tuated. The adherence to this principle will be a blessing to France; but, if would make the work of legislating upon not, they will be the greatest of curses; the subject very short and simple. It for they may become the convenient would make the life of a writer safe and screen for corrupt and cruel Judges, the pleasant; and it would make the press a most dreadful as well as the most base inblessing to France; the protector of inno-struments of an artful tyranny, under the cence and the scourge of the wicked, how-names and forms of liberty and law. If ever high their station. But, if the law Juries are what they ought to be, they are be vague in its descriptions of offences by a safe-guard against the partiality, the corthe press; if it deal in general terms; if it ruption, and the cruelty of Judges; but, if . talk in a loose way about inflammatory not, they are the greatest encouragement publications; if it prate about the harmony to partiality, corruption, and cruelty in of society and the peace of families, with- Judges; because, where there is a Jury, out laying down some clear, distinct, un- fitted to the purpose of such Judges, the changeable principle; if it leave a latitude blame, if any be imputed, falls upon the for interpretation, construction, and discre- Jury from the public; and as they melt tion, there may as well be no law at all. away out of sight immediately, there reThe French are, too, it seems, to have mains no object for public indignation to Juries in their Courts of Justice; and, it fix upon. A Judge, without a Jury, is stated, in the orations preceding the knows that the eyes of the public will be Gode Napoleon, that it was Napoleon him- fixed on him only; and, if disposed to act self, whose pertinacity produced that part unjustly, he will be under much greater reof the Code. The French had Juries straint, than if he had a Jury to serve him under Napoleon; so that by his fall they in quality of 'scape goat. The object of have not gained this part of their Consti- the Jury has been held to be that of the tution. But I, for my part, see nothing safety of parties against the partiality of gained here, unless care be taken as to the Judge; but, if it be so contrived in the formation of such Juries; for we France as to make the Jury a mere tool in know, from sad experience, that Juries the hands of the Judge, the state of things may be made the instruments of the will be infinitely worse than if there were blackest injustice and most hellish cruelty.no Jury at all.-The legislators of France, Hume tells us, that Judge Jeffries, whom he calls the bloody, spread the western counties over with gallowses, and gibbets, and mangled carcases; but, he seems to forget the bloody Juries, who aided him in the work of murdering their neighbours. Russell and the gallant Sidney were told, that they had been found guilty by a Jury of their country; but the Parliament, at a subsequent period, declared the verdict to be corrupt and infamous, and reversed the acts of attainder, grounded upon that verdict. Numerous other instances might be produced from our own history; and, therefore, it is not enough to tell me, that the French people are to have juries to protect their lives and properties. I must know first, how these Juries are to be formed; I must see what security there is for a man's being tried by persons impartially called together; I must see whether all the persons, in a district, fit to be Jurors, are to be called and compelled to serve in their regular turn; I must see whether it be impossible to pack, as we call it, these deciders upon the guilt or innocence of those who are brought to trial.- If this be the case, Juries

therefore, should take great care, as I hope they will, that the source of their Juries be pure; that they be not composed of men destitute of understanding, and of the powers of discrimination; that they be impartially taken amongst all the persons, fit for Jurymen, in the district or department; that all these be compelled to serve in their regular turn, unless prevented by somo sufficient cause; and that they shall not be exposed, either directly or indirectly, t any undue bias, or corrupt influence.The Code Napoleon, criminal as well as civil, is admirable. It was framed by the wisest men in Europe. It took a long time and infinite labour in the forming. But, unless this point as to Juries be very carefully attended to, liberty and property will be mere names; mere sound without any practical benefit; and, as it must be the wish of every real friend of freedom, that the people of France should be really free, it is to be hoped, that this important matter will receive the greatest attention.

LORD COCHRANE.- The difficulties which occurred to my mind as to this Nobleman's case, have been completely removed

and as I firmly believe him to be. Until his Lordship has an opportunity of verifying bis innocence completely, which I have no doubt he will be soon able to do to the satis

by the explanation which I have seen in the public newspapers, and which was read in Court by his Lordship, when he was brought up to hear judgment pronounced against him. I have now no doubt what-faction of every candid mind, I have given ever of his Lordship's innocence. The only disagreeable sensation which remains with me, is the dread of his being made to suffer, to its full extent, the disgraceful punishment which his Lordship has been sentenced to endure. From what I know of his Lordship's mind, I am satisfied that he is far from being depressed on account of his situation. A consciousness of his own innocence, is sufficient to bear him up, under the worst that can befall him. But it is impossible to prevent those who are friendly to his Lordship feeling deeply, and being overwhelmed with grief, at the idea of his being the innocent victim of the crimes of others. His Lordship, as appears from the Parliamentary Reports, has addressed a Letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons, in which he "asserts his inno

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below the statement which he read in Court, and the additional affidavit, by. which his Lordship confirms all that he formerly said on the subject, and clears up some important points which were not explained on the trial. I am glad to find, that the effect already produced upon the public mind by this statement is highly favourable to his Lordship; and I am confident in the expectation, if the facts there stated are supported by the affidavits, which his Lordship will now have an opportunity of bringing forward, that there is not a man in the country (except indeed he entertains a personal enmity towards Lord Cochrane) that will not join with me in opinion, that he is completely innocent.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, JUNE 20.

