nstone had been speculating in the funds, and speculating as
desperately from the month of November, as he was in this month of
February. But another thing is pressed against Mr. Cochrane Johnstone,
the largeness of his balance on the 21st of February, which is stated to
be L.420,000; now, gentlemen, I am astonished that the Stock Exchange
should instruct my learned friend to say any thing to you upon that
subject, producing the account which they have produced; if Mr. Cochrane
Johnstone had never had so large a balance before, there would have been
something in the argument; but cast your eye up that page, and you will
find that Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, who is supposed to have been desirous
of getting a quantity of stock into his possession, to sell on the 21st
of February, had on the 14th L.615,000; so that this gentleman, who is
supposed by the prosecutor's case, to have meditated a fraud by the sale
of stock on the 21st, is found reducing his balance immediately before
that day from L.615,000 to L.420,000; to contrive and carry into
execution such a trick as that which has been practised, must have taken
many days. It certainly must have been in contemplation as early as the
14th, how then can the prosecutors account for Mr. Johnstone's conduct
in selling between the 14th and 21st, if Mr. Cochrane was one of the
persons who had been contriving to put into his possession all the stock
that he could purchase, for the purpose of selling it on the 21st; this
is so entirely inconsistent with what must have been the view of a man
engaged in a transaction of this sort, that a view of this paper is
sufficient to show that there could not have been such an intention;
look at this paper, and you will see what he was in the habit of
selling; look at his daily sales, and you will find that he began
selling; on the 9th that he sold L.10,000, on the 10th L.105,000, on the
11th L.35,000, on the 14th L.100,000, on the 16th L.10,000, on the 17th
L.19,500, and on the 19th, this gentleman, who is supposed to have
meditated such a fraud as this on the Monday following, sells out
L.18,000. Let any man in his senses, any man not carried away with the
feelings which agitate the Stock Exchange, in consequence of their
having been outwitted; for these sharps, who are called flats by one of
the witnesses, did not like to be taken in by other sharps. Let any
dispassionate man look at this paper, and say whether Mr. Johnstone
could have contempla