May it please your Lordship,
Gentlemen of the Jury,
My two learned friends, who have preceded me, Mr. Serjeant Best and Mr.
Park, have both stated to you the peculiar difficulties under which they
laboured, in consequence of the great fatigue which they had both
undergone. I am sure you will agree with me, that that topic, so pressed
by them, will come with still greater force from me; for, as the night
advances, the fatigue becomes greater, and the mind more exhausted.
Gentlemen, it is under the full persuasion that you and his Lordship are
also much oppressed with fatigue, that I can venture to promise you my
address will not be very long. But I trust, that considering the point
which it will be necessary for me to expatiate upon, you will be
ultimately of opinion, that my address, although not long, is still
effectual for the interest of my clients.
Gentlemen, I stand in a most peculiar situation, because, upon the notes
of the noble Lord, it is distinctly proved, that two of the persons for
whom I am counsel, Mr. Holloway and Mr. Lyte, have admitted themselves
to be guilty of that, which no man can for one moment hesitate to say is
extremely wrong. Gentlemen, I think it is also sufficiently proved, that
Sandom, the third person for whom I am counsel, was in the chaise which
was driven from Northfleet to Dartford, and from Dartford to London; and
on my part, I should consider it a most inefficient attempt, if I were
to attempt, for one moment, to persuade you that Mr. Holloway and Mr.
Lyte, together with Mr. Sandom, have not been most criminally implicated
in this part of the transaction; but, gentlemen, although I admit this
in the outset, and very sincerely lament, that men who have hitherto
maintained a very respectable situation in life, should have been
tempted to involve themselves in so disgraceful an affair; yet I think,
unless I am mistaken in my notion of law, as applying to that record on
which you are to give your judgment, it will be found that they are
entitled to your acquittal.
Gentlemen, I feel myself under a difficulty, also, in another respect. I
must differ from all my learned friends who have preceded me in this
trial, I mean, my learned friend Mr. Gurney, of counsel for the
prosecution; my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Best, as counsel for Mr.
Cochrane Johnstone, Mr. Butt, and Lord Cochrane; and Mr. Park, as
counsel for Mr. De Berenger. I am not here to find fault with the
committee of the Stock Exchange for prosecuting this inquiry; whether
that committee is composed of honourable men or not, is to me a matter
of perfect indifference. If they have been actuated by a sincere desire
of bringing to justice persons who have been guilty of criminal conduct,
I, for one, am not disposed to complain of them. Gentlemen, I cannot
agree with my learned friend Mr. Gurney, or my learned friend Mr.
Serjeant Best, in what, in different parts of their address, they stated
to you as being the leading features of this prosecution; for my learned
friend Mr. Gurney, in the outset of his address to you, stated, that
what he called the Northfleet plot was only a part of the Dover
conspiracy--was subsidiary to it. I think his expression was, that they
both formed different parts of one entire plot, and that those who were
guilty of one must be taken to be guilty of both; although Mr. Holloway,
in his confession, had acquitted Lord Cochrane and Mr. Cochrane
Johnstone, of having any part or share in the Northfleet conspiracy.
Now, gentlemen, I will state to you in the outset, that I mean to
consider the case in a different point of view. I have not the
slightest doubt on earth, that what was done by Sandom, Lyte, and M'Rae,
when they left Northfleet on the morning of the 21st of February, was
altogether unconnected, and was utterly unknown to, that person, whoever
he was, who came from Dover, and that he had no sort of connection with
it. Gentlemen, if I am right in establishing this point; if you shall
ultimately be satisfied that Mr. Holloway, Mr. Sandom, and Mr. Lyte, who
I admit were concerned in that part of the business, were altogether
unconnected with the person who came from Dover, and who has been stated
to-day to be involved with Lord Cochrane and Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, I
apprehend that the three defendants for whom I appear cannot be found
guilty. That my learned friend Mr. Gurney considers the case in this
point of view is beyond all question, for he opened it to you as part of
this case, that what he called the Northfleet conspiracy, was a part of
the Dover plot, and was in furtherance of it; and he not only has so
stated it in his address, but, as I read the record, it is so stated
upon the record; for, in the very first count of the indictment you are
now impanelled to try, it is set forth, that Sandom, M'Rae and Lyte took
the chaise from Northfleet, and so passed on to London, in furtherance
of that plot which was originated at Dover. Gentlemen, I submit to you,
therefore, on behalf of these gentlemen for whom I appear, that their
guilt or innocence with respect to this particular trial will depend
upon this circumstance;--did they form, or did they not form, parts and
members of that single plot in which it is supposed the three or four
other gentlemen were concerned?
