_Mr. Park._ No, I have no means of doing that.
_Mr. Gurney._ I beg to call Mr. Murray, to put one question to him, in contradiction to Smith?
_Lord Ellenborough._ If that question occasions a reply that will throw us into the night; if you think this case of alibi requires a serious answer, you will of course give it; but I think you would disparage the Jury by doing so.
_Mr. Gurney._ I will not call him, my Lord.
_Lord Ellenborough._ Do not let me supersede your discretion, if you think there is any use in having your witness.
_Mr. Gurney._ No, my Lord, I am quite content with the case as it stands.
REPLY.
Mr. GURNEY.
May it please your Lordship;
Gentlemen of the Jury,
It is now my duty to make a few observations in reply on this momentous cause; and, I a.s.sure you, that I rise to the discharge of that duty with feelings of no ordinary nature. It is a duty in which it is impossible to feel pleasure; for every gentleman must feel degraded in the degradation of a gentleman, and every Englishman must feel mortified in the disgrace of a man whose name is a.s.sociated with the naval or military glories of his country. But we are here to try these defendants by their actions; and whatever their conduct may have been in other respects, by those actions must they stand or fall. By the actions of these defendants, as respecting the matters charged by this indictment, you are now called upon to p.r.o.nounce upon all the evidence that you have heard, whether they are innocent or guilty.
Gentlemen, if in the outset of this case I addressed you with confidence, as to the result, I address you now with confidence, increased ten-fold, when I recollect the arguments by which these defendants have been defended; when I recollect the evidence which _has_ been adduced in their defence, and when I recollect too the evidence which has _not_ been adduced in their defence; the first, as it appears to me totally failing, in making out a case of innocence; and the two latter concluding to their guilt.
Gentlemen, as it is the smallest part of the case, I will take up that part upon which you were addressed last this morning, by my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Pell, which has been denominated in this transaction the underplot. My learned friend endeavoured, with great ability and ingenuity, to persuade you, that the transactions which have been brought before you, did not const.i.tute one plot, consisting of two parts; but two separate and distinct plots, two conspiracies totally unconnected with each other. And my learned friend concluded very properly, that if he could convince you of that, he should ent.i.tle his own clients to an acquittal on this indictment.
Gentlemen, if there were two conspiracies, then miracles have not ceased; for unless you can believe, that a most extraordinary miracle has occurred, it is quite impossible to conceive that there were two plots. It is not necessary in a conspiracy, that every party should know every other party in the conspiracy; it is not requisite that he should be acquainted with all the dramatis personae, and the character a.s.signed to each; it is enough if they engage in the general plan to forward the same general end, and each takes the part which is a.s.signed him to the furtherance of that end. Now, gentlemen, look at the whole of the case, and see whether it is possible to believe, that these persons who came in the second post-chaise from Northfleet to London, were not cognizant of part of the plan, at least, if they were not of the whole, and that they were not aiding in the general conspiracy, to give a temporary rise to the funds on the 21st of February. That they afforded very material a.s.sistance in the completion of that purpose, is proved to demonstration. Independent of the facts, we have their own testimony against themselves, which is quite conclusive. Ask M"Rae, whether the plot was one or whether it was two? M"Rae was ready to come forward, and to impeach _all_ the parties who were concerned in the conspiracy. Did he not, therefore, know the _whole_? When Mr. Cochrane Johnstone proffered him as a person who should betray the _whole_, and inform against _all_ the parties conspiring. Are we to be told, that Mr.
Cochrane Johnstone thought he knew a _part_ only instead of the _whole_?
Was Mr. Cochrane Johnstone meditating a second fraud upon the Stock Exchange? Was he endeavouring to get another .10,000 out of them, by tendering them a witness, under pretence of his disclosing the _whole_, when he had it in his power to disclose no more than they already knew?
