, a very considerable
part of the stock of all these gentlemen was sold before any of them
came into the city, and without any particular directions on the subject
of the sale of it.

Gentlemen, the sale of the stock which Lord Cochrane possessed,
considering the circumstances under which he became possessed of it, and
the circumstances under which it was sold, furnishes, I submit to you,
no proof that he was privy to what they have called the hoax. I beg
pardon of the noble and learned judge, for using this term, after the
observation that his lordship has made upon it. I did not use it for the
purpose of treating with levity the crime contained in the indictment;
but it has been so frequently applied to this crime, both before and
since the prosecution was instituted, that it is difficult in the hurry
of speech to avoid using it.

Gentlemen, another circumstance has transpired, which I think furnishes
a strong observation in favour of all my clients; namely, the practice
of selling both stock and omnium, which the seller is not at the time of
such sale in possession of. If Lord Cochrane had been privy to the
fraud, would he have contented himself with merely selling the stock
that he had previously purchased. Would you not have found him selling
to every buyer that offered (and on the 21st of February there was no
scarcity of buyers at the advanced prices) stock and scrip in any
quantity; if he had been privy to the fraud, he must have known that the
bubble would soon burst, that the funds would fall back to their former
prices, and that by every sale that he so made, he must be a great
gainer; yet he is not found selling the value of a shilling in this
manner; nothing is sold but what had been previously bought, and that
sold under general directions given to the broker previous to the day
of sale, and previous to the time when the conspiracy could have been
conceived. If his lordship had been one of the conspirators, he must
have been found to have made many more thousands of pounds by the
speculations of this day, than he either is or can be proved to have
made hundreds. Avarice, always insatiable, which had in this case
impelled the defendant to hazard every thing that was dear and valuable
to him in life, stops short in the hot pursuit of its object, at the
very moment when the most abundant means of gratification are brought
within its reach. Does not then the inference of innocence, arising from
what he did n