impugned that nothing less than a judicial investigation would satisfy the public mind. A Scotland Yard detective, the well-known and highly intelligent Inspector Butcher, had been sent down to Northumberland to verify, if possible, strong suspicions, and hunt up all the facts. He worked upon the problem for a couple of months, and a criminal prosecution was ordered on his report. Harkes was now dead, but four of his constables, Harrison, Sprott, Gair, and Chambers, were charged with deliberately plotting the conviction of two innocent men. They were accused of making false plaster casts of footprints; of entrapping Redpath into a mistaken recognition of the chisel; of tearing a piece of the newspaper found in the vicarage and feloniously placing it in the lining of what they believed to be Murphy’s coat; and lastly, of tearing or cutting out from Brannagan’s trousers a piece of cloth, which they placed in the vicarage garden, to show that Brannagan had been there and had jumped through the window. The real burglars, Edgell and Richardson, were brought in their convict garb to give evidence against the policemen by detailing their proceedings on the night of the crime. Edgell’s story was received with respect, coming as it did from a man who was suffering imprisonment on his own confession. It was credibly believed that Richardson had picked up the chisel, and all the probabilities corroborated their statement that they had covered up their feet with sacking. The defence was that the confession was all a lie, and that the men who made it were worthless characters. In summing up, Mr. Justice Denman showed that the evidence of deliberate conspiracy was wanting, and that the police might be believed to have been honestly endeavouring to do their duty in securing a conviction.
The verdict was “Not guilty,” and was generally approved, more perhaps on negative grounds of want of proof than from any positive evidence of innocence. But the result was no doubt influenced by the fact that the principal person in the plot, if plot there was, had passed beyond the reach of human justice. The chief mover in the prosecution was Superintendent Harkes, and the rest only acted at his instigation.
LORD COCHRANE.
The prosecution and conviction of Lord Cochrane in 1814 may well be classed under this head, for it was distinctly an error of la haute police, of the Government, which as the head of all police, authorises the detection of all wrong-doing, and sets the criminal law in motion against all supposed offenders. It has now, been generally accepted that the trial and prosecution of Lord Cochrane (afterwards Earl of Dundonald) was a gross case of judicial error. He was charged with having conspired to cause a rise in the public funds by disseminating false news. There were, no doubt, suspicious circumstances connecting him with the frauds of which he was wrongfully convicted, but he had a good answer to all. His conviction and severe sentence, after a trial that showed the bitter animosity of the judge (Ellenborough) against a political foe, caused a strong revulsion of feeling in the public mind, and it was generally believed that he had not had fair play. The law, indeed, fell upon him heavily. He was found guilty, and sentenced to pay a fine of £500, to stand in the pillory, and to be imprisoned for twelve months. These penalties involved the forfeiture of his naval rank, and he had risen by many deeds of conspicuous gallantry to be one of the foremost officers in the British Navy. His name was erased from the list of Knights of the Bath, and he was socially disgraced. How he lived to be rehabilitated and restored to his rank and dignities is the best proof of his wrongful conviction.
The story told by Lord Cochrane himself in his affidavits will best describe what happened. Having just put a new ship in commission, H.M.S. Tonnant, he was preparing her for sea with a convoy. He was an inventive genius, and had recently patented certain lamps for the use of the ships sailing with him. He had gone into the city one morning, the 21st of February, 1814, to supervise their manufacture, when a servant followed him with a note. It had been brought to his house by a military officer in uniform, whose name was not known, nor could it be deciphered, so illegible was the scrawl. Lord Cochrane was expecting news from the Peninsula, where a brother of his lay desperately wounded, and he sent back word to his house that he would come to see the officer at the earliest possible moment. When he returned he found a person he barely knew, who gave the name of Raudon de Berenger, and told a strange tale.
He was a prisoner for debt, he said, within the rules of the King’s Bench, and he had come to Lord Cochrane to implore him to release him from his difficulties and carry him to America in his ship. His request was refused—it could not be granted, indeed, according to naval rules; and de Berenger was dismissed. But before he left he urged piteously that to return to the King’s Bench prison in full uniform would attract suspicion. It was not stated how he had left it, but he no doubt implied that he had escaped and changed into uniform somewhere. Why he did not go back to the same place to resume his plain clothes did not appear. Lord Cochrane only knew that in answer to his urgent entreaty he lent him some clothes. The room was at that moment littered with clothes, which were to be sent on board the Tonnant, and he unsuspiciously gave de Berenger a “civilian’s hat and coat.” This was a capital part of the charge against Lord Cochrane.
De Berenger had altogether lied about himself. He had not come from within the rules of the King’s Bench but from Dover, where he had been seen the previous night at the Ship hotel. He was then in uniform, and pretended to be an aide-de-camp to Lord Cathcart, the bearer of important despatches. He made no secret of the transcendent news he brought. Bonaparte had been killed by the Cossacks, Louis XVIII proclaimed, and the allied armies were on the point of occupying Paris. To give greater publicity to the intelligence, he sent it by letter to the port-admiral at Deal, to be forwarded to the Government in London by means of the semaphore telegraph. The effect of this startling news was to send up stocks ten per cent., and many speculators who sold on the rise realised enormous sums.