Gentlemen, M"Rae has been surrendered by my learned friend Mr. Alley, who never deserts his client if he can render him any service. No advocate is more zealous for his clients; yet my learned friend felt the proof given so irresistible, that he should be disgracing himself, if he stood up to ask you to disbelieve that proof, or even to hesitate about it, and he surrendered his client at once. Mr. M"Rae then stands here confessedly guilty of this conspiracy. Mr. M"Rae, who on the 15th of February had been proposing to Vinn the same plot, which was executed by De Berenger on the 21st. You find his companions in the post chaise were Sandom and Lyte, and their employer, by his own acknowledgment, the defendant Holloway. What can you wish more to prove that they were all engaged in this transaction? Mr. Serjeant Pell says, you must take Holloway"s confession altogether; and because he declares, that he was not concerned with the Cochranes and b.u.t.t, you are to take that to be the fact.--Gentlemen, I do not a.s.sent to that doctrine, that when a defendant makes a confession, you are to take all the circ.u.mstances he alleges in his own favor, at the same time that you take those which are against him. Mr. Holloway came to propitiate the Stock Exchange committee; he came to ask them not to prosecute him. He could not have asked for that forbearance, if he had confessed a partic.i.p.ation with De Berenger and the Cochranes. The only chance he had, therefore, was to deny his having any part in that plot, which, he knew, they were most anxious to unravel. But taking the whole of the case together, I think that it is impossible for you to entertain the smallest doubt upon this part of the subject.
I come therefore, gentlemen, to the other part of the case, upon which, after the great length of time which you have employed upon this case, and the fatigue you have undergone, I will not trespa.s.s upon you long.
Gentlemen, this part of the case branches itself into three or four heads, upon each of which I must make a few observations.
My learned friend, Mr. Serjeant Best, addressed you at considerable length upon the subject of the stock transactions of his three clients, Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, and Mr. b.u.t.t; and he argued, that because it appeared not by any accounts which he put in, in addition to mine, but by the accounts which I gave in evidence, that these parties had been large dealers in consols and omnium, and had had large balances previous to the 21st of February; that therefore you were to believe, that they had on that day no possible interest to commit this fraud.
That because they had had on a former day a larger balance, they could have no possible inducement to the commission of this crime. Gentlemen, observe the amount of the balance on that day, it was in omnium and consols very nearly a million. Reduced to consols it amounts to .1,600,000. Then attend to the evidence of Mr. Baily, who tells you that the fluctuation of one-eighth was a gain or loss of two thousand pounds. Though they had been both buying and selling, yet their purchases had been much larger than their sales, and their attempts to purchase larger than their actual purchases. On Sat.u.r.day the 19th, Mr.
b.u.t.t had endeavoured to purchase one hundred and fifty thousand, and actually purchased fifty thousand. On this Monday, the 21st, all the three have this immense quant.i.ty of stock upon their hands; they have no means of getting rid of it, for Mr. Baily has told you, that but for this fraudulent transaction, it would have been impossible to have got rid of it, but at a great loss. They had been buying as a person must do, to keep up the market, to redeem himself from loss; and on this memorable day, all this stock is sold, it is sold at a profit of upwards of ten thousand pounds; and if it had been sold without a profit of one single farthing, still the getting out without a great loss, was to them very great gain.
Recollect gentlemen, that just one month afterwards came the news of the rupture of the negotiation at Chatillon, when the premium on omnium fell from 28 to 12 per cent.; if that news had come instead of this false news, on the morning of the 21st of February, the loss of these three defendants, would have been upwards of one hundred and sixty thousand pounds. These persons, therefore, were so involved, that ruin stared them in the face, and when they were in this situation, they did as I allege, and as I maintain I have proved by evidence perfectly irresistible, engage in this conspiracy, to give this fraudulent rise to the funds by this false news; and the moment the object had been attained of the rise of the funds, that moment all the stock was sold, and sold to the profit that I have proved. So much for these several stock transactions, which supply the corrupt motive by which these defendants were instigated to the commission of this crime.
