Lord Cochrane never really intended to attempt a second escape. Had it been otherwise, the illness induced by his confinement in the Strong Room would have restrained him. Being placed in healthier apartments on the 16th of April, he quietly remained there for the remainder of his term of imprisonment. On the 20th of June he was informed that, the term being now at an end, he was at liberty to depart on payment of the fine of 1000£ levied against him. This he at first refused to do, and accordingly he was detained in prison for a fortnight more; but at length the entreaties of his friends prevailed. On the 3rd of July he tendered to the Marshal of the King's Bench a 1000£ note, with this memorable endorsement: "My health having suffered by long and close confinement, and my oppressors being resolved to deprive me of property or life, I submit to robbery to protect myself from murder, in the hope that I shall live to bring the delinquents to justice." Upon that the prison doors were opened for him, and he was able once more to fight for the justice so cruelly withheld from him, and to make his innocence entirely clear to all whose selfish interests did not force them to be blind to the truth.
LORD COCHRANE'S RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.—HIS SHARE IN THE REFUSAL OF THE DUKE OF CUMBERLAND'S MARRIAGE PENSION.—HIS CHARGES AGAINST LORD ELLENBOROUGH, AND THEIR REJECTION BY THE HOUSE.—HIS POPULARITY.—THE PART TAKEN BY HIM IN PUBLIC MEETINGS FOR THE RELIEF OF THE PEOPLE.—THE LONDON TAVERN MEETING.—HIS FURTHER PROSECUTION, TRIAL AT GUILDFORD, AND SUBSEQUENT IMPRISONMENT.—THE PAYMENT OF HIS FINES BY A PENNY SUBSCRIPTION.—THE CONGRATULATIONS OF HIS WESTMINSTER CONSTITUENTS.
Released from imprisonment on Monday, the 3rd of July, Lord Cochrane resumed his seat in the House of Commons on the evening of the same day, just in time to secure the defeat of a measure which was especially obnoxious to his Radical friends. The Duke of Cumberland having lately married a daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, it was proposed to augment his income of about 20,000£ a year by a further pension of 6000£ A bill to that effect was brought in by Lord Castlereagh, and, after much sullen opposition from independent members, allowed a first reading by a majority of seventeen. On the second division the majority was reduced to twelve. The bill was brought on for the third reading on the 3rd of July, and would have been passed through the House of Commons by the Speaker's casting vote but for Lord Cochrane's sudden appearance. His vote secured a majority against it, and thereby it was finally overthrown. Great, on the morrow, were the rejoicings of his supporters. "What a triumph," it was said in a friendly newspaper, "is this to innocence! After being sentenced to the scandalous and disgraceful punishment of the pillory, after being confined in a loathsome dungeon, fined 1000£ in money to the king, disgracefully removed from that service in which he had attained such high honours and rendered to his country such essential service, his escutcheon kicked out of Westminster Abbey, his order of knighthood taken from him; in short, after having every possible indignity which the most malignant imagination could invent heaped upon him in every way, his single vote, on the very first day of his returning to his parliamentary duties, has been the means of obtaining a signal victory over those under whose persecution he had been so long suffering."