Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/351

 the decision of the jury. He remained away five—eight—ten minutes. "They are writing their verdict," was the whispered opinion. The Sheriff returned, crossed the court to his own box in solemn silence, and there, after a theatrical pause, announced that the jury could not agree! A shout from the audience, which made the roof ring with triumph, was the answer. The jury were called into court. They were divided half and half. Bankers, magistrates, manufacturers, pronounced the prisoner not guilty. It was worth a long imprisonment to look on the beaming faces and clasp the generous hands that thronged round the dock that night. It is one of the pictures that will not depart from my memory but with life. The jury were locked up for the night, and twelve hours' reflection added one more to the number for acquittal.

Next morning I consulted, in Newgate, with my three gifted and generous counsel. Mr. Butt, with the eye of a tactician, saw your routed position. He insisted on demanding a new trial forthwith, or my immediate liberation. With the panel scuttled by objections, he felt sure no Government jury could be secured. "If they try you again," he said, "it must be now, and you will be acquitted; or let them open the door."

On this agreement we returned to court to see the jury discharged. But your officials had been consulting also—the state of the case was as plain to them as to us, and when Mr. Butt rose to open his demand the Attorney-General precipitately consented to admit me to bail. It was an easier fall than my acquittal, which another jury might have made short work of. And so I saw the daylight again. Among stalwart men whose manly faces were wet with tears, among dear friends who had made light in the darkness for me, I was led out of Newgate broken in health and fortune, but not broken in spirit, to take up anew the hereditary task of our race and country.

And now, my lord, no soul will have any difficulty in understanding "how I escaped conviction." I escaped from first to last, through every step of this eventful history, by the malice of George William Villiers.

I have called this trial a providential one, and was it not