THE TICHBORNE CASE.
[The greatest of all chapters in the life of Mr. Hawkins was the
prosecution of the impostor Arthur Orton for perjury, and yet the
story of the Tichborne case is one of the simplest and most romantic.
The heir to the Tichborne baronetcy and estates was shipwrecked while
on board the _Bella_ and drowned in 1854. In 1865 a butcher at Wagga
Wagga in Australia assumed the title and claimed the estates. But the
story is not related in these reminiscences on account of its romantic
incidents, but as an incident in the life of Lord Brampton. It is so
great that there is nothing in the annals of our ordinary courts of
justice comparable with it, either in its magnitude or its advocacy. I
speak particularly of the trial for perjury, in which Mr. Hawkins led
for the prosecution, and not of the preceding trial, in which he was
junior to Sir John Coleridge.
It is impossible to give more than the _points_ of this strange story
as they were made, and the real _facts_ as they were elicited in
cross-examination and pieced together in his opening speech and his
reply in the case for the Crown. What rendered the task the
more difficult was that his predecessors had so bungled the
cross-examination in many ways that they not only had not elicited
what they might have done, but actually, by many questions, furnished
information to the Claimant which enabled him to carry on his
imposture.]
The Tichborne trials demand a few words by way of introduction, for
although there were two trials, they were of a different character,
the first being an ordinary action of ejectment in which the Claimant
sought to dispossess the youthful heir, whose title he had already
assumed, under circumstances of the most extraordinary nature.
The action of ejectment was tried before Chief Justice Bovill at the
Common Pleas, Westminster. Ballantine and Giffard (now Lord Halsbury)
led for the plaintiff, the butcher, while on behalf of the trustees
of the estate (that is, the real heir) were the Solicitor-General
Coleridge, myself, Bowen (afterwards Lord Bowen), and Chapman Barber,
an _equity_ counsel.
I must explain how it was that I, having been retained to lead
Coleridge, was afterwards compelled to be led by him; and it is an
interesting event in the history of the Bar as well as of the Judicial
Bench.
The action was really a Western Circuit case, although the venue
was laid in London. Coleridge led that circuit and was retained. I
belonged to the Home Circuit, and had no idea of being engaged at
all for that side. I had been retained for the Claimant, but the
solicitor, with great kindness, withdrew his retainer at my request.
I was brought into the case for the purpose of leading, and no other;
but by the appointment of Coleridge to the Solicitor-Generalship in
1868, I was displaced, and Coleridge ultimately led. His
further elevation happened in this way: Sir Robert Collier was
Attorney-General, and it was desired to give him a high appointment
which at that moment was vacant, and could only be filled by a Judge
of the High Court. Collier was not a Judge, and therefore was not
eligible for the post. The question was how to make him eligible.
The Prime Minister of the day was not to be baffled by a mere
technicality, and he could soon make the Attorney-General a Judge of
the High Court if that was a condition precedent.
There was immediately a vacancy on the Bench; Collier was appointed to
the judgeship, and in three days had acquired all the experience
that the Act of Parliament anticipated as necessary for the higher
appointment in the Privy Council.
Instead of leading, therefore, in the case before Chief Justice
Bovill, I had to perform whatever duties Coleridge assigned to me. My
commanding position was gone, and it was no longer presumable that I
should be entrusted with the cross-examination of the plaintiff. I was
bound to obey orders and cross-examine whomsoever I was allowed to.
[The one thing Mr. Hawkins was retained for was the cross-examination
of the plaintiff. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn said, "I would have
given a thousand pounds to cross-examine him." It would have been an
excellent investment of the Tichborne family to have given Hawkins ten
thousand pounds to do so, for I am sure there would have been an end
of the case as soon as he got to Wapping.
Coleridge acknowledged that the Claimant cross-examined him instead of
his cross-examining the Claimant.
