Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/747

 THE GREEN BAG one of one thousand pounds and the other five hundred and seventy-five pounds. He took them up and carried them to my lord. He returned back, and told me my lord was ready to admit me. I was taken upstairs, and sworn in his bed chamber." Another witness was one Eide, who being a member of the House of Commons, felt authorized to apply to the Chancellor in person; he testified that : "The Chancellor said he had no manner of objection to me; he had known me a considerable time, and he believed I should make a good officer. He desired me to consider of it, and come to him again; and I did so. I went back from his lordship, and came again in a day or two, and told him I had considered of it; and desired to know if his lordship would admit me, and I would make him a present of four thou sand pounds or five thousand pounds; I cannot say which of the two I said, but I believe it was five thousand pounds. My lord said, thee and I, or you and I (my- lord was pleased to treat me as a friend) must not make bargains. He said if I was desirous of having the office, he would treat with me in a different manner than he would with any man living. I made no further appli cation at all, but spoke to Mr. Cottingham, meeting him in Westminster Hall, and told him I had been at my lord's, and my lord was pleased to speak very kindly to me; and I had proposed to give him five thousand pounds. Mr. Cottingham an swered guineas are handsomer. I imme diately went to my lord's; I was willing to get into the office as soon as I could; I did carry with me five thousand guineas in gold and bank-notes. I had the money in my chambers, but could not tell how to carry it — it was a great burden and weight; but recollecting I had a basket in my chamber, I put the guineas into the basket, and the notes with them; I went in a chair, and took the basket with me in my chair. When I came to my lord's house, I saw Mr. Cottingham there; and I gave

him the basket, and desired him to carry it up to my lord. I saw him go up stairs with the basket; and when he came down, he intimated to me that he had delivered it. [Cottingham subsequently testified that he carried it up to Lord Macclesfield, and left it covered up in his study, without saying a word.] When I was admitted, my lord invited me to dinner, and some of my friends with me; and he was pleased to treat me and some members of the House of Commons in a very handsome manner. I was, after dinner, sworn in before them. Some months afterwards, I spoke to my lord's gentleman, and desired him, if he saw such a basket, that he would give it me back; and some time after he did so. "Question. Was there any money in it? "Answer. No, there was not." Still another witness, who had agreed with Cottingham to buy a mastership for five thousand guineas and had a promise from the Chancellor that he "should be admitted in a few days," learned with dis may that the Chancellor was dickering with another applicant, whereupon, being a man of energy, he made a morning call on his lordship's wife, stating that, "I was the person that my lord had promised the office to and I desired her to intercede with my lord that I might speedily be sworn in." The lady declared that she "never meddled in any affair of'a public nature," whereupon the resourceful suitor stated that "he did not desire or expect to come in without the present that is always esteemed the per quisite of the Great Seal," and departed, leaving in an envelope addressed to her, bank notes to the amount of five thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. This gentle man apparently made a bad bargain; his predecessor in office had thoroughly ex hausted the fund, a fact which, as he testi fied, "could not have been unknown to the Lord Chancellor," for which reason, perhaps, Master Thurston was lucky enough to re cover part of his bribe, for when the clouds of wrath were gathering Lady Máceles-