“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 C., how could Lord C.
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 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 coat
and 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 an habit, he must have appeared to any
rational person fully blazoned in the costume of that or some other
crime.” (_Report_, pp. 484, 485, 486.)
The preceding quotations from his Lordship’s address to the jury are
taken from the “_revised_” report of the trial. They will appear still
more extraordinary as quoted from the report of the _Times_ newspaper,
taken _verbatim_ at the time. Of this no one acquainted even with
ordinary newspaper reports will doubt the accuracy, and after having
perused it, there will be as little doubt but that the “_revised_”
report was subsequently altered from what really occurred in Court.