n written even opposite the signature. That I did not collect from
the hand-writing, that it was addressed to me by De Berenger, is nothing
extraordinary; my acquaintance with that person was extremely slight;
and till that day I had never received more than one or two notes from
him, which related to a drawing of a lamp. I was too deeply impressed
with the idea that the note was addressed to me by an officer who had
come with intelligence of my brother, to apprehend that it was written
by De Berenger, from whom I expected no communication, and with whose
hand-writing I was not familiar. All that I could afterwards recollect
of the note, more than what is stated in my affidavit is, that he had
something to communicate which would affect my feeling mind, or words to
that effect, which confirmed my apprehensions that the writer was the
messenger of fatal news of my brother.

If De Berenger had really been my agent in this nefarious transaction,
how I should have acted or where I should have chosen to receive him, it
is impossible for me to say: but I humbly apprehend that my own house
was not the place I should have selected for that purpose. The pretended
Du Bourg, if I had chosen him for my instrument, instead of his making
me his convenience, should have terminated his expedition and have found
a change of dress elsewhere. He should not have come immediately and in
open day to my house. I should not so rashly have invited detection and
its concomitant ruin.

But this is not the only extravagance of which I am accused. What
supposition short of my absolute insanity will account for my having
voluntarily made the affidavit which has been so much canvassed, if I
really knew the plot in which De Berenger appears to have been engaged?
Let me entreat your Lordships consideration of the situation in which I
stood at the moment in which that affidavit was made; I was suspected of
being connected with the pretended Du Bourg; if I had known that De
Berenger was the person who had assumed that name, could I possibly have
betrayed him, and consequently myself, more completely than by
publishing such a detail to the world? The name of De Berenger was never
mentioned till brought forward in my affidavit; which affidavit was
made, as sworn by Mr. Wright, a witness on the trial, with the
circumstance present to me, and remarked by me at the time I delivered
it to him to be printed, that if De Berenger should happen to be Du
Bourg, I