(before the Council)
Brougham had _forgotten_ that the man was recommended to mercy,
but he told me that at the last Recorder's report there was a
great difference of opinion on one (a forgery case), when
Tenterden was for hanging the man and he for saving him; that he
had it put to the vote, and the man was saved. Little did the
criminal know when there was a change of Ministry that he owed
his life to it, for if Lyndhurst had been Chancellor he would
most assuredly have been hanged; not that Lyndhurst was
particularly severe or cruel, but he would have concurred with
the Chief Justice and have regarded the case solely in a judicial
point of view, whereas the mind of the other was probably biassed
by some theory about the crime of forgery or by some fancy of his
strange brain.

[3] [The High Court of Admiralty had still a criminal
jurisdiction, and the capital cases were submitted to
the King in Council for approval.]

This was a curious case, as I have since heard. The man owes his
life to the curiosity of a woman of fashion, and then to another
feeling. Lady Burghersh and Lady Glengall wanted to hear St. John
Long's trial (the quack who had _man_-slaughtered Miss Cashir),
and they went to the Old Bailey for that purpose. Castlereagh and
somebody else, who of course were not up in time, were to have
attended them. They wanted an escort, and the only man in London
sure to be out of bed so early was the Master of the Rolls, so
they went and carried him off. When they got to the court there
was no St. John Long, but they thought they might as well stay
and hear whatever was going on. It chanced that a man was tried
for an atrocious case of forgery and breach of trust. He was
found guilty and sentence passed; but he was twenty-three and
good-looking. Lady Burghersh could not bear he should be hanged,
and she went to all the late Ministers and the Judges to beg him
off. Leach told her it was no use, that nothing could save that
man; and accordingly the old Government were obdurate, when out
they went. Off she went again and attacked all the new ones, who
in better humour, or of softer natures, suffered themselves to be
persuaded, and the wretch was saved. She went herself to Newgate
to see him, but I never heard if she had a private interview, and
if he was afforded an opportunity of expressing his gratitude
with all the fervour that the service she had done him demanded.

In the meantime th