Charles Random de Berenger

“ De Berenger, but in point of law or common sense are no evidence against Lord Cochrane; but I will dispose of this man for the sake of the country, that he may never be sent out of the country in any office. I will shew you that he is a man utterly unworthy of credit, for I will prove to you by his own letters that he comes forward to-day, because Lord Cochrane has refused to lend him money; gentlemen, I have a letter of his, in which he desires to have an interview with Lord Cochrane; he has admitted his own hand-writing to the letters, which I will by and by put in. ”

“ Upon his cross examination, he says, I have known Mr. De Berenger a long while; he is a man of considerable science and attainments; he had been for a considerable time before employed in drawing plans for the Ranelagh. Mr. Cochrane Johnstone has a house in Alsop's Buildings, and about an acre of land behind it, which was to be converted into something upon the plan of the old Ranelagh. As far as I have seen, I believe Mr. De Berenger to be a man of honour and integrity; I saw nothing but the most perfect gentleman during the time I lodged under the same roof. ”

“ De Berenger, whom they all knew, because most of them had seen him since that time; some of them had not I admit; he is a soldierly-looking man, and a man likely from the description to be fixed upon. My learned friend seemed to think that one of the witnesses had not a fair opportunity of seeing his person, in consequence of his holding down his head; the fact was, he was taking notes (for he has taken a very full note) ”

“ Mr. James Stokes says, "I am a clerk of Mr. Tahourdin; [Pg 521] I have been so between three and four years, and during that time have frequently seen the hand-writing of De Berenger; he has been a client of my master's, and has been assisted very much by him. I have seen a great deal of his writing; this is certainly not his writing, not a word of it; and the letter 'R.' (which Lord Yarmouth had spoken to) is not at all like it."
Then they call witnesses, who at last come to swear, that captain De Berenger slept in his own apartments on the Sunday night, the 20th of February ”

“ De Berenger is not a common one, a person who has observed it cannot have forgotten it. I do not call merely such persons as have seen him at the messenger's, or in the court of King's Bench, or anywhere else. I put the case to the severest test, calling witnesses who had not seen him since his apprehension, desiring them to survey the court, Mr. De Berenger sitting, as he has done, undistinguished from other persons, in no conspicuous situation, and you saw, how one after another, when their eyes glanced upon his face, recognised him in an instant as the person who had practised this fraud. ”

“ I am quite satisfied, that when this letter is read, you will feel, that even as it respects Mr. De Berenger, for it is applicable only to him, his evidence can have no influence in any court of justice whatever, for that it comes from a man who, in the clearest and most unequivocal manner, declares himself most infamous, and most unworthy of credit. ”

“ Captain Berenger wore a grey great coat, a green uniform, and a military cap. From the manner in which my character has been attempted to be defamed, it is indispensibly necessary to state that my connection in any way with the funds arose from an impression that in the present favorable aspect of affairs, it was only necessary to hold stock in order to become a gainer, without prejudice to any body ”

“ That would be the case, where a man is writing a feigned hand; but still that occurs here, which almost always does occur, a person so writing is very likely to betray himself just as he gets to the end, and when he comes to sign his name, the initials shall be so striking, as at once to excite the observation of such a man as Lord Yarmouth, and his lordship says, This R in the signature of R. Du Bourg certainly does very much resemble the R in the usual signature in C. R. De Berenger; but, taking the evidence of identity and that together, it is clear, that he was the person at Dover ”

“ Gentlemen, it is as true of Stock-jobbing conspirators as it is of those who have lately been entrusted with the destinies of empires. There is always something omitted, the omission here was this; in settling their plan of operations they had forgotten to provide where De Berenger should resort on his arrival in Town, and on his way his heart failed him, as to going to his own lodgings; he dared not enter into his own lodgings in a dress, which dress would lead to detection, and he therefore drove to Lord Cochrane's to get rid of his dress ”

“ Is it not next to impossible, that a man, conscious of guilt, should have been so careless of his most imminent danger?
My adversaries dwell upon some particulars of this affidavit, which they pretend to find contradicted in the evidence. The principle 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 also solemnly affirm, upon my honour, which I regard as an obligation no less sacred, that I only saw him in that dress. ”

“ Q. Look at that gentleman who is stooping down to write, (De Berenger,) and see whether you think that is like him?
A. Yes, I do upon my word, but I only saw him for about half a minute.
Cross-examined by Mr. Park.
Q. You, being a waterman, take that particular notice of every body that gets into a hackney coach, that you are quite sure having seen him step from the chaise into the coach, that he is the man?
A. I said at first, that the dress made such an alteration that I should think I should hardly know him. ”

“ He went away in the same chaise that brought him, with four horses. James Overy and Thomas Todd, were the persons who drove him." Mr. Wright had proceeded thus far, and then he looked round the court, and [Pg 471] fixing upon De Berenger, said, "I believe that is the person; I have no doubt—it is certainly the gentleman; I had never seen him before, or since." This undoubted identification of person, is almost peculiar to this case; I never saw a case in which so many persons turned into the court at large, recollected a man at once, and with so much certainty. ”

“ It is sworn that they were made before eleven o'clock in the day. Why, Gentlemen, we are forgetting distances. If Lord Cochrane was set down at Snow-hill at ten in the morning, if he afterwards came back, as he did, to Green-street Grosvenor-square, being sent for by his servant or Mr. De Berenger, he could not be back before half-past ten or nearly eleven, and I defy all mankind to state how he could after that have communicated to the Stock Exchange, the news this gentleman was supposed to be dispersing abroad, so as to affect the price of stocks. ”

