hook them for the parcel, and make them liable in law for its contents, as craved in the libelled summons raised and executed against them. Up to this point, and long after it, those parties, we may remark, were also completely ignorant of the scenes that had taken place in the Gallowgate, or of the affair in Glasgow Jail; which, if known to them, would, of course, have unravelled and laid bare all the mystery about the parcel, and knocked the process itself right speedily out of Court. But Mr. Morgan and his confederates carefully and cunningly kept these things concealed to themselves, for the reasons stated; and Mr. Peat and his friends deemed it wise and prudent to keep their thumbs secretly on what he or they had done with the caption; else Mr. Peat, in particular, might have been taken up and punished, for an outrage on the diligence of the law. Mr. Taylor in the meantime, we are glad to say, had got his affairs amicably arranged with all his creditors, excepting Chatto & Co., but they thought they were quite secure in getting 20/ in the pound from Messrs. Pyper & Bain, the wealthy coach proprietors, besides interest and expenses, plack and penny. The law-plea against these gentlemen, stirred up vigorously by Mr. Edward Railton, was going on at a rattling pace for the pursuers, in the Court of Session, for nearly two years. The trial gave rise to an important preliminary defence in law, discussed for the first time, we think, in Scotland, which was this: The defenders did not deny, and could not deny, the booking of the parcel, but they raised the important point, that they could not be liable for the contents of that parcel unless the value of it had been specially intimated to them at the time, and they had insured it accordingly. They pled, with much plausibility, that they might as well be made

liable for £100,000, and so ruined, if notice of the real risk was not communicated to, and adopted by them. Able pleas on that legal and important point were heard for a long while before their Lordships; but at last they decided by a majority that the booking of the parcel, by the payment of the twopence, made the Mail Coach proprietors liable in law.

This decision, so far as it went, gladdened the hearts of Messrs. Chatto & Co., and their agents; and Mr. Morgan and his two concurrents, without the least twinges of conscience, were laughing and smiling in their sleeves. But the case, by another turn, was remitted to the Jury Court, on the issue-Delivery or Non-delivery of the parcel. At last the proceedings, by some means or other, reached the ears of the public, and created some interest; and they also reached the astonished ears of Mr. Walter Peat himself, for the first time. "What," said Watty to himself, “are these infernal lawyers—these horse-leeches of messengers-at-arms-really attempting to rob, diddle, or cheat Messrs. Pyper & Bain in this way; or cooly attempting, under figments of law, to circumvent and injure them by telling a parcel of lies about the caption, when I know so well about it? And is this Mr. Morgan, the knave, really attempting to hold up his brazen snout, and deny the various entertainments we gave him, on the head of the caption, in Mrs. Erskine's tavern? Can he, the rascal [Watty was now sweltering with honest indignatio.. and rage], can he hold up his head in society, in broad day light, and deny the introduction to the Tolbooth; and what the decent jailor then told him about his caption?"

Watty now began to swear like a trooper, at the law, and all bout it, but he was particularly fierce on

Mr. Morgan, whose subsequent conduct, against the innocent Mail Coach people, nettled him to the very quick. He, therefore, composing himself like an honest. man, would make now, he said, a "clean breast of it,' whatever might be the consequences to himself; so he went and told the whole story, from first to last, to the Mail Coach agents. They (Messrs. Kerr & Malcolm) were mightily tickled and surprised with it, and with the blunt, even-down, soncy appearance of Mr. Peat; for they were just preparing for the approaching trial in the Jury Court, and he came to them, they said, in the very nick of time. On the other hand, but in a far different manner, Railton & Morgan were also busily preparing for that trial-training their witnesses absolutely to swear that they never received the caption, and never saw it at all. They were cock-sure of a verdict, and carousing already on the head of it.

Mr. Peat was prudently admonished and enjoined by the defender's astonished agents to keep all his secrets to himself, including his tricks about the cards, and especially the caption, till he was put into the witness-box by the defenders, on the eventful day of the trial itself in Edinburgh, before the Lord Chief-Commissioner and a Jury. He promised to do so, and he faithfully kept his word.

