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The following pages were written by Mr. Bateman Brown, J.P., chiefly from memory, and were published in a series of articles in the Peterborough Advertiser. He had kept no diary and commenced to make his notes on December 17th, 1895, when he was 72 years of age, and he carries his record down to 1896. As, however, since then he has continued the same active, strenuous life, it is to be hoped that some day he will complete his record.
In his long and useful career there are no doubt many incidents which have been omitted, and which could well be added in a subsequent edition.
There is, for instance, the reference to Mr. Potto Brown in “Lord Brampton’s Reminiscences.” Lord Brampton’s work had not appeared when Mr. Bateman Brown made his notes, otherwise he would have been {6} able to have dealt with the matter himself. But Lord Brampton tells a story concerning Huntingdon in which he credits Mr. Potto Brown with certain remarks, which everyone who was familiar with him would know were foreign to his nature. Mr. Bateman Brown has his own views as to how Lord Brampton made the mistake, and desires insertion of the note below.*
The Editor of the Peterborough Advertiser desires to take this opportunity of tendering his thanks to Mr. Bateman Brown for the interesting series of articles he was enabled to publish, and also for his consent to permit their reproduction in a more permanent form.
July, 1905.
[*My solution of the Lord Brampton incident is, that it was my father who was under cross-examination first, and it was the other prosecutor on hearing it, took fright and went off to the hotel and uttered the oath to the ostler while he was putting his pony in the trap, anyhow, my father was not the man to be afraid of a cross-examination, and he certainly never uttered a profane oath in his life. He rather enjoyed being under cross-examination, always saying you never need fear if you intended to speak the truth.—Bateman Brown.]