Then, Gentlemen, we come to that which is a very important part, and indeed a main part of this case, _the ident.i.ty of Mr. De Berenger_; that ident.i.ty, including the question of hand-writing. Upon this subject we have had, for the last two hours, the evidence which has nauseated every man in Court; the evidence of the alibi, which no man living can believe; in which no two witnesses agree; in which we have contradiction after contradiction from every one of them. My learned friend, Mr. Park, last night told us we should have the evidence of two watermen, who had rowed Mr. De Berenger across the Thames, who knew his person perfectly well, and who recollected the occurrence particularly, because it was the first Sunday after the frost had broken, and the river became navigable. I suppose the river is frozen again this morning as they are not here. Gentlemen, the interval of the night has made the advisers or manufacturers of this part of the case reflect upon it, and they have brought, instead of the two watermen from the river, the Irish ostler from Chelsea. Gentlemen, they who projected this alibi, did not attend to one circ.u.mstance, which cannot fail to have struck you long ago, namely; that this is a case perfectly una.s.sailable by alibi. Let it be supposed, that I had not identified Mr. De Berenger by the persons who saw him at Dover; by the persons who saw him on the road; by those who saw him get out of the chaise at the Marsh Gate, and get into a hackney coach; that I had not identified his countenance by any one of them, still his ident.i.ty is established beyond all contradiction, for knowing that an alibi would be attempted, I defeated it by antic.i.p.ation. I take up De Berenger at Dover as I would a bale of goods--I have delivered him from hand to hand from Dover to London--I have delivered him into the house of Lord Cochrane--and I have Lord Cochrane"s receipt acknowledging the delivery. You have, at the Ship at Dover, the person pretending to be Colonel Du Bourg, the aid de camp, in a grey military great coat, in a scarlet uniform embroidered with gold lace, and he has a star and a medallion. You have him traced from stage to stage, identified by the Napoleons with which he is rewarding his postillions; the first postillion delivers him to the second, the second to the third, and so on till he is landed in the house of Lord Cochrane. Who went into the house of Lord Cochrane? Ask Lord Cochrane. It was Mr. De Berenger, and it is not pretended that any other person entered that house in that dress, or any thing resembling it; and therefore if I had not any witness to speak to the ident.i.ty of the countenance of Mr. De Berenger, I have proved such a case as no alibi can shake. But add to that the evidence of ident.i.ty. I have had much experience in courts of justice, and much upon the subject of ident.i.ty, and I declare, I never in my life knew a case of ident.i.ty, by the view of countenance, so proved. The countenance of Mr. De Berenger is not a common one, a person who has observed it cannot have forgotten it. I do not call merely such persons as have seen him at the messenger"s, or in the court of King"s Bench, or anywhere else. I put the case to the severest test, calling witnesses who had not seen him since his apprehension, desiring them to survey the court, Mr. De Berenger sitting, as he has done, undistinguished from other persons, in no conspicuous situation, and you saw, how one after another, when their eyes glanced upon his face, recognised him in an instant as the person who had practised this fraud. Now, gentlemen, if this were not a case of misdemeanor, but a case in which the life of the party were to answer for the crime he had committed, I ask, whether many--many--many guilty men have not forfeited their lives upon infinitely less evidence than I have given as to the person of Mr. De Berenger?
Then if Mr. De Berenger was Colonel Du Bourg, what becomes of the question of hand-writing? The hand-writing of De Berenger to Du Bourg"s letter, was spoken to by Mr. Lavie, who had made particular observation on his hand-writing, having seen him write at the messenger"s. My learned friend, Mr. Park, says he should not know the hand-writing from an hour"s observation; perhaps not; but this was more than an hour"s observation; it was observation repeated more than once, and it was observation for the very purpose. The fact confirms the judgment of Mr.
Lavie. I ask, who sent the letter to Admiral Foley? The answer is, Mr.
De Berenger; whose hand writing is it? can you have any doubt that it is the hand-writing of the person who sent it? On this point, witnesses are called by De Berenger (one of them a most respectable witness, undoubtedly) to prove that this does not resemble his ordinary hand-writing. No, gentlemen, certainly not; he would not write in his usual hand. Lord Yarmouth says, the character is more angular than his usual hand. That would be the case, where a man is writing a feigned hand; but still that occurs here, which almost always does occur, a person so writing is very likely to betray himself just as he gets to the end, and when he comes to sign his name, the initials shall be so striking, as at once to excite the observation of such a man as Lord Yarmouth, and his lordship says, This R in the signature of R. Du Bourg certainly does very much resemble the R in the usual signature in C. R.
De Berenger; but, taking the evidence of ident.i.ty and that together, it is clear, that he was the person at Dover; that he was the person, therefore, who sent the letter to Admiral Foley; and the evidence of Mr.
