dark green, like the uniform 
 of the sharp-shooters :" well may he use the mode- 
 rate and cautious words it appeared: if the great coat 
 was partly open it must have been the upper part ; 
 and if it appeared like the dress of sharp-shooters, 
 it must have been the upper part which appeared 
 so, for such a corps wear no long coats ; therefore 
 the part which they thus swear to have seen, must 
 be the identical one which, according to his Lord-
 
 ship, was concealed by the portmanteau ; the more 
 than lynx-eyed sight of these " disinterested" de- 
 ponents, which could pierce through a great-coat 
 and leather portmanteau, is indeed a subject for 
 gome envy to thdse whose sight is even tolerably 
 good ; but to persons of defective organs it must 
 appear truly marvellous and desirable. I have read 
 a little on optics and colours, and was told when a 
 child, that if the sun on a foggy morning has a red 
 appearance, it is owing to that colour being the 
 strongest, and therefore best seen through a fog ; 
 but I now find, that my instructors were in an 
 error, and that a dark green will reflect more 
 powerfully than any other colour, for it can be seen 
 through a great-coat and thick portmanteau : thus 
 much for the voluntary testimony of these two 
 " disinterested" persons, which I will dismiss to 
 " the tomb of all the Capulets," or recommend as 
 a choice offering for the shrine of a certain goddess, 
 who receives such oblations with peculiar favour. 
 
 And now I will examine Lord Cochrane's other 
 reasons, if they may be so called, for saying that 
 De Berenger changed his dress in the post-chaise. 
 His Lordship says (Letter, page 11), that he 
 thinks it highly probable (another probability) that 
 the change took place between the coach-stand at 
 the Three Stags, in the Lambeth- Road, and that 
 at the Marsh-Gate. De Berenger, according to 
 Shilling, drew up the side-blind at tie corner 
 where lie sat, as if to hide himself^ on perceiving 
 there was no coach to be obtained at the former
 
 ( 24 ) 
 
 place ; lie (Shilling) saw the side-blind up, but did 
 not see when De Berenger pulled it up : it was 
 down before all the way. De Berenger told Shilling 
 (Trial, 112) tliat he did not like to get out at (he 
 first stand (Bricklayers- Arms) because it was too 
 public : he was afraid somebody would cast some 
 reflections, and he should not like that. Shilling 
 told him, that he did not think any body would do 
 that, they would be so glad to hear the good news. 
 Shilling thinks he pulled up the side-blind as he 
 came round the corner. One of the stands here 
 mentioned is four hundred yards, the other two 
 hundred yards from Marsh-Gate. Now, in the first 
 place, De Berenger's solicitude not to be seen arose 
 " probably" not on account of his dress, but be- 
 cause he did not wish to be seen at till ,\ he was near 
 his own home, and might be recognised ; and wished 
 to be wholly unobserved till he obtained a coach, 
 and was lost in the great crowd of the metropolis : 
 if his anxiety concerned his dress only, he kne\y 
 that a great -coat would nearly conceal that dress, 
 " robes and furred gowns hide all;" if he meditated 
 a change of dress in the chaise, would he not have 
 pulled up the front blind, and prevented the post- 
 boys (who must just at that time have been likely 
 to turn round, in order to receive directions) from 
 seeing him while effecting the change ; and giving 
 De Berenger every credit for dexterity and quick- 
 ness of operation, will any one say, that he thinks 
 he could have changed his dress while being carried 
 only two hundred, or even, taking the furthest dis-
 
 ( 25 ) 
 
 tance, four hundred yards, and that by four horses 
 at full speed*. 
 
 Nor can we admit the argument in favour of the 
 change, that De Berenger, finding no coach at the 
 first stand, was afraid, it being early in the morning, 
 there might be no coach also at the second stand ; 
 and that, in consequence, he should be compelled 
 to walk, dressed as he was, through the streets. 
 It was not so early as Lord Cochrane would have 
 us believe : Bartholomew, the waterman, said on 
 the trial, that De Berenger arrived at Marsh-Gate 
 between nine o'clock and half past nine ; there was 
 indeed, as it happened, no coach at the first stand, 
 and but one at the second : but this, I may safely 
 say, is rather an unusual thing at that time ; earlier 
 it is not unusual : but hackney-coachmen generally 
 are out by that hour, hoping to find customers from 
 the country stages that come in, or from people 
 going to business. The sun rises on the 21st of 
 February before seven o'clock ; it could not there- 
 fore be called early for a coach to be out between 
 nine and ten, as Lord Cochrane must well know, 
 his uncle Mr. C. Johnstone, and Mr. Butt, having 
 come down to the Stock-Exchange (above three or 
 four miles) by ten o'clock, in a hackney-coach, for 
 
 * Q. What did you observe in passing ? (by the Marsh-Gate). 
 
 A. I observed a post-chaise with four horses, it had galloped 
 at a very great rate, the horses were exceedingly hot, and the 
 man was getting into a hackney-coach, that the people there 
 told me had come out of that chaise. 
 
 Evidence of Richard Barwick. Trial, p. 121. 
 
 E
 
 ( 26 ) 
 
 several mornings. And supposing DC Berengcr 
 could not have obtained a coach, I do not see uh\ 
 he should not have proceeded in the post-chaise to 
 Lord Cochrane's : discovery would be nearly as 
 likely in one case as the other ; we see indeed that 
 the track of the coach was discovered : besides, a 
 post-chaise and four is not such a novelty at the 
 west-end of the town (where gentlemen are often 
 passing to and fro in that style) as to have drawn a 
 great crowd after it. 
 
 Lord Cochrane, in his zeal to make De Berengcv 
 take off his red coat, almost wishes us (Letter, p. J \ ) 
 to discredit Shilling's evidence as to De Berengev 
 having been in red tiny time* on his way from 
 Dartford to Marsh-Gate : the evidence of Shilling 
 on that head is positive, (Trial, p. 1 14) " he saw 
 a red coat down to the waist ;" and let it be re- 
 marked, that if De Berenger really changed his 
 dress in the chaise, Shilling, who dismounted and 
 attended him when stepping from one carriage 
 to the other, must have observed so great a trans- 
 formation, and would be able to offer his oath on 
 something better than "his belief (whirh conies 
 to nothing) that De Berenger went through the 
 metamorphose in his chaise ; and this more partii 
 cularly, if, as he now says, he thought De Berengev 
 did change. 
 
 .Having conducted, as I hope, De Berenger. 
 * " Something too much of this, Horatio.''
 
 ( 27 ) 
 
 dressed in a scarlet coat, into the hackney-coach, I 
 have to crave Lord Cochrane's pardon for pre- 
 suming to declare, in defiance of all he has said to 
 the contrary, my firm belief, that Crane did actually 
 put down his fare arrayed in a scarlet and not a 
 *reen dress. And notwithstanding all that Lord 
 Cochrane has said or written on Crane's character, 
 it is my clear conviction, that his evidence is worthy, 
 when all things connected therewith are considered, 
 of implicit belief. I speak of the evidence he gave 
 both before the Committee of the Stock-Exchange, 
 and on the trial ; the latter, no doubt, is to be our 
 chief guide. I shall begin with what he said to the 
 'Committee ; and it will appear that the man was 
 not only consistent with himself, but also mentioned 
 tilings, which, according to Lord Cochrane's own 
 affidavit, did take place when De Berenger arrived 
 in Green-Street. Crane told the Committee, that 
 De Berenger, on alighting, took his sword and 
 portmanteau into the house and laid them down, 
 as if familiar with the house ; that the servant who 
 opened the door was a short elderly man, dressed 
 in black. On De Berenger's inquiring for Col. 
 
 or Capt. , the servant told him that he 
 
 was gone to breakfast in Cumberland-Street ; and 
 receiving this reply, De Berenger asked if he could 
 write a note, which being answered in the affirma- 
 tive, he went into the parlour, apparently for that 
 purpose ; that on Crane asking for more money, 
 De Berenger came out of the parlour, and gave 
 him another shilling ; that De Berenger was*about,, 
 the middle size, and had a red face (the cftect of
 
 the ride, no doubt, on a cold frosty morning). We 
 have Crane here mentioning one or two circum- 
 stances, acknowledged by Lord Cochrane himself 
 to have passed ; perhaps his Lordship will there- 
 fore believe thus much. The evidence which Crane 
 gave on the trial tallied with this (Trial, p. 122). 
 Crane deposed, as Bartholomew did, that he was 
 ordered to drive to Grosvenor-Square (not over the 
 bridge, as deposed by Miller) and that, when he 
 arrived there, he was told to go to No. 13, Green- 
 Street, where the same conversation passed between 
 him and De Berenger as that stated before the Com- 
 mittee. Crane, moreover, swore to De Berenger's 
 coat being a scarlet one when he went into th 
 house. The circumstance of the dialogue which took 
 place between De Berenger and Lord Cochrane's 
 servant at the door, was calculated to give Crane 
 an opportunity of remarking De Berenger's red 
 coat peeping over the coach-door ; and this w : as 
 further strengthened by that of De Berenger coining 
 out of the parlour to give him another shilling ; 
 Crane also deposed, that he let down the steps of 
 tlu> coach for De BeFenger to alight, and though 
 Lord Cochrane is pleased to deny this, yet, as there 
 is evidence (Trial, p. 125) that he did so, we must, 
 in deference to his Lordship's love of evidence, be- 
 lieve Crane. De Berenger moreover afforded ano- 
 ther opportunity for Crane to remark his dress, by 
 putting down the front-glass of the coach, when in 
 Grosvrnor-Square, and telling Crane to drive to 
 No. 13, Green-Street (Trial, p. 123). The op- 
 portunities which Bartholomew and Crane enjoyed
 
 ( 29 ) 
 
 for observing De Berenger's dress, were thus far 
 superior to those of any other person, and more 
 especially of the " disinterested" Miller and Ray- 
 ment ; and with this conviction on our minds, it 
 will, in order to the full persuasion, be only neces- 
 sary to vindicate Crane from the accusation of such 
 complete depravity of heart as disqualifies him from 
 being; believed. I will be bold to say, that sup- 
 ported as his evidence is by probability, by the 
 evidence of Bartholomew in part, by the nature of 
 Lord Cochrane's conversation with De Berenger, 
 and by our knowledge of life, we must have stronger 
 reasons for discrediting that evidence than any yet 
 offered. That Crane should feel somewhat elated 
 at the prospect of money is natural, and his elation 
 of spirit may have given rise to hasty and idle ex- 
 pressions ; but if he knew that the evidence he in- 
 tended to give was false, it is not probable he would 
 publicly declare, as stated in one of the affidavits, 
 (CharlesKing's) his design of giving corrupt evidence, 
 and thereby perjuring himself for the sake of gain. 
 Guilt has but rarely the honest indiscretion to 
 announce its intentions ; how much misery would be 
 prevented if it had ! 
 
 Crane is charged with having said, that when he 
 received the money to be given him as a reward for 
 his discovery, he should be independent of his 
 father, and that he rejoiced in the prospect. A 
 laudable ambition this ! the growth of instinct ; and 
 instinct, says Mr. Burke, when guided by reason, 
 is always right. With every rational deference to
 
 ( 20 ) 
 
 parental authority, it must be admitted, that libera* 
 lion, at a proper time, from such interference* 
 is often the nurse of self-exertion and manly dignity, 
 alike beneficial to public and private happiness. In 
 China, the most populous region of the globe, the 
 business of the father is entailed on the son, with 
 dull and spirit-benumbing uniformity, from genera- 
 tion to generation, and it is sinful for a new race to 
 start from the thraldom of its predecessor: the 
 result of this narrow doctrine is, that the Chinese 
 Mupire, though vainly arrogating to itself unrivalled 
 perfection in art and science, has been for many 
 centuries stationary,* if not retrograde, in intellect 
 and virtue. 
 
 The heinous crime, too, of having purchased a 
 new coach and horses with the money given him, 
 is imputed to Crane : but does this really impeach 
 his character ? On the contrary, this fact alone suf- 
 ficiently proves, that he is not the bad man repre- 
 sented by Lord Cochrane. His Lordship certainly 
 worked dexterously on the feelings of a deluded 
 populace after his trial and sentence ; he is, how- 
 ever, no great master of the human heart : there is 
 a want of symmetry and proportion in his delinea- 
 tions of character, and he is unacquainted with its 
 more delicate shades. It is to the praise of Crane 
 that he immediately put the money into business : 
 there is a coarse but true proverb, familiar to every 
 one, which declares, that what is obtained by vil- 
 lany is spent in profligacy : had Crane been the 
 thoughtless and depraved wretch depicted by Lord
 
 Cochrane, the money he acquired would have been 
 wasted in a few days' excess and debauchery. The 
 sudden influx of such a sum into the hands of a 
 poor man, even of the best character, might prove 
 an unhappy temptation to vice ; but falling into the 
 power of a very bad man, it would ravage and root 
 up all inclination to prudence and propriety of 
 conduct. We are therefore justified in saying, that 
 no one so atrocious in character, as Crane is said 
 by Lord Cpchrane to be, would have used the 
 money as this man employed it. When we reflect 
 on the various ways in which he might have got rid 
 of the property, his conduct will be deemed highly 
 praise-worthy. That dose searcher into life, 
 Theophrastus, the Greek, pronounces it to be one 
 of the characteristics of a villain, that he is for 
 ever restless, shifting from one employ to another, 
 and adopting any means, however disgraceful, of 
 living : " The man," he says, " who is regardless 
 of all reputation, is a meer Jack-of-all-Trades ; 
 sometimes he keeps an ale-house, at other times he 
 is bully to a brothel, and there is nothing so sordid 
 but he will undertake ; he even turns gamester*." 
 Now Crane did not do any thing of this kind ; but 
 would have acted thus, had he been very prone to 
 wickedness and negligent of character : on receiving 
 his reward, he did not spend it in debauchery, nor 
 did he fly from change to change, from expedient to 
 expedient; but employed it in his own business, 
 and improved his existing circumstances : Jiad lie 
 
 * Tbeophrastus's Characters, translated from la Bruycre, p. 10,
 
 ( 32 ) 
 
 not wasted the property in pursuits more generally 
 deemed profligate, he might, however, have fallen 
 into errors little less dishonourable to himself and 
 mischievous to others ; he might, for instance, 
 have left the duties of his particular calling in life, 
 turned politician, reformer of the state, and orator 
 of Palace-Yard mobs ; or have gone with his newly- 
 acquired wealth into the Alley, passed his time in 
 the low and desperate arts of stock-gambling ; and, 
 as .the climax of folly and error, have hired some 
 friend (whom he should afterwards treacherously 
 betray and desert) to execute a nefarious plot, 
 with the view of enriching himself by the misery 
 and ruin of others. 
 
 But I beg his Lordship's pardon for being 
 inattentive so long, to the interesting dialogue 
 between him and De Berenger, in Green-Street. 
 According to the affidavit, we now have De Be- 
 rengev appearing before his Lordship, in green 
 attire, representing himself as having fled from the 
 rules of the King's-Bench-Prison, being in great 
 distress of mind and pocket, requesting to be sent 
 on board Lord Cochrane's ship, the Tonnant, that 
 he might escape from his creditors ; and on being 
 refused his request, and recommended to wait on 
 Lord Yarmouth for that purpose, we hear De Be- 
 renger asking Lord Cochrane, to furnish him with 
 a disguise, it not being decorous to wait on the 
 colonel of a corps, in the uniform of that regiment ; 
 witb/which request Lord Cochrane complies. If any 
 thing can add to the testimony of Bartholomew and
 
 ( 33 ) 
 
 Crane, concerning the red coat, it is this very visit 
 and conversation which do that. And the better to 
 elucidate this point, I shall now quote from the 
 speech of the learned counsel, who so ably conducted 
 the prosecution, a passage which developes his 
 notion of the cause for De Berenger's visit to 
 Lord Cochrane ; which idea perfectly agrees with 
 my own, and will afford a clue to the affair 
 " They", says the learned counsel, " who contrive 
 schemes of fraud, cannot always provide for all 
 possible events. Gentlemen, it is in the order of 
 Providence, in mercy to mankind, that wickedness 
 should be defeated by its own folly. When the 
 mind is in disorder, the course is not straight and 
 even, but irregular and wavering ; it is detected by- 
 its obliquity. It is by the winding of the course that 
 you discover you are in the path of the serpent. 
 There is always something omitted ; the omission 
 here was this : in settling their plan of operation, 
 they had forgotten to provide where De Berenger 
 should resort on his arrival in town, and on the 
 way his heart failed him as to going to his lodgings, 
 he dared not enter them in a dress which would 
 lead to a detection, and he therefore drove to Lord 
 Cochrane's to get rid of his dress, and there he, by 
 Lord Cochrane's assistance, did get rid of his dress, 
 procuring a disguise, in which he went confidently 
 home to his own lodgings exempt from observa- 
 tion *." To return to the dress : Lord Cochrane 
 says (Letter, page 72) " he (De Berenger) came tp 
 
 * Trial, page 47. 
 
 F
 
 ( 34 y 
 
 me not for a change of dress, but for permission to 
 go on board the Tonnant." We will admit this for 
 the sake of argument, and also, that De Berenger 
 having on a red coat, might button up his great coat 
 so cleverly, as to prevent the red from being seen ; 
 but, when his Lordship told De Berenger, he dare 
 not send him on board the Tonnant, De Berenger 
 asked for a disguise, and then my Lord, you must 
 have seen the red coat, for it would be a most natural 
 question with any one, why what sort of a coat have 
 you got on De Berenger ? 
 
 His Lordship then turns about and says, w but if 
 he did not change his clothes in the post-chaise or 
 hackney-coach, he may have changed them at my 
 own house, before I came home from Mr. King's 
 manufactory." Is it likely that De Berenger would 
 imprudently run the risk of being discovered by the 
 servants coming into the room, while he was in the 
 act of taking off one coat and putting on another ? 
 We have seen how the domestics, I may say, troubled 
 De Berenger with their presence ; the cook going 
 twice into the parlour : and there was no reason for 
 De Berenger at any time while at Lord Cochrane's, 
 to think himself secure from a casual entrance into 
 the room, not to mention the chance of other visitors 
 coming to his Lordship. De Berenger would have 
 had a better opportunity than this, even in the 
 chaise or hackney-coach : he scarcely ever could be 
 said to be alone, or secure from interruption. The 
 cook according to her affidavit went twice into the 
 parlour (kind creature !) to mend the fire j and from
 
 ( 35 ) 
 
 what Lord Cochrane has himself disclosed (Letter, 
 Appendix), De Berenger with the usual and allow- 
 able familiarity of a friend in a friend's house, asked 
 for water to wash with, and also had breakfast at 
 Lord Cochrane's before |his Lordship arrived : the 
 servants therefore, could scarcely ever have been 
 long absent from the room at one time : and De 
 Berenger, if he really changed his dress, must have 
 had full employment ; he washed, breakfasted, 
 looked at the pictures, and according to Lord 
 Cochrane, changed his clothes. 
 