After an arrest of judgment had been unsuccessfully moved for on the part of some of the other defendants,

cence of the charge of which he has been "convicted, and requests that he may be "allowed timely notice, and a full opportu"nity of attending in this House, when- Lord Cochrane addressed the Court, and "ever the subject may be brought before observed, that the attention with which "it." To this the Speaker immediately their Lordships had listened to those who returned for answer, that, according to had addressed them on behalf of the other "the usage of Parliament, timely notice, Defendants, emboldened him to hope that "and a full opportunity of attending, were they would indulge him with equal pa"always given to any member of this tience-although he did not address them "House, before the consideration of a by Counsel, a circumstance which he im"question in which he was personally in-puted to the reason he had assigned when "terested."-It is somewhat consolatory, he had addressed their Lordships on a fortherefore, that my Lord Cochrane has still mer day. In order to occupy as little of an opportunity of being fully heard, and of their Lordships time as possible, he had bringing forward all the proofs of his inno- committed to writing, in as short a compass cence, which he was prevented doing during as he could, that statement which he conthe trial, by the inattention of others, and ceived it necessary to the defence of his by the forms of Court, when his Lordship character to make. The Noble Lord then was brought up for judgment. It is to be read the following statement:hoped that Parliament will determine in this instance, as if the case of my Lord Cochrane were the case of every individual member of the House; for who among them can say, that he has not, during some period of his life, been innocently placed in a suspicious situation, through circumstances which he could neither foresee nor controul: and where is the man who will pretend, that it never can be his fate to be brought to the bar of any Court of Justice by a train of occurrences, similar to those in which Lord Cochrane has been involved, and yet be as innocent as his Lordship asserts he is,

"It has been my very great misfortune to be apparently implicated in the guilt of others, with whom I never had any connexion, except in transactions, so far as I was apprised of them, entirely blameless. I had met Mr. De Berenger in public company, but was on no terms of intimacy. with him. With Mr. Cochrane Johnstone I had the intercourse natural between such near relatives. Mr. Butt had voluntarily offered, without any reward, to carry on Stock transactions, in which thousands, as well as myself, were engaged, in the face of day, without the smallest imputation of any thing incorrect. The other four De

fendants were wholly unknown to me, nor mine; that Berenger came to my house, have 1 ever, directly or indirectly, beld after returning from his expedition; and any communication with them. Of Mr. that my account of what passed at this visit De Berenger's concern in the fraud, I have is contradicted by evidence. The first no information, except such as arises out ground has been clearly explained away; of the late trial. With regard to Mr.it amounts to nothing more than that Johnstone and Mr. Butt, I am willing to which may happen to any man who has hope that they are guiltless. They re-money transactions. Mr. Butt voluntarily peatedly protested to me their innocence. made purchases and sales of stock for me, They did not dare to communicate any and having received a small loan of money such plan to me, if such was projected by from him, I repaid him with Bank notes, them, or either of them; be they guilty, which he used for his own purposes. He then, or be they, one or both, erroneously says that he exchanged these notes, and convicted, I have only to lament, that, with- that a part of the notes which he received out the most remote suspicion of their pro- in exchange he paid to Mr. Cochrane ceedings, if they, or either of them, were Johnstone, who states, that he gave them concerned in the fraud, I have, through my to Berenger in payment of some drawings; blameless intercourse with them been sub- but with this story, whether true or false, I jected to imputations, which might, with have no manner of concern, and conseequal justice, have been cast upon any man quently no wish to discuss it. In what who now bears me. Circumstanced as I way soever the notes, which were received am, I must keep myself wholly unconnected in exchange for mine, reached De Berenwith those whose innocence cannot be so ger, I can only say that mine were given dear to me as my own. Well had it been to Mr. Butt in discharge of a bona fide for me if I had made this distinction debt; and I have no knowledge whatever sooner.-I do not stand here to commend of the uses to which he applied them.myself-unhappily I must seek only for ex- Berenger's coming to my house I before culpation; but I cannot exist under the accounted for, upon the supposition of his load of dishonour, which even an unjust being unconcerned in the fraud; but is it judgment has flung upon me. My life has not obvious that he might have come there been too often in jeopardy, to make me to facilitate his escape, by going imme think much about it; but my honour was diately on board of my ship, with the addinever yet breathed upon; and I now hold tional prospect of obtaining employment in my existence only in the determination to America ? It has been said that there remove an imputation as groundless as it is was a suspicious degree of familiarity in intolerable. The evidence which I now his treatment of me and my house. I can tender to your Lordships, will aid me in only observe, that over his conduct I had performing this duty towards myself, my no controul. But he knew, it seems, of rank, and my profession. I first offer my change of abode, which had occurred the affidavit, which I have repeated at within a few days. I trust it will be rea risk that I formerly had no oppor- collected that he is proved to have left tunity of encountering. I have been told, town three days after such change; and that I then incurred the moral guilt of that, though not intimate with me, he had perjury, without exposing myself to the the means of knowing where I resided, legal penalties. I know nothing of such even if he should not have inquired at my distinctions. I have repeated the state- former lodgings, where my address was ment upon oath-and I am now an-left. Indeed, if taking refuge in my ship, swerable to the laws, if I have falsely in order to facilitate his escape, was part sworn. The affidavits of three persons, of his scheme, it was very likely that he who saw De Berenger at my house on would have ascertained the precise place the 21st of February, fully confirm my of my abode previous to his quitting statement; and I have only been prevented from bringing forward a fourth, by his sailing to a distant station, before I could possibly stop him for this purpose. The grounds upon which I have been convicted are these:-That notes were found in Berenger's possession which had been changed for others, that had once been in

