oluntary affidavit. I
wish that none of these voluntary affidavits were made; I wish that
Magistrates would not lend their respectable names to the use, or rather
to the abuse, which is made of these affidavits; for whether they are
employed to puff a quack medicine or a suspected character, they are I
believe, always used for the purpose of imposition.

Gentlemen, this affidavit I have before me, and I will prove the
publication of it upon Lord Cochrane, it is thus prefaced:

"Having obtained leave of absence to come to Town, in
consequence of scandalous paragraphs in the public papers, and
in consequence of having learnt that hand bills had been
affixed in the streets, in which (I have since seen) it is
asserted, that a person came to my house, No. 13,
Green-street, on the 21st day of February, in open day, and in
the dress in which he had committed a fraud, I feel it due to
myself to make the following deposition, that the public may
know the truth relative to the only person seen by me in
military uniform at my house on that day.

COCHRANE."

"Dated 13, Green-street, March 11th, 1814."

Now comes the Affidavit:

"I Sir Thomas Cochrane, commonly called Lord Cochrane, having
been appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to
active service (at the request I believe of Sir Alexander
Cochrane) when I had no expectation of being called on, I
obtained leave of absence to settle my private affairs
previous to quitting this country, and chiefly with a view to
lodge a specification to a patent, relative to a discovery for
increasing the intensity of light. That in pursuance of my
daily practice of superintending work that was executing for
me, and knowing that my uncle, Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, went to
the City every morning in a coach, I do swear on the morning
of the 21st of February, (which day was impressed on my mind
by circumstances which afterwards occurred) I breakfasted with
him, at his residence in Cumberland-street, about half past
eight o'clock, and I was put down by him (and Mr. Butt was in
the coach) on Snow-hill about ten o'clock; that I had been
about three quarters of an hour at Mr. King's manufactory, at
No. 1, Cock-lane, when I received a few lines on a small bit
of paper, requesting me to come immediately to my house; the
n