 Again, Lord Cochrane says, that De Berenger 
 being dressed in green uniform, could not wait on 
 Lord Yarmouth in that dress, because it would 
 excite suspicion. It must be agreed with the noble 
 and learned Judge on the trial, that " if he really 
 had a green uniform, it would not have excited 
 observation or suspicion ; it was the very uniform 
 he ought to have worn." I shall not quarrel with 
 his Lordship's subterfuge, that the exact uniform 
 of a green body with a crimson collar, was not 
 mentioned in the affidavit ; a green uniform, such as 
 De Berenger was entitled to wear as Adjutant to a 
 corps of sharp-shooters, was worn by De Berenger, 
 for Lord Yarmouth deposed on the trial to two 
 sorts of coats being used by his corps ; viz. a green 
 one with a crimson collar, and the other of the same 
 colour (green) but without any crimson collar ; and 
 as Lord Cochrane is so very scrupulous in admitting 
 evidence, I shall request him to cut off the skirts of 
 De Berenger's green uniform, even if they are only
 
 put on by way of insinuation, for they no where 
 appear either in his affidavit or in evidence on the 
 trial : this is the first time we have heard of any 
 skirts to De Berenger's coat ; surely Lord Cochrane 
 must have had those he saw on De Berenger's 
 scarlet coat running in his head, when lie made this 
 otherwise infamous addition to the dress ; an innocent 
 invention truly ! and suggested we will hope for 
 candour's sake by his Lordship's tailor, who forgot 
 while lengthening De Berenger's coat, that by so 
 doing, he rendered it less adapted for " a small 
 portmanteau." The green coat without a crimson 
 collar, was, then, as much a part of Lord Yar- 
 mouth's sharp-shooters uniform, as the one with a 
 crimson collar ; and was the dress De Berenger 
 might have worn, if really going to his Colonel. 
 Lord Yarmouth knew De Berenger oijly as his 
 Adjutant ; if he therefore had waited on his Lord- 
 ship only on ordinary business, it would not have 
 been entirely indecorous to have gone in military 
 costume, though officers do not usually wear their 
 uniform when not on duty - but going as De Be- 
 renger proposed to do (on the suggestion of Lord 
 Cochrane) to solicit from his commanding officer 
 recommendation to a military appointment, every 
 mark of courtesy and respect was due, and De Be- 
 renger was doubtless too much a man of the world 
 not to know this. Lord Yarmouth declared on the 
 trial (p. 377) that he should not have thought it 
 extraordinary for De Berenger to have appeared 
 before him in uniform. Lord Cochrane's notions 
 of etiquette in dress, seem as confused and erroneous
 
 ( 37 ) 
 
 as his ideas of law or morality. He is unacquainted 
 with some points of law, and therefore concludes 
 that they are not law : he never appeared before 
 the Admiralty, like other officers, in uniform, and 
 therefore. could not imagine that any other officer, 
 should be desirous of waiting on his Colonel in 
 regimentals. But whatever his own practice may 
 have been, his Lordship must have known not only 
 " on the 21st of February and the 9th of June," 
 but always, that any superior officer would consider 
 it as a grateful mark of deference, that his inferior 
 should wait on him in uniform if soliciting an ap- 
 pointment : it is a sort of private levee if I may so 
 term it, and should be treated with the same respect 
 as a public one. 
 
 Again, Lord Cochrane says, that De Berenger 
 objected to return to his lodgings in the dress he 
 then wore, because it would excite suspicion ; and 
 his Lordship says (Letter, page 78) that he was 
 not proved on the trial to have ever appeared in 
 his uniform while residing within the rules of the 
 King's-Bench : what his Lordship may call proof 
 I cannot tell ; it seems that he thinks there has been 
 nothing like proof, excepting on his own side in the 
 whole evidence. But if Lord Cochrane will turn 
 to pages 398, 399, of the trial, he will find that 
 De Berenger's servants were very familiar with his 
 green (not red indeed) military costume ; and it 
 certainly would not have been the first time they had 
 seen their master so attired, since he was within the 
 rules ; when the fraud took place (Feb. 21, 1814) 
 
 301276
 
 ( 38 ) 
 
 Jie had been within the rules fourteen or fifteen 
 months ; does Lord Cochrane mean to assert, that 
 De Berenger never once during that period was in 
 Iris uniform ; was there no private drill or field- 
 day all that time, a year and a quarter ; was the 
 regiment without its Adjutant (the most efficient 
 officer in the corps) the whole of that period ? this 
 is circumstantial proof, that it would not have sur- 
 prised the people at his lodgings to have seen him 
 in green uniform, though it certainly would have 
 astonished them, had he been found coming home 
 bedecked in scarlet and stars. Neither would he 
 have been affected in another way : Smith and his 
 wife, his servants, were the corrupt abettors of, and 
 devoted slaves in his infamy, as appears by the 
 disgraceful alibi they attempted to prove (Trial, 
 page 382, 392) in favour of De Berenger ; their 
 consciences would certainly not have been very much 
 seared and tormented at the idea of their master 
 having been for once without the rules : and as to 
 the owners of the house, Davidson and his wife, 
 we have evidence on the trial (page 135, 141) that 
 they had little or nothing to do with De Berenger 
 and his movements ; they never attended to the 
 door to let him in or out, and Mr. Davidson knew 
 scarcely any thing about him, owing to his being 
 much out in business. What have now become of 
 De Berenger's fears of appearing at his lodgings in 
 green attire ; they are all absorbed in the superior 
 radiance of the scarlet coat ; the lustre of the green 
 is eclipsed by the excelling brilliancy of the bright 
 Mars with which De Berenger glittered, just as the
 
 ( 39 ) 
 
 planet Mercury is lost in the superior light of th$ 
 Sun. De Berenger could have gone with confidence 
 and satisfaction, if not with elation of spirit, to 
 Lord Yarmouth's, or to his own lodgings, dressed 
 in green costume ; but to have appeared at either 
 of those places arrayed in " the splendid costume 
 of his crime," would have been detection, disgrace, 
 and even punishment ; he therefore wisely asked 
 Lord Cochrane to furnish him with a disguise, and 
 his Lordship as prudently, immediately complied 
 with the demand. 
 
 But again, says his Lordship, (Letter, p. 88) " I 
 have no doubt that if I had granted him permission 
 to go immediately on board, he would have left the 
 house without evincing any desire to change, or 
 making any allusion to his dress." The contradic- 
 tions of guilt are among its best detectors : and so 
 my Lord, after telling us (Letter, page 79) that 
 " the dress, (as described by yourself) was such as 
 De Berenger must have had real and urgent reasons 
 to desire to get rid of, or he would not have adverted 
 to them in your presence ;" and in page 81 that 
 " it was perfectly natural that he should wish to 
 get rid of that dress (whether red or green) in which 
 he had been seen by the person who conveyed him 
 from the chaise to your house, &c." again, that 
 " he (De Berenger) had a strong and probable 
 motive for desiring to lay that dress aside j" you 
 with most admirable and unrivalled consistency 
 assure us, that, but for your own voluntary offer 
 of another coat, De Berenger wx>uld have been
 
 ( 40 ) 
 
 content to go on board without any change ; to have 
 gone seventy-two miles in the dress in which accord- 
 ing to your Lordship's account, he had been seen 
 completing the plot by your servants, by Miller and 
 Rayment, and the Lord knows who ; you say he 
 would have consented to have gone down to the 
 ship, whether dressed in red or green : can it for a 
 moment be thought probable, that De Berenger, 
 going to a vessel in the capacity, and with the 
 ostensible commission of a sharp-shooter, would 
 have gone dressed in scarlet, and thus have falsified 
 his credentials, and that dress, moreover, the very 
 coat which, on Lord Cochrane's explanation, was 
 the costume of his crime ? There is an old saving, 
 that elves, or fairies, and some say the devil him- 
 self, take children out of cradles, and put other 
 children in their stead. I cannot help thinking, 
 that this is pretty much the case with Lord Coch- 
 rane's arguments, or rather excuses. I am afraid, 
 notwithstanding late events ought to teach him 
 circumspection in the choice of companions and 
 advisers, that he has not a few bad counsellors about 
 him, who, when my Lord in his defence, would 
 set down on paper any excuse of the least tolerable 
 propriety, blot out that apology, and substitute 
 something much worse of their own : Lord Coch- 
 rane could never otherwise write as he does. 
 
 One or two more remarks shall conclude the 
 observations on De Berenger's dress. It is asserted 
 by Lord Cochrane, without any doubt or diffidence 
 (Letter, page 80) that De Berenger must necessarily
 
 ( 41 ) 
 
 have gone to Dover in the green dress ; for he would 
 not choose to expose himself to the remarks (and 
 perhaps detection) of people during his journey, 
 by being in a scarlet coat. Now even admitting 
 that De Berenger had a green dress ready for the 
 occasion with him, it is not " probable" he would 
 go to Dover in it ; the green uniform, though not 
 so attractive as " the splendid costume of De Be- 
 renger' s crime," would, however, as being military, 
 be the subject of remark. It was incumbent on 
 De Berenger to get down to Dover as privately as 
 possible, incog, and to divest himself of every thing 
 that could court notice : so convinced were Smith 
 and his wife (De Berenger's servants) of the ex- 
 pediency of this, that when they swore their des- 
 perate alibi, wishing to give their master an 
 appearance that seemed the least like any prepa- 
 ration for such a plot, they said (Trial, page 397) 
 he left home on Sunday morning the day before the 
 .fraud, in a black coat and waistcoat : the upper 
 .coat is indeed proved on the trial, to have been 
 worn not only through the whole course of the 
 commission, but preparatory to the crime (p. 139) 
 but not so the under-dress. It was not therefore, 
 as Lord Cochrane declares, known to Lord Ellen- 
 borough, that if the coat in which Lord Cochrane 
 saw De Berenger, was not that in which he com- 
 mitted the crime, it must necessarily be the one he 
 wore in going to Dover preparatory to its commis- 
 sion, and therefore in De Berenger's mind, it might 
 not be wholly unconnected with it. Denying, then, 
 his Lordship's premises, the conclusions are invalid ; 
 
 G
 
 and it cannot be accepted as an argument, that 
 De Berenger wished to change his dress, because 
 he had gone to Dover in it. 
 
 It may be added, that while comparing the testi- 
 mony of servants with that of other persons, such 
 evidence is to be received with a degree of caution, 
 proportionate to their relative situations in life. 
 Meritorious as domestics often are in some of the ma- 
 terial parts of character, it must be admitted, that a 
 state of servitude is not the condition of life best cal- 
 culated to create and display that independence of 
 mind so necessary to a firm and ingenuous declara- 
 tion of the truth. The interests of the employer 
 and employed are often inseparably mixed together. 
 Th6 master may not have an absolute dominion 
 over the servant's mind ; but there is frequently an 
 indirect force which stands opposed to the will of 
 the latter, and which, as for as it operates, pro- 
 duces a mental servitude, encroaching on the exer- 
 cise of private liberty, and destroying self-govern- 
 ment. That this was the view our ancestors took 
 of the capacity of servants as witnesses, will appear 
 by the following quotation from Mr. Reeve's 
 History of the English Law, vol. iv. chap. 24, 
 where, speaking of the extreme caution used by 
 our ecclesiastical courts in the time of Henry VI. 
 and Edward IV.* he says, " The competency of 
 
 * The reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV. abounded with 
 learned men in the law ; the knowledge and practice of the law 
 were then in high credit. 
 
 Selden's Preface to Fortescue De Laudibus Lcgura Anglie*
 
 ( 43 ) 
 
 witnesses was measured by the canonists by much 
 nicer considerations than any that operated in our 
 law of evidence ; the objections to a witness were 
 such as were absolute in their nature, or such as 
 applied only between particular persons ;" and 
 having enumerated the objections applicable to the 
 former, Mr. Reeve says, " between particular per- 
 sons it was held, that a domestic, a familiar friend, 
 a relation by blood or marriage, one who could be 
 influenced to be a partial witness, all these were 
 prohibited from becoming witnesses for any persons 
 towards whom they stood so circumstanced." The 
 doctrine here laid down is very narrow, and re- 
 ferred chiefly to the canon law ; but though the 
 liberal feeling of later times has relaxed it, a por- 
 tion of its spirit is now, in particular cases, pru- 
 dently kept in view. Our common law is very 
 jealous of the connexion between master and ser- 
 vant. In an action brought against the master for 
 an injury by the negligence of the servant, he is not 
 a witness for his master until released : two in- 
 stances only, explanatory of this, shall be given. 
 A bailiff, to whom a warrant is directed, cannot be 
 examined for the sheriff in an action of escape. 
 Nor a servant, whose business it is to take care of 
 the pipes of the New-River Company, through a 
 defect of which the plaintiff met with an accident*. 
 But if the master release the servant, he is a good 
 witness. The principle by which this practice ob- 
 tains is, that the servant being dependent on his 
 
 * Green v. New-River Company. 4 T. Rep. 589,
 
 employer for a livelihood, he may be a partial, be- 
 cause interested, witness. A learned writer on 
 evidence*, also determines, that " the credit of a 
 witness is to be judged from his state (i. c. condition 
 or situation in life) and dignity in the world ; for 
 men of easy circumstances are supposed more hardly 
 induced to commit, a perjury." To apply these 
 opinions and facts to the present case. The affi- 
 davits of Lord Cochrane's domestics contain im- 
 probable assertions : this alone authorises their 
 rejection ; but they are also to be viewed with 
 jealousy, because the attachment of these servants 
 to their master for past kindness, or hopes of future 
 favour, may have powerfully influenced their deposi- 
 tions!. It must, I repeat, never be forgotten, 
 that they were none of them visible, when most 
 wanted, for the purpose of inquiry ; one (Davis) 
 
 * Gilbert on Evidence, p. 140. 
 
 t The writer of this was present when the well-known action 
 brought by Sir Francis Burdett against tbc Serjeant at Arms, 
 for a Trespass, was tried. One of the witnesses examined by 
 the defendant, was Sir Francis's porter, who was questioned 
 concerning his having let his master into the house on the 
 day of the alleged trespass ; a fact, which at any other time 
 might have escaped his recollection, but which the particular 
 circumstances of the time must have fixed indelibly on his 
 memory. The witness for a long time eluded every effort 
 made by Sir Vicary Gibbs (then Attorney-General) and Sir 
 William Gar row, to extract a confession from him, that he did 
 let his master in ; and it was not till after a very severe cross- 
 examination, that the unwilling evidence was wrung from the 
 prevaricator's lips. The fact is mentioned here, to corroborate 
 what has been said concerning the testimony of servants.
 
 ( 45 ) 
 
 went immediately to sea, another was sent into 
 the country. Sayer, the police-officer, when sent 
 to make inquiry at Lord Cochrane's house^ dis- 
 covered this dismissal of the men, and also, that 
 " the maid-servant was not to be seen or spoken 
 to." Lord Cochrane's counsel, too, men of great 
 experience in the courts, when examining Thomas 
 Dewman, one of the domestics, did not think it 
 prudent to ask him any questions concerning De 
 Berenger's dress. This man and Mary Turpin 
 (the busy cook) when sent by Lord Cochrane to 
 his solicitors for an examination as to the evidence 
 they could give on the trial, admitted, on being 
 closely questioned by the solicitors, that they could 
 not swear De Berenger's coat was not red, that it 
 might be red, and they neither saw the body nor 
 skirts of a coat. Reflecting, therefore, with close 
 and impartial attention on the evidence of the 
 servants, it will be found that it is worth little or 
 no credit ; neither will the frail and dubious testi- 
 mony of the " disinterested deponents," Messrs. 
 Miller and Rayment, support the tottering fabric 
 of ev idence concerning De Berenger's dress, which 
 has been erected with such apparent, but really 
 unsubstantial labour and fruitless skill, by Lord 
 Cochrane, 
 
 Let us now turn to the poor fisherman, Odell, 
 and his discovery of the red coat in the Thames. 
 This humble but useful labourer on the waters, and 
 the trophy which he so seasonably dragged up from 
 its lymphatic wardrobe, were forgotten, with a
 
 ( 46 ) 
 
 cruel indifference, by Lord Cochrane, while de- 
 scanting so copiously on the dress of De Berenger, 
 in his Lordship's letter to " the virtuous and en- 
 lightened" electors of Westminster ; a side-glance 
 on the subject is, however, given in Lord Cochrane's 
 last epistle (p. 99). His Lordship will, I suppose, 
 admit the strong probability of the coat and star 
 found by Odell, being the same which De Berenger 
 wore, and which he bought of Solomon, the mili- 
 tary accoutrement-maker. It is not now the cus- 
 tom, indeed, for officers, like the ancient warriors, 
 to hang up their disused armours as trophies of 
 valour or gratitude (the avaflvi/xartf, or votive offer- 
 ings) in a temple ; yet, there is no absolute occasion 
 for their forsaken garments to be consigned to ab- 
 solute destruction at a dead loss. The coat thus 
 found, did not therefore in its best days invest an 
 honest back. Lord Cochrane comments on an ob- 
 servation made by the noble and learned Judge, 
 concerning the sinking of the coat, in which it is 
 said, " that the sinking of it could have been with 
 no other view than that of suppressing this piece 
 of evidence, and preventing the discovery which it 
 might otherwise occasion ; this makes it the more 
 material to attend to the stripping off the clothes, 
 which took place in Lord Cochrane's house," 
 (Trial, p. 478) " which, says Lord Cochrane, I take 
 to be a direct intimation to the jury, that your 
 Lordship considered me as accessary to the sinking 
 as well as the ' stripping / and yet it appears to 
 me, that if I had felt the necessity of sinking any 
 article of De Berenger' s dress, I should have felt
 
 ( 47 ) 
 
 it no less necessary to sink the circumstance of the 
 ' stripping.' And it also appears to me, that if I 
 had known that his dress was * the costume of the 
 crime,' and had had any personal concern < to 
 suppress this piece of evidence,' I should have used 
 a more cautious, ready, and effectual method of 
 doing it, by committing it to the flames in my own 
 house, than by sending it out in a bundle, to be 
 sunk at Old Swan-Stairs." In no instance has his 
 Lordship been more unsuccessful in his apologies 
 than in this. All that he says, will apply as much to 
 De Berenger, Mr. C. Johnstone, Mr. Butt, or any 
 other person connected with the fraud, as to him- 
 self. 
 
 There is, it must be admitted, no evidence on the 
 trial proving that Lord Cochrane sunk the bundle, 
 neither is there evidence of any other person doing 
 so : if, therefore, on this account only, we acquit 
 Lord Cochrane, or any one in particular, from 
 being accessary to the " sinking," we must acquit 
 them all ; for no one individual can be proved 
 to have done it more than another ; but they all 
 had a united and positive interest in the conceal- 
 ment and destruction of " the costume of the 
 crime ;" if it was in the power, moreover, of Lord 
 Cochrane (supposing he sunk it) to have adopted 
 " a more cautious, ready, and effectual method of 
 destruction, by committing it to the flames in his 
 own house," so might De Berenger, or any one 
 else who consigned it to the Thames, have acted ; 
 they might have burnt the coat and melted the star
 
 ( 48 ) 
 
 at their house : water, however, is a depositary 
 often selected by guilt for the fruits of its crimes* 
 It must be in the recollection of many, that when 
 the reservoir of water in St. James's-Square was 
 cleaned a few years back, numerous articles, which 
 must have been thrown in by guilt to avoid detec- 
 tion, were found there ; and which the persons 
 who flung them in might very readily have com- 
 mitted to the flames, instead of consigning them to 
 the water : now had any of the things thus found 
 been traced to the purloiners, and they to prove 
 their not having sunk them, had said that they 
 might have adopted " a more cautious, ready, and 
 effectual method" of getting rid of them, by com- 
 mitting them to the flames, and melting them down 
 in their own houses, the Judges and Jury would, 
 I believe, have looked cool on this inflammable ar- 
 gument, and have quenched it by saying, that a 
 man's not choosing the most dexterous mode of 
 concealing a crime, is no proof that he did not 
 perpetrate it at all. I will say, too, concerning 
 Lord Cochrane's imputed share in the " sinking" 
 of the coat and star, that if there is any evidence 
 (independent of the general interest which every 
 one of the party had) against a particular individual, 
 it is against his Lordship. " He (De Berenger) 
 put up his uniform in a towel, and afterwards went 
 away * ;" but it is not said with his bundle : and 
 
 * What must the servant, who let De Berenger out of 
 Lord Cochrane's house, think of him, when taking a bundle 
 wrapped up in a common towel with him ; an officer, an ac- 
 quaintance of mch importance, as to call Lord Cochrane a
 
 ( 49 ) 
 
 let us recollect, that De Berenger, in his con- 
 fession, desires Lord Cochrane to return him his 
 sword, which, he says, Lord Cochrane " persuaded 
 him to leave at his house ;" his Lordship also 
 thinking that the appearance of a good-sized bundle 
 might give rise to suspicion as well as a sword, 
 did perhaps extend his persuasive admonitions to 
 the whole of De Berenger's paraphernalia ; and if 
 he did so (I do not say there is positive evidence 
 that he did) and omitted to consign it to the flames, 
 he would have it conveyed to a great distance from 
 his house ; the farther from home the less suspicion : 
 the bundle was found sunk by the aid of three 
 pieces of lead, three screws, some marks for letters, 
 and some bits of coal, (Trial, p. 126) and it con- 
 tained " two sleeves of a coat, and then a coat cut 
 to pieces, and embroidery, and a star and a silver 
 coat of arms with two figures upon it," (Trial, 
 p. 126). Lord Cochrane says, (p. 99) " the hider 
 deposited the coat in so injudicious a place for its 
 ultimate concealment, that one might almost sur- 
 mise, that he anticipated some future occasion for 
 it, and possibly for a fraud, but upon whom, is 
 another question :" and then his Lordship, know- 
 ing the love of mankind for the marvellous, pro- 
 considerable distance from a serious affair ? And how does it 
 happen, since the servants have'been so communicative about 
 De Berenger's dress when he entered the house, that we have 
 nothing told us of the surprise they must have felt when he 
 left it in a disguise, and carrying a common bundle with him. 
 The whole of Lord Cochrane's account, indeed, is too absurd 
 for any but fools or knaves to accept.
 
