Yesterday there was a very numerous meeting at Palace Yard, convened
by the high bailiff, for the purpose of nominating a fit and proper
person to represent the City of Westminster in Parliament.
The high bailiff shortly stated the purpose for which the present
meeting was convened. He had received two letters, which it would be
his duty to read to them. The one was from Lord Cochrane (_loud shouts
of applause_), the other from Mr. Sheridan (cries of “_No Sheridan!_”
and loud expressions of disapprobation from the multitude who supposed
that Mr. Sheridan was offering himself as a candidate).
The letter from Lord Cochrane was first read. He enclosed to the high
bailiff a full and unmutilated account of the defence made by him at
the House of Commons, which he requested him to read to the meeting.
(Many voices called out, “_Read, read!_” while many others, both on
account of the great length of it as well as the danger of publishing
certain passages of it, cried “_No, no!_”).
The high bailiff declined to read it. He then read the letter from Mr.
Sheridan, waiving his claims in favour of Lord Cochrane.
The high bailiff then asked if any gentleman had anything to propose.
SIR F. BURDETT came forward amid the loudest applause. He had on many
occasions witnessed with pleasure the generous feeling and independent
spirit of the electors of Westminster; but he had never on any
occasion witnessed the ebullition of their feelings with such
satisfaction as on the present occasion, as there never was one in
which it was more important. The question now was, whether an innocent
individual (_loud applause_), for so he conceived him to be, should be
destroyed by the machinations of corruption and power, or whether he
should be supported by the voice of his constituents. He hoped that by
the suffrages of the electors of Westminster, that character would be
maintained which he thought had never in any instance been forfeited.
They had heard a letter read from Mr. Sheridan, who had with great
propriety and prudence withdrawn his pretensions, such as they were.
Of the value of that gentleman’s claims and pretensions he would not
now judge; but he thought that it was prudent and polite of him not to
press them at present against the popular feeling and the current of
public opinion. They had heard also a letter from Lord Cochrane, who
wished his defence to be read to them at length. It was not surprising
that the high bailiff should decline reading that statement, or that
no other person should be found bold enough to do so. At a time when
libel was an offence so undefined in its nature that no man knew when
he might be speaking or writing libels, he could not himself say
whether he was not about to speak libels, but that consideration
should not prevent him from speaking the truth. Lord Cochrane had,
however, with that fortitude which he had so often displayed in the
defence of his country, and which had never been more strongly
displayed than during the late trying occasion, ventured boldly to
speak his mind in the House of Commons, and was now ready to incur all
the additional risks of publishing the statement he had there made.
When he had made that statement, the minister of the country, or, as
he should term him, the _nose leader_ of that illustrious and august
body (_a laugh_), not having the power of gagging Lord Cochrane, or
preventing his assertion of his innocence, and knowing well the effect
that such an appeal to the public would naturally produce, rose, in
all the blushing honours of his blue ribbon, to impose silence upon
the corrupt and degraded press that is still suffered to exist in this
country. At the moment when the House of Commons was going to
stigmatise Lord Cochrane with an additional vote conveying censure,
the minister thought that it was not proper that the people should
hear his defence. Lord Cochrane, feeling, however, as a man of honour
must do, that no risk was comparable to the loss of character, wished,
at every hazard, to support his hitherto unsullied character and
reputation. He therefore wished that his address should be read to the
meeting; but the high bailiff must, on such an occasion, be allowed to
exercise his own discretion and judgment. When the uniform conduct of
their chairman was taken into consideration, everybody must be
convinced that his motives were always just and honourable, and
therefore it would be most unhandsome in them to press him to act
contrary to his own judgment in this particular instance. He felt it
now unnecessary to detain the meeting with entering into a detail of
the case: the statement of the noble lord had, however, explained
those circumstances which appeared to require explanation. He should
not now find fault with the jury that tried Lord Cochrane (who were,
as he was informed, very respectable persons); but he should for ever
find fault with that mode of picking out a jury which Lord Cochrane
had called packing them. He did not mean to find fault with the
verdict which they found upon the evidence that was laid before
them—evidence which was so skilfully and so artfully got up against
him by those who had the arrangement of the prosecutor’s case, and
which had been so feebly met by those who undertook the defence of
Lord Cochrane. On such evidence they had found Lord Cochrane guilty of
a fraud of which he was sure that he was as incapable as any gentleman
whom he had then the honour of addressing. The noble lord had
certainly charged the noble and learned judge who tried him with a
false statement of the facts of the case, and with a gross
misdirection to the jury. As Lord Cochrane had been prevented, by the
rules of law from having the opportunity of having his case re-tried,
he now came before the public for the vindication of his character. He
should contend, however, that the rule which was set up against the
granting to his Lordship a new trial was contrary to the law, as the
law never requires a man to do impossibilities. As, however, some of
those who were tried with Lord Cochrane had fled from the country, and
others were evidently not under his control, it was impossible that he
should have been able to bring them all into court at the time he
wished to move for a new trial. The principle, however, that the law
never requires of a man to do impossibilities was maintained on
another occasion with respect to those proceedings. When, on the part
of some others who had been tried with him, an objection had been made
to the indictment as not being sufficiently specific, the answer was,
it was impossible to make it comprehend every point, and that the law
did not require impossibilities. If the law, however, did not require
impossibilities in the one case, neither would it require them in
another (_great applause_). They must all remember what an impression
had been made on the public mind before the trial by the publishing of
evidence, if evidence it could be called, which was given before that
body that designated themselves the Committee of the Stock-Exchange.
