LORD COCHRANE'S BEARING IN THE KING'S BENCH PRISON—HIS STREET
LAMPS.—HIS ESCAPE, AND THE MOTIVES FOR IT.—HIS CAPTURE IN THE HOUSE
OF COMMONS, AND SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT.—HIS CONFINEMENT IN THE STRONG
ROOM OF THE KING'S BENCH PRISON.—HIS RELEASE.
[1814-1815.]
During the first period of his imprisonment Lord Cochrane was not
treated with more than usual severity. Two rooms in the King's Bench
State House were provided for him, in which, of course, all the
expenses of his maintenance devolved upon himself. He was led
to understand that, if he chose to ask for it, he might have the
privilege of "the rules," which would have allowed him, on certain
conditions, a range of about half-a-mile round the prison. But he
did not choose to ask. Rather, he said, than seek any favour from
the Government, he would lie in a dungeon all through the term of his
unjust imprisonment. Throughout that period he resolutely avowed his
perfect innocence, to friends and foes alike; and the consciousness
of his innocence helped him to bear up under a degradation that, to
a nature as sensitive and chivalrous as his, was doubly bitter. Good
friends, like Sir Francis Burdett, came to cheer him in his solitude,
and over-zealous, yet honest, friends, like William Cobbett, came to
take counsel with him as to ways of keeping alive and quickening the
popular indignation which, without any stimulants from headstrong
demagogues, was strong enough on his behalf.
The tedium of his captivity was further relieved by his devotion to
those scientific and mechanical pursuits which, all through life,
yielded employment very solacing to himself, and very profitable to
the world. While in the King's Bench Prison he was especially occupied
in completing a plan for lighting the public streets by means of a
lamp invented by him, in which the main principle was the introduction
of a steady current of fresh air into the globes, whereby all the oil
was fairly burnt, and a brilliant light was always maintained. In this
way lamps much cheaper than those previously in use were found to have
a far greater illuminating power. Early in October, 1814, the lamps
in St. Ann's parish, Westminster, numbering eight hundred in all, were
taken down and replaced by four hundred constructed on Lord Cochrane's
plan; and even political opponents spoke in acknowledgment of the
excellent result of the change. Had it not been for the introduction
of gas, the superiority of these new lamps must soon have compelled
their adoption all over London. It is curious that the discovery of
the illuminating power of gas—undoubtedly due to his father—should
have superseded one of Lord Cochrane's most promising inventions as
soon as it had been brought to recognized perfection.
In such pursuits nine months of the unjust imprisonment were passed.
"Lord Cochrane has hitherto borne all his hardships with great
fortitude," wrote one of his most intimate friends on the 10th of
November, "and, if there are any more in store for him, I hope he will
continue to be cheerful and courageous." "His lordship always hopes
for the best, and is never afraid of the worst," said the same
authority on the 9th of December, "and therefore he is in good
spirits."
This fearless disposition led, in March, 1815, to a bold step, which
some of Lord Cochrane's best friends deprecated. Knowing that he
was unjustly imprisoned, he conceived that, since his re-election
as member for Westminster, the imprisonment was illegal as well as
unjust, in that it was contrary to the privilege of Parliament. The
law provides that "no Member of Parliament can be imprisoned either
for non-payment of a fine to the King, or for any other cause than
treason, felony, or refusing to give security for the peace." It
may be questioned whether, in the presence of this law, his first
imprisonment, even under the sentence of the Court of King's Bench,
was legal. But having been imprisoned, and having been expelled from
the House of Commons, it is clear that his subsequent re-election
could not interfere with the fulfilment, of the sentence passed
against him, especially as he had not been able to make good his title
to membership by taking the prescribed oaths and claiming a seat in
the House. He, however—acting as it would seem under the advice of
William Cobbett and other unsafe counsellors—thought otherwise,
and considered that he was only vindicating a high constitutional
principle, against the exercise of despotic power by the Government,
in making his escape from the King's Bench Prison. "I did not quit
these walls," he said in a letter addressed to the electors
of Westminster, on the 12th of April, "to escape from personal
oppression, but, at the hazard of my life, to assert that right to
liberty which, as a member of the community, I have never forfeited,
and that right, which I received from you, to attack in its very den
the corruption which threatens to annihilate the liberties of us all.
I did not quit them to fly from the justice of my country, but to
expose the wickedness, fraud, and hypocrisy of those who elude that
justice by committing their enormities under the colour of its name.