London. Again, I am said to have left the tinman's (where I think I should hardly have gone had I expected such a messenger) as soon as I heard of the officer's arrival. I was in apprehensions of fatal news respecting my brother then in France, from whom I had received a letter but three days before, with the intelligence

of his being dangerously ill; and I now have acted, or where I shorid have chosen tender you his affidavit, with the surgeon's to receive him, it is impossible for me to certificate, dated the 12th of February, say; but I humbly apprehend that my own which he brought home with him. And, house was not the place I should have setherefore, on receiving the note from lected for that purpose. The pretended Berenger, whose name I was unable to de-Du Bourg, if I had chosen him for my incipher, and as that note announced that strument, instead of his making me his conthe writer, whom I learnt from my servant venience, should have terminated his expehad the appearance of an officer in the dition, and found a change of dress elsearmy, was desirous of seeing me, I hasten- where. He should not have come immeed to learn intelligence so anxiously ex-diately and in open day to my house. I pected; nor had I the least doubt that it should not so rashly have invited detection, related to my brother. When, however, I and its concomitant ruin.-But this is not found that the person was De Berenger, the only extravagance of which I am accuand that he had only to speak of his own sed. What supposition, short of my abseprivate affairs, the apparent distress he was lute insanity, will account for my having in, and the relief it gave my mind to know voluntarily made the affidavit which has that he was not the bearer of the news been so much canvassed, if I really knew I dreaded, prevented me from feeling that the plot in which Berenger appears to have displeasure which I might otherwise have been engaged? Let me entreat your Lordfelt at the liberty he had taken, or the in-ships consideration of the situation in terruption it had occasioned. Comments which I stood at the moment in which that have been made on my saying so little to affidavit was made. I was suspected of the servant who brought me that note; being connected with the pretended Du but the fact is, I did ask him several ques- Bourg; if I had known that Berenger was tions, as appears by his affidavit. That I the person who had assumed that name, did not learn the name of the writer from could I possibly have betrayed him, and the note itself, I have truly accounted for, consequently myself, more completely than by its being written so close to the bottom by publishing such a detail to the world? of the paper that I could not read it. This The name of Berenger never was mentioned assertion is said to be contradicted by the till brought forward in my affidavit; which circumstance of the writer having found affidavit was made, as sworn by Mr. room to add a postscript, as if there was Wright, a witness on the trial, with the cironly one side to the paper. Of the post-cumstance present to me, and remarked by script I have no recollection, but it might me at the time I delivered it to him to be have been written even opposite the signa-printed, that if De Berenger should happen. ture. That I did not collect from the to be Du Bourg, I had furnished a clue to hand-writing that it was addressed to me his detection. The circumstance of his obby Berenger, is nothing extraordinary;taining a change of dress at my house never my acquaintance with that person was ex- could have been known, if I had not voluntremely slight; and till that day I had never received more than one or two notes from him, which related to a drawing of a lamp. I was too deeply impressed with the idea that the note was addressed to me by an officer who had come with intelligence of my brother, to apprehend that it was written by De Berenger, from whom I expected no communication, and with whose hand-writing I was not familiar. All that I could afterwards recollect of the note, more than what is stated in my affidavit, is, that he had something to communicate which would affect my feeling mind, or words to that effect, which confirmed my apprehensions that the writer was the messenger of fatal news of my brother. If Berenger had really been my agent in this nefarious transaction, how I should