Gentlemen, I certainly have not the good fortune to appear for men of
the high rank of those on whose behalf my learned friends Mr. Serjeant
Best and Mr. Park have addressed you. I can introduce no such eloquent
topics as those which my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Best has touched
upon. I cannot illustrate the character or the situations of life of the
gentlemen for whom I appear, with the terms in which Mr. Park has spoken
of his client De Berenger. I know of no claims to honour from any
ancestry to which they can justly entitle themselves; they are men in a
respectable, but in a humble line of life, compared with the other
defendants upon the record; but I know, that it is not upon that account
that you will be less disposed to give a ready and a willing ear to any
topics that may be urged in favour of their legal innocence.
Gentlemen, as I followed the evidence, there was but one point of
coincidence, in which these persons who came from Dartford to London,
could be at all connected with the person who came from Dover, and it
was in the very slight circumstance of the chaises driving to the same
place; and my learned friend, Mr. Gurney, in furtherance of that which
he submitted to you as against Holloway, Sandom and Lyte, as an
ingredient, and a necessary ingredient, in their conviction, stated to
you in the opening, that he should prove they went to the same place. I
could not but be struck with that circumstance, because I knew it was
one from which a connexion might fairly be felt; I was therefore anxious
to watch the evidence which applied to that part of the case, and so far
from finding that the person who came from Dover, under the name of Du
Bourg, went to the Marsh Gate by design, I find that he went there
altogether by accident; for by the evidence of Shilling, the person who
drove him, if I do not mistake it altogether, he first proposed to drive
him to the Bricklayers Arms in the Kent Road, and when he got there he
found there was no hackney-coach, and then to use the very expression of
the witness, "I told him there was a stand at the Marsh Gate, and if he
liked to go there nobody would observe him;" so that it is quite
obvious, that the supposed Colonel Du Bourg went to the Marsh Gate, in
consequence of having been driven by the suggestion of Shilling. I
admit that Sandom, Lyte and M'Rae went there by their own direction; but
it is equally clear that Du Bourg went there in consequence of there
being no hackney-coach at the Bricklayers Arms, and in consequence also
of Shilling advising him to go there for the purpose of obtaining one.
The only circumstance therefore in the cause, which shews a coincidence
of plot between the one at Northfleet and the one at Dover, is this
circumstance respecting the carriages driving to the Marsh Gate; and it
will appear upon his Lordship's notes, as with reference to Du Bourg,
the going of Du Bourg to the Marsh Gate at Lambeth was purely
accidental.
Gentlemen, my learned friend, Mr. Gurney, was so aware of the necessity
of proving a connexion between these parties, that he stated another
circumstance; and I think, in the course of his address, those were the
only two which he adduced, for the purpose of shewing that there was any
fair probability that could lead the Court to believe that the person
assuming the name of Du Bourg, and Holloway, Sandom, M'Rae and Lyte, had
concurred in any part of this most scandalous transaction. My learned
friend stated, that he should shew an intimacy between Mr. Sandom and De
Berenger, when both of them were prisoners within the Fleet prison, and
that they became acquainted there.
_Mr. Gurney._ My learned friend has misunderstood me, I said they were
prisoners at the same time; that was the extent of my statement.
_Mr. Serjeant Pell._ I am very much obliged to my learned friend; I am
by no means disposed to mis-state him; I find he did not state it quite
so strongly as I had supposed, but the inference he meant to raise in
your minds, was, unquestionably, that both being prisoners at the same
time within the walls of the same gaol, it was fair to conclude,
considering the other parts of the case, that an intimacy had existed
between them. Now let us see how that part of my learned friend's
statement is made out.--Mr. De Berenger was unfortunately a prisoner
within the Rules of the King's Bench Prison in the month of February
last; he had been so for some time. I think it does not exactly appear,
with respect to Mr. Sandom, according to the evidence of Mr. Broochooft,
the officer, who was called for that purpose, when or for how long Mr.
Sandom first went there, or how long he continued there, but far from
Sandom's being a prisoner in that gaol during the time when Mr. De
Berenger was confined there, my Lord will find upon his notes, as given
by a person of the name of Foxall, that Sandom had lived at Northfleet
for nine months before he sent for the chaise on the 21st of February.
You observe therefore, gentlemen, that there is not the slightest reason
to believe, as far as the evidence extends, that either Mr. Sandom, Mr.
Holloway, or Mr. Lyte, had any knowledge or acquaintance with the other
defendants.
