But there were many who had felt that as Mr. Browborough must
certainly now be prosecuted sooner or later,--for there could be no
final neglecting of the Commissioners' report,--it would be better
that he should be dealt with by natural friends than by natural
enemies. The newspapers, therefore, had endeavoured to hurry the
matter on, and it had been decided that the trial should take place
at the Durham Spring Assizes, in the first week of May. Sir Gregory
Grogram became Attorney-General in the middle of April, and he
undertook the task upon compulsion. Mr. Browborough's own friends,
and Mr. Browborough himself, declared very loudly that there would be
the greatest possible cruelty in postponing the trial. His lawyers
thought that his best chance lay in bustling the thing on, and
were therefore able to show that the cruelty of delay would be
extreme,--nay, that any postponement in such a matter would be
unconstitutional, if not illegal. It would, of course, have been just
as easy to show that hurry on the part of the prosecutor was cruel,
and illegal, and unconstitutional, had it been considered that the
best chance of acquittal lay in postponement.
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