Part 23

The great "Trial at Bar," presided over by Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench, Mr. Justice Mellor, and Mr. Justice Lush, commenced on the 23d of April, 1873, and ended on the 28th of February 1874--a period of a little over ten months. On the side of the prosecution 212 witnesses gave their testimony; but the documentary evidence, including the enormous mass of Roger Tichborne's letters, so valuable as exhibiting the character, the pursuits, the thoughts, and feelings of the writer, were scarcely less important. The entire Tichborne and Seymour families may be said to have given their testimony against the defendant. Lady Doughty had passed away from the troubled scene since the date of the last trial; but she had been examined and cross-examined on her death bed, and had then repeated the evidence which she gave on the previous occasion, and declared that the Claimant was an impostor. Lady Radcliffe again appeared in the witness-box, and told her simple story, confirmed as it was in all important particulars by the correspondence and other records. Old Paris friends and acquaintances were unanimous. Father Lefevre and the venerable Abbe Salis, Chatillon the tutor and his wife, and numerous others, declared this man was not Roger Tichborne, and exposed his ignorance both of them and their past transactions. When questioned, the defendant had sworn that his father never had a servant named Gossein; but the letters of Sir James were shown to contain numerous allusions to "my faithful Gossein," and Gossein himself came into the witness-box and told how he had known Roger Tichborne from the cradle to his boyhood, and from his boyhood to the very hour of his going on his travels. On the Orton question, nearly fifty witnesses declared their conviction that the defendant sitting then before them was the butcher's son whom they had known in Wapping. The witnesses from Australia and from South America unhesitatingly identified the defendant with Orton; but it is more important to observe, that their testimony was supported by records and documents of various kinds, including the ledgers of Mr. Foster of Boisdale, letters under the defendant's own hand, and writings which it could not be denied were from the hand of Arthur Orton.

On the other side, the witnesses were still more numerous. They included a great number of persons from Wapping, who swore they did not recognise in the defendant the lad whom they had known as Arthur Orton. Many others swore they had known both Orton and the defendant in Australia, and that they were different persons, but their stories were irreconcilable with each other, and were moreover in direct conflict with the statements of the Claimant on oath, while several of these witnesses were persons of proved bad character, and unworthy of belief. Great numbers of Carabineers declared that the defendant was exactly like their old officer; but while ten officers of that regiment appeared for the prosecution, and positively affirmed that the defendant was not Roger Tichborne, only two officers gave testimony on the other side; and even these admitted that they had doubts. Eight years had elapsed since Mr. Gibbes fancied he had discovered Sir Roger at Wagga-Wagga, but still no Arthur Orton was forthcoming; nor did the sisters of Orton venture to come forward on behalf of the man who had been compelled to admit having taken them into his pay. Not only was the Claimant's story of his wreck and rescue shown to be absurd and impossible, but it was unsupported by any evidence, except vague recollections of witnesses having seen an "Osprey" and some shipwrecked sailors at Melbourne in July, 1854; and it was admitted that if their tale were true the phantom vessel and the fact of its picking up nine precious lives must have escaped the notice of Lloyd's agents, of custom-house officers, and of the Australian newspapers. More, the Claimant's "Osprey" must have escaped the notice of such authorities in every port which she had entered from the day that she was launched. So, indeed, the matter stood until the witness Luie, the "pretended steward of the 'Osprey'" swore to his strange story, as well as to the defendant's recognition of him by name as an old friend. The Luie episode, terminating in the identification of that infamous witness as an habitual criminal and convict named Lundgren, only recently released on a ticket-of-leave, together with the complete disproof of his elaborate "Osprey" story, is familiar to the public. It was a significant fact, that other witnesses for the defence were admitted to be associates of this rascal; while one of the most conspicuous of all--a man calling himself "Captain" Brown--had pretended to corroborate portions of Luie's evidence which are now proved to be false.

Some allowance may perhaps be made in the defendant's favour for the singularly unskilful and damaging character of his counsel Dr. Kenealy's two addresses to the jury, which occupied no less than forty-three entire days. This barrister not only made violent personal attacks on every witness of importance for the prosecution, without, as the judges observed, "any shadow of foundation," but he assailed his own client with a vehemence and a persistence which are without parallel in the case of an advocate defending a person against a charge of perjury. He gave up statements of the defendant at almost every period of his extraordinary story as "false;" declared them to be "moonshine;" expressed his conviction that no sensible person could for a moment believe them; acknowledged that to attempt to verify them in the face of the evidence, or even to reconcile them with each other, would be hopeless; set some down as "arrant nonsense," denounced others as "Munchausenisms," and recommended the jury "not to believe them" with a heartiness which would have been perfectly natural in the mouth of Mr. Hawkins, but which, coming from counsel for the defence, was, as one of the learned judges remarked, "strange indeed." But the doctrine of the learned gentleman was, that the very extent of the perjury should be his client's protection, because it showed that he was not a man "to be tried by ordinary standards." When, in addition to this, he laboured day after day to persuade the jury that Roger Tichborne was a drunkard, a liar, a fool, an undutiful son, an ungrateful friend, and an abandoned libertine--declared in loud and impassioned tones that he would "strip this jay of his borrowed plumes," and indignantly repudiated the notion that the man his client claimed to be had one single good quality about him, the humour of the situation may be said to have reached its climax. Yet Dr. Kenealy at least proved his sincerity by not only insinuating charges against the gentleman who disappeared with the "Bella," but by actually calling witnesses to contradict point blank statements of his own client which lay at the very foundation of the charges of perjury against him. There were, it is true, many unthinking persons of the kind that mistake sound for sense, who considered Dr. Kenealy a vastly clever fellow. If he be so, then the world in general, and the constitution of the English bar in particular, are wrong; but anyhow one thing is certain, that the counsel damaged the case materially, and showed himself eminently unfitted for the position of leader. Mr. Hawkins' powerful address quickly disposed of Dr. Kenealy and his crotchets. The inquiry was raised into a calmer height when the Lord Chief-Justice commenced his memorable summing up, going minutely through the vast mass of testimony--depicting the true character of Roger Tichborne from the rich mine of materials before him, contrasting it with that of the defendant as shown by the evidence, and, while giving due weight to the testimony in his favour, exposing hundreds of examples of the falsity of his statements made upon oath. The verdict of Guilty had been anticipated by all who paid attention to the evidence. The foreman publicly declared that there was no doubt in the mind of any juryman that the man who has for eight years assumed the name and title of the gentleman whose unhappy story is recorded in these pages is an impostor who has added slander of the wickedest kind to his many other crimes. But not only were they satisfied of this; they were equally agreed as to his being Arthur Orton. The sentence of fourteen years' penal servitude followed, and was assuredly not too heavy a punishment for offences so enormous. Yet there are others still at large, who, having aided the impostor with advice and money, should not be allowed to escape, while the more clumsy scoundrel suffers the award of detected infamy.

Thus ended the great Tichborne impersonation case, the most remarkable feature in which was, not that a rude ignorant butcher should proclaim himself a baronet, but that thousands of persons sane in every other respect should have gone crazy about him, and should, despite the evidence given--sufficient many hundreds of times told, or for any reasonable being--even now persist that Roger Tichborne still lives, and is the victim of a gross conspiracy. What need is there to point out the idiotcy of such ravings? What necessity ever to contradict statements which contradict themselves?

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