“ Gentlemen, when this correspondence comes to be read by his lordship's officer, is it possible you can believe one word of that; he in this letter, which is the last my learned friend stated, and the only one on which I will comment, stated that he believed every thing that De Berenger had told him respecting Lord Cochrane, was false. If it was all false, as it respected Lord Cochrane, it was all false as it respected himself, for this man had no time-bargains as the other gentlemen had, he was to derive no immediate benefit, except as you believe that man. ”

“ Sandom first went there, or how long he continued there, but far from Sandom's being a prisoner in that gaol during the time when Mr. De Berenger was confined there, my Lord will find upon his notes, as given by a person of the name of Foxall, that Sandom had lived at Northfleet for nine months before he sent for the chaise on the 21st of February. You observe therefore, gentlemen, that there is not the slightest reason to believe, as far as the evidence extends, that either Mr. Sandom, Mr. Holloway, or Mr. Lyte, had any knowledge or acquaintance with the other defendants. ”

“ No man can doubt that the reason why my friends abstained from [Pg 586] asking that question, and going into that examination, was, that after the evidence which had been given by all the witnesses for the prosecution, as to his dress, continued up to the last moment by the driver of the hackney-coach, who swore to De Berenger's entering the house in a scarlet coat; if all the servants in Lord Cochrane's house had been called to swear that the colour of De Berenger's coat was green, no man alive could have believed them. ”

“ Serjeant Best and Mr. Park have addressed you. I can introduce no such eloquent topics as those which my learned friend Mr. Serjeant Best has [Pg 322] touched upon. I cannot illustrate the character or the situations of life of the gentlemen for whom I appear, with the terms in which Mr. Park has spoken of his client De Berenger. I know of no claims to honour from any ancestry to which they can justly entitle themselves; they are men in a respectable, but in a humble line of life, compared with the other defendants upon the record ”

“ Murray, that Mr. De Berenger is a man of great abilities; his Society and his company were much courted till his misfortunes put him out of the general run of society; was there ever such a thing attempted till this moment, as that you were from such circumstance to prove a conspiracy as against these persons? On what ground can it be said that his connexion with Mr. Cochrane Johnstone is a matter of complaint against him? ”

“ The man says, he does not know who comes in and who goes out, being the clerk of a stockbroker, and being a good deal out; he says, Mr. De Berenger comes in without their interference; he has his own servants; and all he reasons from is the fact, that he did not hear him blow his French [Pg 312] horn at eight or nine o'clock on the Monday morning, which I shall prove to you he could not do, for that Mr. De Berenger went out to Lord Cochrane's at eight o'clock. These people do not swear, that he did not sleep at home; all they say is, that they do not know whether he was at home or not. ”

“ I never told them so, either on Monday the 21st or any other day, to the best of my knowledge. He has no attendance in the morning, he does every thing for himself, he does not usually ring his bell of a morning before he comes down to breakfast; he is a very quiet man, I never knew him otherwise, he never makes a disturbance, he walks about very much. My master finally left his lodgings on Sunday the 27th; I remember changing a £.50 note with Seeks," (that is the £.50. I have mentioned to you) "received it from Mr. De Berenger, I received it on the 27th, the day he went away ”

“ My Lord, I am of Counsel for Mr. De Berenger, and it does not very often fall to my lot to be Counsel for a defendant in the situation he is in. When we are so, we are always placed in a most painful situation; because it does not become the defendants themselves, much less does it become us, to offer any thing to your Lordships that may go in contradiction to the verdict. Undoubtedly, Mr. De Berenger is convicted, and he must abide the consequences of that conviction. His affidavit, I have seen only this morning ”

“ I did not see or hear him the next morning before nine; I go out at nine. I generally used to hear him before that time walking about, or ringing for his servant. I made an observation upon his servants going out on the Sunday at two; I do not think they were at home at four o'clock, which was Mr. De Berenger's usual dinner hour; the man servant always attended him when he dined, and the woman dressed his dinner; he did not dine at home on that Sunday. A conversation took place with the Smiths afterwards, respecting that Sunday night. ”

“ All De Berenger's papers have been ransacked and taken from him, at a moment when he could have no idea that they would be taken, and therefore could not have destroyed or secreted [Pg 288] any, and yet not a single paper is found (but the bank notes) , not a single letter; the parties to the conspiracy are never brought together in connection, and it does not appear that there has been any communication by letter. Here seems to be a conspiracy without any possible means of conspiring. ”

“ But I am placed in an awkward situation as to the hand-writing; I do not complain of it, but the witnesses into whose hands I must put that paper, have never seen it. Mr. Lavie has seen it; he has had an opportunity of conning it over; but I think he might have done better than to have given his own testimony of this Mr. de Berenger's writing. Mr. de Berenger is not an obscure man in the city of London; he has lived in this country twenty-five years; he tells me there was no man acquainted with his hand-writing, who could be called to prove this to be his hand-writing ”

“ Gentlemen, what now becomes of these affidavits and of those who made them? what becomes of this alibi for Mr. De Berenger? what becomes of the affidavits of his servants Smith and his wife? what becomes of Lord Cochrane swearing as he does to his green coat? why do persons resort to falsehood, but because truth convicts them? ”

“ De Berenger went to the Marsh-gate at Lambeth, not in consequence of design, but of an intimation which he received from the driver who drove the last stage, that there was no hackney-coach to be procured at the first place where they would stop; in consequence of which, Mr. De Berenger directed the man to drive him to another. ”

“ Cochrane Johnstone, Mr. Butt, and Mr. De Berenger;—the first object he had in view, was to persuade the Stock Exchange that he knew the whole of their concern in the transaction. A pleasant sort of a gentleman, to ask the sum of £.10,000, to induce him to tell all that he knew, when no human being can doubt that all M'Rae knew was, that which has been proved by the witnesses, as to Sandom, Lyte and Holloway, namely; that M'Rae was in a chaise which passed through the City of London, coming from Northfleet. ”