He was convinced that almost every man in the court had formed his
opinion from this publication of evidence, before the Stock-Exchange
Committee, before Lord Cochrane had been put upon his trial. He had
heard of what was called the summing up of the noble judge; but his
idea of a summing up was, the statement of all the items on the one
side and on the other, without addition or subtraction, and presenting
to the jury a fair balance. His idea of a judge was that he should be
a person free from passion or strong feeling on the case he was to
try; but that he was to assist the jury by a clear and impartial
statement of the evidence on the one side and on the other.
The noble judge who tried Lord Cochrane was an eloquent person, and,
as he thought, his eloquence on this occasion had been unfortunate for
himself. He thought that he had been as eloquent as an advocate, and
as an impassioned advocate. Indeed, some of his phrases and metaphors
appeared to him more nearly to resemble the language of poetry (_a
laugh_), and would, as he thought, give him fairer pretensions to the
situation of Poet Laureate, than some who had aspired to it
(_laughter_). When he had spoken of “hunting down the chase, and
getting the skin,” it reminded him of the old proverb, “that the man
who sold the lion’s skin, while the lion was yet alive, was himself
killed in the chase.” He believed that Lord Cochrane was not yet
hunted down; but that, on the contrary, he was now turning against his
hunters. It now remained for the electors of Westminster to vindicate
the character of an illustrious person who had rendered great services
to his country (_loud applause_); services which, if he had even been
guilty of the meanness imputed to him, should, as he thought, have
protected him from the degrading infamy which it was now intended to
have inflicted upon him. (“_No, no!_” from many persons, as expressing
a hope that the sentence would not be inflicted.) He should hope that
the malice of his enemies would not prevail; but even if he were to
suffer that degrading punishment, he would confidently look for his
acquittal to the unpacked and uncorrupted verdict of his constituents
and his countrymen at large. He say, that if Lord Cochrane was to
stand in the pillory, he should feel it his duty to attend also (_loud
shouts of applause_, which lasted for many minutes). The disgrace that
might be intended for Lord Cochrane, would, so far from stamping him
with infamy, remove in the public opinion the idea of infamy from the
punishment of the pillory. No man, that had hitherto conceived it an
honour to follow the noble Lord would, for the future, conceive it
infamy to stand in the pillory in which he had stood. It appeared to
him that instead of destroying Lord Cochrane, the infliction of that
part of the sentence would destroy the punishment of the pillory for
the future. If even Lord Cochrane had been guilty of the offence with
which he was charged, would it be supposed that it was for that
offence he had incurred such vengeance, or would it not rather be
supposed that the real crime, which could not be forgiven, was his
bold and independent conduct in the defence of their rights and
liberties? (_applause_). This was a crime as unpardonable in the eyes
of some men as that which is called by religious men the sin against
the Holy Ghost. How marked a difference was there between the
punishment inflicted upon him and the treatment of the most notorious
delinquents and depredators of the public purse. They, forsooth, are
all honest gentlemen, and meant to pay back at some time or another;
and by places and pensions they were often enabled to pay back to the
public out of their own money. This put him in mind of a story he had
once heard of a Scotch gardener, who flourished and grew rich while
his neighbours were failing. One of them, however, having got up very
early in the morning, met him with a cartful of wall-fruit, which he
had stripped from their gardens, and asked him, “Where are you going?”
