'Lord de Ros, instead of prosecuting the four for a libel, brought an action only against Cumming, which permitted the others to come forward as witnesses against him. The cause came on in the Court of King's Bench before Lord Denman. The plaintiff's witnesses were Lord Wharncliffe, Lord Robert Grosvenor, the Earl of Clare, and Sir Charles Dalbiac, who had known and played with him from between 20 to 30 years, as a very skilful but honourable Whist player. The evidence of Mr Lawrence, the eminent surgeon, proved that Lord de Ros had long suffered under a stiffness of the joints of the fingers that made holding a pack of cards difficult, and the performance of the imputed trick of legerdemain impossible. For the defence appeared the keeper of the house and his son; two or three gamblers who had lived by their winnings; one acknowledged to have won L35,000 in 15 years. Mr Baring Wall, one of the witnesses, swore that he had never witnessed anything improper in the play of Lord de Ros, though he had played with and against him many years; another witness, the Hon. Colonel Anson, had observed nothing suspicious; but the testimony of others went to prove that the aces and kings had been marked inside their edges; and one averred that he had seen Lord de Ros perform sauter la coupe a hundred times. The whole case wore much the look of a combination among a little coterie who lived by gambling to drive from the field a player whose skill had diminished their income; nevertheless, the incidents sworn to by some of them wore a suspicious significance, and a verdict was given against Lord de Ros, which he only survived a short time.'
On this statement the Times' reviewer comments as follows:—
'If many old scandals may be revived with impunity, there are some that cannot. Mr Duncombe the younger has hit on one which affects several gentlemen still living, and his injurious version of it cannot be neutralized or atoned for by an apology to one. We call attention to it in the hope that any more serious notice will be rendered needless by the simple exposure of its inaccuracies.
'It is difficult to conceive a more inexcusable misstatement, for the case was fully reported,(36) and the public judgment perfectly coincided with the verdict. Lord de Ros was not abroad when the scandal was set afloat. He went abroad after the scene at Graham's had set all London talking, and he returned in consequence of a peremptory call from his friends. He was most reluctantly induced to take the required steps for the vindication of his character; and it is preposterous to suppose that any little coterie would have dreamt of accusing a man of his rank and position with the view of driving a skilful player from the field. His accusers were not challenged. Neither were they volunteers. They became his accusers, because they formed the Whist party at which he was first openly denounced. They signed a paper particularizing their charge, and offered to refer the question to a tribunal of gentlemen, with the Duke of Wellington or Lord Wharncliffe to preside. Would a little coterie, who lived by gambling, have made this offer? Or would Lord de Ros have refused it if he had been the intended victim of a conspiracy? Lord Henry Bentinck signed the paper, appeared as a witness, and took quite as active a part in the proceedings as any of the four, except Mr Cumming, who undertook the sole legal liability by admitting the publication of the paper.
(36) The Times of February 11 and 13, 1837.
'The evidence was overwhelming. Suspicions had long been rife; and on no less than ten or twelve occasions the marked packs had been examined in the presence of unimpeachable witnesses, and sealed up. These packs were produced at the trial. Several witnesses swore to the trick called sauter la coupe. It was the late Sir William Ingilby who swore that he had seen Lord de Ros perform it from 50 to 100 times; and when asked why he did not at once denounce him, he replied that if he had done so before his Lordship began to get blown upon, he should have had no alternative between the window and the door. Of course, every one who had been in the habit of playing with Lord de Ros prior to the exposure would have said the same as Sir Charles Dalbiac and Mr Baring Wall. With regard to the gentlemen whose names we have omitted we take it for granted that the author is not aware of the position they held, and continue to hold, or he would hardly have ventured to describe them so offensively. He has apologized to one, and he had better apologize to the other without delay.
'The case was complete without the evidence of either of the original accusers, and the few friends of Lord de Ros who tried to bear him up against the resulting obloquy were obliged to go with the stream. When Lord Alvanley was asked whether he meant to leave his card, he replied, "No, he will stick it in his chimney-piece and count it among his honours.'"
Having read through the long case as reported in the Times, I must declare that I do not find that the evidence against Lord de Ros was, after all, so 'overwhelming' as the reviewer declares; indeed, the 'leader' in the Times on the trial emphatically raises a doubt on the subject. Among other passages in it there is the following:—
'In the process of the trial it appeared that the most material part of the evidence against Lord de Ros, that called sauter la coupe,—which, for the sake of our English readers we shall translate into CHANGING THE TURN-UP CARD,—the times and places at which it was said to have been done could not be specified. Some of the witnesses had seen the trick done 50 or 100 times by Lord de Ros, but could neither say on what day, in what week, month, or even year, they had so seen it done. People were excessively struck at this deviation from the extreme punctuality required in criminal cases by the British courts of law.'
'The disclosures,' says Mr Grant,(27) 'which took place in the Court of Queen's Bench, on the occasion of the trial of Lord de Ros, for cheating at cards, furnished the strongest demonstration that he was not the only person who was in the habit of cheating in certain clubs; while there were others who, if they could not be charged with direct cheating, or cheating in their own persons, did cheat indirectly, and by proxy, inasmuch as they, by their own admission, were, on frequent occasions, partners with Lord de Ros, long after they knew that he habitually or systematically cheated. The noble lord, by the confession of the titled parties to whom I allude, thus cheated for himself and them at the same time.'