Now, I beg your attention to this letter. On that day, the 16th, Palmer writes thus to Pratt--“I am obliged to come to Tattersall’s on Monday to the settling, so that I shall not call and see you before Monday, but a friend of mine will call and leave you £200 to-morrow, and I will give you the remainder on Monday.” That is written on the 16th, the day they dine together at Palmer’s house. Now, you recollect that the person who ordinarily settled Cook’s accounts in racing transactions was a person of the name of Fisher, the wine merchant, in Shoe Lane. He was called as the first witness on this trial. That very day Cook writes to Fisher as follows:--“It is of very great importance to both Palmer and myself that a sum of £500 should be paid to a Mr. Pratt, of 5 Queen Street, Mayfair, to-morrow without fail; £300 has been sent up to-night, and if you would be kind enough to pay the other £200 to-morrow on the receipt of this, you will greatly oblige me, and I will give it to you on Monday at Tattersall’s.” Then there is a postscript which I will read, but make no comment upon it now--“I am much better.” What is the fair inference from these two letters? I submit to you that the inference is that at that date Cook was making himself very useful to Palmer. Pratt was pressing him for an additional sum of £200 when he had need of all his money, and Palmer having communicated his difficulty to Mr. Cook, Cook at once comes forward and writes to his agent to pay that £200. And the letter shows more--you may have forgotten that letter, but it was read in the first hour after the speech of my learned friend the Attorney-General; you may have forgotten it, but I read it to you word for word--the passage, “£300 has been sent up to-night,” shows that Cook knew all about it, and probably had an interest in Palmer’s transactions with Mr. Pratt; it was inserted merely for the purpose of putting a good face upon it to Mr. Pratt, as a man does who, not having a farthing of the sum that he wants to pay, will pretend that he has to pay more, in order to represent that he has got a portion of what he wants to pay, and he says, “Will you lend me a little more; I am not entirely dependent upon you for the sum that I have to pay”; or it means that on that day £300, which had come to their hands in some way or other, was by Cook made applicable to the convenience of Palmer--one of those things it means; whichever way you take it, it proves to demonstration that Palmer and Cook were playing into each other’s hands in respect of that heavy incumbrance upon Palmer; and that Palmer could rely upon Cook as a fast friend in any such little difficulty as that; and though his difficulties sound large when we talk of £11,500, the difficulty of the day was nothing like that, because in the spendthrift, reckless way in which they were living, putting on bills from month to month, and paying what sounds an enormous interest per annum, the actual outlay on the day was not always so considerable. I submit to you that letter shows that on the 16th of November, when they say he was poisoning Cook, Cook was behaving to him in the most friendly way, was acquainted with his circumstances, willing to assist in the relief of his embarrassments, and actually to devote a portion of his earnings to the purposes of Palmer. It is perfectly plain, but I will make it plainer if you will attend to me for a moment longer. You will remember that part of the case of my learned friend is this. He says that he intended to defraud Cook; that Palmer having left Cook ill in bed at Rugeley, ran up to town on the Monday, intending to despatch him on the Monday night or the Tuesday; that he ran up to town, went, not to Fisher, who was the agent of Cook, but to Herring, who was his own agent, and told Herring that he was authorised by Cook to settle his Shrewsbury transactions at Tattersall’s, thereby getting command over Cook’s winnings; that he applied them to his own purposes, and, having done so, determined to put Cook out of the way. That is their case. We had the evidence of Fisher on the first day. Fisher is evidently a shrewd, intelligent man; no friend of Palmer’s. He gave, I do not mean to say improperly, I did not wish to throw imputations, but he gave a twist to the dosing at Shrewsbury against Palmer. On the Monday, as on the Tuesday, Cook, though generally indisposed, was during great part of the day quite well, according to the evidence; on the Monday he saw his trainer, Saunders, he saw his two jockeys; he got up and was shaved; he was comfortable the whole day, and the theory is that he was comfortable because Palmer was not there to dose him--you will see how grossly absurd it is presently.