. When he was
stepping into the carriage, I asked him what the news was; he told me it
was as good as I could possibly wish; I did not see what he did with the
paper he was writing upon, nor did I hear him say what he was writing
about, he went away the first of us."

Now this man has been made a good deal the subject of comment; for it
appears that he had gone down to Dover, and was, in some respect,
waiting for news; there was a kind of reluctance in him to acknowledge
that, in respect of which there need not have been any, for there is
nothing whatever objectionable in his sending up paragraphs for the
Traveller newspaper. I believe the publishers of these papers mostly
have some persons stationed at the out-ports, to obtain intelligence of
important events, and particularly so critical and anxious a moment as
that was they would naturally have such persons at the port of Dover;
there was nothing he should not avow; and if it was with the view to
purchase in the funds, in consequence of the intelligence he should
receive; if a man purchases funds upon public intelligence fairly and
honestly come by, when every body has an equal opportunity of acquiring
it and the intelligence is genuine, it is like buying any other article
in the market, upon fair knowledge of the circumstances connected with
its value; it is as allowable to deal in that article as in any other,
upon equal terms; but the objection here is to a dealing which resembles
the playing with loaded dice; if one plays with secret means of
advantage over another, it is not fair-playing--it is a cheat: I own I
have been much shocked with this sort of fraudulent practice, called
three times over, in the letter of Cochrane Johnstone, _a hoax_; I
cannot apply a term which imports a joke to that, which if the
Defendants are guilty of, is a gross fraud upon public and private
property; and unless every species of depredation and robbery is to be
regarded as a species of pleasantry, I think the name of hoax, which has
been given to it, is very ill applied to a transaction of so dishonest
and base a description.

Then Mr. St. John says, "I went to Dover, by desire of a friend of mine;
his name is Farrell; he is a merchant in the city, and is a proprietor
of the Traveller." Then being asked, where that gentleman lived, he
says, "In Austin Friars: I was to communicate to Mr. Farrell or to Mr.
Quin." Then he says, "certainly the arrival of news at such a time would
hav