Part 30

A. This is the letter.

Q. Did you mark it before you parted with it?

A. I do not know whether I marked it or not.

Q. You know it again.

A. I inclosed it in a letter but I did not mark it.

Q. You inclosed it in a letter to Mr. Croker?

A. Yes a private letter to Mr. Croker.

Q. Is that the letter in which you inclosed it to Mr. Croker (shewing a letter to the witness.)

A. This is the letter.

Q. That letter which I first shewed you is the letter you received from your maid servant?

A. It is.

Q. I suppose you rose directly?

A. I rose and sent for the boy into my dressing room.

Q. Did you communicate the news by telegraph to the admiralty that morning.

A. It was very late before I began, I will tell you what I did, I questioned the boy a good deal, for I must say I did not believe the letter.

Q. I must not ask you what passed between you and the boy, but whether you telegraphed the admiralty?

A. I did not, because the weather was thick, and I further say, the message I should have sent to the admiralty would have satisfied them--

Q. In fact you did not telegraph the admiralty because the weather was too thick?

A. I did not.

Q. When you sent for the boy up had you the letter in your hand?

A. I had, it was then three o'clock and dark, the telegraph would not move.

Q. I take for granted you had a candle?

A. Of course.

Mr. Gurney. We will now read the letter.

Mr. Park. I object, with great deference to his Lordship, to that letter being read, the evidence does not bring home that to the supposed officer, who is said to be Mr. De Berenger, it does not appear from any evidence to have come out of his hand it reaches this boy by the communication of Mr. Wright, who has not been called.

Mr. Gurney. I will ask the witness as to the reason of Mr. Wright's not being here--he is very ill, is not he?

A. He is extremely ill.

Mr. Park. My Lord, that does not alter the law of evidence, I submit there is a chasm in that chain that precludes their reading the letter as evidence against Mr. De Berenger. I do not mean to say that might not be supplied in the absence of Mr. Wright, but that letter lying before your Lordship's Officer is not identified to be the very paper which issued forth from this supposed person. It was delivered to this youth at the door of the inn by Wright, who is ill and absent from illness, he is not present to tell your Lordship from whom he received that, and there is a chasm in the chain of evidence, nor does the Admiral say he received the letter from this boy, he received it from a maid servant.