cently-discovered method of attacking forts and fleets
in a secret and irresistible manner. With that object--of course
clandestine--Sir Alexander Cochrane sought the permission of the
Admiralty to employ De Berenger as a teacher of sharp-shooting, in
which he was a well-known adept. This was not granted, and near the
end of 1813, Sir Alexander set sail for Halifax, leaving Lord Cochrane
to follow in the _Tonnant_, in charge of a convoy, and in getting
the _Tonnant_ ready for sea his lordship was busy during January and
February, 1814. In the former month De Berenger sought him out and
earnestly requested that, his official appointment being refused, he
might be taken on board in a private capacity and allowed to rely
upon the success of his work for recompense. Lord Cochrane declined
to employ him without some sort of sanction from the Admiralty, and
De Berenger left him with the avowed intention of doing his utmost to
procure this sanction.

He was otherwise occupied. Being in urgent need of money, with which
to evade the grasp of his numerous creditors, he returned to his
stock-jobbing pursuits--if indeed he had not been engaging in them
all along; using his proposal for employment under Lord Cochrane as a
blind or as a secondary resource. Instead of furthering his efforts to
obtain this employment, he contrived a plan for causing a sudden rise
in the funds, and thereby securing a large profit to himself and his
accomplices. On the 20th of February he presented himself at the Ship
Hotel at Dover, disguised as a foreigner and calling himself Colonel
De Bourg, professing that he brought intelligence from France to
the effect that Buonaparte had been killed by the Cossacks, that the
allied armies were in full march towards Paris, and that a speedy
cessation of the war was certain. Thence he hurried up to London and
was traced to have gone, on the following morning, to Lord Cochrane's
house. The ostensible object of that visit was to renew his
application for employment on board the _Tonnant_. The real object
was, by means of a trick, to get possession of a hat and cloak, with
which to disguise himself afresh, and thus try to elude the pursuit
of agents of the Stock Exchange, who would soon seek to punish him for
his fraud. The disguise was given to him in all innocence, and might
have been successful, had not Lord Cochrane, on finding how grossly
he had been deceived, volunteered to assist in punishing the culprit.
Lea