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123 by Sir W. Follett's advice) minutes of a consultation noted by his solicitor, Mr Currie; in which Mr Currie admitted, that Sir W. Follett said, he doubted much if a verdict could be got, as witnesses of the description Mr Norton had procured, "were so likely to break down on cross-examination"; that it would be "important to prove by a better class of witnesses," the extreme intimacy with Lord Melbourne; and that a conference had been afterwards held, as to the necessity of taking some step, rather than admit (by not proceeding) that the charge was groundless. On so slender a chance did that mock trial turn!

Mr Norton also published the opinion and letters of Sir John Bayley, at and after the trial; to prove, as he said, that Sir John's opinion was then at variance with the one recently expressed in my favour. Sir John was in Scotland when this second batch of slanders appeared; I therefore wrote to him; and, after briefly commenting, myself, on Mr Norton's fresh attack; I re-printed this public denial made at the time, to disprove Sir W. Pollett's share in a transaction he had expressly disclaimed.

Extract from the "Times" of June 25th, 1836:—

Sir John Bayley answered my appeal to him, as I hoped and expected; he came forward and publicly contradicted, in his own person, the tissue of mis-statements by which