Lavie is therefore so strongly confirmed, as far to outweigh all the evidence you have had on the other side respecting his hand-writing.
Then, gentlemen, we come a little further; my learned friends last night addressed you at great length, and with great earnestness, upon Lord Cochrane"s affidavit, and they requested you would not suppose Lord Cochrane was capable of making a false affidavit. Gentlemen, that Lord Cochrane would have been incapable of deliberately engaging in any thing so wicked some time ago, I am sure I as earnestly hope as I am desirous to believe; but you must see in what circ.u.mstances men are placed, when they do these things; Lord Cochrane had first found his way to the Stock Exchange, he had dealt largely in these speculations, which my learned friends have so liberally branded with the appellation of _infamous_; he had involved himself so deeply, that there was no way, but by this fraud of getting out of them; he had then got out of them in this way, and then he found, as guilty people always do, that he was involved still deeper; he found the great agent of the plot traced into his house, and traced into his house in the dress in which he had perpetrated the fraud; he was called upon for an explanation upon the subject.
Gentlemen, he was gone to perdition, if he did not do something to extricate himself from his difficulty; then it was that he ventured upon the rash step of making this affidavit, and swearing to the extraordinary circ.u.mstances upon which, as I commented so much at length in the morning of yesterday, I will not trespa.s.s upon your attention by making comments now.
My learned friends were properly anxious not to leave Lord Cochrane"s affidavit to stand unsupported; they were desirous of giving it some confirmation, and they exhausted two or three precious hours this morning in calling witnesses to confirm it; but those witnesses were called to confirm the only part of the affidavit which wanted no confirmation; they were called to give Lord Cochrane confirmation about applications to the Admiralty, and applications to the War Office, and applications to the Colonial Office, by Sir Alexander Cochrane for De Berenger; and after they had called witness after witness to give this confirmation upon this insignificant and trifling point, they leave him without confirmation upon that important, that vital part of this case to my Lord Cochrane, _videlicet_: the dress which Mr. De Berenger wore at the time he came to that house, and had with him that interview.
Lord Cochrane puts him on a grey military great coat, a _green_ uniform, and a fur cap. I have proved, that the uniform he wore was _red_. My learned friend, Mr. Serjeant Best, felt the strength of the evidence for the prosecution upon that, and he endeavoured to answer it by a very strange observation. "Why," says he, "consider, Lord Cochrane had been accustomed to see Mr. De Berenger in _green_; he did not make his affidavit till nearly three weeks afterwards; and how very easily he might confound the _green_, in which he ordinarily saw him, with the _red_, in which he saw him on that day, and on that day only." Now, if I wanted to shew how it was impossible for a man to make a mistake, as to the colour of the coat in which he had seen another, I should select the instance in which he had seen that other in a peculiar dress but for once.
But, gentlemen, my learned friend had to account for more than the red coat. It is not a plain red coat, it is a scarlet military uniform, the uniform of an aid-de-camp; and on the breast, there is that star which you have seen; and suspended from his neck, there is the medallion. Lord Cochrane is a man of rank, not unacquainted with the distinction of a star. If he was not in the secret of De Berenger"s dress, he must have had curiosity upon the subject; and I beg to ask, what is to be said for Lord Cochrane seeing De Berenger in that scarlet uniform, with that star on his breast, and that medallion suspended from his neck, swearing that the uniform was _green_, and that he lent De Berenger a black coat, because he could not wait on Lord Yarmouth in that _green_ uniform, which you will recollect was the uniform of Lord Yarmouth"s corps, in which, Lord Yarmouth has told you, it would have been more military to have waited upon him, than in any other dress.