I did not quit them from the childish motive of impatience under
suffering. I stayed long enough to evince that I could endure
restraint as a pain, but not as a penalty. I stayed long enough to be
certain that my persecutors were conscious of their injustice, and to
feel that my submission to their unmerited inflictions was losing the
dignity of resignation, and sinking into the ignominious endurance of
an insult."
The escape was effected on the 6th of March, and by the same means
which had proved successful in Lord Cochrane's retreat from the
gaol at Malta, just four years before. His rooms in the King's Bench
Prison, being on the upper storey of the building known as the
State House, were nearly as high as the wall which formed the prison
boundary, and the windows were only a few feet distant from it.
The possibility of escape by this way, however, had never been
contemplated, and therefore the windows were unprotected by bars.
Accordingly Lord Cochrane, having been supplied, from time to time, by
the same servant who had aided him at Malta, with a quantity of small
strong rope, managed, soon after midnight, and while the watchman
going his rounds was in a distant part of the prison, to get out of
window and climb on to the roof of the building. Thence he threw a
running noose over the iron spikes placed on the wall, and, exercising
the agility that he had acquired during his seaman's occupations,
easily gained the summit—to be somewhat discomfited by having to sit
upon the iron spikes while he fastened his rope to one of them and
prepared, with its help, to slip down to the pavement on the outer
side of the wall. The rope was not strong enough, however, to bear his
weight; it snapped when he was some twenty-five feet from the ground,
and caused him to fall with his back upon the stone pavement. There he
lay, in an almost unconscious state, for a considerable time. But no
passer-by observed him; and before daylight he was able to crawl to
the house of an old nurse of his eldest son's, who gladly afforded him
concealment.
Long concealment was not intended by him. "If it had not been," he
said, "for the commotion excited by that obnoxious, injurious, and
arbitrary measure, the Corn Bill, which began to evince itself on
the day of my departure from prison, I should have lost no time in
proceeding to the House of Commons; but, conjecturing that the spirit
of disturbance might derive some encouragement from my unexpected
appearance at that time, and having no inclination to promote tumult,
I resolved to defer my appearance at the House, and, if possible,
to conceal my departure from the prison, until the order of the
metropolis should be restored."
To the same effect was a letter addressed by Lord Cochrane to the
Speaker of the House of Commons on the 9th of March. "I respectfully
request," he said therein, "that you will state to the honourable
the House of Commons, that I should immediately and personally
have communicated to them my departure from the custody of Lord
Ellenborough, by whom I have been long most unjustly detained; but I
judged it better to endeavour to conceal my absence, and to defer my
appearance in the House until the public agitation excited by the Corn
Bill should subside. And I have further to request that you will also
communicate to the House that it is my intention, on an early day, to
present myself for the purpose of taking my seat and moving an inquiry
into the conduct of Lord Ellenborough."
On the day of that letter's delivery, the 10th of March—also famous
as the day on which Buonaparte's escape from Elba was published in
England—Lord Cochrane's gaolers discovered that he was no longer
in his prison. Immediately a hue and cry was raised. This notice was
issued: "Escaped from the King's Bench Prison, on Monday the 6th day
of March, instant, Lord Cochrane. He is about five feet eleven inches
in height,[A] thin and narrow-chested, with sandy hair and full eyes,
red whiskers and eyebrows. Whoever will apprehend and secure Lord
Cochrane in any of His Majesty's gaols in the kingdom shall have a
reward of three hundred guineas from William Jones, Marshal of the
King's Bench."
[Footnote A: He was really about six feet two inches in height, and
broad in proportion.]
Great search was made in consequence of that notice, and Lord
Cochrane's disappearance was an eleven days' wonder. Every newspaper
had each day a new statement as to his whereabouts. Some declared that
he had gone mad, and, as a madman's freak, was hiding himself in some
corner of the prison; others that he was lodging at an apothecary's
shop in London. According to one report, he had been seen at Hastings,
according to another, at Farnham, and according to another, in Jersey;
while others declared that he had been discovered in France and
elsewhere on the Continent.
None of the thousands whom political spite or the hope of reward set
in search of him thought of looking for him in his real resting-place.
"As soon as I had written to the Speaker," he said, "I went into
Hampshire, where I remained eleven days, and till within one day of my
appearance in the House of Commons. During that period I was occupied
in regulating my affairs in that county, and in riding about the
county, as was well known to the people of the neighbourhood, none of
whom were base enough to be seduced by a bribe to deliver an injured
man into the hands of his oppressors."