 ( 50 ) 
 
 mises, like a skilful dramatist, a very wonderful 
 developement ; for he says, " strange as the disco- 
 very was, I am not without suspicion, that one still 
 more extraordinary remains to be made." Now, 
 without wishing to damp the expectations of my 
 readers, I would caution them against indulging the 
 hope that any future discovery which his Lordship 
 is able to make, will exceed in novelty, the one 
 already made by him, viz. that " a coat cut to 
 pieces" may be used for " some future occasion." 
 I trust De Berenger will not be fool enough to take 
 the hint given by Lord Cochrane, and think of 
 going through another plot, arrayed in his old ac- 
 quaintance the scarlet coat ; for he would surely be 
 found out dressed in such " a thing of shreds and 
 patches." The experiment would be too hazardous 
 for any one, but Lord Cochrane himself. 
 
 We have now to examine another very important 
 part of the evidence : the deposition of the Hon. 
 Alexander Murray, (Trial, p. 215.) This gentle- 
 man who, I believe, is a near relative of the Duke 
 ofAthol, having stated his acquaintance with De 
 Berenger, while the latter resided within the rules 
 of the King's-Bench, had the following questions 
 .put to him : 
 
 Q. Had you at any time any conversation irith 
 Captain De Berenger previous to the 21st of 
 February, with respect to Lord Cochrane and 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone ? 
 
 A. Towards the end of January, I think, or 
 perhaps the beginning of February.
 
 ( 51 ) 
 
 . 
 
 Q. What was the substance of these convey 
 
 A. It happened one Sunday between one and 
 two o'clock, Mr. Harrison called on me, and we 
 were conversing about a pamphlet he was writing. 
 
 Q. That Mr. Harrison was writing? 
 
 A. Yes, it was relative to the trial between 
 Mr. Basil Cochrane and Mr. Harrison. 
 
 Q. That impressed the day on your recollec- 
 tion ? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. Did Captain De Berenger come in that 
 day ? 
 
 A. Yes, he rame in during the conversation 
 and joined in it. 
 
 Q. Did any thing pass from Capt. De Berenger 
 on that day, respecting Mr. Cochrane Johnstone 
 and Lord Coehrane ? 
 
 A. I at that time knew he was employed by 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone. 
 
 Q. From whom did you understand that ? 
 
 A. From Mr. De Berenger himself, that he 
 was employed by Mr. Cochrane Johnstone in plan- 
 ning out a small piece of ground, behind his house 
 in Alsop's Buildings. 
 
 Q. What passed at that time about Mr. Coch- 
 rane Johnstone ? 
 
 A. He mentioned that there was a transaction 
 going on. He said they had a plan in view. 
 . Q. Who had ? 
 
 A. That De Berenger had with Mr. Cochrane 
 Johnstone and Lord Cochrane ; that provided it sue-
 
 ( 52 ) 
 
 y it would put many thousand pounds in the pocket 
 of Mr. Cochrane Johnstons and Lord Cochrane. 
 
 Q. Upon hearing- this, did either you or Mr. 
 Harrison ask Captain De Berenger what the plan 
 was ? 
 
 A. I did, and he declined answering it ; I said, 
 is it the plan with regard to Ranelagh, which it 
 was proposed to build in Alsop's Buildings, on 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone's land ; and he said no, it 
 is not, it is a far better plan. 
 
 Q. What did Mr. De Berenger say to you, 
 that induced you to believe he was intimate with 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone ? 
 
 A. He was constantly with him j he was there 
 almost every day. 
 
 We have here the plot in embryo or perspective 
 only ; De Berenger saying, like Pierre in Venice 
 Preserved i 
 
 I'll trust thee with a secret, there are spirits 
 This hour at work. 
 
 Did De Berenger then divine the future, and had 
 the gift of prophecy descended miraculously upon 
 him ? or did Mr. Murray, a gentleman of noble 
 birth, perjure himself (as Lord Coehrane nearly 
 insinuates) in a court of justice ? Perhaps De Be- 
 renger was all at once infected with such an idly 
 loquacious spirit as to be led, like the improvisator! 
 poets, or ryhmsters of Italy, to entertain his au* 
 ditors with any nonsense, however incoherent, that 
 they might be able to waste a few hours of life an4
 
 fill up one of its languid pauses ; or was he really 
 intrusted with a secret, but could not feel easy till 
 he had relieved his heart by confiding its painful 
 consciousness ? An examination of the circumstances 
 in which this evidence originated, will convince us 
 that De Berenger had that knowledge, of causes, 
 which leads to a knowledge of consequences *, such 
 as any other human creature in his situation might 
 possess. He spoke the plain uninspired language 
 of truth, in saying not only to Mr. Murray, but to 
 Marchant, " that he (De Berenger), Lord Coch- 
 rane, and Mr. Cochrane Johnstone had a plan, 
 and that if it succeeded, many thousands would be 
 put into the pockets of Lord Cochrane and Mr. 
 Cochrane Johnstone." There is abundance of 
 evidence, proving the connexion between these 
 two persons as speculators in stock. Messrs. Butt 
 and Cochrane Johnstone were more closely united 
 with, and influenced by each other in their concerns, 
 than Lord Cochrane was with them ; but there 
 is sufficient evidence that his Lordship's specula- 
 tions were much in conjunction with Messrs. Butt 
 and Johnstone. In the first place we have Mr. 
 Fearn, Lord Cochrane's broker, introduced by 
 Mr. Butt, to Lord Cochrane and Cochrane John- 
 
 * De Berenger thus '< feeling the future in the instant," 
 reminds me of Onomacritus, the poet. He formed one of a 
 (deputation from the princes of Thessaly, who invited Xerxes 
 to invade Greece ; and foretold that the Persian Monarch would 
 build a bridge over the Hellespont : a prophecy which naturally 
 tended to its own accomplishment. De Berenger and the poet 
 knew the connexion between cause and effect.
 
 ( 54 > 
 
 stone, (Trial, p. 160) ; there is then evidence, that 
 Mr. Fearn, while transacting business with them, 
 saw Mr. Butt frequently, but not alone, lie saw all 
 three, Mr. Butt, Lord Cochraiie, and Mr. Coch- 
 rane Johstone together on business," (page 161). 
 When Mr. Fearn did business for Lord Cochrane, 
 he did not in all instances lake orders from his 
 Lordship, but sometimes from him, and sometimes 
 from Mr. Butt ; and when the orders of Mr. Butt 
 were thus acted on, Lord Cochrane always recog- 
 nized them, (p. 161). When Mr. Fearn removed 
 his office from No. 86, Cornhill, to No. 5, Shorter's- 
 Court, there were three rooms in the latter ; one 
 occupied by Mr. Fearn himself, another by Mr. 
 Butt, with Mr. Cochrane Johnstone and my Lord 
 Cochrane ; and the ground-floor by Lance, a clerk 
 employed by Messrs. Butt and Johnstone and Lord 
 Cochrane, (page 163) : thus we see his Lordship 
 completely immersed in the character and employ- 
 ment of a stock-jobber ; frequently, nay daily, 
 transacting business between the 12th and 19th of 
 February, in conjunction with Messrs. Butt and 
 Cochrane Johnstone, and snugly seated in an office 
 by the side of those gentlemen. Messrs. Butt and 
 Cochrane Johnstone were, it has been observed, 
 more generally connected with, and influenced by 
 each other, but on looking over their stock account, 
 we shall find (particularly on the 16th and 17th of 
 February) that Lord Cochrane's speculations were 
 often controlled by those of Mr.Cochrane Johnstone ; 
 for instance, on the 16th we find Mr. Johnstone's 
 Omnium balance to be 423,500, and on the 17th
 
 ( 55 ) 
 
 he reduced it to 350,000 ; on the 16th, Lord 
 Cochrane's Omnium balance was 150,000, and on 
 the 17th he reduced it to 100,000 ; there seems to 
 be an intimate connexion and correspondence of 
 plan and action ; and however disproportionate their 
 balances might be, owing to a difference of sums, we 
 may say, with the learned counsel for the prosecution, 
 " that their purchases were the same, their sales the 
 same ; they seemed in their stock speculations to 
 have but one soul :" this was more particularly the 
 case with Butt and Johnstone; " if one bought 
 20,000, the other bought 20,000 ; if one bought 
 95,000, the other bought 95,000." There is 
 here a firm and intimate union established between 
 the parties ; Mr. Butt the chief agent and grand 
 accountant of the whole, but more especially con- 
 nected with Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, the inventor 
 of the fraud. 
 
 Now when parties are thus engaged together, ih 
 so important a concern, they consult each other on 
 it, and discuss together its different probabilities : 
 they do this not only in hours of business, but at 
 meals, over the bottle, and other meetings. Men 
 while thus reviewing and canvassing their affairs, 
 feel that money * has with them the same captiva- 
 
 * This is said in a particular and not general manner ; allu- 
 sion is merely intended to the sordid men -with whom money is 
 their God, and with whose existence it appears to be identified. 
 There have been many brilliant exceptions to this. It can. 
 never be forgotten, that the mercantile character has been, 
 honoured by the name of a Lorenzo de Medicis, and others who
 
 ( 56 ) 
 
 ting influence, and universality of empire, which 
 Cicero in his tine oration for the poet Archias, says 
 literature has over its votaries : it delights at home, 
 and is not out of place abroad ; it visits their slum* 
 bers, accompanies them in their walks, and goes 
 with them into rural retirement. Messrs. Butt, 
 Johnstone, and Lord Cochrane, had their frequent 
 discourses and consultations, about their vast money 
 concerns ; they would not have been men of busi- 
 ness, if they had not. De Berenger, indeed, tells 
 us as much, for he says, " We, that is I, Lord 
 Cochrane, and Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, have a 
 plan ;" yes, they had been talking; about business, 
 and had a plan connected with that business. Early 
 in February, De Berenger told the Hon. Mr. Mur- 
 ray, that he had arranged, in conjunction with 
 Lord Cochrane and Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, a 
 scheme by which they were to benefit ; and on the 
 21st of February, the same De Berenger, was the 
 chief agent in a plot, by which the said Lord Coch- 
 rane and Mr. Cochrane Johnstone did actually 
 benefit. On Saturday preceding the execution of 
 the fraud, Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, 
 
 have been the august patrons of literature, the arts, and learned 
 men: it has been adorned too, with the virtues of a Colston, a 
 Hanway, a Firmin, and a Thornton ; men who devoted the 
 fruits of their honourable industry, to th purest and most 
 extensive philanthropy. Many living instances, might if deli- 
 cacy did not forbid, be also given of mercantile persons, who 
 solace their hours of retirement from business by literature 
 and the arts, who are the munificiently benevolent supporters 
 of charitable institutions, and who dignify the commercial cha- 
 racter, by high virtue, piety, and knowledge.
 
 ( 57 ) 
 
 and Mr. Butt, had a balance amounting in Consols 
 and Omnium to very nearly a million ; and on Mon- 
 day on the arrival of the news they all three sold, 
 they sold all they had, every shilling of it. However 
 they might occasionally have acted separately, they 
 all sold on that day ; however they might at other 
 times have left a balance, on that day they sold all 
 their stock. Can it for a moment be credited that 
 if either of the parties thus mixed in business, had 
 formed a scheme for their common benefit, the 
 scheme would not be mutually communicated; would 
 they not put each other on the alert to profit by it : 
 it is now well known that Mr. Johnstone originally 
 proposed the fraud ; admit this, is it likely he 
 would keep his Nephew in ignorance of it ; he knew 
 (for he was constantly with him) his immense 
 speculations, and that if the funds declined, fatal 
 consequences would ensue, and yet he did not tell 
 him of a plan laid for his relief! But, says Lord 
 Cochrane, if I myself was a party to the fraud and 
 joined in its contrivance, I should have gone into 
 the city that morning, and I did not go : there was 
 no necessity for his Lordship to go ; he breakfasted 
 with Mr. Johnstone and with his agent Mr. Butt, 
 and might have given them instructions how to act 
 even if he had not taken care before, of one per 
 cent, profit by previous orders to his broker. Lord 
 Cochrane and his coadjutors dwell much on tfcteir 
 having given orders to their brokers a day or two 
 before the plot, to sell when stocks came to a par- 
 ticular price. Now it is to be remarked, that if we 
 acquit Lord Cochrane of any share in the fraud on
 
 C 5S ) 
 
 account of previous orders to sell, we must also 
 acquit not only him and Mr. Butt, but also Mr. 
 Cochrane Johnstone, for they one and all gave 
 such orders a few days before the 21st of February ; 
 but as Mr. Gurney observed, the cool contentment 
 and moderate desires of these speculators, so far 
 from proving the absence of guilt, proves its com- 
 mission. It is very possible, and we have it in 
 evidence, that they did issue such orders to their 
 agents; Lord Cochrane, I make no doubt, instructed 
 Mr. Fearn, his broker, to sell whenever he could, 
 get one per cent, profit (modest desire upon such 
 a trifle as 139,000). If I have formed a scheme, 
 which, it appears nearly to an absolute certainty, 
 will raise the funds to 29{, I may, having bought 
 at 27f , or something more, give orders to mybroker, 
 without intrusting him with the secret cause of such 
 directions, to sell whenever the funds get up to 29 : 
 or again, at a time when I had not as yet formed 
 the plot, I might have told the broker to be satisfied 
 with that profit : but finding the funds dull, and 
 the state of public affairs critical, and contrary to my 
 expectations, I may invent a plan to prevent ruin, 
 (yes, ruin, my Lord), and which shall bring the 
 stocks up to such a point as would realize my ori- 
 ginal orders : letting my first order still remain, and 
 being satisfied with one per cent, profit, though more 
 might be made ; but " the bubble of the false news 
 will soon burst," and therefore, I will eagerly seize 
 the first blush of the moment. One of the witnesses 
 examined on the trial (Mr. Baily) said, that a gain 
 or loss of a single eighth on the enormous balance
 
 ( 59 ) 
 
 of the party, would have amounted to something 
 more than 2,000 ! ! Knowing this, aware, too, 
 that when the news was discovered to be false, the 
 funds would fall as rapidly as they rose, the party 
 might well be contented, even in contemplation of 
 the scheme, with the orders given to their brokers. 
 Mess. Butt and Cochrane Johnstone, however, were 
 on the scene of action by ten o'clock, (Feb. 21) and 
 Mr. Fearn had sold only a part of their stock before 
 their arrival (Trial 165) ; of course, they were there in 
 person to manage the rest and take better advantage 
 of the fraud, than would have been obtained by their 
 original orders. Mr. Butt, Lord Cochrane's agent, 
 and whose " orders were always recognized by 
 Lord Cochrane," was thus, we see, at hand after 
 breakfasting in company with Lord Cochrane, to 
 avail himself of any little hint given by his Lordship 
 while eating his muffin and sipping his coffee. In 
 estimating the merit of these previous orders, the 
 particular situation of public affairs at that time, must 
 be also considered ; the state of things was gloomy 
 and dubious : it was only under the hope, not the 
 expectation, that the negotiations at Chatillon might 
 end favourably, that stocks reached the point they 
 did in the week previous to the plot, and there was 
 danger least the negotiation should suddenly break 
 off, which, in fact, really happened not a month after 
 the fraud, and then Omnium fell at once from 28 to 
 12 : now if this had occurred, and it might have 
 happened, while Lord Cochrane and his coadjutors 
 were thus wantonly speculating, they would have 
 added another melancholy, but instructive proof.
 
 ( GO ) 
 
 how dangerous it is rashly to tempt the inconstancy 
 of fortune ; instead of " pursuing the triumph and 
 partaking the gale," they would have been like so 
 many shattered and stranded wrecks cast on the 
 shores of darkness. Lord Cochrane may affect to 
 deny this, and he may feel sore at the Attorney- 
 General's assertion, that the inventors of the fraud 
 did it to save themselves from ruin ; but if his 
 Lordship will ask Mr. Butt, the great arithmetician 
 of this hopeful and heterogeneous knot of speculators, 
 to calculate the difference between 28 and 12 per cent, 
 on the Omnium they held, and of 4 or 5 per cent, on 
 their Consols, he will find that the Attorney-General 
 was not far from the truth in his assertion. Lord 
 Cochrane, then, with Messrs. Butt and Johnstone, 
 might congratulate themselves, if, circumstanced as 
 things were, they but just touched shore in safety, 
 and acted wisely in aiming only at a comparatively 
 moderate gain from the execution of the plot. Their 
 prudence will not, however, authorize us to declare 
 them ignorant or innocent of the fraud. DeBerenger. 
 early in February, told the Honourable Alexander 
 Murray, and talked of it also to Mr. Marchant, 
 that he was forming with Lord Cochrane and 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, a plan, to put money 
 into the hands of his Lordship and Mr. Cochrane 
 Johnstone : on the 21st of February, he was the 
 chief agent in a plot, executed for the purpose of 
 raising the funds, by which deed Lord Cochrane 
 and Mr. Johnstone did actually profit ; strange 
 and happy, if unlooked for, coincidence ! Lord 
 Cochrane is from the northern side of Tweed ; his
 
 ( 61 ) 
 
 countrymen are renowned for what is called second 
 sight, i. c. the property of foreseeing- future events ; 
 how eminently gifted is he in this quality ! The 
 aerial diviners who encountered Macbeth on the 
 heath, and with " more than mortal knowledge" 
 revealed the latent dignities in reserve for him, 
 were not more deeply skilled in a mystic knowledge 
 of the future, than was Lord Cochrane, when, with 
 a prophetic glance he pierced through the gloom of 
 the dark hour, and kenned the glowing prospects 
 which gilded the distant horizon. 
 
 His Lordship also, to prove an ignorance of the 
 plot, mentioned in his defence before the House of 
 Commons, that on the Saturday morning, the day 
 when the fraud according to Lord Cochrane's asser- 
 tion was said to be planned ; he was engaged for 
 upwards of two hours at his Wine-Merchant's*, 
 tasting wines, to be sent on board the Tonnant, 
 and therefore he could not have been present at its 
 formation : " springes to catch woodcocks, my 
 Lord." No one has averred that the plot was 
 formed on Saturday morning, and this you well 
 know ; no one believes that the wary projectors 
 
 * Lord Cochrane would have us believe, that he was wholly 
 occupied on this Saturday, in preparations for going on board 
 the Tonnant. Mr. Fearn, his broker, said on the trial (p. 1 72) 
 that he thinks he saw Lord Cochrane on Saturday preceding the 
 fraud : but whether Mr. Fearn saw him or not, it is evident 
 by the stock-list, that his Lordship bought ,0,000, and sold 
 j17,000 Omnium on that morning : he might, it is admitted, 
 do this through his friend and agent Mr. Butt.
 
 ( 62 ) 
 
 deferred its arrrangement till only two days before 
 it was td take place. De Berenger early in Febru- 
 ary, told the Honourable Alexander Murray, that 
 the plan was then in agitation. How therefore can 
 you endeavour to establish an alibi, for a day on 
 which no alibi is required. That we may prove his 
 delinquency, it is 'not necessary to find every con- 
 spirator with matches and lantern in hand, ready 
 prepared on the spot to execute the deed. Who, 
 seeing the " fat-witted knight," tasting his sack, 
 and joking with mine hostess in Eastcheap, would 
 believe that he was " to be to-morrow morning at 
 four o'clock on Gad's-Hill ?" Military engineers, in 
 their experimental tactics, having well arranged 
 operations, and put them in progress, withdraw, if 
 necessary, to a prudent distance in order to observe 
 the effect. 
 
 It will be incumbent here to notice the attempts 
 made by Lord Cochrane in his letter to Lord Ellen- 
 borough, to invalidate this testimony of the Hon. 
 Alexander Murray, and shew that Mr. Murray did 
 not intend to connect the name of Lord Cochrane 
 with that of Mr. Johnstone. It is first to be re- 
 marked, that as his Lordship wholly puts the evi- 
 dence of Mr. Le Marchant aside, as to any effect 
 it ought to produce on the jury ; and as the learned 
 Judge admitted, that it was chiefly evidence against 
 De Berenger, I shall not imitate Lord Cochrane's 
 example, by first declaring evidence not to be en- 
 titled to any attention, and then institute a com- 
 parison between that and other testimony : this is
 
 C 63 ) 
 
 neither logical nor fair. I shall content myself 
 therefore by saying with respect to Mr. Le Mar- 
 chant's deposition, that it is a very extraordinary 
 circumstance, that two witnesses, totally unknown to 
 each other, should depose to a conversation similar 
 to that of De Berenger with them. 
 