Gentlemen, there is more than this. My friends call one of Lord Cochrane"s servants, who received De Berenger when he came there, who told him in the hearing of the hackney coachman, that his master was gone to breakfast in c.u.mberland-street, who took the note which De Berenger wrote to c.u.mberland-street, who brought back the note, and upon that note Mr. De Berenger wrote two or three lines more. Then what becomes of Lord Cochrane"s affidavit, who says the signature was so near the bottom of the paper, that he could not read it. The postscript is written after the signature, yet Lord Cochrane cannot read the note, because the signature is written so near the bottom; and then when my learned friends had that servant in the box, they did not venture to ask that servant what was the dress of Mr. De Berenger. After calling witnesses to confirm Lord Cochrane, as to applications to different offices by Sir Alexander Cochrane, they dare not ask Lord Cochrane"s own servant as to the dress De Berenger wore, to try whether he could confirm Lord Cochrane"s affidavit upon that subject. They then tell us, that another servant is gone abroad with some admiral, and I pray you, as he was here long after this business was afloat, how was it he was suffered to go, unless his absence was more wanted than his presence; but they have a maid-servant who also saw him, and she is not called; and my learned friends, though they were so anxious to confirm Lord Cochrane"s affidavit, leave him without confirmation, utterly abandoned and hopeless.
_Mr. Brougham._ Davis had left.
_Mr. Gurney._ I say why was he suffered to go away. The maid-servant is still here, and she is not called. Gentlemen, I say so much for the affidavit of Lord Cochrane, which is a vital part of this subject, and upon which, I observe with great regret; but if I forbore the observations, I should desert the duty which I owe the public.
Gentlemen, there is indeed but little more for me to trouble you with, I think; but there was an observation made by my learned friend, which is very important; they cross-examined Mr. Wright, whom I put up to prove the affidavit, by asking him, whether Lord Cochrane did not at the time he put that affidavit into his hands, observe, that now he had furnished the Stock Exchange Committee with the name of Mr. De Berenger, if he was the person who practised this fraud. Gentlemen, Mr. Serjeant Best laboured this point with you in the course of his address to you, and labored it with great ability; but my learned friend did not advert to one circ.u.mstance respecting that affidavit, which disposes of all his observations in an instant. _When_ did Lord Cochrane furnish the name of De Berenger to the Committee of the Stock Exchange? _On the 11th of March_; Mr. De Berenger having quitted London on the 27th of February, twelve days before; and when my Lord Cochrane had no more doubt that he was out of the country, than that he was himself in existence; he was gone to the north, not gone to the south, to Portsmouth, to go on board the Tonnant; he had been gone twelve days, twice as long as was necessary to find his way to Amsterdam; it was believed he was safe there, and when it was thought he was quite safe, Lord Cochrane was extremely ready to furnish the Stock Exchange Committee with the name of the party, and so to get credit for his candour. "What can a man do more? I have given you the name of the party, only find him, and you will see whether he is Du Bourg, or not;" he did not expect that he would be found; he was, however, found, and the intentions of these parties were frustrated.
I come now, gentlemen, to another part of the case, which would have excited my astonishment, if it had not been for the management and machinery that I had seen in this case; still I could hardly have expected to have met with that which we have had to-day in evidence, I mean the mode which has been resorted to, of accounting for the bank notes which were found in the letter-case of De Berenger, and those that were paid away by him. Gentlemen, the Defendants knew this part of our case; in truth, there is no surprize upon them in any part, they knew it all. You have it in evidence, that they have inspected the notes in the letter-case; they knew the use that we were to make of them, and then we have that notable expedient, the fruit of Mr. Cochrane Johnstone"s fertile brain, the mode of accounting for all these bank notes, by this extraordinary transaction of the drawings of a design for improving an acre of ground behind Mr. Cochrane Johnstone"s house in Alsop"s buildings.
Now, gentlemen, only have the goodness to look at it. The work was done, it is said, last September; .50 was then paid on account, respecting which you might, from Mr. De Berenger"s letter, have supposed that no voucher had been given, for it is mentioned carelessly in the postscript, "a-propos, you have paid me .50 on account." On the contrary, you find that Mr. Cochrane Johnstone took a stamped receipt at the time; then we have the architect called, as in an action on a quantum meruit; and architects have most magnificent ideas of plans and money, and he tells you, that two or three hundred pounds would not have been too much for such a design as that. Gentlemen, I think we are all as well qualified to decide upon that, as an architect; you will, if you think proper, look at it, and form your own judgment. But how comes it that we have these strange accounts from Mr. Tahourdin, his verbal testimony contradicting his client"s letter. Mr. Tahourdin says, "I did delicately, but I did by Mr. Berenger"s desire, again and again hint to Mr. Cochrane Johnstone the subject of payment, to which I must do him the justice to say he was never averse. I had done this some time before February, but no money had come;" and then, as soon as these words were out of his mouth, he puts in Mr. De Berenger"s letter to Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, who says, "You (Mr. Cochrane Johnstone) have been pressing me to take money, and now I will take it." Oh, gentlemen, when does this fit of money-paying and money-taking seize these two persons? _On the 22d of February!_ The day speaks volumes. Added to all the extraordinary coincidences, which the Defendants wish you to believe were accidental, we now have the acknowledged payment of money by Mr. Cochrane Johnstone to Mr. De Berenger on the day after Mr. De Berenger had so rendered Mr.
