The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane Part 69

_A._ Never.

_Q._ Nothing of the sort?

_A._ I have already answered you.

_Q._ That will not do. Where did you come from now?

_A._ I came from the Gloucester Coffee House.

_Q._ I should have thought you had been in a coffee house, it is after dinner time I suppose. You are sure you never said any thing of the kind?

_A._ I have repeated it three or four times.

_Q._ You know this gentleman very well, Mr. Palfreyman?

_A._ A very slight acquaintance.

_Q._ Now I ask you another thing--Did you ever disclose this conversation with Mr. De Berenger till after Lord Cochrane refused you a loan?

_Lord Ellenborough._ If any application you made for a loan was in writing, you are not bound to answer that question.

_Mr. Serjeant Best._ My question was as to the time of the disclosure to the Stock Exchange, I will certainly read his letters; this does not touch me, but my learned friends of Counsel for De Berenger had not seen these letters. My question is, whether you ever disclosed the matter you have stated to day against De Berenger till after you were refused a loan by Lord Cochrane?

_Lord Ellenborough._ But if the proposition for loan was in writing, the letter must explain itself.

_Mr. Scarlett._ If we are not allowed to examine this witness as to his motives and his conduct as to these letters, I do not see how these letters could ever be made evidence.

_Lord Ellenborough._ You cannot examine him as to his motives, without producing the letters, that would be extracting the most unfair testimony in the world; I know nothing about the man, I never saw his face before to-day; but he, as a witness, has a right to the common protection of the law of the land, and not to have garbled questions put to him.

_Mr. Scarlett._ We do mean to read the letters.

_Lord Ellenborough._ And then you may call him back to ask him any questions upon them; but I would not have him answer without the letters being read.

_Mr. Brougham._ My learned friend merely referred to the letters as a date, not to the substance of the letters.

_Lord Ellenborough._ But he has said that he never had any communication with Lord Cochrane, but by letter, therefore the request for a loan, if any one was made, must have been by writing, and if he is to be questioned about that request in writing, he ought to have the terms of that request in writing read before the jury, so as to give a pointed answer to it.

_Mr. Brougham._ With great submission, my learned friend, did not ask as to the contents of the correspondence, but in point of date and time merely; he put this question, Was your information given to the Stock Exchange previously or subsequently to that correspondence, whatever the contents of that correspondence were?

_Lord Ellenborough._ I never heard that question put till this moment.

Previous to some supposed correspondence, without stating the nature of that correspondence, was the information given by you to the Stock Exchange?

_A._ No, it was given by Lord Cochrane in his publication of the correspondence in the Morning Chronicle.

_Lord Ellenborough._ We cannot get on without the letters.

_Mr. Serjeant Best._ I have no objection to the letters being read now.

_Lord Ellenborough._ That would disturb the order of the proceedings.

_Cross examined by Mr. Richardson._

_Q._ The conversation with Mr. De Berenger was about the 14th of February?

_A._ Yes it was.

_Q._ Have you not reason to know that about that time he had expectations of getting some employment in America?

_A._ He mentioned it to me himself.

_Q._ To serve under Sir Alexander Cochrane who had a command?

_A._ To serve under Lord Cochrane as I understood.

_Q._ He expressed his anxious desire and wish to be so employed?

_A._ Particularly so.

_Q._ He expressed a hope that he might make himself useful to the cause, by drilling the sharp shooters, and other things of that sort?

_A._ That was what he represented.

_Q._ Did you not know that he had had experience as a volunteer officer in a particular department?

_A._ I had a very high opinion of him as being acquainted with that science.

_Q._ He had been a Captain for a considerable number of years in the Duke of c.u.mberland's Corps of Sharp Shooters?

_A._ Adjutant I understand.

_Q._ You considered him as a man of science and skill in that department?

_A._ I did.

_Q._ Do you not know that he was making preparations at that time in order to go to America if he should be successful in procuring the appointment he was soliciting?

_A._ Not making preparations, those I know nothing of.

_Q._ That it was his anxious wish and desire to go you heard from him?

_A._ Yes.

_Re-examined by Mr. Bolland._

_Q._ Did the Stock Exchange apply to you, or did you go to them to give information.