Part 93

A Juryman. He said before the rise took place.

Mr. Serjeant Best. You found when you came there in the morning, that the stocks had got to such a pitch as that you could sell consistently with the orders they had given you?

A. It was so.

Lord Ellenborough. At what hour was that?

A. Ten o'clock.

Mr. Serjeant Best. Did you not sell out very large sums before either of them came near the place that morning?

A. I think I had began to sell before they came, but I cannot say positively.

Q. Had you not sold to a considerable amount, if you can tax your memory with it, or refresh your memory by looking at any book?

A. I think I had.

Q. Can you tell us to what amount you had sold before any of them came?--I do not ask to a few shillings, we deal in thousands here.

A. I cannot positively say--I had done much before I saw either of them, for I was in the habit of doing twenty or thirty and reporting to them.

Q. Do you mean thousands?

A. Yes.

Q. You think you had sold considerably before you saw them?

A. I think I had.

Lord Ellenborough. Cannot you fix the time of your sale?

Mr. Gurney. I shall prove the prices every half hour.

Mr. Serjeant Best. I am not at all conversant in those things, never having speculated in stock at all, but I am told it is the practice sometimes to sell stock which the persons have not to transfer?

A. I have heard of such things.

Q. Consequently, if I had been at the Stock Exchange that morning, and had found the Omnium up at 34, which I believe it was that morning----

Mr. Bolland. No, thirty two.

Mr. Serjeant Best. If I had been at the Stock Exchange that morning, and had found the Omnium up at 32, and had known that the good news must soon turn out to be all invention, I might have sold if I had liked, a million of stock, according to the practice of the Stock Exchange, though I did not happen to have a sixpence.

A. It certainly might have been done.

Q. Is it not the practice for a man who wishes to gamble in the funds, to sell stock which he has not, when he thinks they will fall?

A. I know it is done.

Q. A man who thinks the stocks may fall, may sell stock he has not, to any person who thinks they may rise?

A. It certainly is done.

Q. Did either my Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone or Mr. Butt, make any such sales on that day to your knowledge, you having stated you were their Broker--do you know of their having sold on that day any stock which they had not purchased before?