ving the _Tonnant_, in which he was about to start from Chatham, he
returned to London, and gave full information as to his share in the
transaction, with the view of furthering the cause of justice and
clearing himself from all blame.

That was prevented by as wanton a prosecution and as malicious a
perverting of the forms of justice and the principles of equity as the
annals of English law, not often abused even in a much less degree,
can show. The straightforward evidence furnished by him was made
the handle to an elaborate machinery of falsehood and perjury for
effecting his own ruin. The solicitor who had managed the cause of the
Admiralty at the court-martial on Lord Gambier, and therein proved his
skill, was entrusted with the ugly work. By him an elaborate case for
prosecution was trumped up, and Lord Cochrane, hindered from sailing
to North America in the _Tonnant_, and hindered from obtaining any
other employment in his country's service during four-and-thirty
years, was, on the 8th of June, placed in the prisoner's dock at the
Court of King's Bench on a charge of conspiring with his uncle, Mr.
Cochrane Johnstone, with De Berenger, and with some other persons,
to defraud the Stock Exchange. Lord Ellenborough, who presided at the
trial, delivered a charge which was even more virulent and more marked
by political spite than was his wont, and the too compliant jury
brought in a verdict of "guilty." Lord Cochrane vainly sought for a
new trial, and vainly adduced abundant proof of his innocence. The
chance of justice that is every Englishman's right was denied to him.
He was sentenced to an hour's detention in the pillory at the entrance
of the Royal Exchange, to a year's imprisonment in the King's Bench
Prison, and to a fine of a thousand pounds.

The first part of the sentence was not insisted upon, as Sir Francis
Burdett, Lord Cochrane's noble-hearted colleague as member for
Westminster, avowed his intention of standing also in the pillory, if
his friend was subjected to that indignity, and of thus encouraging
the storm of popular indignation, that, without any such
encouragement, would probably have led to consequences which
the Government, already hated by all Englishmen who loved their
birthright, dared not brook. But the unworthy vengeance of his
persecutors was amply satisfied in other ways. He had already suffered
more than most men. "Neglect," he said, "I was accustomed to. But when
an alleged offence w