Gentlemen, this is the general nature of the defence I have to make to you. You will, I have no doubt, endeavour to free yourselves from all prejudice infused into your minds; and will come to your conclusion with a desire to do justice. And I trust that you will, in the result of this long hearing, be enabled to pronounce, that this defendant, for whom I am counsel (not meaning by that to exclude any of the rest, but he is the only one committed to my care) is not guilty of the charge imputed to him.
Mr. SERJEANT PELL.
May it please your Lordship,
Gentlemen of the Jury,
My two learned friends, who have preceded me, Mr. Serjeant Best and Mr. Park, have both stated to you the peculiar difficulties under which they laboured, in consequence of the great fatigue which they had both undergone. I am sure you will agree with me, that that topic, so pressed by them, will come with still greater force from me; for, as the night advances, the fatigue becomes greater, and the mind more exhausted. Gentlemen, it is under the full persuasion that you and his Lordship are also much oppressed with fatigue, that I can venture to promise you my address will not be very long. But I trust, that considering the point which it will be necessary for me to expatiate upon, you will be ultimately of opinion, that my address, although not long, is still effectual for the interest of my clients.
Gentlemen, I stand in a most peculiar situation, because, upon the notes of the noble Lord, it is distinctly proved, that two of the persons for whom I am counsel, Mr. Holloway and Mr. Lyte, have admitted themselves to be guilty of that, which no man can for one moment hesitate to say is extremely wrong. Gentlemen, I think it is also sufficiently proved, that Sandom, the third person for whom I am counsel, was in the chaise which was driven from Northfleet to Dartford, and from Dartford to London; and on my part, I should consider it a most inefficient attempt, if I were to attempt, for one moment, to persuade you that Mr. Holloway and Mr. Lyte, together with Mr. Sandom, have not been most criminally implicated in this part of the transaction; but, gentlemen, although I admit this in the outset, and very sincerely lament, that men who have hitherto maintained a very respectable situation in life, should have been tempted to involve themselves in so disgraceful an affair; yet I think, unless I am mistaken in my notion of law, as applying to that record on which you are to give your judgment, it will be found that they are entitled to your acquittal.
Gentlemen, I feel myself under a difficulty, also, in another respect. I must differ from all my learned friends who have preceded me in this trial, I mean, my learned friend Mr. Gurney, of counsel for the prosecution; my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Best, as counsel for Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, Mr. Butt, and Lord Cochrane; and Mr. Park, as counsel for Mr. De Berenger. I am not here to find fault with the committee of the Stock Exchange for prosecuting this inquiry; whether that committee is composed of honourable men or not, is to me a matter of perfect indifference. If they have been actuated by a sincere desire of bringing to justice persons who have been guilty of criminal conduct, I, for one, am not disposed to complain of them. Gentlemen, I cannot agree with my learned friend Mr. Gurney, or my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Best, in what, in different parts of their address, they stated to you as being the leading features of this prosecution; for my learned friend Mr. Gurney, in the outset of his address to you, stated, that what he called the Northfleet plot was only a part of the Dover conspiracy—was subsidiary to it. I think his expression was, that they both formed different parts of one entire plot, and that those who were guilty of one must be taken to be guilty of both; although Mr. Holloway, in his confession, had acquitted Lord Cochrane and Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, of having any part or share in the Northfleet conspiracy. Now, gentlemen, I will state to you in the outset, that I mean to consider the case in a different point of view. I have not the slightest doubt on earth, that what was done by Sandom, Lyte, and M'Rae, when they left Northfleet on the morning of the 21st of February, was altogether unconnected, and was utterly unknown to, that person, whoever he was, who came from Dover, and that he had no sort of connection with it. Gentlemen, if I am right in establishing this point; if you shall ultimately be satisfied that Mr. Holloway, Mr. Sandom, and Mr. Lyte, who I admit were concerned in that part of the business, were altogether unconnected with the person who came from Dover, and who has been stated to-day to be involved with Lord Cochrane and Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, I apprehend that the three defendants for whom I appear cannot be found guilty. That my learned friend Mr. Gurney considers the case in this point of view is beyond all question, for he opened it to you as part of this case, that what he called the Northfleet conspiracy, was a part of the Dover plot, and was in furtherance of it; and he not only has so stated it in his address, but, as I read the record, it is so stated upon the record; for, in the very first count of the indictment you are now impanelled to try, it is set forth, that Sandom, M'Rae and Lyte took the chaise from Northfleet, and so passed on to London, in furtherance of that plot which was originated at Dover. Gentlemen, I submit to you, therefore, on behalf of these gentlemen for whom I appear, that their guilt or innocence with respect to this particular trial will depend upon this circumstance;—did they form, or did they not form, parts and members of that single plot in which it is supposed the three or four other gentlemen were concerned?
Gentlemen, I certainly have not the good fortune to appear for men of the high rank of those on whose behalf my learned friends Mr. Serjeant Best and Mr. Park have addressed you. I can introduce no such eloquent topics as those which my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Best has touched upon. I cannot illustrate the character or the situations of life of the gentlemen for whom I appear, with the terms in which Mr. Park has spoken of his client De Berenger. I know of no claims to honour from any ancestry to which they can justly entitle themselves; they are men in a respectable, but in a humble line of life, compared with the other defendants upon the record; but I know, that it is not upon that account that you will be less disposed to give a ready and a willing ear to any topics that may be urged in favour of their legal innocence.
Gentlemen, as I followed the evidence, there was but one point of coincidence, in which these persons who came from Dartford to London, could be at all connected with the person who came from Dover, and it was in the very slight circumstance of the chaises driving to the same place; and my learned friend, Mr. Gurney, in furtherance of that which he submitted to you as against Holloway, Sandom and Lyte, as an ingredient, and a necessary ingredient, in their conviction, stated to you in the opening, that he should prove they went to the same place. I could not but be struck with that circumstance, because I knew it was one from which a connexion might fairly be felt; I was therefore anxious to watch the evidence which applied to that part of the case, and so far from finding that the person who came from Dover, under the name of Du Bourg, went to the Marsh Gate by design, I find that he went there altogether by accident; for by the evidence of Shilling, the person who drove him, if I do not mistake it altogether, he first proposed to drive him to the Bricklayers Arms in the Kent Road, and when he got there he found there was no hackney-coach, and then to use the very expression of the witness, "I told him there was a stand at the Marsh Gate, and if he liked to go there nobody would observe him;" so that it is quite obvious, that the supposed Colonel Du Bourg went to the Marsh Gate, in consequence of having been driven by the suggestion of Shilling. I admit that Sandom, Lyte and M'Rae went there by their own direction; but it is equally clear that Du Bourg went there in consequence of there being no hackney-coach at the Bricklayers Arms, and in consequence also of Shilling advising him to go there for the purpose of obtaining one. The only circumstance therefore in the cause, which shews a coincidence of plot between the one at Northfleet and the one at Dover, is this circumstance respecting the carriages driving to the Marsh Gate; and it will appear upon his Lordship's notes, as with reference to Du Bourg, the going of Du Bourg to the Marsh Gate at Lambeth was purely accidental.
Gentlemen, my learned friend, Mr. Gurney, was so aware of the necessity of proving a connexion between these parties, that he stated another circumstance; and I think, in the course of his address, those were the only two which he adduced, for the purpose of shewing that there was any fair probability that could lead the Court to believe that the person assuming the name of Du Bourg, and Holloway, Sandom, M'Rae and Lyte, had concurred in any part of this most scandalous transaction. My learned friend stated, that he should shew an intimacy between Mr. Sandom and De Berenger, when both of them were prisoners within the Fleet prison, and that they became acquainted there.