profitably availed themselves.

Then, gentlemen, we have the extraordinary evidence of Mr. Tahourdin,
the attorney for Mr. Cochrane Johnstone and for De Berenger, from which
it appears that they were all getting up the defence to the indictment
by anticipation. Mr. Tahourdin is to give a contemporaneous existence to
the transaction by the production of these letters and instruments, the
receipt for two hundred pounds, and the promissory note for two hundred
pounds more. From all this it is plain, that Mr. Cochrane Johnstone, at
the very moment when he was settling with his agent his reward for the
fraud he had committed, like a man of great foresight, looked forward to
the possible consequence of the trial of this day, and he provided for
it, as he thought, sufficiently:--"It may be thought, Mr. De Berenger,
that this money which I am now giving you is for the business of
yesterday, let us take care to prevent it; you write to me, I will write
to Tahourdin; it is not absolutely necessary (perhaps, he added) to
trust him with the secret, he will be an admirable witness hereafter; I
will put into his hands the promissory note and the receipt, he will
give them contemporaneous date, and then I shall be able to account for
my giving you, on this 26th of February, four hundred pounds."

Persons who devise these contrivances, gentlemen, have not, as I
observed to you yesterday, the skill to provide for all circumstances,
and now and then the very things which they do to effect concealment,
shall lead to detection.--Now mark:--Mr. Cochrane Johnstone is to pay
and to lend to Mr. De Berenger four hundred pounds. As he was to give
him four hundred pounds, why did he, or Mr. Butt (for they are one and
the same) take so much trouble, and go through so much circuity in
shifting and changing the bank notes? You observe, that the bank note
for L.200 is sent to the bankers, and exchanged for two notes of L.100
each; and then the same agent is sent to the Bank of England to get two
hundred notes of L.1 each; and that about the same time another agent is
sent to the bank, to exchange the two other notes for L.100 each for two
hundred more notes of L.1 each. Why, for the purpose of this payment and
this loan, do they go through this operation of changing and changing
again, to procure a vast number of notes for Mr. De Berenger, to enable
him to take this long journey to the north? Why, gentlemen, it is
because one pound notes are not trac