Then it is admitted, that Lord Cochrane has a patent for the invention of a lamp, dated the 28th of February last.
Mr. Gabriel Tahourdin says, "I have known Mr. De Berenger five or six years; I introduced him to Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, in May 1813. Mr. Cochrane Johnstone was in possession of a place at Paddington, named Vittoria, which he was desirous of improving. I introduced De Berenger to Cochrane Johnstone by mere chance; De Berenger afterwards employed himself in preparing a plan, and had nearly completed it. Shortly before Mr. Cochrane Johnstone went to Scotland, in September, he made him one payment on account of it. Besides the plan, De Berenger prepared a prospectus; Mr. Johnstone had got a number of that prospectus printed, early in October, to take to Scotland with him. I conveyed a letter from De Berenger, and I spoke several times to Mr. Johnstone, upon the subject of paying for those plans, but no price was fixed upon till February last; I made repeated applications to Mr. Johnstone, in a delicate way, to pay him, and on the 22d of February." That is a very remarkable time, immediately after the transaction on the 21st; if the gentleman knew any thing of De Berenger's conduct, on the previous day, it may deserve consideration, whether that was the most likely time, in point of delicacy, to have made the application. "Mr. Johnstone sent me a letter on the 22d of February 1814, enclosing a letter from Mr. De Berenger to Mr. Cochrane Johnstone." Now these letters, if you wish them to be read, I will read.
Foreman of the Jury. We think there is no necessity, my Lord.
Lord Ellenborough. They relate to other work he was doing for him; there was that plan, I should have thought from two to three hundred pounds very excessive compensation for it; but still there was some claim affording a ground for money transactions to pass between them. As to the dates, there is one circumstance of Mr. Tahourdin dating the letter of De Berenger to Cochrane Johnstone, enclosed in the letter of Cochrane Johnstone to himself, which appears not very usual in the course of business; the letters shew other transactions between them. Whether they were pretended or not, or if existing, then artificially brought forward or not, may be a question; but the letters certainly are dated at a most critical time, namely, on the 22d of February. Then he says, "There is a reference in the letter, to an assignment of some property, which De Berenger had, which assignment was prepared at my office: I do not know whether Mr. Cochrane Johnstone answered De Berenger's letters." He is shewn a letter, and he says, "That is my answer to the letter of Mr. Cochrane Johnstone; I wrote it on the 23d of February."
There was a business to settle with Lady Mary Crawford Lindsay. There is a great deal of business certainly introduced into these letters, so much almost as to induce one to think there is an artificial introduction of business, to give the appearance of reality to the letters; however, Mr. Tahourdin certainly swears that there were such transactions at that period. But one cannot help recollecting that Mr. Tahourdin, towards the close of the case, appears to have been in communication with the two last witnesses, Donithorne and Tragear, on whose evidence I shall have to observe. He says, "I saw a very few days after their date, a receipt for £.50. dated 20th September 1813, received of C. Johnstone by hands of G. Tahourdin, on account of large plans;" there is a receipt for £.200. dated the 26th of February: "Received £.200. on account of plans and prospectus delivered, C. R. De Berenger;" and a note of hand for £.200. more, De Berenger to C. Johnstone, dated the 26th of February; I saw it two or three days afterwards. So that, just after the extraordinary transaction which had such an effect upon the funds, a communication that had taken place between them, and these letters are produced, and which are conceived to be material, with reference to the question now before you. He says, "there were subordinate plans for the details of that same place." Then he says, "I had become security for the Rules for De Berenger, some months before I knew Mr. Cochrane Johnstone." Then he is shewn the letter, which has been described as the Dover letter; he says, "this certainly is not the hand-writing of De Berenger; I have received a thousand letters from him, and this is not his hand-writing; I do not believe it is a disguised hand of Mr. De Berenger; I have always considered De Berenger as a man of strict honour and integrity; I have trusted him to the extent of about £.4,000. in money, besides my professional claims on him." Some writing in a road-book found in De Berenger's desk, is then shewn to him; and how any person should have writing by him like that, purporting to be his own, and it should still not be his own hand-writing, one cannot conceive. But he says, "some of it is more like his hand-writing than others, but I do not believe," he says, "that all the writing is his; some of the letters" he says, (on being shewn the pencil-writing in the book found in De Berenger's desk) "look like his writing; the smaller parts look like his hand-writing." He is asked, "whether he does not believe the whole of it to be his hand-writing?" and he says, "I do not know what to say, this pencil is not like what he writes in general; it being in pencil puzzles me more than any thing else."
Then General Campbell is called, who says, "I know Mr. Cochrane Johnstone; I met him the second week in October last, I think at the Perth meeting; he shewed me a prospectus of a new public building to be erected in the Regent's Park, or in the neighbourhood of it, I think he called it Vittoria." He is shewn the prospectus, and he says, "I believe this is a copy of the same that he communicated to me in his or my own apartment."
Then on the part of Mr. De Berenger, Lord Yarmouth is called; he says, "I am lieutenant colonel commandant of the regiment of Sharp-shooters. Captain De Berenger was acting adjutant, a non-commissioned officer. I have known him since 1811; very early in that year. I cannot recollect the day. I have received letters from him, and have seen him occasionally write, and have seen him frequently on the subject of the contents of those letters, and am acquainted with his character of hand-writing." Then that letter sent to Admiral Foley is shewn to him; he says, "If I had heard none of the circumstances, I should not have believed it was his hand-writing. He solicited to go out in the month of January last. Some time back he told me, that he had very nearly arranged to go out to drill the men on board the Tonnant."
Upon his cross-examination, he says, "the hand-writing of this is much larger than Mr. De Berenger's; he generally writes a round and neater hand." He is shewn another letter; and he says, "I received that letter on the day it bears date, or the day immediately after." He is then shewn the writing in the road book; and he says, "It is larger than De Berenger's usual writing; some part of it is not larger, it is less round; it is more angular. I am not sufficient conversant with hand-writing, to swear either way to this." Then he looks again at the letter sent from Dover to Admiral Foley; he says, "the letter R looks very much like his hand-writing in the R of Random, before De Berenger, Random being his second name." Then being asked, what he should think of this gentleman coming to him in his bottle-green coat of uniform; he says, "It would have been more military that he should come so, though I never exacted it of him. I should not have been angry at it, but should have thought it the regular dress for him to appear in. If he had appeared before me in an aid-de-camp's scarlet uniform, and with a star, I should have been indeed surprised to see him present himself before me in that dress."
Sir John Beresford is then called; he says, "I have seen Captain De Berenger twice before yesterday. I never saw him write; I know of his application to go to America, as a sharp-shooter. In the beginning of February I paid my ship off, and met Mr. Cochrane Johnstone in town, who told me, Sir Alexander Cochrane was very anxious he should go out in the Tonnant, to teach the marines the rifle exercise. I went to the Horse Guards, to ask whether any thing could be done; I was told it would be useless to apply to the Duke of York, and told Mr. Cochrane Johnstone of it; this was before Sir Alexander Cochrane sailed in January or December. I met him at dinner at Mr. Cochrane Johnstone's. I was there to meet Sir Alexander Cochrane, but he did not come."
Mr. James Stokes says, "I am a clerk of Mr. Tahourdin; I have been so between three and four years, and during that time have frequently seen the hand-writing of De Berenger; he has been a client of my master's, and has been assisted very much by him. I have seen a great deal of his writing; this is certainly not his writing, not a word of it; and the letter 'R.' (which Lord Yarmouth had spoken to) is not at all like it."