The Committee of the Stock Exchange, suspecting…

The Committee of the Stock Exchange, suspecting deliberate stock manipulation, had launched an investigation into the Great Stock Exchange Fraud on February 21.

It was soon discovered that there had been a sale that Monday of more than £1.1 million of two government-based stocks, most of it purchased the previous week.

Three people connected with that purchase have been charged with the fraud: Lord Cochrane, a Radical member of Parliament and well-known naval hero, his uncle the Hon. Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone, and Richard Butt, Lord Cochrane's financial advisor.

Captain Random de Berenger, who had posed both as du Bourg and as one of the French officers, had soon been arrested, and a guilty verdict is returned against all three charged in the case.

The chief conspirators are sentenced to twelve months of prison time, a fine of £1,000 each, and an hour in the public pillory.

Lord Cochrane is also stripped of his naval rank and expelled from the Order of the Bath.

Though convicted of the fraud, Lord Cochrane will continue to assert his innocence.