But, Gentlemen, I will mention another circumstance, which puts that out
of all doubt:--I allude to the confession of Mr. Holloway, a confession
made in the presence of Mr. Lyte, and with his concurrence. He admitted
that he had used means for the purpose of inducing a persuasion that a
revolution had taken place in France, which unquestionably at that time
was not true. How stands the circumstance? There was a person of the
name of M'Rae, who was spoken to by Vinn, the first witness called by
Mr. Gurney to this part of the transaction. Vinn told a most
extraordinary story, and I will venture to say, that with respect to Mr.
Vinn, if the case of all the defendants had stood upon the testimony of
such a man as that, no human being, who had been accustomed to watch the
manners and the terms which witnesses use in courts of justice, could
have believed him for a moment. His story was this.--That on the 15th of
February, M'Rae met him at the Carolina coffee house, and he proposed to
him to frame a conspiracy for the purpose of raising the funds; and Vinn
asked him if there was any moral turpitude in the transaction. No human
being could doubt for a moment, that such a transaction would be deep in
moral turpitude. He says, that he told him he would as soon engage in a
highway robbery, as in such a transaction; and then immediately he told
him, that though he would not himself, he could find somebody else who
would engage in that dirty office. Can any human being believe such a
story as this? What passed between him and M'Rae upon that occasion, I
am unacquainted with; but I know enough of your sober judgment, to be
sure of this, that no conversation which Vinn states to have taken place
between M'Rae and him, when Holloway, Sandom and Lyte, were not present,
will be by you permitted to affect their interests.
Now, gentlemen, the next stage in this transaction, in which Mr. M'Rae
appears, is, I think, a very singular one; he appears in a letter, I
think, from Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, to be the person proposed, who, for
£10,000 would make known the whole of this affair. It is a very singular
part of this most curious story. This letter is sent to the Stock
Exchange; M'Rae proposes, that he shall be the person who is to detect
the whole of this scandalous transaction, and he proposes to himself the
great reward of £10,000. Only observe, what Mr. Bailey has stated to you
took place on Holloway's being acquainted with this circumstance.
Holloway, knowing that M'Rae had been concerned in this, which I shall
term a second plot;--knowing that M'Rae could not communicate any thing,
at least as far as Holloway had reason to believe, that could at all
affect that which was the greater object of the Committee of the Stock
Exchange, namely, the conviction of Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane
Johnstone, Mr. Butt, and Mr. De Berenger, for that is the end and aim of
the present prosecution; and as to the clients for whom I appear, Mr.
Holloway, Mr. Lyte, and Mr. Sandom, I firmly believe, if the Stock
Exchange had not been of opinion they would have derived some benefit
from the conviction of my clients, they would no more have been put
forward on the present occasion, than I or any of my learned friends
should have been. No, gentlemen, the other defendants are the game the
prosecutors are attempting to catch, and it is only for the purpose, in
some shape or other, of confusing and confounding two separate and
distinct parts, with a hope that in some degree the transaction of
Holloway, Sandom, Lyte and M'Rae, in reference to the journey from
Northfleet, on the 21st of February, may be connected in your minds with
the other defendants, that they are introduced upon the present record.
Gentlemen, do me the favour to recollect what Mr. Baily has stated
to-day. It was this;--Mr. Holloway, finding there had been some
proposition on the part of M'Rae, to make known all that he was
acquainted with in the transaction, and that M'Rae had demanded the sum
of £.10,000, before he would be induced to relate that which he knew,
Mr. Holloway applied to the Committee of the Stock Exchange, and stated
this to them, in the presence of Mr. Lyte;--"I admit that we were
concerned in that affair when the chaise went from Northfleet to
Dartford; I admit we were concerned with those persons when they came
through London (and it would be vain and most impertinent if I were to
take up your time to deny it), but I deny that we knew any thing of the
other parts of the business; we are altogether ignorant of it." Now,
gentlemen, is Mr. Holloway to be believed in any part of that which he
said? I take it my learned friend will contend, that he is to be
believed in all that made against himself, and all that made against
Lyte, who was present; but is he not to be believed in the other part of
his story? Will my learned friend contend, that he can take the one
part, and reject the other? I am satisfied he will not. If you take the
whole, then it appears, that Holloway and Lyte admitted that Sandom was
privy to their plan, but that they were altogether unconnected and
unacquainted with the business which took place at Dover, and had no
more to do with Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, Mr. Butt, Lord Cochrane, or Mr.
De Berenger, than any of you whom I have the honour of addressing.
