he wished to take out as inquirer (spy), and
to help to raise a company of sharpshooters in
America.

Mr. Tabourden, solicitor to De Berenger,
proved that, in 1813, Mr. Cochrane Johnston
had employed their client to lay out some
ground near Paddington as a sort of Ranelagh,
and had advanced him money for writing a
prospectus and preparing plans. It was also proved
that Mr. Cochrane Johnston had at last offered
two hundred and fifty pounds as a fair
consideration, and had promised a loan of two
hundred pounds more. Fifty pounds had been
paid on account. The witness believed in
De Berenger's strict honour: he had lent
him three thousand pounds, and had been
surety for him in the Rules, from which he
had escaped.

Lord Ellenborough's summing up was harsh
and unfair. From the beginning he did his
best to bias the jury against his political
opponent, and left no stone unturned to secure
a verdict of guilty. He dwelt especially on
the fact that the coachman who drove De
Berenger to Lord Cochrane's swore to his
wearing a scarlet uniform, while Lord Cochrane
declared in his affidavit that he came in a green
sharpshooter's uniform. This, he considered,
proved that Lord Cochrane—- as a sharer in the
fraud—- had lent him a change of dress. The
real fact was that De Berenger pulled down
the blinds of the coach, and he then changed
his red coat for the green one he carried in his
portmanteau—- the same coat in which he had
travelled to Dover.

The gross injustice of the Tory judge is best
seen from the following passage of his summing
up:

"Now, gentleman," he said, "he (De Berenger)
is brought to the house of Lord Cochrane;
farther evidence afterwards arises of his being
there. We will at present follow the dress to its
conclusion. George Odell, a fisherman, says,
' In the month of March, just above Old Swan
Stairs, off against the iron wharfs, when I was
dredging for coals, I picked up a bundle which
was tied with either a piece of chimney line or
window line in the cover of a chair bottom;
there were two slips of a coat, embroidery, a
star, and a piece of silver with two figures upon
it; it had been sunk with two pieces of lead
and some bits of coal. I gave that which I
found to Mr. Wade, the secretary of the Stock
Exchange. It was picked up on the Wednesday,
and carried there on the Saturday. I
picked this up on the 20th March.' You have
before had the animal hunted down, and now
you have his skin, found and produced as it
was taken out of the river, cut to pieces. The
sinking it, could have been with no other view
than that of suppressing this piece of evidence,
and preventing the discovery which it might
otherwise occasion. This makes it the more
material to attend to the stripping off the
clothes which took place in Lord Cochrane's
house..... De Berenger must have had that
dress with him, whatever it was, in which
he had come in the coach, and it does not
appear that he had any means of shifting
himself. If he had on an aide-de-camp's
uniform with a star, and so presented
himself to Lord Cochrane, how could Lord
Cochrane reconcile it to the duties he owed
to society, to government, and to his
character as a gentleman, to give him the means
of exchanging it? It must be put on for some
dishonest purpose. It is for you, gentlemen,
to say whether it is possible that he should not
know that a man coming so disguised and so
habited—- if he appeared before him so habited
—- came upon some dishonest errand, and
whether it is to be conceived a person should
so present himself to a person who did not
know what that dishonest errand was, and that
it was the very dishonest errand upon which
he had so recently been engaged, and which
he is found to be executing, in the spreading
of false intelligence for the purpose of elevating
the funds. If he actually appeared to Lord
Cochrane stripped of his coat, and with that
red aide-de-camp's uniform, star, and order,
which have been represented to you, he
appeared before him rather in the habit of a
mountebank than in his proper uniform of a
sharpshooter. This seems wholly inconsistent
with the conduct of an innocent and honest
man; for if he appeared in such a habit, he must
have appeared to any rational person fully
blazoned in the costume of that or some other
crime."

Who can wonder, after this, that a prosecution,
urged on by the Admiralty, conducted by
both private and public enemies, and pressed
forward by the Stock Exchange committee, blind
mad at their recent losses, ended in a conviction?
Lord Cochrane, the frank, reckless hero of many
battles, was found guilty, fined a thousand
pounds, sentenced to be imprisoned for a year,
and, most shameful disgrace of all, was
adjudged to stand in the pillory. The pillory! that
was indeed a thought worthy of Sidmouth,
Castlereagh, and Ellenborough. Those men
would have put Nelson in the pillory if he had
been a reformer. But that cruel disgrace Lord
Cochrane never endured, though it was strongly
urged in parliament; for Sir Francis Burdett,
always true and chivalrous, stood up and
declared that, if a pillory were erected, he should
stand on it side by side with his colleague.
The weak though cruel government knew
Burdett, and feared a popular tumult, so Lord
Castlereagh reluctantly waived that part of the
punishment. A popular subscription paid the
fine; but the unjust disgrace still branded a
brave man's scutcheon. The other prisoners
were all fined in the same amount, and
imprisoned. As for Mr. Cochrane Johnston, he fled.

From the beginning of this unfortunate
entanglement, Lord Cochrane behaved like a brave,
innocent man, almost careless of asserting his
innocence. Mr. Secretary Croker suppressed a
letter, important as a proof of Lord Cochrane's
innocence. Everything went wrong. Cruel
advantage was taken of a reckless sailor's hurt pride