Mr. Gurney. Certainly, my Lord, and if my learned friends wish it, I will wait till the witness comes back.
Mr. Serjeant Best. I have no wish to lay any impediment in the way, therefore if your Lordship thinks there is no impropriety in my permitting it to be read now, I will do it?
Lord Ellenborough. I leave it to your judgment, whether your resistance does you more good than the admission.
Mr. Serjeant Best. I will not resist it certainly. If I had the original I would deliver it up in a moment, but the fact is, we have not the original.
The Affidavit was read as follows:
"Having obtained leave of absence to come to town, in consequence of scandalous paragraphs in the public papers, and in consequence of having learnt that hand-bills had been affixed in the streets, in which (I have since seen) it is asserted that a person came to my house, at No. 13, Green-street, on the 21st day of February, in open day, and in the dress in which he had committed a fraud; I feel it due to myself to make the following deposition that the public may know the truth relative to the only person seen by me in military uniform, at my house, on that day.
COCHRANE."
March 11, 1814.
13, Green-street.
"I, Sir Thomas Cochrane, commonly called Lord Cochrane, having been appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, to active service (at the request, I believe, of Sir Alexander Cochrane) when I had no expectation of being called on, I obtained leave of absence to settle my private affairs previous to quitting this country, and chiefly with a view to lodge a specification to a patent relative to a discovery for increasing the intensity of light. That in pursuance of my daily practice of superintending work that was executing for me, and knowing that my uncle, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, went to the city every morning in a coach.