Gentlemen, I should have supposed, in a prosecution of this kind, that
if there had been any connection between the two plots, it would have
been traced in some way or other; you observe the minute points which
have been made in every other part of the prosecution. There has been
labour unexampled; witnesses brought from the most distant parts of the
kingdom; no expence spared; every thing done that could be done to make
good the charge against four of the defendants upon the record. Is it
not a most extraordinary thing, if Holloway, Lyte and Sandom, were at
all connected with Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, or the two
other gentlemen, that no trace can be found, no clue can be discovered,
that can connect the one with the other. Under circumstances so singular
as these, there being not only no evidence of any connexion, but there
being an express contradiction on the part of Holloway and Lyte, and the
only connecting circumstance being explained away, I mean as to both the
chaises driving to the Marsh Gate, I think you will be of opinion with
me, that the two plots are altogether distinct from each other, and that
my clients, although morally guilty, must be acquitted upon the present
charge.
Gentlemen, I cannot but feel, that a kind of prejudice against my
clients may have arisen in your minds; I am not only surprised at it,
but I should have been surprised if it had not found its way there. Here
is a plot conducted in the most artful and most scandalous
manner;--persons of the highest authority imposed upon, dresses bought,
and the whole drama got up with the greatest skill. God forbid, that I
should for one moment insinuate that it was accomplished by any of the
other defendants upon the record. I am bound to believe, from the
character of all these gentlemen, that they are not guilty; but however
this may be, still we get back to that which forms the main feature of
my defence for these three gentlemen. Are they, or are they not privy to
this scheme? Gentlemen, I was observing to you, that some prejudice must
necessarily arise in your minds; it is my case that there were two
separate plots; they are, as far as the evidence extends, two different
transactions on the same day; a prejudice, however, must arise in your
minds, because when you find both these transactions point to producing
the same effect, you would naturally be disposed to believe, that all
the persons who were concerned in both, were equally acquainted with
both. You well remember the strong disposition there was at that time,
for every person, those at least who were disposed to do unjust and
unfair things, to invent such reports as should enable them to sell
their stock at an unreal price; and I submit to you, that supposing
Holloway, Sandom and Lyte, had intended to do so, there is nothing very
singular in their doing it on the day when the other transaction took
place. I am fortified in the opinion, that the one plot is not connected
with the other, because I find another part of the evidence which
disconnects them altogether, and it is this;--from the evidence of the
broker who was called to prove the sale of stock, or the directions to
sell stock, on the 21st of February, (a person of the name of Pilliner)
it turns out that Holloway did not give him any directions to sell his
stock till the middle of the day. Now the middle of the day was the
time when the chaise drove through the City of London. If Holloway had
been connected with those who were engaged in the first plan, I think
you will be of opinion, that he would have taken advantage of the most
beneficial state of the market, and sold his stock as early as when he
found that conspiracy had produced its intended effect upon the funds,
so that, in addition to other circumstances, this also shews that
Holloway had no connexion with the other transaction.
Gentlemen, I cannot but be struck at the singularity of Mr. M'Rae's
withdrawing from the field of battle. M'Rae certainly has performed a
very singular part upon this occasion; he proposed to sell himself for
£.10,000; he would have had the Stock Exchange to believe, that he had
been let into the secrets of my Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone,
Mr. Butt, and Mr. De Berenger;--the first object he had in view, was to
persuade the Stock Exchange that he knew the whole of their concern in
the transaction. A pleasant sort of a gentleman, to ask the sum of
£.10,000, to induce him to tell all that he knew, when no human being
can doubt that all M'Rae knew was, that which has been proved by the
witnesses, as to Sandom, Lyte and Holloway, namely; that M'Rae was in a
chaise which passed through the City of London, coming from Northfleet.
This man, who has the audacity to propose the receiving £.10,000, turns
out to be a miserable lodger in Fetter-lane, who after he had carried
into execution the whole of his part of the conspiracy was rewarded--but
how? was he rewarded as he would have been by such wealthy persons as
the gentlemen whose names stand upon this record? If they had engaged
M'Rae in this scandalous affair, do you believe they would have left him
on the Monday morning, with nothing but a £.10 note in his pocket? It
appears, by the woman with whom he lodged, that he was before in a
state of abject poverty, and that afterwards he was seen with a £.10
note, and that he bought a new hat and a new coat--and this is the man
who proposes to receive £.10,000 from the Stock Exchange to tell all he
knew. Gentlemen, I think I am not very much deceived myself, if I say,
that you will be of opinion, that a man who was in the situation of
M'Rae, was not very likely to have known of transactions which would
have involved the four first defendants upon the record, in such a
serious prosecution as that under which they now labour; and it is not
the least singular part of his conduct, that he makes no defence to-day.
