now of “the Sixty-sixth Blues,” or of having been a private soldier; no denial, with or without an oath, of having been at Stonyhurst; no allusion to any other of the numerous statements he had made to Mr. Gibbes on those points.  Then converts began to multiply, but not among the Tichborne family, or in any other circle that had known Roger very intimately.  Affidavits, however, increased in number.  People related wonderful instances of things the Claimant reminded them of, and which had happened in the past.  On the one hand, these facts were regarded as “genuine efforts of memory;” on the other, they were stigmatised as the result of an organized system of extracting information from one person, and playing it off upon another.

At the end of July 1867, there was a public examination of the Claimant in Chancery, at which, for the first time, he made generally known that famous account of his alleged wreck and—­escape in one of the boats of the “Bella,” with eight other persons, which, with some variations, he has since maintained.  It was then that, in answer to questions, he stated that he was not certain of the name of the vessel that picked him up, but was “under the impression that it was the ‘Osprey.’” He also said that her captain’s name was “Owen Lewis, or Lewis Owen,” but he was “not certain,” though he said that three months elapsed between the date of his being saved and his being landed in Melbourne in July 1854.  Besides these, the most remarkable points in his examination were his statements that, on the very next day after his arrival, he was engaged by a Mr. William Foster, of Boisdale, an extensive farmer in Gippsland, to look after cattle; and that he henceforward lived in obscurity in Australia under the name of Thomas Castro.  The name of Thomas Castro, he added, had occurred to him because, during his travels in South America, he had known a person so named at Melipilla, in Chili.

Mr. Gosford was also examined on that occasion, with results which had an important influence on the progress of the great cause celebre.  Some time before that gentleman had been induced to have one more interview with the Claimant in the presence of two of his most influential supporters, who thereupon requested Mr. Gosford to test their protege by asking him about some private matter between him and his friend Roger in the past.  Thus challenged Mr. Gosford naturally bethought him of the sealed paper, in which Roger had recorded his intention of building a chapel or church at Tichborne, and dedicating it to the Virgin, in the event of his marrying his cousin within three years; and he therefore requested the Claimant to declare, if he could, what were the contents of a certain packet marked “private” which Roger left in his hands when he went away.  Having obtained no definite answer, Mr. Gosford, for the sake of fairness, went a step further, and said that it recorded an intention “to carry out an arrangement at Tichborne in the event of his marrying