For the whole month of November I was in London, expecting the trial every day, but it was not till the evening of the 6th of December that I heard that it was to be the next morning in the law-court off Westminster Hall. The court was crowded. My counsel, Mr. Pollock, began his speech with a tremendous exordium. “Gentlemen of the jury, in a neighbouring court the world is sitting silent before the stupendous excitement of the Tichborne trial: gentlemen of the jury, _that_ case pales into insignificance--pales into the most _utter_ insignificance before the thrilling interest of the present occasion. On the narrow stage of this domestic drama, all the historic characters of the last century and all the literary personages of the present seem to be marching in a solemn procession.” And he proceeded to tell the really romantic history of the picture--how Benjamin Franklin saw it painted, &c. I was called into the witness-box and examined and cross-examined for an hour by Mr. H. James. As long as I was in the region of my great-uncles and aunts, I was perfectly at home, and nothing in the cross-examination could the least confuse me. Then the counsel for the opposition said, “Mr. Hare, on the 20th of April 1866 you wrote a letter, &c.: what was in that letter?” Of course I said I could not tell. “What do you think was in that letter?” So I said something, and of course it was exactly opposite to the fact.
As witnesses to the fact of the picture having been at the Rectory at the time of the marriage of my Uncle Julius, I had subpœnaed the whole surviving family of Mrs. Julius Hare, who could witness to it better than any one else, as they had half-lived at Hurstmonceaux Rectory after their sister’s marriage. Her two sisters, Mrs. Powell and Mrs. Plumptre, took to their beds, and remained there for a week to avoid the trial, but Dr. Plumptre[10] and Mr. (F. D.) Maurice had to appear, and gave evidence as to the picture having been at Hurstmonceaux Rectory at the time of their sister’s marriage in 1845,[11] and having remained there afterwards during the whole of Julius Hare’s life. Mr. George Paul was then called, and took an oath that, till he went to America in 1852, the picture had remained at Sir John Paul’s; but such is the inattention and ignorance of their business which I have always observed in lawyers, that this discrepancy passed absolutely unnoticed.