When that shrewd and cunning impostor was asked, "Would you be
surprised to hear this or that?" "No," said he, "I should be surprised
at nothing after this long time and the troubles I have been through;
but, now that you call my attention to it, I remember it all perfectly
well." Coleridge said: "I am leader by an accident." "Yes," said
Hawkins, "a colliery accident."]
I had also been retained by the trustees of the Doughty estate. Lady
Doughty was an aunt of Sir Roger Tichborne, and it was her daughter
Kate whom the heir desired to marry. Had the Claimant succeeded in the
first case, he would have brought an action against her also.
No copy of the proceedings had been supplied to me, and I was informed
that at this preliminary cross-examination they would not require my
assistance; that their learned Chancery barrister was merely going
to cross-examine the Claimant on his affidavits--a matter of small
consequence. So it was in one way, but of immeasurable importance
in many other ways. But they said _I might like to hear the
cross-examination as a matter of curiosity_.
I did.
The Claimant had it all his own way. I was powerless to lend any
assistance; but had I been instructed, I am perfectly sure I could
then and there have extinguished the case, for the Claimant at
that time knew absolutely nothing of the life and history of Roger
Tichborne.
So the case proceeded, with costs piled on costs; information picked
up, especially by means of interminable preliminary proceedings, until
the impostor was left master of the situation, to the gratification of
fools and the hopes of fanatics.
I was, however, allowed in the trial to cross-examine some witnesses.
Amongst them was a man of the name of Baigent, the historian of the
family, who knew more of the Tichbornes than they knew of themselves.
The cross-examination of Baigent, which did more than anything to
destroy the Claimant's case, occupied ten days. He was the real
Roger's old friend, and knew him up to the time of his leaving England
never to return. I drew from him the confession that he did not
believe he was alive, but that he had encouraged the Dowager Lady
Tichborne to believe that the Claimant was her son; and that her
garden was lighted night after night with Chinese lanterns in
expectation of his coming.
Admissions were also obtained that when he saw the Claimant at
Alresford Station neither knew the other, although Baigent had never
altered in the least, as he alleged.
There was another witness allotted to me, and that was Carter, an old
servant of Roger whilst he was in the Carabineers. This man supplied
the plaintiff with information as to what occurred in the regiment
while Roger belonged to it; but he only knew what was known to the
whole regiment. He did _not_ know private matters which took place at
the officers' mess, and it was upon these that my cross-examination
showed the Claimant to be an impostor. I "had him there."
As Parry and I were sitting one morning waiting for the Judges, I
remarked on the subject of the counsel chosen for the prosecution:
"Suppose, Parry, you and I had been Solicitor and Attorney-General, in
the circumstances what should we have done?"
"Plunged the country into a bloody war before now, I dare say," said
Parry, elevating his eyebrows and wig at the same time.
I confess when I undertook the responsibility of this great trial
I was not aware of the immense labour and responsibility it would
involve; nor do I believe any one had the smallest notion of the
magnitude of the task.
Instead of the work diminishing as we proceeded, it increased day by
day, and week by week; one set of witnesses entailed the calling
of another set. The case grew in difficulty and extent. It seemed
absolutely endless and hopeless.
Within a few weeks of the start, a necessity arose for procuring the
testimony of a witness from Australia, a matter of months; and the
trial being a criminal one, the defendant was entitled to have the
case for the prosecution concluded within a reasonable time. If we had
no evidence, it was to his advantage, and we had no right to detain
him for a year while we were trying to obtain it.
However, the Australian evidence came in time. Numbers of witnesses
had to be called who not only were not in our brief, but were never
dreamed of. For instance, there was the Danish perjurer Louie, who
swore he picked up the defendant at sea when the _Bella_ went down.
Instead of this man going away after he had given his evidence, he
remained until two gentlemen from the City, seeing his portrait in the
Stereoscopic Company's window in Regent Street, identified him as a
dishonest servant of theirs, who was undergoing a sentence of penal
servitude at the time he swore he picked Roger up. He received five
years' penal servitude for his evidence.
