But it is not of these things I wish to treat; it is of the facts connected with his residence in London. Two or three accounts say that he visited London in 1772, where he swindled a Doctor Benemore, who had rescued him from prison, under pretence of painting his country house, and his enemy, De Morande, of the _Courier de l’Europe_, who, in No.’s 16, 17, and 18 of that journal, made frightful accusations against Cagliostro, reiterates the story of his being here in 1772. In page xiv. of the preface to ‘The Life of the Count Cagliostro,’ 1787, there occurs the following passage: ‘M. de Morande is at infinite pains to persuade us that the Count resided in London in 1772, under the name of Balsamo, in extreme poverty, from which he was relieved by Sir Edward Hales. That Baronet professes, indeed, to recollect an _Italian_ of that name; but, as M. de Morande positively assures us that the Count is a _Calabrois_, a _Neapolitan_, or a _Sicilian_, we can desire no better argument to prove the fallacy of his information.’ In a pamphlet entitled, ‘Lettre du Comte Cagliostro au Peuple Anglois pour servir de suite à ses Memoires,’ 1786, p. 7, he says distinctly: ‘Nous sommes arrivés, ma femme et moi, en Angleterre, pour la première fois de ma vie, au mois de Juillet, 1776,’ and on p. 70 of the same work is the following (translated): ‘The greatest part of the long diatribe of M. Morande is used to prove that I came to London in 1772, under the name of _Balsamo_. In view of the efforts which M. Morande makes, in order to arrive at such proof, an attempt is made to show that the _Balsamo_ with whom they attempt to identify me ought to have been hung, or, at all events, he rendered himself guilty of some dishonourable actions. Nothing of the sort. This _Balsamo_, if the _Courier de l’Europe_ can be believed, was a mediocre painter, who lived by his brush. A man named _Benamore_, either agent, or interpreter, or chargé d’affaires to the King of Morocco, had commissioned him to paint some pictures, and had not paid for them. _Balsamo_ issued a writ against him for £47 sterling, which he said was due to him, admitting that he had received two guineas on account. Besides, this _Balsamo_ was so poor that his wife was obliged to go into town herself, in order to sell the pictures which her husband painted. Such is the portrait which M. de Morande draws of the _Balsamo_ of London, a portrait which no one will accuse him of having flattered, and from which the sensible reader will draw the conclusion that the _Balsamo_ of London was an honest artist who gained a livelihood by hard work. ‘I might then admit without blushing that I had lived in London in 1772 under the name of _Balsamo_, on the product of my feeble talents in painting; that the course of events and circumstances had reduced me to this extremity, etc....