leave of absence and return. Then the Dowager's
attorney procured from Stonyhurst lists of the professors and
officials during Roger's three years' study there; and finally, the
books of Lloyd's and the "Merchant Seamen's Register" were searched
for information about the movements of the "Pauline," the "Bella," and
other vessels. Coincident with these researches, there was a marked
improvement in the Claimant's knowledge of the circumstances of what
he alleged to be his own past life. There was no mention now of "the
Sixty-sixth Blues," or of having been a private soldier; no denial,
with or without an oath, of having been at Stonyhurst; no allusion to
any other of the numerous statements he had made to Mr. Gibbes on those
points. Then converts began to multiply, but not among the Tichborne
family, or in any other circle that had known Roger very intimately.
Affidavits, however, increased in number. People related wonderful
instances of things the Claimant reminded them of, and which had
happened in the past. On the one hand, these facts were regarded as
"genuine efforts of memory;" on the other, they were stigmatised as
the result of an organized system of extracting information from one
person, and playing it off upon another.

At the end of July 1867, there was a public examination of the
Claimant in Chancery, at which, for the first time, he made generally
known that famous account of his alleged wreck and--escape in one of
the boats of the "Bella," with eight other persons, which, with some
variations, he has since maintained. It was then that, in answer to
questions, he stated that he was not certain of the name of the vessel
that picked him up, but was "under the impression that it was the
'Osprey.'" He also said that her captain's name was "Owen Lewis, or
Lewis Owen," but he was "not certain," though he said that three
months elapsed between the date of his being saved and his being
landed in Melbourne in July 1854. Besides these, the most remarkable
points in his examination were his statements that, on the very next
day after his arrival, he was engaged by a Mr. William Foster, of
Boisdale, an extensive farmer in Gippsland, to look after cattle; and
that he henceforward lived in obscurity in Australia under the name of
Thomas Castro. The name of Thomas Castro, he added, had occurred to
him because, during his travels in South America, he had known a
person so named at Melipilla, in Chili.

Mr. Gosford was al