 It was unnecessary, in order to prove that Lord 
 Cochrane's acquaintance with De Berenger was 
 not of so intimate a kind as to be sufficient for an 
 evil purpose, that he should be proved on very in- 
 timate terms with Lord Cochrane. De Berenger 
 might be only a recent acquaintance of his Lordship, 
 and yet be planning a fraud with him and Mr. C. 
 Johnstone. There is other evidence to testify, that 
 if Lord Cochrane was not absolutely identified with 
 Berenger, he had yet a more than slight or general 
 acquaintance with him : Lord Cochrane himself 
 mentions (in his letter) " the few occasions (how 
 few ?) on which he had met De Berenger at Mr. 
 Cochrane Johnstone's table;" there is evidence of 
 De Berenger having also dined (p. 218) with his 
 Lordship, at Mr. Basil Cochrane's. Lord Cochrane 
 employed De Berenger to make a drawing of a lamp 
 for him ; of course, some communication must have 
 passed : while Lord Cochrane thus employed De 
 Berenger, his Lordship had made him the subject 
 of conversation with his uncle Sir Alexander 
 Cochrane, and the result of the conversation, no 
 doubt, justified his Lordship in telling De Be 
 renger when he asked to be sent on board the 
 Tonnant, that he (Lord Cochrane) knew from Sir
 
 ( 64 ) 
 
 Alexander Cochrane, that he would be pleased if 
 De Berenger accomplished that object, viz. his 
 being; employed on board the Tonnant. The ease 
 with which De Berenger found out Lord Cochrane's 
 house on his arrival from Dover a house which 
 Lord Cochrane had only taken and entered the 
 Friday preceding the plot, does not look like a very 
 distant acquaintance ; and it is to be remembered, 
 though not in evidence on the trial, that Davis, one 
 of the men servants in Lord Cochrane's house, when 
 De Berenger arrived there, deposed afterwards in 
 an affidavit, that he knew De Berenger, because 
 he had seen him when his Lordship lived at Park- 
 Lane, (i. e. he had seen him call at his Lordship's 
 house). 
 
 To return more immediately to Mr. Murray. 
 We have given us by Lord Cochrane, a letter from 
 one Lieut. Prescott to his Lordship, in which the 
 Lieutenant says, that after a dinner, which was given 
 in the King's-Bench prison, and which he is pleased 
 to christen with the name of " the Stock-Exchange 
 dinner," Mr. Harrison, who had been employed to 
 collect evidence against Lord Cochrane and the other 
 defendants, told Mr. Murray, " that as he (Harrison) 
 should receive a large sum from the Exchange for 
 the conviction of Lord Cochrane, if he (Murray) 
 wanted 50, he should have it to-morrow;" and 
 further we are told, that Mr. Harrison introduced 
 his two solicitors to Mr. Murray, as if intending to 
 effect Mr. M's. liberation : but Lord Cochrane does 
 not give us any proof that Mr. M. accepted the
 
 ( 65 ) 
 
 proffered money, nor does he bring any reply from 
 him to Mr. Harrison when it was offered, and which 
 conveys an idea that he agreed to give evidence 
 on account of the offer : surely Lord Cochrane will 
 not attempt to make us believe, that Mr. Murray 
 would have perjured himself in a court of justice 
 for the paltry sum of 50. The^ Lieutenant also 
 tells us, that some person whose name we are not 
 favoured with, has repeatedly heard Mr. Murray 
 express himself sorry for having appeared in court 
 against Lord Cochrane. This may be the case, 
 perhaps ; though Lord Cochrane must favour us 
 with some declaration to that effect from Mr. Murray 
 himself, before we can believe even this story of 
 Mr. M.'s penitence ; " for the hearsay evidence" 
 of Lieutenant Prescott, and that detailing the ex- 
 pressions of a nameless authority, are not to be put 
 against an oath in a court of justice ; but admitting 
 this tale of Mr. Murray's sorrow to be true, will 
 Lord Cochrane say, that Mr. M. has at any time 
 told any one individual on earth, that the evidence he 
 gave on the trial was false ? This is the grand question. 
 Mr. Murray may regret, and it is creditable to his 
 feelings for him to do so, that he was under the 
 necessity of giving testimony which should prove 
 so disgraceful to Lord Cochrane ; he may feel sorry 
 in the thought, that while it is a rare thing, owing 
 to their good education, even for the inferior orders 
 of his native country, to be tried for any such crime 
 as fraud, one of its nobility should have been con- 
 victed of that offence ; but unless it can be shewn that 
 
 K
 
 ( 6G ) 
 
 Mr. Murray confesses Ms evidence to be false, any 
 other proof tending to destroy it is to be rejected. 
 
 To conclude this important part of the case. It 
 is admitted that Mr. C. Johnstone invented the 
 fraud; his speculations were carried on in part- 
 nership with Mr. Butt, and Mr. Butt very often 
 managed Lord Cochrane's affairs : " they were all 
 three frequently together on business" with Mr. Fearn, 
 the broker. That Mr. C. Johnstone having devised 
 the scheme should communicate it to his partner, 
 Mr. Butt, was a matter of course ; and even if we 
 could suppose so improbable a thing, as that Mr. C. 
 Johnstone would not be anxious for his Nephew, 
 -Lord Cochrane's success, Mr. Butt, his Lordship's 
 agent, would think it his duty to acquaint his em- 
 ployer with the plan ; for a knowledge of it was no 
 less necessary to Lord Cochrane than to the others ; 
 they all three being in jeopardy : a communication 
 to this effect would be the natural result of their 
 relative situation and mixed interests ; as natural 
 as any of 1 the fixed laws by which the universe is 
 governed. If there is not here complete positive 
 proof, there is full circumstantial evidence, or 
 doctrine of presumptions, which our law accepts 
 when positive proof cannot be obtained *. We are 
 
 * Positive proof is always required, where from the nature 
 of the case, it appears, it might possibly have been had. But 
 next to positive proof, circumstantial evidence, or the doctrine 
 of presumptions must take place : for when the fact itself cannot 
 be demonstratively evinced, that which comes nearest to the 
 proof of the fact, is the proof of such circumstances which
 
 ( 67 > 
 
 therefore justified in saying with De Berenger in 
 his confession, that Lord Cochrane " was perfectly 
 acquainted with the plan /" and were we acquainted 
 with all circumstances, we should no doubt be able 
 to add with De Berenger, and he " eagerly con- 
 tributed his expences to &." 
 
 As any other observations I may make, are inti- 
 mately connected with Lord Cochrane's letter to 
 the noble and learned Judge, who presided on the 
 trial, I shall proceed to notice that letter. Lord 
 Cochrane begins, by accusing his Majesty's minis- 
 ters of assuming the merit of mercy, in relieving 
 him from the punishment of the pillory, while they 
 at the same time endeavoured by their eloquence in 
 the debate on that subject, to prove his unworthiness 
 of such clemency. That Lord Cochrane should 
 deprecate that discussion is not astonishing : in truth, 
 all his Lordship's advocates have anticipated him in 
 his lamentations over a debate, which more than 
 any thing else cleared away the mist that clouded 
 the public eye. The discussion was neither " un- 
 manly nor uncalled for." Till then, the confident 
 assertions of Lord Cochrane, had been accepted as 
 proofs of innocence by a people not rightly informed. 
 His efforts to delude, and impose on the popular 
 mind, had in too many instances been successful : 
 
 either necessarily, or usually, attend such facts ; and these are 
 called presumptions, which are only to be relied upon till the 
 contrary be actually proved. Stabitur prsesumptioni donee 
 
 probetur in contrarium. 
 
 Blackstone, book iii. chap. 23.
 
 ( 68 ) 
 
 it was necessary therefore in waiving the punishment 
 of the pillory, on account of his Lordship's public 
 services, to draw a broad and strong line of separa- 
 tion between his errors, as a member of civ il society, 
 and any service done to the country. It was in- 
 cumbent, too, that this mitigation of punishment, 
 should not be mistaken either as a sacrifice due to 
 innocence, or to the false opinions engendered by 
 prejudice and passion in the minds of the multitude. 
 This desirable good, could only be effected by setting 
 forth Lord Cochrane's guilt, explaining as far as 
 possible the clear testimony on which his conviction 
 was grounded, and shewing how futile were his 
 misrepresentations when contrasted with that evi- 
 dence. When the debate on his expulsion took 
 place, several members of the House of Commons, 
 struck by the confidence of his Lordship, and thinking 
 there possibly might be reasons for questioning his 
 participation in the fraud, voted for the case being 
 referred to a committee. But between this debate, 
 and that on Lord Ebrington's motion, an account 
 of the trial was published : the glaring evidence of 
 guilt it contained, then flashed so powerfully on the 
 minds of honest and rational men, as to leave no 
 doubt of his Lordship's conviction being a necessary 
 consequence of his errors. Truth became, if not 
 universally, yet almost generally, triumphant. 
 Several independent members of the House, who 
 voted with the minority on the question of expulsion, 
 now candidly acknowledged their mistake, and de- 
 clared that a perusal of the trial satisfied them of 
 Lord Cochrane's guilt ; while many of his Lordship's
 
 ( 69 ) 
 
 more decided advocates in Parliament were silent. 
 It is this discussion, so salutary and opportune, and 
 so essential to the vindication of justice, which 
 Lord Cochrane terms u unmanly and uncalled 
 for," a discussion which will ever be hailed with 
 joy by the wise and good, but prove a source of 
 bitter regret and mortification to the partisans of 
 error. 
 
 It is among the specific charges adduced by Lord 
 Cochrane against his prosecutors, that they brought 
 his own affidavit into court as evidence against 
 him, and which his Lordship declares to be neither 
 a decent, fair, nor usual proceeding. It is not, 
 whatever Lord Cochrane may assert, uncommon 
 for a defendant, in an action at law, to file a bill 
 in a court of equity for a discovery ; to which the 
 party so called upon must put in his answer. It is 
 competent to the person who has called for that 
 answer to read it on the trial of the action against 
 the party who has made the answer, upon the 
 principle that what a man says is evidence against 
 himself; but the party cannot offer for himself, 
 because what a party himself says, never can be 
 received as evidence in his favour. The cases in 
 which these bills for discovery are particularly use- 
 ful, are, where the transaction has been between 
 the plaintiff and defendant, without the intervention 
 of witnesses, and therefore the admission of the 
 party is perhaps requisite to make out the case of 
 his adversary. It can very rarely happen, that a 
 party puts in the answer of his adversary for the
 
 ( 70 ) 
 
 purpose of negativing it ; for if he has evidence to 
 negative the answer, it cannot have been necessary 
 for him to incur the expence of filing the bill for 
 discovery, in which, whatever answer is put in, the 
 person filing the bill pays all the costs. He must 
 then have sufficient evidence to make out his case, 
 without resorting to a court of equity for assistance ; 
 the very ground of his application for assistance is, 
 that he cannot make out his case without it. But 
 whenever such cases have occurred, they would not 
 be found in books of reports, because the law being 
 clear, that this might be done, no question could 
 ever arise to be reported. The cases that are 
 analogous, are those which occur every day in the 
 administration of criminal justice : most cases are 
 made out by circumstances ; one circumstance, fre- 
 quently relied on, is the improbable, or the false 
 story told by the prisoner ; if he gives an account 
 which the prosecutor can shew to be false, that is 
 always done. For instance, he is asked if he 
 knows A, B, and C, (persons who are accused 
 jointly with himself) he denies all knowledge of 
 them, proof is given that they are constant asso- 
 ciates ; hence arises an inference of guilt. He is 
 asked where he was at the time the robbery or 
 burglary was committed, he specifies a particular 
 place ; evidence is given to shew he was not there, 
 &c. &c. You can hardly read the reports of the 
 trials of a single day, without seeing instances of 
 this sort. Many many murderers have been disco- 
 vered and convicted by their own false accounts ; 
 if there be any delicacy upon such a subject, it
 
 ( 71 ) 
 
 would naturally be expected to operate where 
 the lives of men were concerned, and where, if 
 they are convicted, execution follows in forty-eight 
 hours ; but in truth, there is no such delicacy, and 
 no defendant before Lord Cochrane ever dreamt of 
 complaining of it as indelicate to give in evidence 
 against him his own declaration, provided it was 
 freely made. If a man be innocent, his own decla- 
 ration must serve him ; he then ought to rejoice 
 that his accusers give it in evidence. Lord 
 Cochrane says, that he was desirous of having it 
 given in evidence. From the report of the trial, 
 this does not appear ; for when Mr. Gurney called 
 for its production, after having proved notice to 
 Lord Cochrane to produce it, it was not produced, 
 (Trial, p.. 197) : he was driven to examine Mr. 
 Wright and Mr. Richardson, in order to obtain it, 
 and at last discovering, by a question to Mr. 
 Wright*, that Lord Cochrane had given him one 
 
 * Lord Cochrane, after reading his affidavit to Mr. Wright, 
 said, " I once saw Capt. De Berenger at Mr. Basil Cochrane' s. 
 I have no reason to think he is capable of so base a transaction," 
 (Trial, 199). His Lordship's memory was at this time, as on 
 some other occasions, somewhat defective. He might have 
 said, I have dined with Captain De Berenger, at Mr. Basil 
 Cochrane's, (Trial, 218) ; I have met him " on some few occa- 
 sions at Mr. Cochrane Johnstone's table," (Letter, 59). I have 
 also had such confidence in him, that he has been employed to 
 make a drawing of a lamp for me, (Trial, 558). And my uncle, 
 Sir Alexander Cochrane, and I have agreed, that he should go 
 out with me in the Tonnant, under our patronage ; for I have 
 my self told De Berenger, that I knew Sir Alexander Cochrane 
 would be pleased if he was on board my ship, (Letter, 59) &c. &c.
 
 ( 72 ) 
 
 of the copies of Mr. Butt's pamphlet, in which the 
 affidavit was printed, Mr. Wright was directed to 
 go home and fetch the pamphlet ; then, and not 
 till then, did Mr. Serjeant Best admit it to be 
 read : the excuse he made for not having pro- 
 duced it before was, that he had it not there ; to 
 which it might have been replied, that if Lord 
 Cochrane intended to produce it, it would have 
 been there, as he had had notice from the prosecutors. 
 The words of Mr. Park are, " We have not often had 
 the experience of that which has been done to-day. 
 I believe, not abovfe twice, in my professional life, 
 have I seen a prosecutor put in an answer in 
 Chancery of the person who was defendant, and 
 then negative that answ r er." Mr. Park, speaking 
 of this as unusual, does not speak of it as improper, 
 and no professional man can or will speak of it as 
 improper ; but it is not common for a defendant to 
 put it into the power of a prosecutor to contradict 
 it by evidence. There is, however, one difference 
 between an answer in Chancery and this affidavit 
 of Lord Cochrane. A party against whom a bill in 
 the Court of Chancery is filed, is compelled to put 
 in his answer : here there was no compulsion on 
 Lord Cochrane ; the publication of the affidavit 
 was his own voluntary act. The object of the pro- 
 secutors, in giving the affidavit in evidence, was to 
 shew that De Berenger (who had acted the part of 
 Du Bourgh, and who had been set down at his 
 house that morning) had had an interview with 
 Lord Cochrane ; and also to shew that Lord 
 Cochrane had given an account too absurd and
 
 ( 73 ) 
 
 preposterous to deserve credit. How amply this 
 was done, is proved by the evidence. 
 
 Having shewn the propriety of producing and 
 then negativing the affidavit, I shall reply to a few 
 of Lord Cochrane's remarks on the charge of the 
 noble and learned Judge, to whom the letter is 
 addressed. Lord Cochrane admits, that the identity 
 of De Berenger was undoubtedly satisfactorily 
 proved;, and yet he does not think that the proof 
 was such as to warrant the learned Judge in be- 
 speaking for it, not only the faith, but the admi- 
 ration of the Jury. A perusal of the evidence will 
 shew, that Lord Cochrane is as little warranted in 
 this as in his other assertions. Mr. Marsh, who 
 kept the Packet-Boat public-house, at Dover, 
 " swore confidently" to De Berenger's person, and 
 declared himself well satisfied with his opinion on 
 that head (p. 65) ; his attention was particularly 
 called, he said, to De Berenger, as a stranger of 
 some importance ; he had not seen De Berenger 
 since he was at Dover before ; he pointed him out 
 in court, and knew him the instant he saw him 
 (p. 65). Mr. Gourley, a hatter, at Dover, and 
 who was at Mr. Marsh's when De Berenger was 
 there, not having seen De Berenger since he was at 
 Dover i immediately found him in court, and said 
 that he had not the least doubt on his mind as to 
 the identity of De Berenger (69). Edis, also, a 
 cooper at Dover, and who was present with Mr. 
 Marsh and Gourley, pointed out De Berenger 
 without the least hesitation, and declared he had 
 L
 
 ( 71 ) 
 
 no doubt on his mind (73). Mr. Wright, the 
 landlord of the Crown-Inn, Rochester, who had a 
 long conversation with De Berenger, looking 
 carefully round the court, fixed on De Berenger, as 
 the person who had conversed with him, and said, 
 u I have no doubt of it, that certainly is the 
 gentleman" (104).-My readers need not be troubled 
 with any other evidence, though more might be 
 given, to prove that Lord Ellenborough was justi- 
 fied in bespeaking " not only the faith, but the 
 admiration of the jury," concerning the proof of 
 De Berenger's identity. Many a man has been 
 hanged at the Old-Bailey on less evidence. 
 
 As little consistent with reason is Lord Cochrane's 
 rebuke of the learned Judge, for having said, when 
 one of the witnesses was asked whether he had not 
 described De Berenger, as having a red nose and 
 blotched face, " Red or not, sure you are of the 
 identity of the face ?" Identity of person can never 
 be satisfactorily proved by any thing that is fugitive 
 or temporary : eruptions which disfigure the face at 
 one time, may be dispelled at another by exercise, 
 wholesome diet, and medicine : nor is colour a 
 Sure guide ; the student, sitting over his midnight- 
 lamp, will be pale and wan ; but, let him run the 
 next morning on Banstead-Downs, or Hampstead- 
 I loath, or ride on a cold frosty morning (such as 
 last 21st of February) from Dover to Green-Street, 
 .Grosvenor-Square, and the paleness of sedentary 
 study will be exchanged for the rosy hue of health- 
 ful exercise : we must look then for something that
 
 ( 75 ) 
 
 is permanent ; now, that is found in the marked 
 distinction and individual property of countenance 
 which a wise Providence, for various good pur- 
 poses, and, among others, for the detection of guilt, 
 has fixed on every man, and which enables us to 
 single him out from the great family of all the 
 earth, though bearing a general resemblance to it. 
 It is this which enables a father, while sitting by 
 his ark-like fire-side, in a circle of his children, to 
 say, though he can trace a strong family-likeness 
 in all of them, that is John, that is Thomas. 
 Every one, then, but Lord Cochrane will imme- 
 diately see the propriety of Lord EllenborouglTs 
 question : it explained to the jury the only true 
 ray in which identity of person can be sworn to; 
 may the noble and learned Judge be always thus 
 attentive to the duties of his exalted situation. 
 
 Lord Cochrane assumes it as a fact (p. 17), that 
 De Berenger, whatever was the colour of the coat 
 in which he came to his house, had divested him- 
 self of his ornaments before he came there, and 
 says, that Shilling^ evidence amounts to nothing ; 
 and that neither the waterman nor coachman de- 
 posed to the star or medallion. His Lordship ought 
 not to quarrel with a poor post-boy for not being 
 profoundly acquainted with foreign orders of knight- 
 hood and badges of masonry, but Shilling did swear 
 to some kind of star ; and if neither Bartholomew 
 nor Crane deposed to these ornaments, there is no 
 evidence of their being taken off : nor can Lord 
 Cochrane prove (p. 19), that because an officer
 
 ( 76 ) 
 
 chooses, for better convenience, to carry his sword 
 in his hand, that he is regardless of appearing in 
 military character. I have often seen officers of the 
 guards go down to the Parade, at Whitehall, with 
 swords in their hands ; yet not one so doing, was, 
 on that account, divested of his character, as a 
 military man, in the opinion of spectators : the fact 
 is, if De Berenger had really gone to Lord 
 Cochrane's, attired as a sharp-shooter, and to 
 solicit an appointment in that capacity, he would 
 have appeared before Lord Cochrane fully equip- 
 ped ; but aware that my Lord knew the tnip 
 motive of his calling, he was careless and indif- 
 ferent, carrying his sword in his hand, which, when 
 he entered, he flung, with the portmanteau, negli- 
 gently down, as if at home, 
 
 If Lord Cochrane will consult any of his well- 
 informed legal advisers, he will find that the cri- 
 terion which the learned Judge laid down for the 
 jury to decide by on Lord Cochrane's affidavit, 
 was both " true and just." It is a constant rule, 
 that an affidavit is not conclusive of facts, but may 
 be contradicted by other evidence ; and if the jury, 
 from the whole circumstances of the case, see 
 reason to believe one part and disbelieve another, 
 they may use the same discretion in this instance, 
 as in any other, of drawing such conclusion as re- 
 sults from all the circumstances taken together. 
 