I had pledged myself to the task, which extended over many months more
than I ever anticipated. At every sacrifice, however, I was bound to
devote myself to the case, and did so, although I had to relinquish a
very large portion of my professional income.
What made things worse, there was not only no effort made to curtail
the business, but advantage was taken of every circumstance to prolong
it. The longer it was dragged out the better chance there was of an
acquittal. Had a juryman died after months of the trial had passed,
the Government must have abandoned the prosecution. It would have been
impossible to commence again. This was the last hope of the defence.
[The trial before Bovill ended at last, as it ought to have done
months before, in a verdict for the defendants and the order for the
prosecution of the Claimant for perjury. It was this prosecution that
occupied the attention of the court and of the world for 188 days,
extending over portions of two years.
There is no doubt that Coleridge would a second time have deprived
the country of Mr. Hawkins's services, but higher influences than his
prevailed, and the distinguished counsel was appointed to lead for the
Crown, with Mr. Serjeant Parry as his leading junior. It is not too
much to say that no one knew the case so well as Mr. Hawkins, and none
could have done it so well. Bowen and Mathews were also his juniors.
The whole case, from the commencement of the Chancery proceedings down
to the commencement of this trial, had been a comedy of blunders. The
very claim was an absurdity, every step in the great fraud was an
absurdity, and every proceeding had some ridiculous absurdity to
accompany it. It was not until the cross-examination of Baigent by Mr.
Hawkins that the undoubted truth began to appear.
"You are the first," said Baron Bramwell, "who has let daylight into
the case." It will be seen presently what the simple story was which
the learned counsel at last evolved from the lies and half-truths
which had for so many years imposed upon a great number even of the
intelligent and educated classes of the community. And I would observe
that until nearly the end of the trial the case was never safe or
quite free from doubt; it was only what was elicited by Mr. Hawkins
that made it so. No Wonder the advocate said to Giffard, who was
opposed to him on the first trial: "If you and I had been together
in that case in the first instance, we should have won it for the
Claimant." Being on the other side, this is how the case stood when he
had completed it:--
The real heir to the family was a fairly well-formed, slender youth of
medium height. The personator of this youth was a man an inch and a
half or two inches taller, and weighing five-and-twenty stone. His
hands were a great deal larger than those of Roger, and at least an
inch longer; his feet were an inch and a half longer. He was broader,
deeper, thicker, and altogether of a different build. The lobes of his
ears, instead of being pendent like Roger's, adhered to his cheeks.
But he was not more unlike in physical outline than in mental
endowment, taste, character, pursuits, and sentiment, in manners and
habits, in culture and education, connection and recollection.
Roger had been educated at Stonyhurst, with the education of a
gentleman; this man had never had any education at all. Roger had
moved in the best English society; this man amongst slaughtermen,
bushrangers, thieves, and highwaymen. Roger had been engaged to a
young lady, his cousin, Kate Doughty; this man had been engaged to a
young woman of Wapping, of the name of Mary Ann Loader, a respectable
girl in his own sphere of life.
Roger's engagement to this young lady, his cousin, was disapproved of
by the Tichborne family, and was the cause of his leaving England. But
before he went he gave her a writing, and deposited a copy of it with
Mr. Gosford, the legal adviser of the family.
This document was one of the most important incidents in the history
of the case, and upon it, if the cross-examination had been conducted
by Mr. Hawkins in Chancery, the case would have been crushed at the
outset. It is not my task to show how, but to state what it all came
to when the learned counsel left it to the jury to say whether the
claimant _was_ the Roger Tichborne he had sworn himself to be, or
whether he was Arthur Orton, the butcher of Wapping, whom he swore he
was not.
This document forms the subject of the "sealed packet" left with Mr.
Gosford, and contained in effect these words: "If God spares me to
return and marry my beloved Kate within a year, I promise to build a
church and dedicate it to my patron saint."