At his own house, known as Holly Hill, in the south of Hampshire, Lord
Cochrane remained quietly, though with no attempt to hide himself,
until the 20th of March. He then, in fulfilment of his original
purpose, returned to London, and on the following day entered the
House of Commons at about two o'clock in the afternoon. Very great
was the astonishment among the officials in attendance caused by his
appearance, "dressed," according to one of the newspaper reports, "in
his usual costume, grey pantaloons, frogged great-coat, &c.;" and by
some of them the intelligence of his arrival was promptly communicated
to the Marshal of the King's Bench. In the meanwhile, considering
himself safe within the precincts of the House at any rate, he
proceeded to occupy his customary seat. To that it was objected that,
until he had taken the oaths and complied with the prescribed forms
consequent on his re-election, he had no right within the building.
He answered that he was willing to do this, and, to see that all was
according to rule, went at once to the clerks' office. There it was
pretended that the writ of his re-election had not yet been received,
and that it must first be procured from the Crown Office, in Chancery
Lane. Awaiting the return of the messenger, ostensibly despatched for
this purpose, he again entered the House, and there he was found, at a
few minutes before four, by Mr. Jones, the marshal, who, on receiving
the information sent to him, had hurried up, with a Bow Street runner
and some tipstaves. The runner, walking up to Lord Cochrane and
touching him on the shoulder, bluntly claimed him as his prisoner.
Lord Cochrane asked by what authority he dared to arrest a Member of
Parliament in the House of Commons. "My lord," answered the man, "my
authority is the public proclamation of the Marshal of the King's
Bench Prison, offering a reward for your apprehension." Lord Cochrane
declared that he neither acknowledged, nor would yield to, any
such authority, that he was there to resume his seat as one of the
representatives of the City of Westminster, and that any who dared to
touch him would do so at their peril. Two tipstaves thereupon rudely
seized him by the arms. He again cautioned them that the Marshal of
the King's Bench had no authority within those walls, and that their
conduct was altogether illegal. The answer was that he had better
go quietly; his reply that he would not go at all. Other officers,
however, came up. After a short struggle, he was overpowered, and, on
his refusing to walk, he was carried out of the House on the shoulders
of the tipstaves and constables.
There was a halt, however, in this disgraceful march. The Bow Street
runner expressed a fear that Lord Cochrane had firearms concealed
under his clothes, and he was accordingly taken into one of the
committee-rooms to be searched. Nothing more dangerous was found about
him than a packet of snuff. "If I had thought of that before," said
Lord Cochrane, not quite wisely, "you should have had it in your
eyes!" On this incident was founded a foolish story, to be told next
day, amid a score of exaggerations and falsehoods, in the Government
newspapers. "Being asked why he had provided himself with such a
quantity of snuff," we there read, "he said he had bought a canister
for the purpose of throwing it in the eyes of those who might attempt
to secure him, unless the opposing force should be too strong for
resistance, observing that he had found the use of a similar weapon
when he was in the Bay of Rosas, as he had thrown a mixture of lime,
sand, &c., upon the Frenchmen who attempted to board his ship, and
found it effectual." Another zealous organ of the Government added
that he had also provided himself with a bottle of vitriol, to be used
in the same way.
Had a penknife been found in his pocket, perhaps the Marshal of the
King's Bench, the Bow Street runner, the tipstaves, and the constables
would all have fled, deeming that the possession of so deadly an
instrument made the retention of their captive too dangerous a thing
to be attempted. The snuff having been seized, however, he was again
lodged on the officers' shoulders and so conveyed into the courtyard.
He then said that, being now beyond the privilege of the House, he was
willing to proceed quietly. A coach was called, and he was taken back
to the King's Bench Prison.
The indignity thus offered to him was small indeed in comparison with
the indignity offered to the Parliament of England. In former times
the slightest encroachment by the Crown, by the Government, or by
any humbler part of the executive, was fiercely resented; and to this
resentment some of the greatest and most memorable crises in the long
fight for English liberty are due. But rarely had there been a
more flagrant, never a more wanton, infringement of the hardly-won
privileges of the House of Commons. Had Lord Cochrane been detected
and seized violently in some out-of-the-way hiding-place, the
over-zealous servants of the Crown would have had some excuse for
their conduct. But in appearing publicly in the House, he showed to
all the world that he was no runaway from justice, that he was willing
to submit to its honest administration by honest hands, that all he
sought was a fair hearing and a fair judgment upon his case, and that,
believing it impossible to obtain that through the elaborate machinery
of oppression which then went by the name of administration
of justice, he now only asserted his right, the right of every
Englishman, and especially the right of a Member of Parliament, to
appeal from the agents of the law to the makers of the law, to call
upon the legislators of his country to see whether he had not been
wrongfully used by the men who, though practically too much their
masters, were in theory only their servants.