 That the prosecutors of Lord Cochrane were fuljy 
 justified in bringing his affidavit into court, has been
 
 ( 77 ) 
 
 already shewn. It is our business now to attend to 
 its date. His Lordship is extremely displeased, 
 that Lord Ellenborough in his charge, ventured to 
 suggest that De Berenger's name was given in the 
 affidavit, because Lord Cochrane had reason to 
 suspect that it was already privately known. The 
 learned Judge was not far from the truth in this 
 assertion ; and whatever merit Lord Cochrane 
 may assume, for acting by the compulsion of ex- 
 isting circumstances, an impartial observer will 
 find nothing to commend in this act of necessity : it 
 can excite " neither our faith nor our admiration :" 
 let us attend to dates. The fraud took place on 
 Monday, the 21st of February ; and on Wednesday, 
 the 23d, only two days after, the Committee of 
 the Stock-Exchange were in full activity of ex- 
 amination ; and carried on their inquiry into the 
 business with such successful speed, that on Satur- 
 day, the 28th ? they Avere nearly in complete possession 
 of evidence, which discovered not merely facts, but 
 names connected with the plot. This success is to 
 be imputed not only to the laudable ardour of the 
 Committee itself, but alsp to the aid of government, 
 who very properly considering the affair as of nation- 
 al importance, assisted the investigation. In the 
 second report of the Committee*, which is just pub- 
 lished, they declare that Lord Cochrane did not 
 give up De Berenger's name before it was known 
 to them ; that they had been in possession of it 
 jvce days before the publication of Lord Cochrane's 
 affidavit of the 1 1 th of March ; and that five days 
 before that made its appearance, a warrant had 
 * See Appendix.
 
 ( 78 ) 
 
 actually been issued for De Berenger's apprehen- 
 sion : but admitting, for the sake of argument, that 
 Lord Cochrane did first publish the name, his 
 Lordship will not, I suppose, declare that he gave it 
 before the impostor (whoever he was) had been 
 traced to Lord Cochrane's house. The sham Du 
 Bourgh had been followed to Green-Street, Gros- 
 venor-Square, and found going into No 13, there: 
 it became necessary therefore for his Lordship to 
 say something, and to account for one visit that 
 morning at least, and he no doubt thought that the 
 tale related in his affidavit, was the fiction most 
 likely to stifle any belief that De Berenger could 
 be Du Bourgh. Lord Cochrane says in his letter, 
 (page 28), " Can any man (any innocent man, I beg 
 pardon) come forward to justify himself before he 
 . knows that he is suspected. When I rejoined the 
 Tonnant on the 1st of March, which I did of course, 
 my leave of absence having expired the day before, 
 there was not even a whisper, implicating me in the 
 transaction of the 21st of February." Now it is 
 very well known that on the ]st of March, there 
 were not only whispers, but murmurs, " not loud, 
 but deep," and that the names of Lord Cochrane, 
 and Messrs. Johnstone and Butt, were on the tongue 
 of every one acquainted with public affairs. The 
 Committee, as will be seen by consulting the daily 
 prints of that time, were in possession of copious 
 evidence on the subject February 28, and on the 
 4th of March they affixed in the Stock-Exchange a 
 paper, desiring such brokers as had transacted 
 business for Lord Cochrane, and Messrs. Cochrane
 
 ( 79 ) 
 
 Johnstone and Butt, to attend the Committee : this 
 notice was copied into all the newspapers of the 
 next day, (the 5th) : printed bills had also been 
 placarded in every street, mentioning that the pre- 
 tended Col. Du Bourgh, had been seen going into a 
 house, No. 13, Green-Street ; and yet Lord Coch- 
 rane says, that not a criminating whisper had been 
 heard on the 1st of March : pray if no such still small 
 voice was heard resounding Lord Cochrane's name, 
 what led the Committee to fix up on the 4th of 
 March, in the Stock-Exchange, a paper calling on 
 all brokers who had done business for his Lordship 
 to attend the Committee ; they might as well have 
 pointed at any other person, known to have sold 
 stock on the morning of the fraud : it must assuredly 
 have been information known by them prior to the 
 4th of March. Lord Cochrane's name was not 
 therefore, as he says, first connected with the plot 
 in the printed advertisement of the Stock-Exchange,, 
 which appeared on the 7th : it had the honour of 
 being publicly posted as early as the 4th, and was 
 widely circulated for the general, and for his Lord- 
 ship's own perusal, in all the newspapers of the 5th : 
 and if his Lordship thought the printed advertise- 
 ment of the 7th, called on his honour to refute its 
 imputations, little less so did the paper of the 4th 
 and the placard fixed in the streets, which directed 
 every eye to No. 13, Green-Street, Lord Cochrane's 
 house : but that was too early to make it convenient 
 to publish his affidavit. De Berenger only left the 
 kingdom on the 27th of February. An attention to 
 dates and places will also justify Lord Ellenborough's
 
 assertion, in the charge that " on the llth of March, 
 the date of this affidavit, De Berenger might b<? 
 reasonably supposed to have been out of the king- 
 dom." De Berenger on the llth instant was at 
 Sunderland, a place two hundred and ninety-six 
 miles from town, a. sea-port, moreover, and of course 
 convenient for embarkation : there is indeed no 
 evidence on the trial of his being there earlier than 
 the llth : but we are not so credulous as to believe 
 that the parties who planned the fraud, and who 
 were all deeply interested in ascertaining De Be- 
 renger's movements, were in total darkness as to his 
 residence up to the llth. His being at a sea-port 
 town, probably satisfied his employers that he could, 
 if necessary, immediately quit the kingdom : that 
 he remained at Sunderland from the llth to the 
 21st, may be accounted for in two ways ; either that 
 his employers might direct him to stay, till they saw 
 whether matters in London rendered his departure 
 out of the kingdom imperative, or that, being a 
 foreigner, he felt some hesitation in attempting to 
 go on board. But putting aside this reasoning, 
 the mere fact of De Berenger leaving London on 
 
 ^y ^j 
 
 the 27th of February, and Lord Cochrane's affidavit 
 being published on the llth of March (an interval 
 of 12 days), will fully justify us in saying, that 
 whether Lord Cochrane's affidavit was published 
 as early as possible, or not, still " he must have 
 reasonably supposed that De Berenger at that time'* 
 was secure from discovery. 
 
 Lord Cochrane, in reply to Mr. Curacy's ob- 
 servation, that De Berenger did not go to the
 
 Tonnant and to Portsmouth, but to the North, 
 says " that a naval commander is almost absolute 
 in his ship ; and there can be no doubt, that he 
 (Lord Cochrane) could have conveyed De Berenger 
 into the Tonnant with the utmost facility, under 
 any name or character, and have concealed him 
 there with perfect security :" admitting this repre- 
 sentation of the authority of a naval commander to 
 be nearly true, it is only nearly so ; for there yet 
 remain two tribunals, to which he is amenable ; the 
 public opinion and a court-martial. Of the first, I 
 need hardly speak to one whose heart must inwardly 
 mourn that loss of the fair opinion of the wise and 
 good, which his conduct has produced (that chief 
 spring of comfort amidst earthly tribulation) ; and of 
 the second, I shall merely say, that though Lord 
 Cochrane might for a time, even for some months, 
 have successfully concealed De Berenger on board 
 his ship, yet if ever it had been discovered (and 
 truth will see the light) that his Lordship, intrusted 
 with a high and important command, had willingly 
 given shelter to the chief agent of an infamous fraud, 
 and that man a foreigner, too, he would most 
 certainly have had his naval uniform * stripped oft* 
 
 * De Berenger began when going through the plot, by an 
 attempt to palm his falsehood upon Admiral Foley, who was 
 to have communicated the forgery to the board of Admiralty; 
 thus, as Mr. Gurney said, endeavouring to impose upon that very 
 board of government, under the orders of which, Lord Coch- 
 rane was then fitting out on an important service, and making 
 a brother officer of Lord Cochrane the organ of thatfalsehoood. 
 I shall leave my readers to judge, whether the concealment of 
 
 M
 
 ( 82 ) 
 
 his back by a court-martial. I deny, then, that 
 Lord Cochrane " had the best possible means of 
 accomplishing that purpose (De Berenger's escape) 
 in the South :" and if De Berenger really did ask 
 to be sent on board the Tonnaut, his Lordship acted 
 discreetly in saying, " No, De Berenger, I, a naval 
 officer, depending for my existence in the profession 
 on my character, cannot, and dare not, send you 
 there ; but go to Lord Yarmouth, or any other 
 person of distinction and influence, and see if they 
 will enable you to go, and then if any thing is 
 discovered, no blame will attach to me." But De 
 Berenger, as the learned counsel said, did not go to 
 the South ; his steps were directed northwards, the 
 cardinal point most remote from that to which his 
 Lordship was going, and therefore affording the 
 least appearance of mutual connexion. 
 
 And before the Tonnant is paid off and put in 
 ordinary, I must revert again to the motives which 
 led his Lordship to refuse De Berenger an asylum 
 on board of the ship. Lord Cochrane in his 
 recently published letter, is highly indignant at the 
 thought of being supposed willing to assist a man 
 escaping from justice, and talks in strong terms, 
 of " his refusal to receive De Berenger on board, 
 without permission of the Admiralty:" he more 
 than once insists on the point of refusal, and in 
 
 De Berenger by Lord Cochrane on board his ship under such 
 circumstances, can be represented by Lord Cochrane as an 
 experiment carrying with it so few dangerous consequences 
 to his Lordship.
 
 ( 83 ) 
 
 page 77, assumes claim to a most resolute and 
 unyielding determination of soul : " De Berenger," 
 says hisLordship,(as if LordCochrane really assumed 
 a look and tone of voice of more than stoical in- 
 flexibility on the occasion), " was perfectly sensible 
 that I was determined on that point." Now, how- 
 ever his Lordship may feel hurt at the imputation 
 of aiding a man to elude justice and punishment, 
 facts are such stubborn things, that we are justified 
 by them, in saying that Lord Cochrane did unhesi- 
 tatingly seem willing to assist De Berenger in escap- 
 ing from his creditors. With the exception of that 
 transient touch of sensibility, which most men would 
 feel on seeing a fellow-creature in distress, but 
 which ought to be regulated by the plain, but 
 wholesome maxim, that one duty should not de- 
 stroy another, and more especially, an inferior a 
 superior one, it is difficult on canvassing his Lord- 
 ship's reasons, as stated in fhe affidavit, to discover 
 one that is praiseworthy. There is not in the 
 refusal the shadow of any moral scruple. It was 
 first the want of accommodation for De Berenger ; 
 tf I told him, says Lord Cochrane, that as to his 
 going immediately to the Tonnant with any comfort 
 to himself, it was quite impossible ; my cabin was 
 without furniture, I had not even a servant on 
 board." He said he would willingly mess any 
 where, " I told him that the ward-room was already 
 crowded," (no moral scruples here) ; another reason 
 for not sending him, urged by his Lordship, was 
 De Berenger being a foreigner, and therefore he 
 (Lord Cochrane), " could not with propriety take
 
 ( 84 ) 
 
 him without leave of the Admiralty.'* Where shall 
 we find that firm sense of propriety, to which Lord 
 Cochrane would assume pretensions, and which he 
 wishes to insinuate that he really evinced ? They 
 are not on record in any earthly document. 
 
 In remarking on the conversation which passed 
 between Lord Cochrane and the servant, who took 
 De Berenger's note to him, while at Mr. King's 
 manufactory ; we find a severe reproof given by 
 his Lordship to the learned Judge, for having ex- 
 ercised his knowledge of life, when examining that 
 conversation on the trial. One of the principal 
 advantages, conferred by a long experience in courts 
 of law is, that it enables a person to penetrate the 
 dark recesses, and trace the remote springs of human 
 character ; to discriminate accurately the habits and 
 feelingp of man, with the successive states of his 
 mind as operated on, and affected by, the varied 
 events of life. In such a school, the novelist, or 
 dramatist might derive elements on which to con- 
 struct their works. It is the possession of this 
 knowledge in a very superior degree, which, with 
 other endowments, eminently qualifies Lord Ellen- 
 borough for his arduous and exalted station ; and 
 the public are indebted to it for the developement 
 of many things, the exposure or explanation of 
 which is essential to the well-being of society, but 
 which guilt would conceal. We have seen his 
 Lordship very judiciously bringing his discriminative 
 powers into action when speaking of person, and 
 we now have them employed on the mind. Lord
 
 ( 85 ) 
 
 Cochrane declared in his affidavit of the llth of 
 March, that as the servant told him the note came 
 from an army officer, he supposed it must relate to 
 his brother, and felt alarmed least some accident 
 had befallen him, knowing him to be sick at that 
 time ; the learned Judge, therefore, with a correct 
 knowledge of human life, thought that if such really 
 were Lord Cochrane's feelings at tlve instant, he 
 would have been led by the impulse of the moment, 
 to enter into an anxious, but brief explanation upon 
 the subject with the servant, who having lived seven- 
 teen years in Lord Cochrane's family, must have 
 been interested in any thing affecting them : but on 
 questioning the servant it appeared, that Lord 
 Cochrane made no other remark than " Well, Tho- 
 mas, then I'll return;" a brief observation, indeed; 
 and which reminds me of the stoic fortitude of an 
 ancient, who being told that his son had fallen in 
 battle, philosophically replied, " I knew that I 
 begat a mortal." Lord Ellenborough's question 
 was certainly correct, and I am persuaded will 
 find an echo in almost every heart. There are few 
 individuals, who would not suddenly have broken 
 into one of those short, but interestingly anxious 
 family dialogues, which might have been expected 
 between Lord Cochrane and his servant : excessive 
 grief, or anxiety of mind, is silent to the world in 
 general, but loves to communicate ks sorrows to 
 a friend. But Lord Cochrane brings against the 
 learned Judge, a serious charge of preventing, by 
 his prompt examination, the servant from telling 
 the whole that passed between him and his master.
 
 ( 86 ) 
 
 Whether this domestic, really intended then to say all 
 that Lord Cochrane (in his Letter, p. 38) has put 
 into his mouth, must be left to that Being who 
 searches every heart, tries the imagination, and 
 will finally accept the intention as the act ; but 
 admitting he did, and that -he was hindered from 
 proceeding at that instant by another question 
 about Major Cochrane, it will, however, be found 
 by the trial (page 351), that a very fair, and full 
 opportunity of telling all Lord Cochrane said, was 
 afforded at the close of his examination, when the 
 question was again put " all that Lord Cochrane 
 said, was, Well, Thomas, I will return ;" and to 
 this the servant again replied, without adding any 
 thing else (and there was not the least interruption) 
 " Yes, that was all he said." If Lord Ellenborough 
 was desirous, as Lord Cochrane insinuates, to pre- 
 vent this man telling " the whole truth," he surely 
 never would have given him a second opportunity 
 of doing so after successfully hindering it at first ; 
 if the servant had any thing more to communicate, 
 he would have done it with so good an opportunity 
 as that afforded by a repetition of the question. 
 I shall take no notice of the many arguments used 
 by Lord Cochrane, to convince us of his brother's 
 illness being known to him by the 21st of February ; 
 but shall say, that he has not presented us with one 
 to prove, that the possession of his brother's letter, 
 announcing his illness, enables us to account for a 
 connexion, existing in his mind, between the note 
 he received from De Berenger, and the state of his 
 brother's health.
 
 ( 87 ) , 
 
 The offer made by M'Rae, one of the agents in 
 the fraud, to discover its authors, if 10,000 were 
 given him, is a circumstance worthy remark, on 
 two or three accounts. Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, 
 with a becoming sense of honour and honesty , pro- 
 posed that the above sum should be given to 
 M'Rae by the Stock-Exchange Committee ; and it 
 is stated in Mr. Johnstone's letter containing the 
 proposal, that he, Lord Cochrane, and Mr. Butt, 
 would give 3000 among them as part of the 
 reward. The object of this miserable effort of 
 deception was, as the learned Judge truly said on 
 the trial, " to thereby mislead and draw away the 
 public attention, and divert it to the pursuit and 
 hunting down of M'Rae, as the sole artificer and 
 perpetrator of the fraud, and thus turn away ob- 
 servation and suspicion from themselves ; and sup- 
 posing them to be properly charged with this 
 offence, 3000 would be well paid and cheaply 
 employed for such a purpose." That M'Rae, a 
 man in a low, ordinary, desperate situation, and who 
 (Trial, 151) was never seen, before the plot, to 
 have more than a shilling or an eighteen-penny 
 piece about him, should, by his own suggestion, 
 make this offer, is an idea too absurd to obtain 
 credit ; and it would be only a fit subject for ridi- 
 cule, if there was not always something too dis- 
 gusting in the impudence of guilt to excite mirth. 
 '* This weak invention of the enemy," was the 
 joint production and offer of the honourable firm of 
 Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, and 
 Mr. Butt ; and however his Lordship may en-
 
 ( 88 ) 
 
 deavour to qualify the offer he made to his uncle, 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, of joining in the propo- 
 sal, he cannot deny that he actually did so ; and 
 the fact of such a proposal, is circumstantial proof, 
 considering M'Rae's condition of life, and the sub- 
 ordinate character he played in the drama, that ita 
 sole object was to shelter the guilty. But Lord 
 Cochrane's remarks on the subject, in his letter, 
 (p. 95, 96) are chiefly deserving attention, because 
 they either convey such a proof, on the part of his 
 Lordship, of weak credulity and incapable judg- 
 ment, as would justify us in refusing assent to the 
 commonest observation lie might make, or of a 
 propensity to tergiversation, never resorted to by 
 the innocent. Lord Cochrane represents the con- 
 versation which passed between him and his uncle, 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, concerning M' Rae's 
 proposal, as if they both thought each other pure 
 from the charge imputed to them. Mr. Johnstone 
 thinking his Lordship innocent, and Lord Cochrane 
 returning the compliment to his uncle. The con- 
 versation occurred between the 12th and 18th of 
 April, two months after the fraud, when the parties 
 knew that it would become a subject of legal in- 
 vestigation. Now, when a knot of persons, sup- 
 posed to be guilty of an infamous conspiracy, are 
 publicly accused and broken in upon by inquiry, 
 one of two things always occurs ; they break 
 out into hostile and mutual recrimination, or a 
 satisfactory explanation takes place, which esta- 
 blishes complete proof in their minds of each others 
 innocence : this must have been the case here.
 
