Mr. Holloway, a wine merchant, another defendant, who independently of his concerns with those persons, chose to have a little dealing in the funds himself, he had a small milkscore of about forty-thousand pounds omnium, which he disposed of on that 21st day of February, at a handsome profit.

Gentlemen, you will not fail to observe that this part of the plot could have had no effect but for the foundation laid by the appearance of the pretended officer at Dover and his journey to London; for a post-chaise coming through the City with white cockades and laurel branches would have had no effect except to excite laughter and derision, but for the preparation made by De Berenger in the character of Du Bourg; and when you find for the purpose of producing the same effect, such a coincidence of plan, and such a coincidence of time, the one the basis and the other the superstructure, although I shall not be able to prove all the parties meeting together, conferring together, consulting together, still it will be impossible to doubt that these are two parts of one whole; that this is, in short, not two conspiracies, but one and the same conspiracy.

Gentlemen, the enquiry respecting the chaise from Dover led to much more important results. It was the first business of the Committee to learn to what place this pretended Du Bourg went in the Hackney-coach from the Marsh-gate. They found out the Hackney-coachman, and he informed them that he was directed by Du Bourg to drive, and he did drive straight and direct to No. 13, Green-street, the house of Lord Cochrane, and it is not an immaterial consideration in this matter, a house in which Lord Cochrane had resided but three days, a ready-furnished house which he had taken of Mr. Durand, and a person must have been on intimate terms with Lord Cochrane to know where he resided on Monday, Lord Cochrane having gone into the house only on the Thursday evening preceding.

The Coachman further informed the Committee that when he stopped at this house Du Bourg enquired for some person by the description, as he thought, of Captain or Colonel, and that the answer given by the servant was, that he was gone to breakfast in Cumberland-street.

Having proceeded thus far, the next thing for the Committee to discover was whether Lord Cochrane was a person who could have any possible interest in the success of this fraud. They pursued their enquiries upon that subject, and they discovered, to their utter astonishment, that this nobleman—this officer highly distinguished in the navy, then lately appointed to an important command, and one should have supposed his whole soul ingrossed in preparation for the active and important service on which he was going—this Representative in Parliament for the City of Westminster, bound by the most sacred of all duties, not to involve himself in any situation by which his honest judgment could be warped, and his parliamentary conduct influenced—they found Lord Cochrane to have been a deep speculator in omnium; that he had been so for one week only; that on that Monday morning he had a large balance on hand, and that on that Monday morning he had sold out the whole of that balance, and sold it at a profit.

When the Committee had learned thus much, they could not but feel that it was impossible that it could be an accidental coincidence, that this impostor, Du Bourg, should have alighted at the house of a person thus deeply interested in the success of the imposition which he had practised. But their enquiries and discoveries did not end there; they found that Lord Cochrane had not acted alone in these stock proceedings; that he was connected with two other persons, who were still more deep in them, the one his uncle, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone (also a member of parliament), and the other a Mr. Richard Gathorne Butt, formerly a clerk in the Navy Office. They discovered that these persons were engaged together in speculations of a magnitude perfectly astonishing. I have the statement in my hand; but I do not think it requisite, in my address to you, to go through all the particulars. Mr. Cochrane Johnstone and Mr. Butt, who had commenced their stock speculations on the 8th of February, a week earlier than Lord Cochrane, had dealt much more largely even than he had. Their purchases were the same, their sales the same; they seemed in these stock speculations to have but one soul. If one bought twenty thousand, the other bought twenty thousand; if one bought ninety-five thousand, the other bought ninety-five thousand; you will find the act of one the act of the other; and you will find these three persons, Lord Cochrane, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, and Mr. Butt, having on the Saturday preceding this Monday, a balance amounting in consols and omnium to very nearly a million—reduced to consols, you will find it amount to sixteen hundred thousand pounds; and on the morning of Monday, on the arrival of this news, they all three sold—they sold all that they had, every shilling of it; and, by a little accident in the hurry of this great business, they sold rather more.

Gentlemen, it was discovered still further, that the principal agent in these purchases and sales, was a Mr. Fearn, a stock broker; that Mr. Butt was the active manager; that the directions for Lord Cochrane's purchases and sales were made mostly by Mr. Butt, and were recognized by his Lordship; that the payment for any loss (sustained by either of the three) was made by Mr. Butt, and the receipt of any profit was by the hand of Mr. Butt. They discovered that Mr. Cochrane Johnstone and Mr. Butt, were in the habit of coming every morning at an early hour to visit their broker, Mr. Fearn; that on the morning in question, they had come at an early hour, in a hackney coach, and that Lord Cochrane, after having breakfasted in Cumberland-street with Mr. Cochrane Johnstone and Mr. Butt, came in the same hackney coach, at least as far as Snow-hill, if he did not afterwards go on to the Stock Exchange. They discovered, too, that Mr. Fearn was not the only broker they employed; they employed a Mr. Smallbone, a Mr. Hichens, and a Mr. Richardson; they may have employed twenty others that we know not of, because it has been only by accident that the Committee learned their employment of Mr. Richardson, for Mr. Richardson not being a member of the Stock Exchange, the Committee had no controul over him to exact information from him. Mr. Butt had employed Mr. Richardson on the Saturday preceding, to purchase fifty thousand omnium, of which he the same day sold thirty; and so anxious was Mr. Butt on that Saturday to be possessed of as much stock as possible, that he endeavoured to persuade Mr. Richardson to purchase one hundred and fifty thousand, but Mr. Richardson trembled at the idea of making so large a speculation, and refused to go beyond the fifty thousand.

You have these persons, then, linked together in such manner, as will render them perfectly inseparable in these various stock transactions; having dealt for some little time; having bought and having sold; having this tremendous balance, this world of Stock, under which they were, on the Saturday evening, bending and groaning, on the Monday morning they had disburthened themselves completely of this with a profit of a little more than ten thousand pounds. If the telegraph had worked, that ten thousand would have been nearer a hundred thousand—that the telegraph did not work, was not to be ascribed either to them or to their agent.

Gentlemen, when all this was ascertained, the Committee apprised those who had appointed them of the result of their labours; they printed an account for the information of the members of the Stock Exchange; they then had some private information, that Du Bourg really was De Berenger; but on enquiry for Mr. De Berenger, they found he was gone