"I did not go to the House of Commons," he said, "to complain about
losses or sufferings, about fine or imprisonment; or of property, to
the amount of ten times the fine, of which I had been cheated by this
malicious prosecution. I did not go to the House to complain of
the mockery of having been heard in my defence, and answered by a
reference to the decision from which that defence was an appeal. I did
not go there to complain of those who expelled me from my profession.
I did not go to the House to complain _generally_ of the advisers of
the Crown. But I went there to complain of the conduct of him who has
indeed the right of recommending to mercy, but whose privilege, as
a Privy Councillor, of advising the confirmation of his own
condemnations, and of interposing between the victims of
legal vengeance and the justice of the throne, is spurious and
unconstitutional. When it is considered that my intention of going to
the House of Commons was announced on the day on which my absence from
the prison was discovered; I say, when it is considered that, as soon
as it was known that I had left the prison, it was also known that I
had left it for the express purpose of going to the House of Commons
to move for an inquiry into the conduct of Lord Ellenborough; when it
is considered that every engine was set to work to tempt or intimidate
me from that purpose, to frighten me out of the country or allure me
back to the custody of the marshal, that assurances were given that
the doors should be kept open for my admission at any hour of the
night, and that I should be received with secresy, courtesy, and
indemnity; and when it is considered that I was afterwards seized in
the House of Commons, in defiance of the privileges of the House—can
there be a doubt that the object of that apprehension was less the
accomplishment of the sentence of the court than the prevention of
the exposure which I was prepared to make of the injustice of that
sentence? That recourse should have been had to violence to stifle the
accusations which I was prepared to bring forward, that terror of the
truth should have so superseded a wonted reverence for parliamentary
privileges as to have admitted the intrusion of tipstaves and
thief-takers into the House of Commons, to seize the person of an
individual elected to serve as a member of that House, and avowedly
attendant for that purpose, is extraordinary, though not unnatural."
It must be admitted that the question of breach of privilege was
somewhat more complicated than Lord Cochrane considered. His opponents
did not think with him that he was still a member of the House of
Commons. That membership had been taken from him, formally, though
wrongfully, by his expulsion on the 5th of July, and he had
himself recognized the expulsion by accepting re-election from the
constituents of Westminster on the 16th of the same month. According
to precedent, however, that re-election could not be perfected until
the customary oaths had been taken; and, through a trick contrived
in the clerks' office, he was hindered from taking them before the
arrival of the marshal and his consequent arrest. Yet there can be no
doubt that, in the special circumstances of the case, this arrest was
especially indecorous, and, in the method of effecting it, altogether
illegal. If he had no right in the House of Commons, he was a common
trespasser, and ought to have been at once removed by the servants of
the House, who alone could have power to touch him within the walls.
To allow him a seat therein, without molestation, until the arrival
of the servants of the King's Bench Prison, and then to allow those
servants to enter the House and act upon an authority that could there
be no authority, was wholly unwarrantable, a gross insult to Lord
Cochrane, and, to the customs of the House of Commons, an insult yet
more gross. But to the hardship and the insult alike the House of
Commons, servile in its devotion to the Government of the day, was
blind.
A miserable farce ensued. While the House was sitting, a few hours
after Lord Cochrane's capture, a letter from the Marshal of the King's
Bench was read by the Speaker, in which his bold act was formally
reported and apologized for. "I humbly hope," he there said, "that I
have not committed any breach of privilege by the steps I have taken;
and that, if I have done wrong, it will be attributed to error in
judgment, and not to any intention of doing anything that might give
offence."
The short debate that followed the reading of that letter is very
noteworthy. Lord Castlereagh spoke first, and dictated the view to
be taken by all loyal members of the House. "From the nature of the
arrest and the circumstances attending it, I do not think, sir," he
said, "that the House is called upon to interfere. I am not aware, as
the House was not actually sitting, with the mace on the table and the
Speaker in the chair, when the arrest took place, that any breach of
privilege has been committed. It must be quite obvious to every man
that the marshal has not acted wilfully in violation of the privileges
of the House. No blame can attach to him, since he has submitted
himself to the judgment of the House of Commons after having done
that which he considered his duty as a civil officer. Having had Lord
Cochrane in his custody, from which he escaped, the marshal was bound
not to pass over any justifiable means of putting him under arrest
whenever a fair opportunity occurred."
