The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. I

by Earl of Thomas Barnes Cochrane Dundonald; H. R. Fox Bourne

The famous and infamous Stock Exchange trial occupied the 8th and 9th of June, 1814; but the sentence was deferred until the 21st of the same month, in consequence of Lord Cochrane's demand for a new trial. That demand was not complied with, in spite of the production of overwhelming evidence to justify it; and the victim of Lord Ellenborough and the tyrannical Government of the day was at once conveyed to the King's Bench Prison. No time was lost in heaping upon him all the indignities which, in accordance with precedent and in excess of all precedent, might supplement his degradation.

The first was a notice of motion which would result in his expulsion from the House of Commons. Lord Cochrane promptly availed himself of the opening thus afforded for a public avowal of his innocence. To the Hon. Charles Abbot, then Speaker of the House, he wrote from his prison on the 23rd of June. "Sir," runs the letter, "I respectfully entreat you to communicate to the Honourable House of Commons my earnest desire and prayer that no question arising out of the late convictions in the Court of King's Bench may be agitated without affording me timely notice and full opportunity of attending in my place for the justification of my character. From the House of Commons I hope to obtain that justice of which too implicit reliance on the consciousness of my innocence, and circumstances over which I had no control, have hitherto deprived me. The painful situation in which I am placed is known to the House, and I trust that I shall be enabled to demonstrate that a more injured man has never sought redress from those to whose justice I now appeal for the preservation of my character and existence."

In compliance with that request, and with parliamentary rules, Lord Cochrane was conveyed from the King's Bench Prison to the House of Commons, and allowed to read a carefully-prepared statement of his case, on the 5th of July, the day fixed for investigation of the subject. From this statement it is not necessary to cite the clear and conclusive recapitulation of the evidence adduced at the trial, or refused admission therein because it was too convincing, in proof of Lord Cochrane's innocence; but room must be found for some passages illustrating the independent temper of the speaker and the perversions of justice to which he fell a victim.

"I am not here, sir," he said, "to bespeak compassion or to pave the way to pardon. Both ideas are alike repugnant to my feelings. That the public in general have felt indignation at the sentence that has been passed upon me does honour to their hearts, and tends still to make my country dear to me, in spite of what I have suffered from the malignity of persons in power. But, sir, I am not here to complain of the hardship of my case or about the cruelty of judges, who, for an act which was never till now ever known or thought to be a legal offence, have laid upon me a sentence more heavy than they have ever yet laid upon persons clearly convicted of the most horrid of crimes—crimes of which nature herself cries aloud against the commission. If, therefore, it was my object to complain of the cruelty of my judges, I should bid the public look into the calendar, and see if they could find a punishment like that inflicted on me; inflicted by these same judges on any one of these unnatural wretches. It is not, however, my business to complain of the cruelty of this sentence. I am here to assert, for the third time, my innocence in the most unqualified and solemn manner; I am here to expose the unfairness of the proceedings against me previous to the trial, at the trial, and subsequent to it; I am here to expose the long train of artful villainies which have been practised against me hitherto with so much success.

"I am persuaded, sir, that the House will easily perceive, and every honourable man, I am sure, participate in my feelings, that the fine, the imprisonment, the pillory—even that pillory to which I am condemned—are nothing, that they weigh not as a feather, when put in the balance against my desire to show that I have been unjustly condemned. Therefore, sir, I trust that the House will give a fair and impartial hearing to what I have to say respecting the conduct of my enemies, to expose which conduct is a duty which I owe to my constituents, and to my country, not less than to myself.

