[_Seventh Count._]--That the Defendants, unlawfully contriving, &c. for their own lucre and gain, to injure and aggrieve divers of the liege subjects of our said Lord the King, on the said 19th February, unlawfully, &c. did conspire, &c. by divers false and subtle arts, devices, contrivances, representations, reports, and rumours, to occasion without just and true cause, a rise and increase in the prices of the public Government Funds, &c. and thereby to injure and aggrieve all his Majesty's liege subjects who should contract for, and also all his Majesty's liege subjects who should purchase any part or parts, share or shares of and in the said public Government funds, &c. during such last mentioned rise and increase in the prices thereof, to the evil example, &c.

[_Eighth Count._]--That the Defendants unlawfully, &c. contriving to injure and aggrieve divers of the liege subjects of our said Lord the King, on the 19th February unlawfully, &c. did conspire, &c. by divers false and subtle arts, devices, contrivances, representations, reports and rumours, to induce, cause and occasion, divers and very many of the liege subjects of our said Lord the King, to suppose and believe, without true and just cause, that a peace would soon be made between our said Lord the King and his subjects, and the people of France, to the great and manifest injury of divers and very many of the liege subjects of our said Lord the King, to the evil example, &c.

Plea--NOT GUILTY.

The Indictment was removed into the Court of King's Bench, at the instance of the Prosecutors, in Easter Term.

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, GUILDHALL, Wednesday, 8th June, 1814.

Before the Right Hon. LORD ELLENBOROUGH.

Counsel for the Prosecution. Mr. GURNEY, Mr. BOLLAND, Mr. ADOLPHUS.

Solicitors. Messrs. CROWDER, LAVIE, and GARTH.

Counsel for C. R. De Berenger. Mr. PARK, Mr. RICHARDSON.

Solicitor. Mr. GABRIEL TAHOURDIN.

Counsel for Lord Cochrane, The Hon. A. C. Johnstone, and R. G. Butt. Mr. Serjeant BEST, Mr. TOPPING, Mr. SCARLETT, Mr. BROUGHAM.

Solicitors for Lord Cochrane. Messrs. FARRER and ATKINSON.

Solicitors for the Hon. A. C. Johnstone, and R. G. Butt. Messrs. BRUNDRETT, WAINWRIGHT, and SPINKS.

Counsel for R. Sandom, J. P. Holloway, and Henry Lyte. Mr. Serjeant PELL, Mr. C. F. WILLIAMS, Mr. DENMAN.

Solicitor. Mr. YOUNG.

Counsel for Alexander M'Rae. Mr. ALLEY.

Solicitor. Mr. TWYNAM.

THE JURY.

Thomas Brown, Church-row, Aldgate. } Henry Septimus Wollaston, Devonshire-street. } George Spedding, Upper Thames-street. } George Miles, Gracechurch-street. } John Parker, Broad-street. } Lewis Loyd, Lothbury. } John Peter Robinson, Austin Friars. } Merchants. John Hodgson, New Broad-street. } Thomas Wilson Hetherington, Nicholas-lane. } Richard Hall, Lawrence-lane. } Richard Cheesewright, King-street. } John Green, Suffolk-lane. }

The Indictment was opened by Mr. ADOLPHUS.

Mr. GURNEY.

May it please your Lordship.

Gentlemen of the Jury.

It is my duty, as Counsel for this Prosecution, to state to you the facts which I shall have to lay before you, and to apply those facts to the several Defendants, and to the Charges contained in the Indictment, which has been opened by my learned Friend; and, Gentlemen, I am sure that it is unnecessary for me to request that you will dismiss from your minds every thing that you may have heard upon this subject before you entered that Box. It is one of the circumstances which necessarily attends a free press, that many cases which come under the consideration of a Court of Justice, shall previously have undergone some public discussion; without blame to any one, that will sometimes occur from the nature and publicity of the case itself. It does also sometimes occur, that they who are accused, industriously circulate matters which they consider as useful to their defence; and even on the very eve of trial, force them into public notice. If any thing has fallen under your observation, either on the one side or the other, I intreat you to lay it totally aside; to come to the consideration of this subject with cool, dispassionate, unprejudiced, unprepossessed minds, to attend to the evidence that will be laid before you, and to that evidence alone--by that evidence let the Defendants stand or fall.