The Scotchman answered, “I am going back again” (_a laugh_). This was
the case with the great public delinquents: when they were found out,
they were let go back again. He had no doubt but that with the sense
they appeared to entertain, both of the innocence and merits of Lord
Cochrane, they would enable him again to go to the House, not for the
purpose of pruning that hateful system whose branches had extended so
wide, but for the purpose of laying the axe to the root of corruption
(_applause_), in order that a natural and wholesome vegetation might
take its place. He had exerted himself to rescue the property of his
gallant brethren in arms from the gripe of legal harpies; he had acted
with independence in circumstances where it was not easy to act
independently. He thought that a real independent representative, a
man not connected with or swayed by any party, stood in rather a
forlorn and difficult situation. Having said so much, he should leave
the case of Lord Cochrane to their decision; to them he should commit
not his life, for that he had freely and often risked for honour at
the cannon’s mouth, but that immortal part, which was far dearer to a
man of honour than his life, his reputation and his character. To them
he now confidently made his appeal, and he trusted that he should not
be disappointed. After a few more observations, he concluded by moving
the following resolution:—
“Resolved, that in the opinion of this meeting, Lord Cochrane is
perfectly innocent of the offence for which he has been sentenced to
receive an infamous punishment.”
MR. WISHART seconded the motion. Great pains, he said, had been taken
to trace one part of the route of De Berenger; but not so much with
respect to the other. He did not think that the witnesses on the trial
were perjured; but Berenger might have brought the coat along with him
in the bundle which he held in his hand. Lord Cochrane came forward
like an innocent man, and stated all that he knew of the transaction;
nor could it be reasonably inferred that he was implicated in the
fraud because Berenger came to his house. The rule of the Court had
placed Lord Cochrane in a most difficult and perplexing situation; a
rule wholly unknown to the best times of the constitution. Judges thus
took the law in their own hands, and encroached upon the functions of
Parliament. He did not intend to arraign the conduct of the jury,
though the verdict of the juries who had condemned Russell and Sidney
had been subsequently reversed (_loud applause_), because it had been
improperly obtained, and the memory of those illustrious patriots
would remain embalmed in the recollections of the latest posterity.
Many judges had been an ornament to the country that gave them birth,
such as Sir M. Hale, Lord Camden, and others; and would to God judges
like them always presided in the seat of justice. Every man who was
actuated by a cause of justice, or by the feeling of humanity, would
pour the balm of consolation into the wounded spirit of the noble
Lord, who had deserved so well of his country, and who, from some, at
least, of his countrymen, had met with such an ungrateful return.
MAJOR CARTWRIGHT said there was nothing in any part of the evidence
which warranted the learned lord (Ellenborough) in stating that De
Berenger came to the house of Lord Cochrane emblazoned in all the
costume of his crime. Such an assertion would only be accounted for
upon the supposition, that in his charge to the jury he had trusted
rather to his memory than to his notes. The evidence against Lord
Cochrane was like a grain of sand in one hand, while that in his
favour was like Westminster Abbey in the other (_loud and reiterated
applause_).
MR. WALKER thought that it was the duty of the noble Lord’s
constituents to replace him in his situation as Member for Westminster
(_shouts of applause_).
MR. ALDERMAN WOOD, when he first heard of the charge against Lord
Cochrane, had said he was innocent, and that he had not the heart nor
the disposition to commit a fraud (_applause_). After the trial he was
of the same opinion, and everything that had since taken place
contributed still more to strengthen that belief. He had heard from
one of the jury (who had assured him that others of that jury were of
the same sentiment), that had the evidence since produced been brought
forward upon the trial, or had Lord Cochrane been in Court and made
his own defence, it would have been impossible to have found him
guilty (_bursts of applause_). If necessary, he could bring the
individual alluded to before them (“_Bravo, bravo!_”). When he first
heard of the result of the trial, he, as an elector of Westminster,
had been turning in his mind whom it might be proper to propose for
their representative. He was happy to think that now there was no
opportunity for any deliberation of that kind, for the electors of
Westminster would do justice to an injured character, and return him
by their verdict to that House from which he had been expelled (_loud
applause_). The resolution was then put and carried by acclamation.