o have the
case for the prosecution concluded within a reasonable time. If we had
no evidence, it was to his advantage, and we had no right to detain
him for a year while we were trying to obtain it.

However, the Australian evidence came in time. Numbers of witnesses
had to be called who not only were not in our brief, but were never
dreamed of. For instance, there was the Danish perjurer Louie, who
swore he picked up the defendant at sea when the _Bella_ went down.

Instead of this man going away after he had given his evidence, he
remained until two gentlemen from the City, seeing his portrait in the
Stereoscopic Company's window in Regent Street, identified him as a
dishonest servant of theirs, who was undergoing a sentence of penal
servitude at the time he swore he picked Roger up. He received five
years' penal servitude for his evidence.

I had pledged myself to the task, which extended over many months more
than I ever anticipated. At every sacrifice, however, I was bound to
devote myself to the case, and did so, although I had to relinquish a
very large portion of my professional income.

What made things worse, there was not only no effort made to curtail
the business, but advantage was taken of every circumstance to prolong
it. The longer it was dragged out the better chance there was of an
acquittal. Had a juryman died after months of the trial had passed,
the Government must have abandoned the prosecution. It would have been
impossible to commence again. This was the last hope of the defence.

[The trial before Bovill ended at last, as it ought to have done
months before, in a verdict for the defendants and the order for the
prosecution of the Claimant for perjury. It was this prosecution that
occupied the attention of the court and of the world for 188 days,
extending over portions of two years.

There is no doubt that Coleridge would a second time have deprived
the country of Mr. Hawkins's services, but higher influences than his
prevailed, and the distinguished counsel was appointed to lead for the
Crown, with Mr. Serjeant Parry as his leading junior. It is not too
much to say that no one knew the case so well as Mr. Hawkins, and none
could have done it so well. Bowen and Mathews were also his juniors.

The whole case, from the commencement of the Chancery proceedings down
to the commencement of this trial, had been a comedy of blunders. The
very claim was an absurdity, every step in the great frau