I must explain how it was that I, having been retained to lead Coleridge, was afterwards compelled to be led by him; and it is an interesting event in the history of the Bar as well as of the Judicial Bench.

The action was really a Western Circuit case, although the venue was laid in London.  Coleridge led that circuit and was retained.  I belonged to the Home Circuit, and had no idea of being engaged at all for that side.  I had been retained for the Claimant, but the solicitor, with great kindness, withdrew his retainer at my request.

I was brought into the case for the purpose of leading, and no other; but by the appointment of Coleridge to the Solicitor-Generalship in 1868, I was displaced, and Coleridge ultimately led.  His further elevation happened in this way:  Sir Robert Collier was Attorney-General, and it was desired to give him a high appointment which at that moment was vacant, and could only be filled by a Judge of the High Court.  Collier was not a Judge, and therefore was not eligible for the post.  The question was how to make him eligible.  The Prime Minister of the day was not to be baffled by a mere technicality, and he could soon make the Attorney-General a Judge of the High Court if that was a condition precedent.

There was immediately a vacancy on the Bench; Collier was appointed to the judgeship, and in three days had acquired all the experience that the Act of Parliament anticipated as necessary for the higher appointment in the Privy Council.

Instead of leading, therefore, in the case before Chief Justice Bovill, I had to perform whatever duties Coleridge assigned to me.  My commanding position was gone, and it was no longer presumable that I should be entrusted with the cross-examination of the plaintiff.  I was bound to obey orders and cross-examine whomsoever I was allowed to.

[The one thing Mr. Hawkins was retained for was the cross-examination of the plaintiff.  Lord Chief Justice Cockburn said, “I would have given a thousand pounds to cross-examine him.”  It would have been an excellent investment of the Tichborne family to have given Hawkins ten thousand pounds to do so, for I am sure there would have been an end of the case as soon as he got to Wapping.

Coleridge acknowledged that the Claimant cross-examined him instead of his cross-examining the Claimant.

When that shrewd and cunning impostor was asked, “Would you be surprised to hear this or that?” “No,” said he, “I should be surprised at nothing after this long time and the troubles I have been through; but, now that you call my attention to it, I remember it all perfectly well.”  Coleridge said:  “I am leader by an accident.”  “Yes,” said Hawkins, “a colliery accident.”]

I had also been retained by the trustees of the Doughty estate.  Lady Doughty was an aunt of Sir Roger Tichborne, and it was her daughter Kate whom the heir desired to marry.  Had the Claimant succeeded in the first case, he would have brought an action against her also.