Cochrane Johnstone, Lord Cochrane, and Mr. b.u.t.t, the important service of raising the funds by the imposition that he had practised, of which they had so promptly and profitably availed themselves.
Then, gentlemen, we have the extraordinary evidence of Mr. Tahourdin, the attorney for Mr. Cochrane Johnstone and for De Berenger, from which it appears that they were all getting up the defence to the indictment by antic.i.p.ation. Mr. Tahourdin is to give a contemporaneous existence to the transaction by the production of these letters and instruments, the receipt for two hundred pounds, and the promissory note for two hundred pounds more. From all this it is plain, that Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, at the very moment when he was settling with his agent his reward for the fraud he had committed, like a man of great foresight, looked forward to the possible consequence of the trial of this day, and he provided for it, as he thought, sufficiently:--"It may be thought, Mr. De Berenger, that this money which I am now giving you is for the business of yesterday, let us take care to prevent it; you write to me, I will write to Tahourdin; it is not absolutely necessary (perhaps, he added) to trust him with the secret, he will be an admirable witness hereafter; I will put into his hands the promissory note and the receipt, he will give them contemporaneous date, and then I shall be able to account for my giving you, on this 26th of February, four hundred pounds."
Persons who devise these contrivances, gentlemen, have not, as I observed to you yesterday, the skill to provide for all circ.u.mstances, and now and then the very things which they do to effect concealment, shall lead to detection.--Now mark:--Mr. Cochrane Johnstone is to pay and to lend to Mr. De Berenger four hundred pounds. As he was to give him four hundred pounds, why did he, or Mr. b.u.t.t (for they are one and the same) take so much trouble, and go through so much circuity in shifting and changing the bank notes? You observe, that the bank note for .200 is sent to the bankers, and exchanged for two notes of .100 each; and then the same agent is sent to the Bank of England to get two hundred notes of .1 each; and that about the same time another agent is sent to the bank, to exchange the two other notes for .100 each for two hundred more notes of .1 each. Why, for the purpose of this payment and this loan, do they go through this operation of changing and changing again, to procure a vast number of notes for Mr. De Berenger, to enable him to take this long journey to the north? Why, gentlemen, it is because one pound notes are not traced so easily as notes for one hundred pounds; people take these small notes without writing upon them, but they do write upon such large notes as .100 and .200, and that they knew might afford means of immediate detection, but the device, when detected, makes the fact still stronger, and you have in proof, that sixty-seven of one hundred, and forty-nine of another hundred, were found at Leith in De Berenger"s writing-desk. This affords a strong presumption, that he had the whole four hundred, besides which I have traced to him; a forty-pound note which he changed at Sunderland, and a fifty-pound note which he gave to his servant, Smith; and these, too, have been traced up to Mr. b.u.t.t. When all these turnings and windings are thus discovered, what measure of your understandings, gentlemen, must these Defendants have taken, to imagine that you could be imposed upon by such flimsy materials as these manufactured papers? The device is gross, palpable, and monstrous. What does all this prove?--Nothing _for_ the defendants; but then it proves a great deal _against_ them.
Recollect too, gentlemen, that this .400, which is shewn to come out of the hands of Mr. Cochrane Johnstone and Mr. b.u.t.t, after the 24th of February, is also shewn to have come originally out of the hands of Lord Cochrane himself on a prior day; and therefore you have the money coming out of the hands of all the three; the reward of the agent coming out of the hands of the persons who had been benefited by the fraudulent services of that agent.