 ( 89 ) 
 
 If Lord Cochrane is himself blind to human life, 
 he must give others leave to walk with their eyes 
 open, and to know something of what men will do 
 and say on particular occasions : one of these two 
 things must have taken place between the party : 
 silence could not have held its court among them, 
 for events forced an explanation : few persons will 
 deny this. Will Lord Cochrane declare, that up 
 to the 12th or 18th of April, rto such explanation 
 relative to the fraud took place between him and 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone ? Will his Lordship say, 
 that, feeling himself innocent, he made no appeal 
 to his uncle's honour, urging him to such a manly 
 and candid avowal, as should exonerate the nephew 
 from so foul an imputation ; and will Lord Coch- 
 rane solemnly avow, that Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, 
 with an unblushing defiance of all truth and de- 
 cency, constantly denied any participation or con- 
 nivance in the fraud, with such apparent candour 
 and fervency, as to mislead him (Lord C.) into a 
 belief of his innocence ? His Lordship should re- 
 collect in what a despicable light he places his 
 relative, by saying, that for two months after the 
 plot, he firmly and unhesitatingly protested him- 
 self free from the alleged charge. If we acquit the 
 heart of Mr. Johnstone, it must be at the expence 
 of Lord Cochrane's understanding. There is no- 
 thing can authorize the belief, that his Lordship, 
 on the 12th of April, really attributed Mr. John- 
 stone's motive in making the proposal spoken of 
 " to a natural anxiety to transfer an unmerited 
 stigma from himself to those to whom it properly 
 
 N
 
 ( 90 ) 
 
 belonged." A reference to the date of this proposal", 
 and to that of De Berenger's detection, will enable 
 us duly to estimate its moral value. Mr. John- 
 stone's first letter, making the offer, was written 
 April the 12th. De Berenger was discovered at 
 Leith, April the 7th, and two days after, news of 
 his apprehension reached London. There is some- 
 thing more here than accidental coincidence.. Do 
 Berenger, whom Lord Coehrane acknowledged to 
 have been at his house on the morning of the fraud, 
 was taken : he had not, as yet been publicly proved 
 to be the pretended Du Bourgh ; but when brought 
 to town, and confronted with the landlords and 
 post-boys, he would be : this, therefore, was, the 
 critical moment for the party to make an attempt 
 to mislead the public mind, and draw accusation 
 from themselves : Mr. Coehrane Johnstone felt the 
 dire necessity of doing something, and thought of 
 M'Rae's offer ; Lord Coehrane and Mr. Butt camo 
 in, according to his Lordship's own acknowledg- 
 ment, with their " so zzoulil I */' and thus war 
 
 * Lord Coehrane affirms (Letter 96), that when Mr- John- 
 stone, his uncle, said that he would freely give a thousand pounds 
 out of his own pocket to discover the delinquents ; he, (Lord 
 Coehrane) immediately rejoined, * l so would 1 ;" but without 
 the most distant idea of concurring in any proposition to the 
 Committee respecting the proposal of M'Rae ; Mr. Johnstone, 
 however, OQ no other foundation than this, joined his Lord- 
 hip's name with his own and Mr. Butt's, whose consent, Lord 
 Coehrane assures us, was given much hi the same way. If 
 Lord Cochrane's name was thus associated against his will in 
 the proposal, he and Mr. Butt might both have contradicted it 
 in the public prints; this, however, they did not do j and their
 
 ( 91 ) 
 
 made this notable experiment on public credulity : 
 the trick failed, but good resulted from it by the 
 production of Mr. Johnstone's letter on the trial, 
 as a document sufficiently expressive of the guilty 
 intentions of its inventors. 
 
 Lord Cochrane, in page 101 of his letter, is in- 
 dignant at the bare idea of being included by the 
 learned Judge in one sentence of the charge among 
 the number of " rational persons." Aliquando dor- 
 mitat Homerus. We may, perhaps, have fairly, 
 for once, caught Lord Ellenborough napping. 
 
 Men who mix with the world know that nothing 
 is easier than for persons, when it is necessary, to 
 make out such an account of sums lent or borrowed, 
 of monies given to individuals for payment of bills, 
 or remuneration of service, as shall carry with it 
 the appearance of truth, andabonajide engagement : 
 it is an experiment requiring but little talent, and 
 still less honesty ; a slight acquaintance with Cocker, 
 and the timely aid of honest friendship, are the chief 
 things required for it. If any one doubts this, 
 let them read the business account, so gravely 
 and methodically arranged and given on the trial, 
 .between Mr. CochraneJohnstone and De Berenger. 
 It may be useful to ran over a few of the items. 
 We have first (357) a letter of De Berenger, en- 
 closed by Cochrane J-ohnstone to his solicitor, 
 Tahourdin, dated very conveniently Feb. 22 (the 
 
 " so would I," was received by every one as it ought to be, 
 expressive of their wish to turn the tide of suspicion from 
 themselves.
 
 ( 92 ) 
 
 day after the plot) in which De Berenger, com- 
 pletely recovered from the fatigues and anxiety of 
 his excursion from Dover and visit at Lord Coch- 
 rane's, deliberately makes out an estimate of the 
 value of his plans executed for Mr. Cochrane John- 
 stone, and says, they may be worth 250 ; and 
 asking, moreover, for a loan of 200 more ; he talks 
 in the letter of balances, assignments, and securities, 
 like a true man of business ; there is next a letter 
 (36 l)from the attorney toCochrane Johnstone,saying, 
 that he had paid the Baron (De Berenger) 50 in 
 advance, besides 7 or S more for the printing of 
 prospectus's of Vittoria, Mr .C . Johnstone's projected 
 building. We have also (364) a receipt from De 
 Berenger, for 200 from Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, 
 dated Feb. 26 (five days after the fraud) and again, 
 a promissary note from De Berenger, dated also 
 Feb. 26, in consideration of 200 lent him by 
 Cochrane Johnstone, at De Berenger's particular 
 request : General Campbell also was called to say, 
 that he had seen plans of the intended building, and 
 the honest and ingenious Donithorne, whose versa- 
 tile talents 'were sometimes employed as bail for 
 other persons, and sometimes as cabinet-maker to 
 furnish their houses, has frequent interv Jews with 
 Mr. Cochrane Johnstone to take orders for furni- 
 ture, c. There is here all the outward and impo- 
 sing appearance of real business : but what did the 
 Jury think of these transactions ? the verdictinforms 
 us. It might be expected that Lord Cochrane 
 having so good an example of commercial industry 
 and regularity of proceeding, would also favour us
 
 with his items of business, and he has accordingly 
 done so. There is this difference however, between 
 the money and other accounts of Cochrane John- 
 stone with De Berenger, &c. and those of Lord 
 Cochrane ; the transactions between the first two 
 were sworn to on the trial, whereas we have little 
 more than the assertions of his Lordship for many 
 of his engagements. Is Lord Cochrane serious in 
 saying " that the payment of his wine-merchant's 
 bill by Mr. Butt is reasonable proof, and would 
 be held sufficient in law of his previously receiving 
 money from him ?" It might be so had there been no 
 current account between them : how often do persons 
 authorise others connected with them in business 
 to discharge bills for them, and set down the sums 
 thus defrayed to the general account, without having 
 advanced any specific money for that particular 
 purpose? We have had the business connection, 
 between Lord Cochrane and Mr. Butt proved on 
 the trial too often to doubt it. Lord Cochrane 
 always recognised the orders of Mr. Butt (Trial 
 p. 161). His Lordship tells us that the 200 note, 
 which he gave to Mr. Butt, as part of money 
 for the payment of the wine-merchant's bill, was 
 the identical 200 note, which Mr. Butt afterwards 
 changed all into ones for Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, 
 but where is the proof of this. His Lordship 
 in order to recover any memory of having given 
 any money at all to Mr. Butt for the payment of 
 ship bills, was obliged to his uncle Mr. Basil 
 Cochrane, for urging his memory on the subject 
 (Letter, 114) ; and we must therefore demur till it
 
 ( 04 ) 
 
 shall be proved, that the note in question was the 
 same. It is indeed remarkable, that Lord Coch- 
 rane should need to be reminded of having given 
 such a sum as .1200 to another person for payment 
 of bills : this absence of thought, by no means agrees 
 with the minuteness of calculation and regularity of 
 business, observed by his Lordship with respect to 
 other money transactions : }ie was during his stock 
 gambling, almost daily employed in buying and 
 selling Omnium, India Bonds, &c. and appears to 
 have had his whole soul absorbed (for one week at 
 least) in money : but as Lord Cochrane assures us 
 of this forgetfulness of one particular payment, we 
 must believe him, and therefore think that he may 
 also have forgot some other circumstances connected 
 with his pecuniary transactions, with his agent Mr. 
 Butt. As Lord Cochrane has favoured us with so 
 many accounts, it is to be regretted, that he hai 
 not given Mr. Butt's memoranda of transactions, 
 between him and his Lordship : we should then 
 probably find all these matters arranged, with the 
 same method and plan, as those of Mr. Cochrane 
 Johnstone and De Berenger. The latter were 
 given with as great an appearance of consistency 
 as the former, and were sworn to on the trial; while 
 the former are wanting in such a support. The 
 fact of Mr. Butt having paid the bills for Lord 
 Cochrane, cannot be proof of any particular sum 
 being giving to him for that purpose, while there 
 was a current account between the parties, and this 
 justifies our doubts as to the 200; and with regard 
 to the two notes of 100 each, said to be returnee}
 
 ( 95 > 
 
 by Lord Cochrane to Mr. Butt, for payment of a 
 .200 loan, there is on the trial (237), only the 
 u hearsay evidence" of Mr. Lance, and this every 
 one knows " amounts, as Lord Ellenborough said, 
 to nothing." 
 
 Lord Cochrane > towards the close of his letter to 
 the noble Learned Judge, imitating the example of 
 all great men, who have wished, either by their 
 writings or eloquence, to leave a powerful impres- 
 sion on the minds of readers or auditors, has con- 
 jured up a third plot for the ill-fated morning of 
 the 21st of February; and assures us (Letter, 125), 
 that he has evidence in his possession of facts 
 which fully prove, that a pretended officer arrived in 
 a post-chaise and four on that day, three hours 
 previous to the arrival of De Bereng*er, with pre- 
 cisely the same news); and that he proceeded im- 
 mediately to the Admiralty! JJLord Cochrane has 
 perhaps read Mr. Burke on the Sublime and Beau- 
 tiful, and found that terror is a source of the 
 sublime ; and therefore wishes, before bidding adieu 
 to the public, to leave an impression of awe and 
 wonder on our minds. I really believe, however, 
 that this third plot is as much the invention of 
 his Lordship as the first fraud of De Berenger ; 
 and, if it is not, it is in Lord Cochrane's power to 
 prove it, by producing " the facts in his possession" 
 which corroborate his assertion. 
 
 His Lordship unavailingly tells us, in order to 
 supply the defect and discordancy of his evidence,
 
 ( 96 ) 
 
 that he neither read the brief himself before the trialj 
 nor listened to it when his solicitors read it to him; 
 What, could his Lordship be thinking of other 
 matters, while hearing a brief which involved his 
 honour and reputation, all that constitutes the com- 
 fort and pride of existence 57 Lord Cochrane, the 
 man represented as feeling " a stain like a wound," 
 and trembling alive to disgrace, thinking of other 
 affairs, when his solicitors were reading to him 
 that brief which would leave him unspottedj or 
 mark him a degraded and stigmatized member of 
 society ? Really if this was the case, his Lord- 
 ship's power of abstracting his thoughts from the 
 subject in immediate discussion, wonderfully exceeds 
 every thing yet recorded of the same kind. Let us 
 no more hear or read of Sir I. Newton, being so 
 absorbed in mathematical studies, as to forget the 
 hour of dinner ; of philosophers falling into ditches 
 while gazing at the stars ; or of martyrs at the 
 stake suffering all worldly endurance, yet thoughtless 
 of the world, their eyes and hearts fixed on the 
 blessed regions of immortality and retribution : 
 these must henceforth " hide their diminished 
 heads," and make room for our new aspirant to the 
 honours of abstract thinking. Surely the pillory 
 would have been no punishment, for so profound 
 a meditator as Lord Cochrane ; for whether the 
 applauses or hisses of spectators had echoed round 
 him ; whether the smile of approval had beamed 
 benignity, or the finger and lip of scorn evinced 
 contempt, it would have been alike indifferent to 
 a man of his abstraction of thought." His mind,
 
 to use the words of Sir Francis Burdett, might be 
 so scheming and thinking of other matters, as not 
 to be attentive to the proceedings ;" ungratefully 
 inattentive, perhaps, even to the presence of his 
 friend Sir Francis, who so heroically declared his 
 resolution to share the honours of the pillory with 
 Lord Cochrane ; his Lordship, or rathef the ab- 
 stract philosopher, thus unconscious of the Hon. 
 Baronet's revolving round him like a faithful and 
 ornamental satellite, governed by the same laws 
 and principles of action, and every way fitted to 
 move in the same bright and glorious orbit. But 
 Lord Cochrane must give us leave to thinkj that he 
 read or listened to his brief, and Was anxious to do 
 so, unless we are to suppose him more solicitous about 
 the wretched mammon of life, than his reputation. 
 I le could eagerly pace, almost daily, to the Stock- 
 Exchange with the devotion of a pilgrim to the 
 shrine of some favourite saint, to haggle about an 
 eighth, and increase a fortune already cumbrous ; 
 yet he neglected his brief and left his reputation, 
 his dignity, and his honour, to the care of others. 
 His Lordship rather awkwardly admits, that he 
 gave instructions for the brief; he admits, too, 
 that his solicitors called his attention to a circum- 
 stance which they had inserted the brief, and which 
 they expunged in consequence of erroneous infor- 
 mation given by Lord Cochrane's servant ; and 
 that this error was expunged by his authority ; and 
 having made this concession, he says, " My solici- 
 tors assert, that though I did not read the brief 
 myself, yet they read it to me, and on this assertion} 
 
 O
 
 ( 8 ) 
 
 I \vill a4mit the fact, though I June no recoiled ion 
 of //." The man whose memory is so trail as to 
 forget facts, the establishment of which is essential 
 to his reputation, is, undoubtedly, a just object for 
 the. tenderest sympathy ; but in this case, however 
 we may feel inclined to drop a tear on the departure 
 of such a memory, duty must be Hept distinct from 
 the affections. A defendant's negligence of the 
 means of defence, can never be admitted as proof 
 of innocence. It cannot be admitted in the case of 
 L-ord Cochrane, as applied either generally or in- 
 dividually : a certain negligence and carelessness 
 of conduct, originating in some of the best feelings 
 of the heart, is said, I am aware, to be peculiar to- 
 the profession of which his Lordship is a member : 
 but is there an instance on record, where that 
 negligence and carelessness have been apparent in 
 any naval officer who has unfortunately been put on 
 trial before a court-martial, or did any snch person, 
 ever so depend on a supposed innocence, as to neglect 
 the necessary means of defence ? Have not witnesses 
 been summoned from the remotest climes ; documents, 
 both public and private, ransacked and brought 
 forward, and able counsel employed ? all this, too, 
 with a perfect inward conviction of innocence, yet 
 with a persuasion, that it was incumbent to be 
 vigilant and energetic in putting on the armour of 
 defence, and to earnestly seize all means and 
 resources of recommending and establishing that 
 innocence. The evidence of facts thus makes it 
 appear, that however careless in other respects, 
 naval men have been perhaps beyond all other*
 
 ( 99 ) 
 
 cautious when their honour and reputation 
 implicated. Nor can we accept his Lordship** 
 professed indifference to, and want of recollection 
 of, circumstances as applying- to himself individually. 
 Lord Cochrane has a taste for mechanical pursuits ; 
 it is an hereditary gift : and among other fruits of 
 this taste, is the invention of a lamp for increasing 
 the intensity of light : now a person having this 
 bent of mind, must*, in order to be successful in 
 experiment, give a fixed, undivided attention to an 
 object. He must take as an example, Avith due 
 limitation, the famous Euler, of Basil, who lost 
 an eye by poring* over a problem. The study of 
 mechanics is connected with, and aided by, mathe- 
 matics, and requires mush of the same fixedness of 
 thought ; Lord Cochrane therefore is one of the 
 chosen few, who, we might think, are peculiarly 
 formed from a felicity of mental pursuit, to think, 
 and to think steadily, and long, on any interesting 
 subject. His Lordship, too, from having been 
 speculating some time in the Alley, must, many 
 months before the interview with his solicitor^ 
 have had his mind habituated to minute detail. 
 The man who is haggling about eighths and other 
 fractions of money, cannot be very careless or 
 immethodical. His Lordship's minuteness of cal- 
 culation, proves he can be attentive -. he may, as an 
 excuse for his professed negligence, plead simplicity 
 of manners, and the security felt by innocence ; but 
 if we are to judge by his conduct, he has not been 
 brought up in a state of seclusion from the sight 
 and experience of the world, and he ought to know
 
 ( 100 ) 
 
 that simplicity often treads on, nay enters, tlie con- 
 fines of folly. It is time, place, and occasion, which 
 determine us in the names we give to qualities and 
 things. If Lord Cochrane was really so thoughtless , 
 about the most important concern in his lite, and 
 was musing " on other matters and schemes, 1 ' 
 while the solicitors were reading his brief to him, 
 Moliere's absent man has met with a most formidar 
 ble rival ; and his Lordship would be an excellent 
 subject for the graphic talents of some modern 
 Hogarth, as a companion for Gelidus, the mathe- 
 matician of Dr. Johnson, who being told that his 
 house was on fire, coolly observed, that lire was 
 said to move iq a circle. 
 
 . Lord Cochrane's complaints of injustice, will be 
 best appreciated by a reference to facts : few persons 
 have been more indulgently treated by circumstances ; 
 a trial occupying two days, a verdict seriously 
 deliberated uppn for more than two hours and a 
 half, by a most respectable Jury, a further hearing 
 of his counsel in support of legal objection, and of 
 his Lordship himself on general points, contrary to 
 the established rule of the court, when applying 
 for a new trial ; three weeks allowed him to prepare 
 a defence in the House of Commons, during which 
 a delay was granted, at the request of Lord Cocl\- 
 rane, and during which he was listened to, notwitlv 
 standing the insolent and slanderous invectives 
 with which it abounded ; these are the proofs 
 adduced of unjust and inhuman treatment: may he 
 find no worse consideration at the bar of eternaj
 
 ( 101 ) 
 
 justice ! With regard to the imputed severity of the 
 sentence as connected with the pillory, let it be 
 remembered that his Lordship first degraded himself 
 by his actions and associations. Dr. Johnson has 
 rightly stated it as one of the many advantages of 
 high birth, that if two individuals, the one nobly, 
 the other ignobly born, are tempted to a crime, the 
 former will be less likely to yield to the temptation 
 than the latter, because of his illustrious origin; 
 lie has a sacred trust of honour bequeathed him, 
 which he will be tearful of violating. If Lord 
 Cochrane's conduct is tried by this rule, it will 
 no longer astonish a reasonable mind, that the 
 pillory was thought of by Judges. His Lordship 
 would have the public believe, that he was denied 
 a new trial, chiefly on that point of law, which 
 provides that in cases of conspiracy, no re-hearing 
 shall be granted unless all the parties are present 
 at the application : this is the constant practice, 
 and, as Lord Ellenborough observed, it had been 
 acted upon in a case that very morning ; but Lord 
 Cochrane it seems has yet to learn, that a new trial 
 might haye been refused on other legal grounds. 
 If the verdict of a jury be agreeable to equity and 
 justice, the court will not grant a new trial, though 
 there may have been an error in the admission of 
 evidence ; nor need it be granted because it has 
 been discovered, after the trial, that a witness 
 examined was incompetent* : this is the law of the 
 
 * Lord Cochrane did not on applying for a new trial, bring 
 any proof of the incompetency of witnesses for prosecution.
 
 ( 102 ) 
 
 case ; therefore had the Judges been highly puncti- 
 lious, there was ample room for their refusing a 
 re-hearing 1 . The court, notwithstanding they might 
 thus have stood not only on the point of law, as to the 
 presence of all the party, but on other legal ground, 
 yet partially waved all this, and actually heard not 
 merely Lord Cochrane's counsel in support of legal 
 objections, but also the new, or rather refreshed, 
 evidence his Lordship had to offer ; and this 
 evidence having been heard, the court were wisely 
 Satisfied that no strong probable grounds existed to 
 suppose that the merits of the case had not been 
 fairly and fully discussed, or that the decision was 
 not agreeable to justice and truth. They considered 
 the little new evidence which Lord Cochrane pro- 
 duced, as of small weight against the abundance of 
 proof opposed to it, and which contained, to use 
 the words of the noble and learned Judge, " so 
 multiplied a quantity of testimony, so clear, and so 
 consistent as was hardly ever presented in the course 
 of any criminal trial." Upon these grounds was a 
 new trial very properly refused. There can be little 
 doubt, that the defendants were themselves aware 
 that their objections to the verdict would appear 
 too frivolous and unsatisfactory 7 to admit of the 
 court granting another jury. The point of law was 
 therefore most dexterously brought in aid. It was 
 agreed that some of the party should abscond, and 
 thereby afford a colourable complaint of injustice. 
 The mask of dextrous artifice may be sometimes 
 shifted without prejudice to the disguise. Lord 
 Cochrane having only worthless evidence to offer,
 
 ( 103 ) 
 
 founded his chief complaint to the public, on the 
 cruelty of being punished, merely because some of 
 the defendants chose to abscond. Can it for a single 
 moment be credited, that his Lordship could not 
 prevail on his uncle, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone to 
 stay, and at least see if a new trial would be granted ? 
 What, not prevail on a relation, his constant corn- 
 companion (the Mentor of the Nephew's stock- 
 speculations) to remain and clear his character from 
 foul imputation ? Was their union cemented by 
 materials of so corruptible a nature, as to crumble 
 into dust, on their first exposure to the air of 
 adversity ? Were all his Lordship's entreaties and 
 expostulations ineffectual ? Surely not, it cannot 
 be ; if he could have prevailed, and I, for one, do 
 not doubt but he could, where are Lord Cochrane's 
 complaints of injustice ? If he could not, with what 
 sort of men has he associated, whom has he taken 
 to his bosom ? " Mark the friendship of the dissolute, 
 said a great moralist, while recording the dextrous 
 villany of one who deceived and betrayed his com- 
 panions." It is difficult to follow Lord Cochrane 
 in all his complaints and invectives. Like the man 
 who was hanged some months back at Chester, for 
 setting fire to a barn, and who died cursing wit- 
 nesses, Jury, and Judge; his Lordship has an 
 anathema for almost everyone, except the " virtuous 
 and enlightened" electors of Palace- Yard, and 
 " deals out fame and damnation at pleasure"- 
 Stock-Exchange, special-jury, counsel*, witnesses, 
 
 * To those who know the learned gentleman who conducted 
 the prosecution, it cannot be necessary to attempt any vindica- 
 tion of him from the imputations cast on his professional
 
 ( 104 ) 
 
 and Judges, all share his wrath, and are mixed 
 up together like the ingredients of Macbeth'*? 
 cauldron. 
 