At Edinburgh, on the 24th day of July, 1827, there appeared in Court for the pursuers of the action, the following counsel and agents, viz., Messrs. Francis Jeffrey and J. S. More, advocates, with Messrs. Campbell and Mack, W.S., agents. For the defenders, Messrs. Henry Cockburn, John Cunningham, and Joseph Bain, junr., advocates, with Mr. James Greig, W.S., agent.

Suffice it to say, that Mr. William Morgan, with the whole of his concurrents and clerks, and other persons

er; or, if tly comm e on this,

none of y e after it

5,

and rem kissed his

e very bri other by t itted them ally arrang st fatal sig his hands, a ird, he utte , where is ry?" and at bolt fell, a ging togeth mpting to ca ain: the vi n-happier an the one , the execut with other taking aim xes, severed them up str ls with cor Traitor,-t lung them c th, with a h groaned at what then?

in the office of Railton & Morgan, boldly appeared in the
witness-box, and swore most distinctly and positively
that the parcel in question was not delivered to, or
received, or seen by any one of them.

This was supposed to be conclusive and decisive evidence
in favour of the pursuers, and fatal, of course, to the Mail
Coach proprietors. In his cross examination, conducted
by Henry Cockburn, Mr. William Morgan swore, -
equivocally, that he had never been in the tavern of Mrs.
Ralph Erskine in the Gallowgate that he did not even
know where such a house was situated!

This was also supposed to be a stunning and fatal blow
to that accomplished and clever Counsel, in his line of
cross-examination. He sat down, shaking his fine formed
bald head, apparently very much surprised. But, in
in a Jury case, with plain and stubborn facts before him,
he was inimitable. Few Advocates, indeed, could match
him for his racy humour to any jury, in any case which
he relished, and had the palm of conducting.

It came now to the turn of Henry Cockburn himself to
address the jury for the defendents. He touched off the
Messenger-at-arms to perfection. He described the scenes
in Mrs. Erskine's tavern with a solemnity, mixed with
a playfulness, which the greatest comic actor of the day
on the British stage could not have excelled; and as he
advanced, with a flood of resistless eloquence, to describe
the last eventful scene in the Jail of Glasgow-which
boldly undertook to prove-the Lord Chief-Commissione
the whole Court, and the Jury, were perfectly entranced
with amazement; insomuch that the venerable Judge
threw down his pen, arose from his seat, and looked
anxiously to both sides of the bar, indicating pretty plainly,
"Can this be possible?"

Mr. Henry Cockburn-who, we may observe (and the observation equally applies to his friend Mr. Jeffrey) never wore any wig at the bar, during the zenith of their greatest practice-calmly sat down and adjusted his tattered, but oft displayed gown, scarcely worth the mending, as some thought from its appearance, and looking earnestly at the Judge, and then calmly directing his bewitching eyes to the gentlemen of the Jury ;-they in their turn looking intensely on him, and wondering whether he could really substantiate, by credible evidence, the one tithe of what he had just addressed to them Mr. Cockburn, nothing dismayed, but with confidence, at once called into the witness-box his first, and most important witness, "Watty Peat "-now designed as Walter Peat, Esq., now or lately tanner, near the Spoutmouth, in the Gallowgate of Glasgow. It was a rich scene that of Watty, for the first and last time, to make in the supreme "College of Justice," as it was wont to be called in Edinburgh. He answered the preliminary questions put to him with the greatest propriety. "Go on, sir," said Mr. Cockburn, eyeing his witness with increasing confidence and delight; "please go on, Mr. Peat, in your own frank, homely way, and raise your voice, and just tell his Lordship, and the gentlemen of the Jury, all you know of this extraordinary case, from the beginning."

So Watty, plucking up confidence, went into the whole details we have already given, but in a more matchless and impressive manner, convulsing the Court and the Jury, and all who heard him reciting anew his wonderful tricks.

Watty afterwards stood the sharp fire of Mr. Jeffrey's cross examination with remarkable composure. He was giving playful, but most honest evidence; and a witness