Gentlemen, it is difficult to abstain from many more observations on this defence; but the case is too clear to require them, and I will no longer trespa.s.s upon your patience. It appears to me absolutely impossible to doubt respecting the guilt of the several defendants. De Berenger is Du Bourg. When De Berenger is Du Bourg, the rest all follows; he was the agent of others, unquestionably; he was not himself the princ.i.p.al. You have had a ma.s.s of perjury exhibited to-day to extricate him, and consequently his employers. That, like all falsehoods, when detected, only serves to make conviction more clear and more certain. With these observations I sit down, feeling most grateful for the patient attention I have received, both from his Lordship and from you, and perfectly sure that you will do justice to the Public.
SUMMING UP.
Lord ELLENBOROUGH.
Gentlemen of the Jury,
You are now come to that period of the case in which your most important duty is to be discharged, as it respects the individuals who are the object of this indictment, and the public, whose interests are to be protected by the justice you are called upon to administer.
This is an indictment for an offence of great malignity and mischief; it is for the offence of conspiracy, which is charged to have been committed by the eight persons whose names are upon this indictment; and it is for you to consider upon the statement of the evidence I shall make to you, how far that offence is brought home to all or any of these Defendants.
The offence of conspiracy, gentlemen, is an offence consisting in a wicked concert, contrivance, and combination of individuals, to effect some public or private injury or mischief; that contrivance and that combination is not to be collected, nor is it practicable, in the course of human affairs, to collect it from the mouths of the parties a.s.sembled for the purpose of communication, but from the actings and conduct of the several parties as they may appear generally, to conspire and conduce to the same wicked end and purpose; and if it appears to you, from the actings and conduct of these parties, that they entertained the same common purpose of mischief, and that they have by their several actings combined and co-operated to the effecting that same wicked purpose, that is sufficient to bring home the imputation of the crime charged against the parties; therefore the prosecutor need not shew that they have met in common council, or even that they have seen one another before, if their acting shews they were influenced by one common purpose of mischief, and aimed at the production of the same malignant end and effect. Suppose persons jointly charged in an indictment with the breaking of an house, are found on different sides of the same house, besetting and endeavouring to enter it at the same time; you need not shew that they had actually met, and previously contrived the plan of this joint robbery; the unity of their conduct proves their joint contrivance and concert to accomplish the same end; though, indeed, this is a case where personal presence at the acts done, renders all intendment of the personal concert of the actors unnecessary. The same rules which apply to the offence of conspiracy as a misdemeanor, apply equally to all crimes committed by concert up to the crime of high treason, which is often established by evidence of the distinct actings of separate parties breathing the same purpose, and immediately conducing to the same end. The question, therefore, for you to consider upon the evidence (which I am sorry it will be necessary for me to state to you at a greater length, than, with regard to your ease and convenience, I could have wished) will be, whether the case is not brought home by satisfactory evidence to a great number, if not to all the Defendants.
The crime charged upon this indictment, in eight different charges or counts, is that of conspiring to raise the price of the public funds; in some of them it is charged to be with a view to corrupt gain upon the part of these persons or some of them, or at least to the _prejudice_ of other _individuals_; for that is enough to const.i.tute the offence, even if the individuals engaged in this conspiracy had not (as it is imputed to them that they had) any corrupt motive of personal advantage to all or any of themselves to answer; if the criminal artifice operated, or was in all probability likely to operate to the prejudice of the public, and was clearly so intended, we need not go further; when we know that a great amount in the funds is at certain periods bought for the public or large cla.s.ses of individuals; and you find by the testimony of Mr.
Steers, that on this very day the sum of .15,957. 10. 8. was bought for the Accountant General, which would have been bought for less; and every person for whose use the Accountant General purchased, having to acquire by means of such purchase shares in the public securities, would of course have so much the less stock for his money, on account of this fraud, and would consequently receive a great pecuniary injury thereby; and no doubt, mult.i.tudes of persons besides those immediately alluded to, and whose cases are not brought individually under your view, must have been affected by it; for the dealings in the funds are, we know, every day carried on to a vast amount, and every person dealing on that particular day, as a purchaser, was prejudiced by the practices by which a false elevation of the funds was on that day occasioned.