Mr. Serjeant Best. I proved that he had the original in his hand; this is the letter of the guilty Lord Cochrane to the innocent Mr. Le Marchant, in answer to the two applications for an interview. "Sir, I should have hoped, circumstanced as I am, and attacked by scoundrels of all descriptions, that a gentleman of your understanding might have discovered some better reason than that of silent contempt;" that is, what he complains of to Lord Cochrane in his second letter, "to account for the delay of a few hours in answering a note; the more particularly as your note of the 6th led me to conclude, that the information offered to me, was meant as a mark of civility and attention, and was not on a subject in which you felt any personal interest." A more prudent letter than that, I defy any man in Lord Cochrane's situation to write. A guilty man catches at any twig, but Lord Cochrane does not answer this gentleman at first, and when pressed by a second letter, he tells him the reason; it is unsafe you and I should meet, I cannot trust you, I am surrounded by scoundrels who are attempting to charge upon me a crime of which I know I am innocent.
Gentlemen, having stated to you in what light this letter shews Lord Cochrane, I beg to read you the last letter of this man, who has offered his evidence to-day; and I will then ask you, whether upon the testimony of such a man as this, you will convict one of the most suspicious characters that ever was produced in a court of justice; whether you would in any cause, of ever so trifling importance, give the least consideration to it. "I ask your lordship's pardon of my letter of yesterday, and which was written under the supposition of being treated with silent contempt;" so that this gentlemen put the true construction upon it, certainly. "To convince you of the high respect I have for your lordship, I have the honour to enclose to you a statement of what I know relative to the 21st February, and I also now declare solemnly, that no power or consideration shall ever induce me to come forward as an evidence against you, and that all I know on the subject shall be buried for ever in oblivion. Thus much I hope will convince you I am more your friend than an enemy, as my testimony, corroborated by the two officers, would be of great import, not (believe me) that I myself doubt in anywise your lordship's affidavit; but De Berenger's conversation with me, would, to your enemies be positive proof. As for my part, I now consider all that man told me to be diabolically false;" and yet he has to-day come forward to tell you the truth, and the whole truth; he has told you what De Berenger said, and has not stated the qualification, that he did not believe one word of it. "If my conduct meets your approbation, can I ask for a reciprocal favour, as a temporary loan, on security being given; I am just appointed to a situation of about £.1,200 a year, but, for the moment, am in the greatest distress, with a large family; you can without risk, and have the means to relieve us, and, I believe, the will of doing good. Necessity has driven me to ask your lordship this favour; whether granted or not, be assured of my keeping my oath now pledged, of secrecy." He has kept that oath, I dare say, as well as he has kept this; he went and gave information, and comes forward to-day to give evidence; you remember how he fenced with the evidence. I ask you, whether you believe, after I have read this, one word of what he has said. I ask you, whether this is not taking advantage of the situation of this noble lord. I am sorry to see that a man can act so scandalous a part, who has the honour of being appointed to a situation of £.1,200 a year; but I am quite satisfied the moment the Government know this, that suspension which does exist, will be continued, and that this man will never be sent to the office to which he was destined. I am quite satisfied, that when this letter is read, you will feel, that even as it respects Mr. De Berenger, for it is applicable only to him, his evidence can have no influence in any court of justice whatever, for that it comes from a man who, in the clearest and most unequivocal manner, declares himself most infamous, and most unworthy of credit.
Gentlemen, I am conscious that fatigued as I felt myself, when I rose to address you, after having been thirteen or fourteen hours in court, I have very imperfectly discharged the duty which I owed my clients; but, gentlemen, I hope they will not suffer, from not having their case presented to you as it ought to have been. Gentlemen, I do not press upon you the considerations which, in criminal cases, are often pressed, and with propriety pressed, upon juries. I do not ask you to take this case in a merciful point of view; I do not press upon you the common observation, to temper your justice with mercy. I ask you to look at this case fairly and impartially; if the guilt of these gentlemen be made out, so that you, upon your oaths, must declare them guilty, say so, dreadful as will be the consequence to all these parties; but unless their guilt is made out, if there be nothing but suspicion, you will not, upon your oaths, say that suspicion is conviction.