Now, gentlemen, you observe the manner in which (subject to my Lord's
correction) I put the defence of the three defendants for whom I appear.
I have stated to you, that Holloway and Lyte have admitted themselves
guilty of most immoral conduct, for I never can believe that such
transactions as these, let them be conducted by whom they may, are not
immoral in the highest degree. Holloway, at all events, has since done
all he can to make amends; he has confessed his guilt; he has come
forward with Lyte, knowing and feeling that they had done wrong, with a
view to protect the Stock Exchange against giving that monstrous sum for
an imperfect discovery. Had Holloway or Lyte been concerned with any of
the other defendants on the record, I submit there is the strongest
reason to believe, that when he confessed his own guilt, he would not
have been backward in speaking of theirs. He was not aware of the effect
I am giving to his defence when he made it; and if he has done no more
than that which he has stated, I submit to you, under his Lordship's
correction, that you cannot find him guilty; and I submit to you, upon
the reasoning with which I commenced my address to you, that whatever
Sandom, Holloway and Lyte did, is not at all connected with what Du
Bourg, or the person so calling himself, did; that what they did is not
connected with what the other three defendants on the record are
supposed to have done; that there is not only no connexion proved
between the two, but as far as the evidence extends that connexion is
negatived; and then I submit to you, if you are of that opinion, these
persons must be acquitted; because, as I apprehend, two distinct
conspiracies included in one count, both being different offences,
cannot be permitted to be proved in a court of justice. Crimes must be
kept separate; persons must know what the charge is, on which they are
called upon to defend themselves, and miserable would be the situation
of persons charged with the commission of crimes, if one crime was
connected with another totally distinct and separate from it, and both
were brought under one and the same charge, to unite in the same
defence.
Gentlemen, I have stated to you, that the gentlemen for whom I appear
are in a very humble situation in life. Mr. Holloway is a wine merchant,
Mr. Lyte was formerly an officer in a militia regiment, Mr. Sandom is a
private gentleman of small fortune;--they are none of them, by their
situation in life, apparently likely to be connected with any of the
other defendants upon the record. What is there that should lead you to
believe they are so? Mr. Holloway and Mr. Lyte stand under a sufficient
load of guilt already; they have admitted themselves guilty of what they
did on that day. Will you, therefore, because they admitted themselves
guilty of one part of the day's infamy, put upon them the infamy of the
whole? Will you do this, because the two plots happen to take place on
the same day? Can you not, in your recollection, find, in former times,
the same sort of coincidence? Do we not know that such things have
happened; that plots of a similar description, carried on by different
parties, but having the same end, have taken place on the same day?
Have there not been much more curious coincidences than chaises driving
to the same point of destination, and the persons in the carriages
leaving them there? Have juries ever been satisfied that such
coincidences should lead to proving a connection with plots in other
respects dissimilar?
Gentlemen, it is upon these grounds, therefore, I submit to you, these
three defendants are not guilty of the offence charged upon this record.
I shall trouble you with no witnesses;--there is nothing for me to
repel. If I am right in my notion of the law;--if I am right in the
persuasion that you can see nothing in the evidence connecting the two
plots together;--and if my opinion of the law is sanctioned by my Lord,
when he shall address himself to you, there is nothing I have to answer
for. It is out of my power to prove, by any evidence, that these three
persons were not connected with any of the other defendants upon the
record; such a negative as that I can never establish, and therefore I
can have no proofs.
Gentlemen, such is the situation in which the three gentlemen for whom I
appear stand. I have expressed my sentiments upon the subject as shortly
as I could. It is undoubtedly a great misfortune to my learned friends,
as well as myself, that we should have been called upon to make our
defences, when both you and we are so much exhausted.
There is but one other circumstance for me to mention, it is but a
slight one;--the person who came up from Dover appears to have paid all
his post-chaise drivers in foreign coin; there is no pretence for saying
that any thing was paid by my clients but in Bank of England notes;
there is nothing in that respect, therefore, connecting these two
parties together; and if they are not connected together, I trust you
will find Mr. Holloway, Mr. Sandom, and Mr. Lyte, not guilty of this
charge.
_Lord Ellenborough._ Gentlemen of the Jury; It appears to me this would
be the most convenient time for dividing the cause, as the evidence will
occupy considerable time, probably. I cannot expect your attendance
before ten o'clock.
_It being now three o'clock on Thursday morning, the Court adjourned to
ten o'clock._
Court of King's Bench, Guildhall.
_Thursday, 9 June 1814._
The Court met, pursuant to Adjournment.