"In the first place, sir, I here, in the presence of this House, and with the eyes of the country fixed upon me, most solemnly declare that I am wholly innocent of the crime which has been laid to my charge, and for which I have been condemned to the most infamous of punishments. Having repeated this assertion of my innocence, I next proceed to complain of the means that have been made use of to effect my destruction. And first, sir, was it ever before known in this or in any other country, that the prosecutor should form a sort of court of his own erection, call witnesses before it of his own choosing, and, under offers of great rewards, take minutes of the evidence of such witnesses, and publish those minutes to the world under the forms and appearances of a judicial proceeding? Was it ever before known, that steps like these were taken previous to an indictment,—previous to the bringing of an intended victim into a court of justice? Was there ever before known so regular, so systematic a scheme for exciting suspicion against a man, and for implanting an immovable prejudice against him in the minds of a whole nation, previous to the preferring a Bill of Indictment, in order that the grand jury, be it composed of whomsoever it might, should be predisposed to find the bill? I ask you, sir, and I ask the House, whether it was ever before known, that means like these were resorted to, previous to a man's being legally accused? But, sir, what must the world think, when they see some of those to whom the welfare and the honour of the nation are committed covertly co-operating with a Committee of the Stock Exchange, and becoming their associates in so nefarious a scheme? Nevertheless, sir, this fact is now notorious to the whole world. I must confess I was not prepared to believe the thing possible."

Thereupon followed a detailed examination of the charges brought against Lord Cochrane, and of the way in which those charges were handled, special complaint being made concerning the malicious bearing of Lord Ellenborough. "It must be in the recollection of the House," said Lord Cochrane, "as it is in that of the public, that he urged, that he compelled, the counsel to enter upon my defence after midnight, at the end of fifteen hours from the commencement of the trial, when that counsel declared himself quite exhausted, and when the jury, who were to decide, were in a state of such weariness as to render attention to what was said totally impossible. The speeches of the counsel being ended, the judge, at half-past three in the morning, adjourned the court till ten; thus separating the evidence from the argument, and reserving his own strength, and the strength of my adversaries' advocates, for the close; giving to both the great advantage of time to consider the reply, and to insert and arrange arguments to meet those which had been urged in my defence."

All his treatment by Lord Ellenborough, as Lord Cochrane urged, was of that sort, or worse. "Of all tyrannies, sir," he said, "the worst is that which exercises its vengeance under the guise of judicial proceedings, and especially if a jury make part of the means by which its base purposes are effected. The man who is flung into prison, or sent to the scaffold, at the nod of an avowed despotism, has at least the consolation to know that his sufferings bring down upon that despotism the execration of mankind; but he who is entrapped and entangled in the meshes of a crafty and corrupt system of jurisprudence; who is pursued imperceptibly by a law with leaden feet and iron jaws; who is not put upon his trial till the ear of the public has been poisoned, and its heart steeled against him,—falls, at last, without being cheered with a hope of seeing his tyrants execrated even by the warmest of his friends. In their principle, the ancient and settled laws of England are excellent; but of late years, so many injurious and fatal alterations in the law have taken place, that any man who ventures to meddle with public affairs, and to oppose persons in power, is sure and certain, sooner or later, to suffer in some way or other.

"Sir, the punishment which the malice of my enemies has procured to be inflicted on me is not, in my mind, worth a moment's reflection. The judge supposed, apparently, that the sentence of the pillory would disgrace and mortify me. I can assure him, and I now solemnly assure this House, my constituents, and my country, that I would rather stand in my own name, in the pillory, every day of my life, under such a sentence, than I would sit upon the bench in the name and with the real character of Lord Ellenborough for one single hour.

"Something has been said, sir, in this House, as I have heard, about an application for a mitigation of my sentence, in a certain quarter, where, it is observed, that mercy never failed to flow; but I can assure the House that an application for pardon, extorted from me, is one of the things which even a partial judge and a packed jury have not the power to accomplish. No, sir; I will seek for, and I look for, pardon nowhere, for I have committed no crime. I have sought for, I still seek for, and I confidently expect JUSTICE; not, however, at the hands of those by whose machinations I have been brought to what they regard as my ruin, but at the hands of my enlightened and virtuous constituents, to whose exertions the nation owes that there is still a voice to cry out against that haughty and inexorable tyranny which commands silence to all but parasites and hypocrites."