Till his cross-examination in Chancery he had never heard of this
packet, and when he was informed of it his solicitor naturally
demanded a copy. Gosford had destroyed the original, and of course
there was no end of capital out of it; a concocted original was made,
which was to the effect that this gentleman, "so like Roger," _had
seduced his cousin_, and that if she proved to be _enceinte_, Gosford
was to take care of her. Luckily "Kate Doughty" had her original
preserved with sacred affection. But such was the memory of this man's
early life, contrasted with what _would_ have been the memory of Sir
Roger Tichborne.
He did not recollect being "at Stonyhurst, but said positively he was
at Winchester, where certainly Roger never was. He did not remember
his mother's Christian names, and could not write his own.
He came to England to see his mother, and then would not go to her;
she went to see him, and he got on to the bed and turned his face to
the wall. She did not see his face, but recognized him by his ears,
because they were like his uncle's, then ordered the servant to undo
his braces for fear he should choke.
Such a piece as this on the stage would not have lasted one night;
in real life it had a run for many years. But then there never was a
rogue that some fool would not believe in. How else was it possible
that millions believed in this man, who had forgotten the religion he
had been brought up in, and was married by a Wesleyan minister at a
Wesleyan church, he being, as his mother informed him, a strict Roman
Catholic from his birth? However, he did his best to reform his error
by getting married again by a Roman priest, although he made another
blunder, and forgetting he was Sir Roger Tichborne, married as Arthur
Orton, the son of the Wapping butcher. When his dear mother reminded
him of his being a Catholic, he wrote and thanked her for the
information, and hoped the Blessed Maria would take care of her for
evermore, little dreaming that the "Black Maria" would one day take
particularly good care of himself.
So that he forgot the place of his birth, the seat of his ancestors,
the friends of his youth, the face, features, and form of his mother,
his education and religion, his brother officers in the regiment, the
regiment itself, and the position he occupied, thinking he had been a
private for fifteen days instead of a painstaking, studious, diligent
officer, who was beloved by his fellows. He had forgotten all his
neighbours, servants, dependants, as well as the family solicitor who
made his will and was appointed his executor. He forgot his life in
Paris, the village church of his ancestral seat--nay, the ancestral
seat itself--and the very road that led to it. He forgot his old
friend and historian, who swore he had never altered the least in
appearance since Roger left--historian and picture-cleaner to the
family. In short, there was not one single thing in the life of Roger
that he knew. He forgot what any but a born fool would remember while
he was in poverty and bankruptcy for a couple of hundred pounds; the
real Roger had written home on hearing of the death of his uncle, from
whom he derived his title and estates, saying, "Pray go to Messrs.
Glyn's and exchange my letter of credit for £2,000 for three years for
one for £3,000."
Imagine a man forgetting he had £3,000 a year and an estate in England
worth £30,000, and earning his bread in a slaughter-house and in the
Bush, borrowing money from a poor woman and running away with it.
But now another singular thing stamps this fraudulent impostor who
makes so many believe in him. He, alleged by his supporters to be Sir
Roger Tichborne, recollected all about a place that he had never been
to; people he had never heard of, far less seen; events that he could
_not_ know and which never happened to him, but did happen to Arthur
Orton. He knew Wapping well--every inch of it; Old Charles Orton, the
father of Arthur; Charles Orton the brother, the sisters, the people
who kept this shop and that; so that when on his return to England he
went to the Wapping seat of his ancestors instead of Ashford, he asked
all about them, and reminded them so faithfully of the little events
of Arthur's boyhood, and resembled that person so much in the face,
that they said, "Why, you are Arthur Orton yourself!" True, he paid
some of them to swear he was not, but the impression remained.
Mr. Hawkins told the jury how he picked up his second-hand knowledge
of the things he spoke about concerning the Tichbornes, for it was
necessary to be able to answer a good many questions wherever he went,
especially when he went into the witness-box.