Gentlemen, you will recollect the situations of life in which all these men are; they have all up to this moment been the best possible characters, two of them are persons of very high and distinguished situations in life, members of a very noble family; and with respect to one of them, he has reflected back on a long and noble line of ancestors, more glory than he has received from them; and it would be the most painful moment of my life, if I should to-night find that that wreath of laurel which a life of danger and honour has planted round his brows, should in a moment be blasted by your verdict.
Mr. PARK.
May it please your Lordship;
Gentlemen of the Jury,
If my learned friend, at the close of his address to you, thought it necessary to make an apology for the fatigue which he had endured in the course of this day, and during his address to you; it becomes much more necessary for me to make such an apology, when it is now sixteen hours and a half since I left my own dwelling. Gentlemen, notwithstanding that, I have a very serious and important duty to discharge to the person who now sits by me, and I have no difficulty in calling upon you, in the most serious manner, fatigued and exhausted as you may be, for your attention; you must not permit, I take the liberty of saying, as you regard the oath you have taken, you must not permit that fatigue to disable you from attention to the statement and the evidence that are to be laid before you.
Gentlemen, the case has become an extremely serious and a most important one; for the gentlemen for whom my learned friend the Serjeant has addressed you, I have nothing to say; they have been well and ably defended; but I am to address you on behalf of a gentleman totally unknown to me till this day, when I saw him in Court. He is represented to me as a gentleman of very high descent, and though he has been unfortunate in his pecuniary circumstances, he has been proved, before you to-day, to be man of very considerable attainments, and of high and literary character; it is therefore your duty, and I know it is a duty you will honestly and faithfully discharge, not to allow what my learned friend cautioned you well against, but immediately fell into the very same course himself; not to allow any thing like prejudice to bias any of your minds.
Gentlemen, I am no flatterer of persons who sit in your place; and I have no difficulty in telling you twelve gentlemen, that, though I have no doubt you are honorable men, you cannot have lived in this city, in which you are all merchants, for the last two months of your lives, without having every hour of the day, and at every meal at which you sat down, had your ears assailed by accounts of this transaction, and there is no one, however honourable he may be, who can prevent his mind being biassed by circumstances stated in common conversation. Gentlemen, I only know this matter publicly; but I declare one could hardly go into any company, where the discourse has not been turned upon this very circumstance we are now discussing; how difficult is it then for you to recollect, that you are not to decide upon any thing you heard before you came into that box, but upon the evidence produced before you. But, did my learned friend himself follow that course which he prescribed to you? Did he embark no prejudice into this matter? My learned friend will give me leave to say, that I own it is quite new to me, that in discussing criminal matters, the counsel for the prosecution are to argue it and labour it as they would a cause between party and party:—I dare say I have been extremely faulty in that respect, but having been engaged in criminal prosecutions, chiefly in the service of His Majesty, I never thought myself at liberty so to treat criminal prosecutions. I have generally acted on the opposite scheme, and mean, till corrected, so to continue to act; but at all events, I am surprised that my learned friend, with whose good nature in private life we are all acquainted, should have introduced before you, that which I say my learned friend's great experience in courts of justice told him, before he pronounced it, he had no right to read in evidence before you. I do not speak lightly of this; you will remember we had an affidavit, supposed to have been made by William Smith, read verbatim from some pamphlet my learned friend had in his hand; he knew perfectly well that it could not be given in evidence; if William Smith was called as a witness, undoubtedly my learned friend might ask him, whether he had not sworn the contrary at another time; but it will be for my learned friend to explain to you, under what rule it was, that he was at liberty to read such a document as a part of his speech, which, by the rules of law, could not be received in evidence in this place.