tarily discovered it: and thus I am represented as having brought him publicly to my own house, of being the first to disclose his name, and of mentioning a circumstance which, of all others, it was the most casy to conceal; and if divulged, the most certain to excite suspicion ! Is it not next to impossible that a man, conscious of guilt, should have been so careless of bis most imminent danger?-My adversaries dwell upon some particulars of this affidavit, which they pretend to find contradicted by the evidence. The principal one is my assertion that Berenger wore a green coat. I have repeated this assertion upon oath, under all the risks of the law; and I siso solemnly affirm, upon my honour, which I regard as an obligation no less sacred, that I only saw him in that dress. The wit

collection the certificates he had received from them. I then had no suspicion awake, and I believed what he told me. In what manner the disguise was ultimately disposed of i can only conjecture, as any one else might, from the evidence given on the trial. le presented himself to me

nesses on the part of the prosecution have asserted, that he wore a red coat when he arrived in town. Granted. But may he not have changed it in the coach, on his way to Green-street? Where was the difficulty, and for what purpose was the portmanteau? My own fixed opinion is, that he changed his dress in the coach, be-in a grey great coat, and a green under cause I believe that he dared not run the coat; and if the persons whose affidavits I risk of appearing in my presence till he had now tender had been examined on the so changed it. I tender affidavits of those trial, and they did attend for that purpose, who saw him, as I did, in his green coat at I do feel persuaded that a very dillerent my house. That he should have changed his impression would have been made on the dress before I saw him, is most natural, upon Jury and the world at large, than that the supposition of his wishing to conceal from which they appear to entertain; and that me the work he had been about; but it is like your Lordships might have been disposed to many other confirmations of my innocence, take an opposite view of the case as it affated to excite no attention in the minds of fected me. Those witnesses would have those who only seek food for their suspi- corroborated the particulars of my affidacions. Much is said of the star and other vit relative to De Berenger's dress when I ornaments, as if any proof had been given first saw him at my house, namely a grey of his wearing these in my presence. He great coat, and a green under-coat, or took especial care, I doubt not, to lay them jacket. Unfortunately, through some misaside on his way, when he had divested him- take or misconception, not on my part, self of his official capacity, long before I saw they were left unnoticed, and, of course, him. The small portmanteau, before men- were not examined. I have now to offer tioned, which it is admitted he brought with their several affidavits to your Lordships. him, in all probability furnished him with the I would further submit to your Lordships, green coat, and received the red coat and its that my affidavit was made on the impulse ornaments, and very possibly for this reason of the moment, as soon as I heard that plano remark has been made upon it. A cards had been posted, stating that the good deal of observation has been bestowed pretended Col. De Bourg had gone to my upon De Berenger's unwillingness to ap- house; and, in the conscious rectitude of pear before Lord Yarmouth in uniform; my own conduct, I not only introduced the and the inference was, that this uniform name of the only officer i saw at my house could not have been the green dress of his on the day stated, but narrated every occorps, otherwise he must have felt the re- currence that took place, and all the converse of uneasy at being seen in it by his versation that passed at the interview, to Colonel. Does any Volunteer Officer go the best of my recollection. If I am cenout of a morning to make calls in his re-sured for having been too ingenuous in my gimentals? Could so unusual a circum-communication, I trust it will be admitted, stance have failed to excite remark from Lord Yarmouth? To me, indeed, he had explained himself he had of necessity told me his nearly desperate state, in asking me to receive him on board my ship; but is there any thing so very incredible in the statement that he was unwilling to tell his whole case to every body? It may now doubtless be perceived that he might have had other reasons for disliking to go out in a green dress. Let it, however, be recollected that my statement was, that he only asked me for a hat in lieu of his military cap, and that the black coat was my own voluntary offer. The idea of his applying to Lord Yarmouth, or to any other of his friends, originated with me, and I proposed it in consequence of bis calling to my re-ger, ran the same risk with me of being

that as ingenuousness disclaims all connection with guilt, it is indicative only of my innocence. If your Lordships will be pleased to reflect on all that I have offered. respecting De Berenger, and to bear in mind the avowed intercourse which I had with two other Defendants, respecting whose conduct I have been compelled to speak, at least upon a supposition of their guilt, I am confident you will perceive how easily any man, living so circumstanced, night have been placed in the very situa tion. But waving the supposition of De Berenger acting under the direction of either of the other Defendants, I do still contend that any man who had stock concerns, and was slightly known to De Beren