There was an old black servant, quite black, who had been a valet in
the Tichborne family. His name was Bogle; and the Claimant was told by
the poor old dowager that if he could meet with him, Bogle could tell
him a good many things about himself.
Bogle was an excellent diplomatist, and no sooner heard from Lady
Tichborne that her son Roger was in Australia than the two began to
look for one another, the one as black inside as the other was out.
Bogle announced that he was the man before he saw him, on the mother's
recommendation, and became and was to the end one of his principal
supporters--so much so that "Old Bogle" spread the Claimant's
knowledge of the Tichbornes abroad, and, like everybody else, believed
in him because he knew so much which he could not have known unless he
had been the veritable Roger, all which Bogle had told him.
But in the interests of justice "Old Bogle" and Mr. Hawkins became
acquainted, much to the advantage of the latter, as he happened to
meet Bogle in the witness-box, a place where the counsel unravelled
the trickster's most subtle of designs. The advocate liked "Old
Bogle," as he called him, because, said he, Bogle, having white hair,
was so like a Malacca cane with a silver knob, white at the top and
black below.
Bogle had sworn that Roger had no tattoo marks when he left England.
In point of fact he had, and Bogle had to fit them to the Claimant,
who had had tattoo marks of a very different kind from Roger's. The
Claimant had removed his, and therefore was presented to the court
without any.
"How do you know Roger had no tattoo marks?" asked Mr. Hawkins.
"I saw his arms on three occasions." This was a serious answer for
Bogle.
"When and where, and under what circumstances?" followed in quick
succession, so that there was no escape. The witness said that Roger
had on a pair of black trousers tied round the waist, and his shirt
buttoned up.
"The sleeves, how were they?"
"Loose."
"How came you to see his naked arms?"
"He was rubbing one of them like this."
"What did he rub for?"
"I thought he'd got a flea."
"Did you see it?"
"No, of course."
"Where was it?"
"Just there."
"What time was this?"
"Ten minutes past eleven."
"That's the first occasion; come to the second."
"Just the same," says Bogle.
"Same time?"
"Yes."
"Did he always put his hand inside his sleeve to rub?"
"I don't know."
"But I want to know."
"If your shirt was unbuttoned, Mr. Hawkins, and you was rubbin' your
arm, you would draw up your sleeve--"
"Never mind what I should do; I want to know what you saw."
"The same as before," answers Bogle angrily.
"A flea?"
"I suppose."
"But did you see him, Bogle?"
"I told you, Mr. Hawkins, I did not."
"Excuse me, that was on the first occasion."
"Well, this was the same."
"Same flea?"
"I suppose."
"Same time--ten minutes past eleven?"
"Yes."
"Then all I can say is, he must have been a very punctual old flea."
Exit Bogle, and with him his evidence.
After the trial had been proceeding for some time, Baigent was giving
evidence of the family pedigree.
Honeyman whispered, "We might as well have the first chapter of
Genesis and read that."
"Genesis!" said Hawkins; "I want to get to the last chapter of
Revelation."
One day Mr. J.L. Toole came in, and was invited to sit next to Mr.
Hawkins, which he did.
At the adjournment for luncheon the Claimant muttered as they passed
along, "There's Toole come to learn actin' from 'Arry Orkins."
There was one witness who ought not to be forgotten. It was Mr.
Biddulph, a relation of the Tichborne family, a good-natured, amiable
man, willing to oblige any one, and a county magistrate--"one of
the most amiable county magistrates I have ever met, a man of the
strictest honour and unimpeachable integrity."
He had been asked by the dowager lady to recognize her son.
"I don't see how I can," said he. "I am willing to oblige, but not at
the expense of truth. Better get some one else who knew him better
than I did. This man bears no resemblance to the man I knew. I cannot
do it." And so he resisted all entreaties with that firmness of
purpose for which he was remarkable.