Gentlemen, it would be very extraordinary indeed, if it could ever have been supposed by any person, even the most ignorant, that this was not a crime. It would be a disgrace to any civilized country, if its laws were so defective. If that which has been done by these Defendants in conspiracy, had been done by any one of them singly, it would have been unquestionably a crime; but when done by conspiracy, it is a crime of a more aggravated nature--To circulate false news, much more to conspire to circulate false news with intent to raise the price of any commodity whatever, is, by the Law of England, a crime, and its direct and immediate tendency is to the injury of the public. If it be with intent to raise the price of the public funds of the country, considering the immense magnitude of those funds, and, consequently, the vast extent of the injury which may be produced, the offence is of a higher description. The persons who must be necessarily injured in a case of that kind, are various; the common bona fide purchaser who invests his money--the public, through the commissioners for the redemption of the national debt--the persons whose affairs are under the care of the Court of Chancery, and whose money is laid out by the Accountant General, all these may be injured by a temporary rise of the public funds, growing out of a conspiracy of this kind; and, Gentlemen, this is no imaginary statement of mine, for it will appear to you to-day, that all these persons were in fact injured by the temporary rise produced by this conspiracy. Undoubtedly the public funds will be affected by rumours, which may be considered as accidental; in proportion as they are liable to that, it becomes more important to protect them against fraud.

If this had been a conspiracy to circulate false rumours, merely to abuse public credulity, it would not have been a trivial offence; but if the object of the conspiracy be not merely to abuse public credulity, but to raise the funds, in order that the conspirators may sell out of those funds for their own advantage, and, consequently, to the injury of others, in that case the offence assumes its most malignant character--it is cold blooded fraud, and nothing else. It is then susceptible of but one possible aggravation, and that is, if the conspirators shall have endeavoured to poison the sources of official intelligence, and to have made the officers of government the tools and instruments of effectuating their fraud--Gentlemen, this offence, thus aggravated, I charge upon the several Defendants upon this Record, and I undertake to prove every one of them to be guilty.

Gentlemen, when I undertake to prove them to be guilty, you will not expect that I shall give you proof by direct evidence, because, in the nature of things, direct evidence is absolutely impossible--they who conspire do not admit into the chamber in which they form their plan, any persons but those who participate in it; and, therefore, except where they are betrayed by accomplices, in no such case can positive and direct evidence be given. If there are any who imagine, that positive and direct evidence is absolutely necessary to conviction, they are much mistaken; it is a mistake, I believe, very common with those who commit offences: they fancy that they are secure because they are not seen at the moment; but you may prove their guilt as conclusively, perhaps even more satisfactorily, by circumstantial evidence, as by any direct evidence that can possibly be given.

If direct and positive evidence were requisite to convict persons of crimes, what security should we have for our lives against the murderer by poison?--no man sees him mix the deadly draught, avowing his purpose. No, he mixes it in secret, and administers it to his unconscious victim as the draught of health; but yet he may be reached by circumstances--he may be proved to have bought, or to have made the poison; to have rinsed the bottle at a suspicious moment; to have given false and contradictory accounts; and to have a deep interest in the attainment of the object. What security should we have for our habitations against the midnight burglar, who breaks into your house and steals your property, without disturbing your rest or that of your family, but whom you reach by proving him, shortly afterwards, in the possession of your plate? What security should we have against the incendiary, who is never seen in the act by any human eye, but whose guilt, by a combination of circumstances over which he may have had no controul, or part of which he may have contrived for his own security, is as clearly established as if deposed to by the testimony of eye-witnesses.