Part 116

A. I cannot state indeed.

Q. It was given to you the day before it appeared in the Morning Chronicle?

A. It was the day before, about three o'clock.

Mr. Gurney. Look at that (shewing a pamphlet to the witness) have you received one of those pamphlets either from Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, Lord Cochrane, or Mr. Butt?

A. Lord Cochrane gave me one of those at my own request, hearing it was published.

Q. Look at that which purports to be an affidavit of Lord Cochrane.

Mr. Serjeant Best. Is that the identical book Lord Cochrane gave you?

A. No.

Mr. Gurney. Read the affidavit and tell me whether you know that to be verbally and precisely the same?

Mr. Serjeant Best. I submit to your Lordship that will not do.

Mr. Gurney. Where is your copy of the pamphlet?

A. It is at home.

Mr. Gurney. Will your Lordship allow him to go home and fetch it.

Lord Ellenborough. Certainly.

Mr. Malcolm Richardson called again.

Examined by Mr. Gurney.

Q. You are a bookseller?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you employed by Mr. Butt to publish that pamphlet?

A. Not absolutely employed by him to publish it, but I sold it for him at his request, he wrote to me to know whether I would sell it for him.

Lord Ellenborough. This should be a publication by Lord Cochrane, to make the affidavit evidence against him.

Mr. Gurney. Certainly, my Lord, and if my learned friends wish it, I will wait till the witness comes back.

Mr. Serjeant Best. I have no wish to lay any impediment in the way, therefore if your Lordship thinks there is no impropriety in my permitting it to be read now, I will do it?

Lord Ellenborough. I leave it to your judgment, whether your resistance does you more good than the admission.

Mr. Serjeant Best. I will not resist it certainly. If I had the original I would deliver it up in a moment, but the fact is, we have not the original.

The Affidavit was read as follows:

"Having obtained leave of absence to come to town, in consequence of scandalous paragraphs in the public papers, and in consequence of having learnt that hand-bills had been affixed in the streets, in which (I have since seen) it is asserted that a person came to my house, at No. 13, Green-street, on the 21st day of February, in open day, and in the dress in which he had committed a fraud; I feel it due to myself to make the following deposition that the public may know the truth relative to the only person seen by me in military uniform, at my house, on that day.

COCHRANE."