"He was then invited," said Mr. Hawkins, "to a little dinner at
another supporter of the Claimant's, and one somewhat shrewder than
the rest." The Claimant described this party as consisting of a county
magistrate, a money-lender, a lawyer, and a humbug.
This is how the advocate dealt with this little party in his address
to the jury:--
"Gentlemen, can't you imagine the scene? Perkins, the lawyer, says
to Biddulph, 'Come, now, Mr. Biddulph, you know you have had great
experience in cross-examining as a county magistrate at Petty
Sessions; now, cross-examine this man _firmly_, and you'll soon find
he knows more than you think. If he's not the man, he's nobody else,
you may be quite sure of that. But first of all,' says Perkins, 'what
did you know of Roger? That's the first thing; let's start with that.'
"'Oh, not very much,' says Biddulph. 'He stayed at Bath once for a
fortnight, while his mother was there.'
"'Pass Mr. Biddulph the champagne,' says Perkins. (Laughter.)
"'Now,' he adds, 'how did you amuse yourselves, eh?'
"'Well,' says Biddulph, 'we used to smoke together at the
hotel--the--the--White something it was called.'
"'Did you smoke pipes or cigars?'
"'Well, I remember we had some curious pipes.'
"'Another glass of champagne for Mr. Biddulph,' (More laughter.) 'What
sort of pipes?' asks the Claimant; 'death's-head pipes?'
"The magistrate remembered, opened his eyes, and lifted his hands.
Thus the amiable magistrate was convinced, although he said, candidly
enough, 'I did not recognize him by his features, walk, voice, or
twitch in his eye, but I was struck with his recollection of having
met me at Bath.' The death's-head pipes settled him.
"As for Miss Brain the governess, she was of a different order from
Mr. Biddulph. She told us she had listened to the defendant when he
solemnly swore that he had seduced her former pupil, that he had
stood in the dock for horse-stealing, and had been the associate of
highwaymen and bushrangers, and had made a will for the purpose of
fraud; and yet this woman took him by the hand, and was not ashamed of
his companionship. His counsel described her as a ministering angel.
Heaven defend me from ministering angels if Miss Brain is one!"
The Claimant, while in Australia, being asked what kind of lady his
mother (the dowager Lady Tichborne) was, answered, "Oh, a very stout
lady; and that is the reason I am so fond of Mrs. Butts of the
Metropolitan Hotel, she being a tall, stout, and buxom woman; and like
Mrs. Mina Jury (of Wapping), because she was like my mother."
A witness of the name of Coyne was called to give evidence of the
recognition of the Claimant by the mother in Paris, and the solicitor
said to Coyne, "You see how she recognizes him."
"Yes," said Coyne; "he's lucky."
There was no cross-examination, and Mr. Hawkins said to the jury,
"They need not cross-examine unless they like; it's a free country.
They may leave this man's account unquestioned if they like, but if it
is a true account, what do you say to the recognition?"
Louie, the Dane, said that while the Claimant was on board his ship he
amused himself by picking oakum and reading "The Garden of the Soul."
There were several _Ospreys_ spoken to as having picked up the
Claimant after the wreck of the _Bella_, and the defendant had not the
least idea which one was the best to carry him safely into harbour.
The defendant's counsel, notwithstanding, had told the jury that he,
Hawkins, had not ventured to contradict one or other of the stories of
the wreck, and had not called the captain of the _Osprey_ which had
picked him up.
Comment on such a proposition in advocacy would be ridiculous. Mr.
Hawkins dealt with it by an example which the reader will remember as
having occurred in his early days:--
"'We don't know which _Osprey_ you mean.' 'Take any one,' says the
defendant's counsel, reminding me of the defence of a man charged with
stealing a duck, and having given seven different accounts as to how
he became possessed of it, his counsel was at last asked which he
relied on. 'Oh, never mind which,' he answered; 'I shall be much
obliged if the jury will adopt any one of them.'