 The respectability and reputation of the Jury 
 tvho tried the defendants, need not be dwelt on, 
 they are too well known. It would be easy to 
 enlarge on the advantages which a man of rank 
 derives from having his cause submitted to the 
 judgment of men, who being persons of education 
 and repute, possess enlightened and exercised 
 minds ; their decision will always have greater 
 weight than that of individuals moving in the 
 less respectable and mere limited walks of life : 
 and this advantage is further strengthened by the 
 Fact of a special jury being selected from so large a 
 Dumber as forty-eig'ht (a number precluding the 
 idea of improper influence) and that number being 
 afterwards reduced in the presence of the attornies 
 of both parties, which was the case in the present 
 instance ; for Mr. Cochrane Johnstone himself and 
 his attorney zcerc both present o/, and assisted m y 
 striking the jury : and it is remarkable, that not- 
 character by Lord Cochrzinc. That his Lordship should depre- 
 cate the able exercise of legal knowledge and acuteness which 
 brought the prosecution to a successful issue, is not to be 
 wondered at ; but that he should charge the learned counsel 
 with treachery and " ferocity of disposition," can only be 
 attributed to that mental blindness which the exasperation* 
 of convicted guilt often bring on men. Few persons " bear 
 their faculties more meekly" than Mr. Gurncy in public life; 
 while his amenity of disposition, and general excellence of 
 private character secure the esteem of friendship.
 
 ( 105 ) 
 
 withstanding the thread-bare charge, that special 
 juries are always taken from the same list of men, 
 but one of the jury who convicted Lord Cochrane 
 and his friends, had ever served before. It is 
 difficult to conceive the reason which should lead a 
 man of rank to wish that his cause should go before 
 a common jury ; it does not look like that con- 
 fidence in truth, which fears not the investigation 
 of discriminating minds and sound judgments : in 
 the present case, the crime of which the defendants 
 were charged, was, to be sure, of that low and 
 mean cast, that it might with propriety have been 
 submitted, as at first intended, to the Old-Bailey, 
 to which court, from the petty description of the 
 crime, it more properly belongs ; but, when the 
 prosecutors reflected on the great body of evidence 
 to be produced, the wealth and rank of some of the 
 defendants, the hardened audacity with^which one 
 or two of them boasted their innocence, and the 
 struggles which such men were likely to make, in 
 order to defeat justice, it was wisely determined, 
 that the cause should be removed from a low cri- 
 minal court to that of the King's-Bench, and be 
 there decided by a special jury. The propriety of 
 this determination was testified by the verdict. 
 With respect to the noble and learned Judge who 
 presided at the trial, it gives me pleasure to offer 
 my humble, but just tribute to his character. When 
 Lord Ellenborough shares in the misrepresentation 
 and calumny of a particular class of individuals, he 
 only partakes of the fate usually attending those 
 who administer the laws. But if an enlightened 
 
 P
 
 ( 106 ) 
 
 mind, capable of grasping the highest questions of 
 jurisprudence; if a clearness of intellect, which can 
 illuminate the almost Egyptian shades of darkness, 
 in which guilt seeks to envelope itself; and if a 
 general, most able, and upright administration of 
 the laws, entitle a person to the esteem of living 
 and future generations, Lord Ellenborough has 
 amply earned and secured that esteem. The sen- 
 tence passed on Lord Cochrane and the other de- 
 fendants came, however, not only from the Chief 
 Justice, but from three other learned and excellent 
 Judges, who all approved of the verdict ; all agreed 
 that circumstances did not demand a new trial, and 
 all viewed those circumstances in so serious a light, 
 as to require the full exercise of power lodged in 
 their hands. These three Judges will, no doubt, 
 cheerfully consent to relieve their noble and learned 
 chief from bearing all the reproach of having up- 
 held the social and political structure : and if their 
 consciences are burthened with no heavier crime, 
 their hours of reflexion will not be filled with much 
 bitterness of anguish ; nor w ill their pillow be 
 uneasy, when arriving at that awful moment, in 
 which they will await the sentence of Him, who 
 judges them that have judged. 
 
 We are also urged to believe Lord Cochrane in- 
 nocent, because he firmly and solemnly declares 
 himself so; is it unusual for guilt to do the same? 
 Have not men under every species of punishment, 
 even while ascending the gallows, and treading on 
 the very threshold of eternity, most solemnly pro-
 
 ( 107 ) 
 
 tested their innocence of crimes, of which the 
 clearest evidence has convicted them : let it be re- 
 collected, too, that Lord Cochrane's uncle, Mr. 
 Cochrane Johnstone, a man convicted to the gene- 
 ral satisfaction, rose in his place in the House of 
 Commons, at an early stage of this business, and 
 with a deep depravation of moral feeling declared, 
 upon his honour, that he was innocent of the fraud 
 imputed to him, and that he most ardently desired 
 a trial. In the like spirit of boldness before the 
 trial, as that of Lord Cochrane since, he also 
 braved his prosecutors, threatened their prosecu- 
 tion, and vapoured about consultations of attornies, 
 counsel, &c. whom he had directed to adopt the 
 measures usually taken by persons falsely accused. 
 Mr. Butt, likewise, and nearly all the other de- 
 linquents, have published solemn declarations, to- 
 tally denying any part in the crime* : so, if we may 
 
 * To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. 
 
 Mr. Editor, 
 
 I can no longer refrain from contradicting the infamous and 
 unfounded statements, contained in the said Report (the Re- 
 port of the Committee of the Stock-Exchange). I have iiir 
 structed my solicitors immediately to adopt those measures 
 which my counsel may think proper, in order that justice may 
 be done to my character, and to punish those who have dared 
 to put their names to the most unfounded statements that malice 
 can invent, and which they must have known to have been false, 
 at the moment they were affixing their names to them. 
 
 Cumberland-Street^ 
 March 12, 1814. COCHRANE JOHNSTONE.
 
 ( 108 > 
 
 believe Lord Cochrane and his companions, DC 
 Berenger took his Dover tour merely for his own 
 amusement, and at his own expence. Bold asser- 
 tions of purity, therefore, are to be regarded only 
 when sustained by evidence : the innocent do not 
 need them, the guilty too often fly to them. 
 
 It is remarkable, that with the reformers (men 
 charged, if we may believe them, with a peculiar 
 commission of moral and political wisdom) the 
 crime now considered, and of which Lord Cochrane 
 nas been found guilty, finds neither disgrace nor 
 reprehension ; it is a hoax, or a ))tisd< mcanoiir at 
 worst. We are told this by ^i legislator, whose 
 duty it is to enforce the obligations of virtue, and 
 by a political writer who labours unremittingly to 
 model the opinions of mankind. The patriotic code 
 of morality was never very severe, its standard of 
 perfection never too high, nor are its laws written 
 in blood, unless ministers and the two Houses 
 of Parliament are the supposed delinquent?. 
 Sir Francis Burdett may affect to laugh away 
 
 Mr. Editor, 
 
 I have delayed replying to the infamous and gross falsehood* 
 circulated in the public papers, defamatory of my character, 
 relative to the late fraud on the Stock-Exchange. I positively 
 deny the accuracy of the above statement (the Stock-Exchange 
 Report). My solicitors have received orders from me, instantly 
 to commence a prosecution against the Committee of ihe 
 Stock-Exchange, for \nserl\n^ falsehoods as infamous and un- 
 
 founded^ as ever appeared in publication. 
 
 R. G. BUTT. 
 March 12, 1814.
 
 ( 109 ) 
 
 crime, and treat swindling as a joke ; but he must 
 know, that many things reputed by the law to be 
 only misdemeanours, and deemed such in a court 
 of justice, are in that court of honour, the breast 
 of a gentleman, considered as disgraceful crimes. 
 The pick-pocket who steals a handkerchief (a mere 
 trifle in value) is only guilty of a misdemeanour ; 
 but by society he is deemed an outcast, unfit for its 
 notice, while persons committing crimes of deeper 
 colour are tolerated ; there are certain mean and 
 dirty actions, originating in low and sordid pas- 
 sions, Avhich never find a sanctuary in the breast of 
 honourable men : fraud is one of then?. The Hon. 
 Baronet looks his constituents in the face, and, 
 with an undignified and abortive pleasantry, weakens 
 their respect for virtue, by telling them that a fraud 
 grounded on falsehood, and which, if it had suc- 
 ceeded to the extent intended by its projectors, 
 would have left many families who were in comfort 
 and opulence, but a few hours before its execution, 
 in deepest ruin, is only a hoax ; and that to leave 
 an aged parent without support, a daughter unpor- 
 tioned, and a son, with a ruined business to revive, 
 is a venial offence, or rather a trifle, a hoax, a mis- 
 demeanour. From what code of ethics, or fount of 
 morality, has the Hon. Baronet imbibed his moral 
 legislation ? By what supernatural agency has he 
 been indulged with ethical visions, whose awful 
 authority declares that to be innocent, which every 
 wise legislator, and every civilized age and nation 
 have emphatically branded as criminal ? By what 
 mental inspiration, has he thus established a novel
 
 c no ) 
 
 relation, and new grounds of acceptance between 
 man and his Creator ? Heathenism \vould blush 
 at such doctrines, Christianity assuredly condemns 
 them to eternal perditition. Again, Mr. Cobbett* 
 
 * Mr, Cobbett, is the hardiest and most unsubdued of Lord 
 Cochrane's public advocates. In proportion as the light of 
 evidence breaks in on other minds, do the shades of error and 
 scepticism thicken and gather round Mr. Cobbett. He. even 
 now, stoutly declares Lord Cochrane entirely innocent, endea- 
 vours unceasingly to raise converts to his errors. Having in 
 vain, as recruiting-serjeant for his Lordship, beat up all over 
 the kingdom, for congratulatory addresses to Lord Cochrane 
 on his re-election; he is determined to supply the deficiency, by 
 creating an imaginary world of his own. It was said by a wit, 
 to be the greatest effect of Shakespeare's inventive genius, that 
 he created Birnam-Wood in a country where there was no 
 wood. Mr. Cobbett's fancy is yet more luxuriant, and acts on 
 a grander scale; man is the great object of his inventive powers, 
 and his human beings come, like our first parents, pure from 
 the hands of their Creator, they are " well-disposed and re- 
 spectable." An address of congratulation to Lord Cochrane, on 
 his re-election, was inserted by Mr. Cobbett in his register, 
 stating itself to come from " the well-disposed and respectable 
 inhabitants of Kirkaldy." The date of the month, the name 
 of the inn, where the meeting was said to have been held, and 
 of the chairman who presided, were all given with a precision 
 and formality, which bespoke every appearance of truth and 
 honour. The world of fancy and the world of reality, are, 
 however, somewhat different ; on inquiry, these " well dispo- 
 sed and respectable people," gude neighbours all, eluded touch 
 and interrogation, like the ghostly phantoms " andgrimwomen" 
 of Macbeth. " When we burn'd in desire to question them 
 further, they made themselves air, into which they vanished :" 
 in fact they were no where to be found ; the landlord of the 
 inn declared on oath, that no such meeting was held at his 
 house, neither could it have been held without his knowledge.
 
 ( 111 ) 
 
 <leclares in his Register (March 26, 1814), that he 
 will call De Berenger, the pretended Du Bourgh, 
 " neither cheat nor impostor:" he defends not only 
 Lord Cochrane and Mr. Butt, but is the unblush- 
 ing advocate of Mr. Johnstone. One of his corres- 
 pondents, too, alluding to some members of the 
 House of Commons, says " they were obliged when 
 voting against Lord Cochrane, to skreen themselves 
 behind the technicalities of Parliament, and did not 
 dare to meet the question upon the ground of moral 
 justice :" if this means any thing, it intends to set 
 up a distinction between law and morality, and 
 make it appear, that there are cases where Parlia- 
 ment, owing to its particular forms and usages, 
 cannot defend the solemn obligations of truth and 
 justice. The House of Commons in deciding on 
 the expulsion of Lord Cochrane, were without 
 doubt governed by the verdict of the Jury ; but 
 they connected that verdict with the law of the land, 
 
 A most diligent search could not discover the renowned chair- 
 man of this unsubstantial assembly; for no William Davidson, 
 to whom Mr. Cobbett condescendingly voted the honours of 
 presidency, was resident in Kirkaldy. The whole account proved . 
 to be oneof those ingenious and innocent fictions, of which prose 
 occasionally defrauds the prerogative of poetry. Mr. Cobbett 
 may continue to multiply, at pleasure, such addresses, by a kind 
 of infinite series, or by a geometrical progression, the ratio of 
 which shall increase in exact proportion as Lord Cochrane's 
 advocates decrease. We should hope then, some day to see 
 him present himself, and his airy fabrications, at the feet of his 
 Lordship, as Anacharsis Cloots did at the bar of the National 
 Assembly of France, the representative of the whole human 
 race.
 
 and our laws are founded on the principles of moral 
 truth and justice. When the House, therefore, was 
 influenced by the verdict, it acted upon an usage 
 founded on a conviction, that legal and moral obli- 
 gations had been respected by the Jury. Let us 
 hear a learned Judge on this head* : " Upon these 
 two foundations, the law of nature, and the law of 
 revelation, depend all human laws ; that is to say, 
 no human laws should be suffered to contradict 
 these :" again, " in such points as are not 
 indifferent, human laws are only declaratory of, 
 and act in subordination to, the latter." A perusal 
 of our various statutes of frauds and perjuries, par- 
 ticularly that of Charles II. 's reign, which, as Black- 
 stone observes, " is a great and necessary security 
 to private property," will convince us that, our 
 ancestors kept in view, the connexion between law 
 and morality, as set forth by the learned Judge. 
 Mr. Cobbett frequently adorns his Register with 
 Biblical quotations : let him accept the two follow- 
 ing, and he will see how well connected our law 
 is with that of divine revelation ; " Lyg tips ore 
 abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are 
 his delight t." " But Peter said, Ananias, why hath 
 Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and 
 to keep back part of the price of the land ? (Ananias 
 had told a lie, for the purpose of fraud.) While it 
 remained was it not thine own ? and after it teas sold, 
 was it not in thine own power? why hast thouconcehed 
 this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto 
 
 * Blackstone. t Prov. xii. 22.
 
 ( 113 ) 
 
 men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these 
 words, fell down, and gave up the ghost *." Will it 
 now be said, that the House of Commons, in deci- 
 ding the expulsion of Lord Cochrane, did not at 
 once respect its own usages, and the cause of moral 
 justice? The crime of the defendants was two-fold; 
 a lie was invented to effect a fraud. Are falsehood 
 and fraud virtues then, and will they be regarded 
 as such by him, who 
 
 prefers 
 
 Before all temples th' upright heart and pure ? 
 
 If we would rightly estimate the nefarious character 
 of the plot, we ought not to decide by the sum of 
 evil it actually produced, but by what might have 
 been the result, had it fully answered the schemers 
 intention. A fog, one of those friendly interposi- 
 tions of nature, which sometimes defeat the projects 
 of wicked or assist those of good men t, prevented 
 the telegraph from working, and the lie from being 
 propagated at an early hour ; many families were 
 
 * Acts v. 3, &c. 
 
 t Nor do these awful signs of Power supreme 
 Not benefit mankind ; if but in part 
 They limit the audacity of guilt, 
 And teach man his sole dependency. 
 Who will accuse the tempest when it broke 
 The fleet of Xerxes, scatter'd on the shore 
 Of generous Greece ? Or who will blame the storm 
 Which spread the wreck'd Armada round the coast 
 
 Of rising England ? 
 
 EUDOSIA* 
 
 Q
 
 therefore saved from the ruin kindly designed for 
 them : but had not this fortunate circumstance oc- 
 curred, a most extensive scene of devastation must 
 have appeared, and hundreds would have had reason 
 to curse the name of Cochrane, to the latest hour 
 of their existence. The dashing character of the 
 exploit, would perhaps have dazzled a few indivi- 
 duals, as spectators, while contemplating the liquid 
 masses of fire poured from the bosom of a volcano, 
 might be allured by the brilliant spectacle into for- 
 getfulness of the wide ruin occasioned by the 
 destructive element; but men, who do not confound 
 all moral distinctions, will perceive in the deed 
 only the features of a cold-blooded fraud, invented 
 
 and executed by knavery. It may be asked, if 
 
 Lord Cochrane is proved by such clear evidence to 
 be guilty of a flagrant crime, how has it happened 
 that the public voice re-elected him for Westmin- 
 ster ? His Lordship is indebted to the pillory for 
 that honour. I am persuaded, that the question of 
 guilt or innocence had about the weight of a feather 
 rn the popular gale, which in part honourably, in 
 part indiscreetly, set in his favour. The verdict of 
 the Jury was at first almost generally applauded. 
 I was in court when, after deliberating nearly three 
 hours, they gave a decision which excited general 
 and almost tumultuous sympathy in its favour : 
 justice has triumphed said one, impudence and 
 audacity have been abashed cried another, and a 
 third congratulated his near neighbour, that wealth 
 had not screened guilt. I shall not soon forget the 
 smile that then beamed, with but few exceptions,
 
 ( 115 ) 
 
 on the countenance of every one present. The peo- 
 ple at large echoed this applause, and seemed to 
 think that the defendants had been convicted by a 
 wonderfully well connected yet varied chain of evi- 
 dence. The Judges justly viewing the crime of 
 which the parties had been found guilty in a most 
 serious light, and recollecting, no doubt, the per- 
 jury by which it had been attempted to be defended, 
 sentenced the defendants when brought up for 
 punishment, to fine, imprisonment, and the pillory. 
 The pillory ! that real origin of Lord Cochrane's 
 re-election. Commiseration now began to touch the 
 public heart, and the nation alive to a dire disgrace, 
 which one of its defenders was about to suffer; 
 thinking, too, or, at least, hoping, that he was not 
 the chief agent in the fraud, pitied Lord Cochrane. 
 His Lordship, dexterously availing himself of this 
 state of popular feeling, grew bold and talked loudly 
 and firmly of innocence, injustice, and oppression. 
 *' A persisting untameable efficacy of soul, gives a 
 seductive and pernicious dignity, even to a charac- 
 ter and a course which every moral principle forbids 
 us to approve :" the truth of this was now apparent. 
 The strength of nerve displayed by Lord Cochrane, 
 captivated many who thought that an inflexible 
 spirit must be right, and, whose understandings 
 could not discriminate between the calm fortitude 
 of suffering innocence, and the shameless effrontery 
 of disappointed guilt. His Lordship's bold asseve- 
 rations, were therefore accepted by some as proofs 
 of innocence, while the mistaken sensibility of others 
 excited by an apparent excess of punishment, suf-
 
 ( 116 ) 
 
 fered their reason to fall a victim at the feet of 
 sympathy. Numerous paragraphs * were also very 
 insiduously inserted in the public prints, either by 
 Lord Cochrane himself or his agents, meanly insinua- 
 ting his applauses and condemning his prosecutors. 
 But his Lordship had also other powerful auxiliaries, 
 besides the popular sensibility or his own inflexible 
 hardihood. The reformers, as they term them- 
 selves, discovered in his cause, an extensive and 
 promising field for the exercise of their experimental 
 politics and revolutionary virtues and doctrines. 
 