Most of the members thought, with Lord Castlereagh, that this was
a "fair opportunity." Only one, Mr. Tierney—and he very
feebly—ventured to express an opposite opinion. "I consider this,"
he said, "to be the case of a member regularly elected to serve in
Parliament, and coming down to take his seat. Now, sir, the House is
regularly adjourned until ten o'clock in the morning; and I recollect
occasions when the Speaker did take the chair at that hour. Suppose,
then, a member, about to take his seat, came down here at an early
hour, with the proper documents in his hand, and desired to be
instructed in the mode of proceeding, and, while waiting, an officer
entered, arrested him, and took his person away, would not this be a
case to call for the interference of the House?" Mr. Tierney admitted
that he approved of Lord Cochrane's arrest, but feared it might become
a precedent and be put to the "improper purpose" of sanctioning the
arrest of members more deserving of consideration.
To please him, and to satisfy the formalities, therefore, the question
was referred to a committee of privileges. This committee reported, on
the 23rd of March, "that, under the particular circumstances, it did
not appear that the privileges of Parliament had been violated, so as
to call for the interposition of the House;" and the House of Commons
being satisfied with that opinion, no further attention was paid to
the subject.
In the meanwhile Lord Cochrane was being punished, with inexcusable
severity, for his contempt of the authority of Lord Ellenborough and
Mr. Jones. A member of the House, during the discussion of the 21st of
March, had said that he had just come from the King's Bench Prison.
"I found Lord Cochrane," he had averred, "confined there in a strong
room, fourteen feet square, without windows, fireplace, table, or
bed. I do not think it can be necessary for the purpose of security
to confine him in this manner. According to my own feelings, it is a
place unfit for the noble lord, or for any other person whatsoever."
In this Strong Room, however, Lord Cochrane was detained for more
than three weeks. It was partly underground, devoid of ventilation or
necessary warmth, and, according to the testimony of Dr. Buchan, one
of the physicians who visited him in it, "rendered extremely damp and
unpleasant by the exudations coming through the wall."
On being taken to this den immediately after his capture, Lord
Cochrane was informed by Mr. Jones that he would be detained in it for
a short time only, until the apartments over the lobby of the prison
were prepared for his reception. That was done in a few days; but no
intimation of a change was made until the 1st of April, when a message
to that effect was sent to the prisoner. On the following day he
received a letter from Mr. Jones informing him that, if he would
anticipate the payment of the fine of 1000£ levied against him, and
would also pledge himself, and give security for the keeping of the
promise, to make no further effort to escape, he might be allowed to
occupy the more comfortable quarters. "It is no new thing," said Lord
Cochrane, "for a prisoner to escape or to be retaken; but to require
of any prisoner a bond and securities not to repeat such escape was,
I think, a proposition without precedent, and such as the marshal knew
could not be complied with by me without humiliation, and therefore
could not be proposed by him without insult. Besides, he had my
assurance that if I were again to quit his custody (which I gave him
no reason to believe I should attempt, and which, as I observed and
believe, it was as easy for me to effect from that room as from any
other part of the prison), I should proceed no further than to the
House of Commons, and that where he found me before he might find me
again; I having had no other object in view than that of expressing,
by some peculiar act, the keen sense which I entertained of _peculiar_ injustice, and of endeavouring to bring such additional proofs of that
injustice before the House as were not in my possession when I was
heard in my defence." Mr. Jones, however, resolved to keep his captive
in the Strong Room, unless he would promise to resign himself to
captivity in a less obnoxious part of the prison.