"You remember, gentlemen, the touching words in which the defendant's
counsel spoke of Bogle: 'He is one of those negroes,' said he,
'described by the author of "Paul and Virginia," who are faithful to
the death, true as gold itself. If ever a witness of truth came into
the box, that witness was Bogle.'
"Well, you have seen him--Old Bogle! What do you think of him? Was
there ever a better specimen of feigned simplicity than he? 'Bogle,'
cries the defendant, after all those years of estrangement, 'is that
_you_?' 'Yes, Sir Roger,' answered Bogle; how do you do?'
"'Do you remember giving me a pipe o' baccy?' asks a poor country
greenhorn down at Alresford. 'Yes,' answers the Claimant. 'Then
you're the man,' says the greenhorn. Such was the way evidence was
manufactured.
"A poor lady--you remember Mrs. Stubbs--had a picture of her
great-great-grandfather's great-grandfather. In goes the Claimant, and
in his artful manner shows his childhood's memory. 'Ah, Mrs. Stubbs,'
says he, looking at another picture, 'that is not the _old_ picture,
is it?' (Somebody had put him up to this.) No, sir,' cries Mrs.
Stubbs, delighted with his recollection--'no, sir; but please to walk
this way into my parlour,' And there, sure enough, was the picture he
had been told to ask for.
"'Ah!' he exclaims, 'there it is; there's the old picture!'
"How could Mrs. Stubbs disbelieve her own senses?"
One, Sir Walter Strickland, declined to see the Claimant and be
misled, and was roundly abused by the defendant's counsel. One of
the jury asked if _he was still alive_. "Yes," said the Lord Chief
Justice, although the defendant expressed a hope that they would all
die who did not recognize him....
"In a letter to Rous, my lord, where he said, 'I see I have one enemy
the less in Harris's death. Captain Strickland, who made himself so
great on the other side, went to stay at Stonyhurst with his
brother, and died there. He called on me a week before and abused me
shamefully. So will all go some day'--this," said Mr. Hawkins, "was
not exhibiting the same Christian spirit which he showed when he said,
'God help those poor _purgured_ sailors!'"
"Why should the defendant," asked Mr. Hawkins at the close of one
of the day's speeches, "if he were Sir Roger, avoid Arthur Orton's
sisters? Why, would he not have said, 'They will be glad indeed to
see me, and hear me tell them about the camp-fire under the canopy of
heaven,' as his counsel put it, 'where their brother Arthur told me
all about Fergusson, the old pilot of the Dundee boat, who kept the
public-house at Wapping, and the Shetland ponies of Wapping, and
the Shottles of the Nook at Wapping, and wished me to ask who kept
Wright's public-house now, and about the Cronins, and Mrs. MacFarlane
of the Globe--all of Wapping.'"
The Judges fell back with laughter, and the curtain came down, for
these were the questions with many more the Claimant asked on the
evening of his landing.
"I shall attack the noble army of Carabineers," said Mr. Hawkins on
another occasion. He did so, and conquered the regiment in detail.
One old Carabineer was librarian at the Westminster Hospital. His name
was Manton, and he was a sergeant. He told Baigent something that had
happened while Roger was his officer, and Baigent told the Claimant.
Manton afterwards saw the huge man, and failed to recognize him in any
way. But when the Claimant repeated to him what he had told Baigent,
Manton opened his eyes. This looked like proof of his being the man.
He was struck with his marvellous recollection, and was at once pinned
down to an affidavit:--
"The Claimant's voice is stronger, and has less foreign accent,"
he swore; "but I recognized his voice, and found his tone and
pronunciation to be _the same as Roger Tichborne's_, whom I knew as an
officer."
Truly an affidavit is a powerful auxiliary in fraud.
While Mr. Hawkins was replying one afternoon, Mr. Whalley, M.P., came
in and sat next to the Claimant. He was from the first one of his most
enthusiastic supporters.