 * Of this kind, was a paragraph in the Morning Chronicle, 
 some time before the trial, stating that the Lords of the Admi- 
 ralty had appointed Captain Johnson, " Lord Cochrane's par- 
 ticular friend" in command of the Tonnant. The object of 
 this paragraph, was to induce a belief, that government consi- 
 dered Lord Cochrane innocent of the crime imputed to him, 
 and though obliged for form's sake, temporarily to supersede 
 him, they yet chose to convey their opinion of his purity, by 
 nominating a bosom friend as locum tcncns. Captain U. Johnson 
 was indeed appointed acting Captain in the Tonnant, March 4; 
 but he was superseded by Captain Skcne on the 4th of April. 
 The sense entertained by ministry of Lord Cochrane's inno- 
 cence, if they ever for a moment thought him innocent, was 
 therefore very ephemeral, barely a month in duration: " out, 
 out, brief candle." 
 
 Of the same character, loo, was the paragraph inserted after 
 the trial,which stated thatLordCochrane, indignant at having been 
 .imposed on and betrayed by the flight of his uncle Cochrane 
 Johnstone, had sent a near relative over to the Continent, who 
 should either compel Mr. Johnstone to return, and prove 
 Lord Cochrane's innocence, or expiate his crime by the 
 satisfaction of a gentleman. Mr. Johnstone has not returned*, 
 neither has this bloody rencontre taken place. 
 
 * See Appendix.
 
 ( 117 ) 
 
 Men of less systematic vigilance, than the Catilines 
 of the state must have seen that the golden oppor- 
 tunity was not to be neglected; for the case of Lord 
 Cochrane compacted and amalgamated, as it were, 
 many of their favourite theories into one body. 
 His Lordship had been found guilty of a fraud on 
 the property of others property secured by the laws 
 is a downright insult on the rights of man, who 
 ought to live as the savages do, stealing and being 
 robbed. Lord Cochrane had been sentenced to 
 punishment by Judges, guardians of the laws if, 
 the authority and efficiency of the laws, and their 
 administrators are revered, the constitution as now 
 established will abide, and this cannot be endured. 
 Lord Cochrane had been expelled the House of 
 Commons, the people have a right to criminate 
 the motives and impeach the conduct of their repre- 
 sentatives ; " a sort of national convention (compo- 
 sed of the dregs of the populace), dubious in its 
 nature, and perilous in its example, must nose 
 Parliament in the very seat of its authority, sit with 
 a sort of superintendance over it, as a court of 
 dernier appeal, and dictate to it, not only laws, 
 but the very form and essence of legislature itself." 
 Thus was Lord Cochrane taken up by the refor- 
 mers. It was not the man but the measures : as a 
 brother reformer, he had few genuine claims to 
 favour, and had once or twice nearly fallen into 
 disgrace with the patriots, for not attending in his 
 place as senator, when, some of their darling schemes 
 were discussed in the House. These patriots could 
 not fail to recollect, how practically his love of the
 
 ( 118 ) 
 
 purity of election was proved when he scattered 
 gold, like the Hesperian fruit, about the streets of 
 Honiton, to allure and corrupt, deeming his guineas 
 a proper equivalent for the more substantial claims 
 which candidates ought to possess on the public 
 heart. But he served their purpose : they accord- 
 ingly rushed forward to his defence, unmindful of 
 his frailties. 
 
 nunc ipsa pericula jungunt. 
 
 Thus was Lord Cochrane led in triumph by the 
 electors of Westminster. Having been expelled 
 the House of Commons, " the virtuous and e.nlight* 
 ened" electors, without reading the trial or hearing 
 it read, but merely on the assertion of his Lordship 
 himself, and governed by their own ill- directed 
 feeling, came to an unanimous resolution, declaring 
 him innocent, and pronouncing him to be a fit person 
 to represent them in Parliament. Lord Cochrane 
 had been found guilty of a flagrant offence, after a 
 patient and solemn examination of his whole case by 
 a jury of his peers, acting on their oath, in the pre* 
 sence of Judges, whose knowledge and uprightness 
 are unimpeachable. u The virtuous and enlight- 
 ened" electors of Westminster, on the statement of 
 Lord Cochrane, a statement notoriously false in 
 some of its parts, and unsupported by proof in all, 
 proceed to arraign the verdict of the Jury, and to 
 pronounce his Lordship an injured and an inno- 
 cent man ! Where is that veneration for the sacred 
 trial by jury, so much boasted of by these patriots; 
 that institution which ever has been, and which, if
 
 ( 119 ) 
 
 recent events had not happened, I should have hoped 
 ever would be looked upon as " the glory of the 
 English law ;" that best criterion, as Blackstone 
 calls it, for investigating facts that ever was esta- 
 blished in any country that barrier thrown around 
 property and life, by the wisdom of our ancestors, 
 and which, as long as it remains unbroken, and no 
 longer^ will preserve property and life. The regard 
 entertained by the electors of Westminster for the 
 trial by jury, proves to be nothing more than a 
 feeling, which evaporates in noxious fumes, the 
 first moment of disappointment ; and a discernment 
 which can see no beauty in the institution, but when 
 the guilty are acquitted, and the innocent con- 
 demned : when crime has a higher importance and 
 a wider sphere of action given it by the verdict of 
 acquittal, (arising perhaps from technical mistakes) 
 stamping on it the signature of Justice, then it is 
 that the trial by jury is regarded ; but if the criminal 
 are condemned and punished, the boasted privilege 
 is a curse, and an appeal is to be made from the 
 serious, enlightened, and well-weighed proceedings 
 of courts of law, to the verdict of tumultous, igno- 
 rant, and prejudiced assemblies. Were such a 
 system as this to prevail, it is obvious there would 
 be an end at once to all the securities we enjoy, 
 under our constitution, for whatever forms the 
 happiness of life. 
 
 The Jury had condemned Lord Cochrane for a 
 fraud on property; yet him the " virtuous and 
 enlightened" electors of Westminster deem a fit
 
 ( 120 ) 
 
 guardian of the public purse : thus has a gate been 
 opened through which all property may be sacked 
 and ravaged ; thus has it been declared that the law 
 shall not protect property : for if a delinquent of 
 high rank having been found guilty of fraud should 
 be able by artful misrepresentation to persuade his 
 constituents of his innocence, he may receive in- 
 demnification for the sentence of the law at their 
 hands : in other words, he may henceforth plunder 
 with impunity. The conduct of the electors of 
 Westminster in re-electing Lord Cochrane is, in 
 my opinion, the fairest argument against a reform in 
 Parliament which events could offer. How could 
 the most corrupt patron or proprietor of a borough, 
 more infringe upon and violate the best principles 
 of our constitution than they have done. Let us 
 suppose, that any man sent to Parliament by such 
 a patron had, after a deliberate trial, been found 
 guilty of a fraud on the public purse, and in con- 
 sequence expelled the House of Commons ; let this 
 man work on the feelings of his patron, by repre- 
 senting himself over punished, make strenuous 
 assertions of innocence, demand another trial on the 
 strength of new evidence, deemed by four learned 
 judges unworthy a re-hearing; and let him after 
 this, and in consequence of this be re-seated in the 
 House by his patron, could that protector of the 
 delinquent shew by his conduct, more decided hos- 
 tility to the constitution and contempt for the trial 
 by jury, than the " virtuous and enlightened'* 
 electors of Westminster have done in re-electing 
 Lord Cochrane under his circumstances. If theip
 
 conduct is intended as a specimen of the blessings 
 designed for the nation, when " the present corrupt 
 system" shall have " passed away ;" and if universal 
 suffrage, or what Mr. Burke calls the five shilling 
 qualification, is to present no better expression of 
 the popular will and judgment, may the present 
 state of our representation " with all its imperfec- 
 tions on its head" be perpetual. Changed to the 
 shape and lineaments of recent events, we should 
 only at a general election have to look over the 
 registers of our different prisons, and fit representa- 
 tives would be readily found ; the more exalted the 
 delinquent, and the meaner the crime, the greater 
 would be the claim to public respect and confidence : 
 a general election would be nothing more than a 
 general gaol-delivery. 
 
 Aude aliquod brevibus Gyaris et carcere dignum 
 Si vis esse aliquis. 
 
 Surely the Roman satirist, in the above sentence, 
 divined an event which has happened in our own 
 country. He must have foreseen the time, when 
 a great body of its citizens, instead of rallying 
 round the laws, and honouring their protectors, 
 should follow, with acclamations of triumph, the 
 man who violated the laws : he must have foreseen 
 the time, when a nobleman of Britain should 
 openly declare * his desire of enjoying fame and 
 
 ' Lord Cochrane's letter of thanks to his constituents on 
 bis re-election. 
 
 R
 
 distinction, not from well-earned public services, 
 but from the applauses with which a misguided 
 populace should hail him while trampling on the 
 rights of society. How little is approbation thus 
 granted and derived, an object of envy ! Lord 
 Cochrane, indeed, affects to hold all titles and 
 distinctions in contempt, taking an indignant fare- 
 well of the Garters, Norroys, and Clarencieux of 
 the Herald's College ; at least, till such time as 
 the affrighted Astraea shall return to our earth . He 
 would have us consider him as one of the small, 
 but illustrious, band of patriots, whose severe vir- 
 tue, " protesting and solitary," rebukes the cor- 
 ruptions of a degenerate age, and secures at once 
 the pure homage of earth and meed of heaven. 
 Certainly men, thus instructed and fortified by 
 truth, ate among the most finished gifts of Pro- 
 vidence to an age or nation ; but it may be doubted, 
 whether Lord Cochrane's virtue will not lose some- 
 thing by a comparison with the sacred faith of such 
 characters ; and whether his aversion from all ho- 
 nours arises from the same pure, defecated source. 
 Some there may be who think that these distinctions 
 are viewed, in the present instance, mucli in the 
 same temper as Milton describes one who had lost 
 the immunities of a former happy abode, to have 
 contemplated his shorn dignity, and where he is re- 
 presented as looking even on the glorious sun-beams 
 with hate. Let us be thankful., however, that we 
 still have our Wellingtons and Lyndochs, our 
 Hoods and Brokes, who will consent, even under 
 " the present system," to receive the homage and
 
 ( 125 ) 
 
 rewards of a grateful country. Lord Cochrane's 
 naval services have been highly valuable ; and the 
 nation, with its Sovereign, have not been unmindful 
 of them ; nor has he been doomed, like Beli- 
 sarius, " to beg- through realms his valour saved :" 
 but highly as his Lordship's services are justly 
 rated, he must know, that we are not without other 
 brave and energetic commanders to fight the battles 
 and guard the shores of Britain. 
 
 A long succession of time must indeed elapse, 
 before Lord Cochrane's public services, however 
 brilliant, can efface the fresher image of late trans- 
 tions : many splendid achievements must there be, 
 not over a foreign enemy, but over self, to induce 
 a really " virtuous and enlightened" public, to 
 forgive the mischief perpetrated by his Lordship's 
 conduct, and that of his adherents, since the trial; 
 a conduct which, if not timely opposed, might 
 prove only the commencement of more serious en- 
 croachment on the social welfare. " Nothing,'* 
 says an able writer of the present day, " tempts the 
 mind so powerfully on, as to have successfully be- 
 gun to demolish what has been deemed to be most 
 sacred. The soldiers of Caesar, probably, had 
 never felt themselves so brave, as after they had cut 
 down the Massilian grove ; nor the Philistines, as 
 when the ark of the God of Israel was among their 
 spoils." Let those citizens of Westminster who 
 are anxious for the preservation of our laws, bind 
 this sentence on their frontlet, as the phylactery 
 which shall admonish them of obedience to the
 
 ( 124 ) 
 
 laws, whenever tempted to infringe them, or to 
 sanction their violation. It is the duty and interest 
 of all classes in that great city, to protest, in " sen- 
 tences of thunder and lightning," against the re- 
 election of Lord Cochrane, from the illustrious 
 order of nobility, who form so splendid a part of 
 its population, to the humbler citizens, whose in- 
 dustry and moral habits are equally important to 
 the great commonwealth. They who are adorned 
 with a long line of ancestral honours, should be 
 anxious for the dignity of their order, which suf- 
 fers, by a kind of sympathy, when any part of it 
 disgraces itself. They should recollect, that their 
 high rank and splendid possessions are guarded, 
 not merely by the sacred rights of prescriptive law, 
 but by a supposed elevation of thought and prac- 
 tice, bycthe cherishing of lofty sentiment, and by 
 an exemption from pursuits and habits, which, 
 when discovered to infect their class, never fail to 
 bring with them a loss of estimation and dignity in 
 public opinion, and thereby endanger the safety of 
 the privileged orders. Nor should the citizen for- 
 get, that it is on his integrity, on mutual faith 
 between man and man, on the slow, but perfectly 
 honourable efforts of industry (not by spoliations of 
 rapacious and fraudful speculation) that he depends 
 for an honourable station among his equals, and 
 for prosperity in life : he should remember, too, 
 that a course of virtuous and successful industry, 
 will in vain have enabled him to make provision for 
 himself and family, if the laws do not throw their 
 guardian shield around his property ; and if they
 
 ( 125 ) 
 
 do not enable him to gather and enjoy the harvest, 
 after having- protected him while sowing the seed. 
 Unless the city of Westminster wishes to be re- 
 corded, to the latest posterity, as the systematic 
 encourager and defender of injustice, it will im- 
 mediately retrace its steps, and pronounce the man, 
 who, after mature and solemn examination, has 
 been found guilty of a flagrant crime, to be un- 
 worthy its confidence. Let not a morbid sensibility 
 control reason ; noble and delightful as are the 
 more tender sympathies of life, and deserving- as 
 they are of encouragement, there is yet a time 
 when they should yield to the sterner virtues. The 
 man of feeling alone, who, undirected by reason, 
 is borne away by every breath of fancy, is a pitiable 
 atom, and will never achieve any thing great. 
 Even if it could be made evident that Lord Coch- 
 rane had been over punished, the citizens of West- 
 minster ought not, from that consideration alone, 
 to have re-elected him ; for such a precedent would 
 extend lenity to crimes of the most aggravated 
 nature. An excess of punishment can never prove 
 innocence, though it may excite sympathy. No- 
 thing but a deliberate, attentive consideration of 
 the evidence produced on a trial, and a clear, im- 
 partial investigation, divested of prejudice and 
 passion, of all circumstances, will justify us in 
 condemning or acquitting an accused person. Such 
 an opportunity of deliberate and prudent examina- 
 tion of the subject, now discussed, is afforded, by 
 the publication of Lord Cochrane's trial, which has 
 placed the evidence of guilt in too clear a light, to
 
 ( 126 ) 
 
 admit of erroneous conclusions. Truth, says a 
 modern writer, if communicated to the mind with 
 perspicuity, is a sufficient basis for virtue. The 
 public have in the trial, therefore, a foundation, on 
 which to raise a superstructure, that shall have 
 morality and wisdom for its support ; those 
 principles which have conducted our country to the 
 proud pre-eminence it now holds in the scale of 
 nations : may it long enjoy that exalted station, 
 and may the basis of its glory be the love and 
 respect of its inhabitants, for the sacred interests 
 of truth and morality.
 
 127 ) 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 s 
 
 I N C E part of this pamphlet was written, 
 the Stock-Exchange Committee have published their 
 Second Report relative to the late fraud. It will 
 be necessary, therefore, to notice some of the par- 
 ticulars mentioned in the Report, and which fully 
 prove to what a system of misrepresentation Lord 
 Cochrane descends. The most important facts con- 
 tained in the report are as follow : that William 
 Crane, the hackney-coachman, was thejfirst person 
 examined by them, in their inquiry respecting the 
 pretended Du Bourgh: and that at his Jirst ex- 
 amination (prior to its having been ascertained 
 that Lord Cochrane resided in Green-Street), he 
 stated that the pretended Du Bourgh wore a red 
 coat under his great coat, when he got out of the 
 coach, and entered the house. 
 
 That William Crane never asserted before them ? 
 nor ever gave them reason to believe, that the 
 person whom he took in his coach from the Marsh- 
 Gate to Green-Street was Lord Cochrane himself. 
 That neither William Crane nor anv other witness
 
 ( 128 ) 
 
 at the trial, received any portion of the reward that 
 was offered for the apprehension of the pretended 
 Colonel Du Bourgh ; that William Crane was 
 not paid higher than the other witnesses in his 
 station of life, which was at the rate often shillings 
 per day ; and that the whole sum paid to him did 
 not exceed seventeen pounds ; which included sundry 
 expences that he had incurred, and the hire of his 
 coach for part of the time, when he was in atten- 
 dance on the Committee. That Lord Cochrane 
 was not the first person who pointed out to the 
 Committee, that De Berenger was the pretended 
 Colonel Du Bourgh, since the gentleman (to whom 
 the whole of the reward of two hundred and fifty 
 guineas has since been given for that important 
 service), as well as some other gentlemen whose 
 names it is unnecessary here to mention, had pointed 
 him out to the Committee foe days prior to the 
 publication of his Lordship's affidavit," of the llth 
 of March, and a warrant had actually been previ- 
 ously obtained against him. Such are some of the 
 important facts communicated, in answer to the mis- 
 representations which have been spread abroad, 
 " with an unprecedented degree of boldness and 
 effrontery, by some of the parties since their con- 
 viction, in order to excite a popular clamour in 
 their favour, and thereby to palliate *or remove a 
 portion of the disgrace which they have brought 
 upon themselves." What has* been said in this 
 pamphlet (page 29, 30,) in vindication of Crane, the 
 hackney-coachman, has been urged under the idea 
 that he had received the premium of two hundred
 
 ( 129 ) 
 
 and jifly guineas for discovering T)e Berengcr ; but 
 it appears by the above report of the Committee, 
 that no such vindication was necessary, for lie never 
 had the premium. The affidavit of Charles King 1 , 
 the stable-keeper, which stated that Crane had 
 bought a coach and horses with the premium, there- 
 fore proves to be one of the many precious testimonies 
 of truth and honesty, which have been published on 
 this occasion in the shape of affidavits. I will 
 challenge any one of my readers to produce a case, 
 which has been attempted to be sustained by such 
 a total disregard of truth, as the present one. The 
 whole sum which Crane received was seventeen 
 pounds : and King says that a coach and horses 
 were bought for that money ! He surely must have 
 found out some cheap repository for those things ; 
 and if he himself can really afford to oblige the 
 public with carriages and cattle at this reduced 
 price, he will certainly monopolize the public 
 favour ; at least, we trust, he will have Lord 
 Cochrane's custom. But this affidavit of King, is 
 worthy of accompaning those of Miller and Rayment, 
 the gentlemen who saw the dark green dress of 
 De Berenger through the transparent medium of a 
 portmanteau and great coat ^ they are all three 
 equally " entitled to our faith and admiration." 
 Lord Cochrane in his letter, declares his conviction 
 that many persons are ignorant, that perjury by 
 affidavit is not indictable in a court of Justice. 
 I must differ from his Lordship, and think that too 
 many, both high and low, are acquainted with this 
 fact. Among other interesting things mentioned 
 
 s
 
 in the Report of the Committee is, that of its being 
 their intention, if possible, to apprehend Mr. Coch- 
 rane Johnstone ; and in defect of this, to have him 
 declared an outlaw. Every friend to justice, must 
 sincerely hope that the Committee may be successful 
 in the first of these. The apprehension of De 
 Berenger was the grand key, which opened the 
 secrets of all the parties engaged in the late fraud ; 
 and that of Mr. Johnstone will, it is to be hoped, 
 finally set the question of the guilt of all at rest. 
 The greatest good, the vindicatt^ of justice^., would 
 be the result of such an event. Lord Cochrane 
 himself must anxiously wish such a consummation ; 
 for it will afford him an opportunity of publicly 
 calling on his uncle, to make a candid and proper 
 confession of his being the sole inventor of the fraud ; 
 and the only person who had any connivance with, 
 or participation in, it. We see, moreover, that 
 the assertion made by Lord Cochrane in his letter 
 to Lord Ellenborough (and also in the affidavits) 
 that Crane declared to the Committee, that the 
 person he carried to No. 13, Green-Street, his 
 Lordship's house, was Lord Cochrane himself, 
 has no place in fact-; for Crane never said this to 
 the Committee ; ami- it proves to be an innocent 
 fiction. How wretched must be the cause which 
 
 requires the support of such attempfe to mislead ! 
 
 r - 
 
 F I N I 
 
 Printed by S. Couchrnan, Throgmorton-Strcet,
 
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 MAY 15 194: 
 
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