Even for that negative favour the marshal took great credit to himself
in a document which he issued at the time. "If a humane and kind
concern for this unfortunate nobleman," he there averred, "had not
softened the solicitude which I naturally felt for my own security, I
could have committed him, on my own warrant for the escape, to the new
gaol in Horsemonger Lane, for the space of a month; and that power
is still within my jurisdiction. Had I thought proper to exercise it,
Lord Cochrane would then have been confined in a solitary cell with a
stone floor, with windows impenetrably barred and without glass; nor
would it have proved half the size of the Strong Room in the King's
Bench, which has a boarded floor and glazed lights." That statement
reasonably stirred the anger of Lord Cochrane. "Though the solitary
cell in Horsemonger Lane," he answered, "may be half the size of the
Strong Room, it could not, I apprehend, have been more gloomy, damp,
filthy, or injurious to health than the last-mentioned dungeon. And
since Mr. Jones could only have confined me in the former place for
a month, and did confine me in the latter for twenty-six days, I can
scarcely see that degree of difference which should entitle him to
those 'grateful sentiments for his mode of acting on the occasion'
which, he submits to the public, it is my duty to entertain. The
'glazed lights' mentioned by Mr. Jones were not put up till I had been
thirty hours in the place, and I have always understood that I was
indebted for them to the good offices of Mr. Bennet and Mr. Lambton,
who happened [as part of a Parliamentary Committee] to be prosecuting
their inquiry into the state of the prison at the time of my return.
For these and all other mercies of the said marshal, my gratitude is
due to their friendship and sense of duty, and to his dread of their
discoveries and proceedings."
It is clear that nothing but fear of the consequences induced Mr.
Jones to remove Lord Cochrane from the Strong Room, after twenty-six
days of confinement therein. On the 12th of April the prisoner issued
an address to the electors of Westminster, detailing some of the
hardships to which he was being subjected; and its publication
immediately roused so much popular interest that the authorities of
King's Bench Prison deemed it necessary to make at any rate a show of
amelioration in his treatment. On the 13th, his physician, Dr. Buchan,
was allowed to visit him, and his report was such that another medical
man of eminence, Mr. Saumarez, was sent to examine into the state of
the prisoner's health. Part of Dr. Buchan's certificate has already
been quoted. The rest was as follows: "This is to certify that I have
this day visited Lord Cochrane, who is affected with severe pain of
the breast. His pulse is low, his hands cold, and he has many symptoms
of a person about to have typhus or putrid fever. These symptoms are,
in my opinion, produced by the stagnant air of the Strong Room in
which he is now confined." "I hereby certify," wrote Mr. Saumarez,
"that I have visited Lord Cochrane, and am of opinion, from the state
of his health at this time, that it is essentially necessary that he
should be removed from the room which he now inhabits to one which
is better ventilated, and in which there is a fireplace. His lordship
complains of pain in the chest, with difficulty of respiration,
accompanied with great coldness of the hands; and, from the general
state of his health, there is great reason to fear that a low typhus
may come on."
The only result of those medical opinions was a renewal of the
offer to remove Lord Cochrane to the rooms prepared for him, on the
conditions previously specified by Mr. Jones. Lord Cochrane answered
that he would rather die than submit to such an insulting arrangement.
He published the doctors' certificates, however, on the 15th of April,
and their effect upon the public was so great that the authorities
were forced on the following day to take him out of his dungeon. Mr.
Jones's account of this step is worth quoting. "I again tried," he
reported, "to induce Lord Cochrane's friends and relations to give me
any kind of undertaking against another escape. On their refusal, I
determined myself to become his friend, and, at my own risk, to remove
him to the rooms which have been already mentioned, and where, I am
confident, he can have no cause of complaint. These rooms not being
altogether safe against such a person as Lord Cochrane, should he
determine to risk another escape, I must look to the laws of my
country as a safeguard, in the hope that the terrors of them will
discourage him from attempting a repetition of his offence, and
prevent him from incurring the penalties of another indictment."
Lord Cochrane never really intended to attempt a second escape. Had it
been otherwise, the illness induced by his confinement in the Strong
Room would have restrained him. Being placed in healthier apartments
on the 16th of April, he quietly remained there for the remainder of
his term of imprisonment. On the 20th of June he was informed that,
the term being now at an end, he was at liberty to depart on payment
of the fine of 1000£ levied against him. This he at first refused
to do, and accordingly he was detained in prison for a fortnight more;
but at length the entreaties of his friends prevailed. On the 3rd of
July he tendered to the Marshal of the King's Bench a 1000£ note,
with this memorable endorsement: "My health having suffered by long
and close confinement, and my oppressors being resolved to deprive
me of property or life, I submit to robbery to protect myself from
murder, in the hope that I shall live to bring the delinquents to
justice." Upon that the prison doors were opened for him, and he was
able once more to fight for the justice so cruelly withheld from
him, and to make his innocence entirely clear to all whose selfish
interests did not force them to be blind to the truth.