"Well," he said, "and how are we getting on to-day? How are we getting
on, eh?"
"Getting on!" growled the Claimant; "he's been going on at a pretty
rate, and if he goes on much longer I shall begin to think I am Arthur
Orton after all."
I will conclude this chapter with the following reminiscences by Lord
Brampton himself.]
* * * * *
I had a great deal to put up with from day to day in many ways during
this prolonged investigation. The Lord Chief Justice, Cockburn,
although good, was a little impatient, and hard to please at times.
My opponent sought day by day some cause of quarrel with me. At times
he was most insulting, and grew almost hourly worse, until I was
compelled, in order to stop his insults, to declare openly that I
would never speak to him again on this side the grave, and I never
did. My life was made miserable, and what ought to have been a quiet
and orderly performance was rendered a continual scene of bickering
and conflict, too often about the most trifling matters.
With every one else I got on happily and agreeably, my juniors loyally
doing their very utmost to render me every assistance and lighten my
burden.
Even the Claimant himself not only gave me no offence from first to
last, but was at times in his manner very amusing, and preserved his
natural good temper admirably, considering what he had at stake on
the issue of the trial, and remembering also that that issue devolved
mainly upon my own personal exertions.
Nor was the Claimant devoid of humour. On the contrary, he was
plentifully endowed with it.
One morning on his going into court an elderly lady dressed in deep
mourning presented him with a religious tract. He thanked her, went
to his seat, and perused the document. Then he wrote something on the
tract, carefully revised what he had written, and threw it on the
floor.
The usher was watching these proceedings, and, as soon as he could do
so unobserved, secured the paper and handed it to me.
The tract was headed, "Sinner, Repent!"
The Claimant had written on it, "Surely this must have been meant for
Orkins, not for me!"
Louie's story of picking him up in the boat must have amused him
greatly. If he was amused at the ease with which fools can be
humbugged, he must also have been astounded at the awful villainy of
those who, perfect strangers to him, had perjured themselves for the
sake of notoriety.
I did what I could to shorten the proceedings. My opening speech was
confined to six days, as compared with twenty-eight on the other side;
my reply to nine. But that reply was a labour fearful to look back
upon. The mere classification of the evidence was a momentous and
necessary task. It had to be gathered from the four quarters of the
world. It had to be sifted, winnowed, and arranged in order as
a perfect whole before the true story could be evolved from the
complications and entanglements with which it was surrounded.
And when I rose to reply, to perform my last work and make my last
effort for the success of my cause, I felt as one about to plunge into
a boundless ocean with the certain knowledge that everything depended
upon my own unaided efforts as to whether I should sink or swim.
Happily, for the cause of justice, I succeeded; and at the end,
although nattering words of approval and commendation poured upon
me from all sides, from the highest to the humblest, I did Hot
then realize their value to the extent that I did afterwards. The
excitement and the exertion had been too great for anything to add to
it.
But I afterwards remembered--ay, and can never forget--the words of
the Lord Chief Justice himself, the first to appreciate and applaud,
as I was passing near him in leaving the court: "Bravo! Bravo,
Hawkins!" And then he added, "I have not heard a piece of oratory like
that for many a long day!" And he patted me cordially on the back as
he looked at me with, I believe, the sincerest appreciation.
Lord Chelmsford, too, who years before had given me my silk gown, was
on the Bench on this last day, and I shall never forget the compliment
he paid me on my speech. It was of itself worth all the trouble and
anxiety I had undergone.
Beyond all this, and more gratifying even still, my speech was liked
by the Bar, from the most eminent to the briefless.
But greatest of all events in that eventful day was one which went
deeper to my feelings. My old father, who had taken so strong a view
against my going to the Bar, and who told me so mournfully that after
five years I must sink or swim; my old father, who had never once seen
me in my wig and gown from that day to this, the almost closing scene
in my forensic career, came into court and sat by my side when I made
successfully the greatest effort of my life.