elegant figure, apparently upwards of fifty, and her face, though clouded
by misfortune, bore evident traces of no common beauty. Her manners and
address were at once graceful, dignified, and unembarrassed. Her daughter
was a pretty little interesting girl of eighteen, and, though she was very
accomplished, yet it was easy to discover that she had not received that
highly refined education, nor enjoyed those advantages which can only be
acquired by associating with persons who have moved in the first circles
of fashionable society; all which advantages her mother evidently
possessed in a very eminent degree. Mrs. M---- appeared to be well
acquainted with Mr. Pitt, Mr. Dundas, and some of the royal family; but as
the conversation turned upon general subjects, we did not enter into any
further particulars on the first visit. We confined ourselves to making
arrangements for the future comfort of the ladies, while they remained
within the walls, and this object, Mr. Waddington and myself, with the
cheerful cooperation of the marshal, easily contrived to promote.
After a visit or two I became enthusiastically interested in the fate of
Mrs. M----. I discovered that she had moved a great deal in the higher
circles, and was particularly well acquainted with the ministers of the
crown, and a certain great personage. As she saw that she had excited, if
not an interest, at least a great curiosity in my breast, she told me that
she was the natural daughter of the late, the great, Marquis of G----, and
that, as her's had been a most eventful life, she would relate to me some
very extraordinary incidents in it, if I would favour her with an
interview some morning. This was readily assented to, and our meeting was
fixed for the following day. Her history was briefly as follows:--she had
been brought up by the Marquis of G----, and educated by him, with great
care and tenderness. She married young, and was an early widow. After the
death of her husband, she fell a victim to the seductive powers of old
Harry D----s, and became his mistress, which she continued to be for many
years. During that time she had an opportunity of seeing a great deal of
Mr. Pitt, of whom and his associates she told me a vast number of
anecdotes, which will not do to mention here. Her old paramour at length
became tired of her, and a very extraordinary event led to an opportunity
of shifting her off his hands, without the inconvenience of making her a
settlement. A certain great personage was at that time labouring under a
distressing malady. The physicians in attendance came to the conclusion,
that it was necessary that their patient should have a female attendant
during the night; and the finding of a proper person for the occasion was
the only obstacle which interposed to prevent their carrying their wish
into effect. Old Harry D----s proposed to obviate this difficulty, by
making a sacrifice, as he pretended, of his favourite mistress, upon
condition that an annuity of four hundred pounds should be settled upon
her. This proposal was immediately accepted, and the terms were acceded to
by the family of the afflicted personage. Though the wary old Scotchman
was delighted to get rid of his mistress upon such advantageous terms for
himself, or rather to drive such an excellent bargain, yet he all the time
professed that he was making the greatest sacrifice in the world, and
doing the greatest violence to his feelings, by parting with a beloved
object; a sacrifice which he was induced to make solely from the love and
veneration which he bore to his afflicted master. She assured us of her
belief that, by these means, he obtained the greatest favours and the most
splendid reward, while she, for the sum of four hundred a year, consented
to submit to the embraces of a madman.
The patient recovered, and she was turned adrift, without her salary being
regularly paid. She had contracted a debt of three hundred pounds, for
which she was sent to the King's Bench prison, though she convinced me, by
documents that she produced, that she had at the time seven quarters of
her salary, seven hundred pounds, due to her from the said great
personage; less than half of which would have saved her from a gaol.
This circumstance, however extraordinary it may appear, was not only
confirmed by very credible witnesses, but also by most indisputable
documentary proof; and, as a confirmation of its correctness, Mr. Dundas,
who was subsequently Lord Melville, a few days afterwards came in person
to bail her into the rules, which I sincerely believe that he never would
have done, if he had not heard of the _company_ that she had fallen into.
Mrs. M---- and her daughter were at dinner with Mr. Waddington and myself,
when Mr. Dundas sent for her out; but we made him wait till she had
finished her dinner, declaring that we would be her bail, rather than she
should submit to receive a favour from such an unnatural being. This lady
gave me a history of the then court, and she was familiar with
extraordinary anecdotes relating to most of the persons connected with the
ministers as well as the royal family. The recital of so much infamy and
intrigue, when coupled with what I had heard from Mr. Clifford, of the
practices of the law and the courts of justice, and from Dr. Gabriel, with
respect to the debaucheries of the most dignified members of the church,
and the hypocrisy of many of its puritanical preachers, really made me
almost believe that I was got into a new world, and that the men and women
of which it was composed were a different species from those with whom I
had been in the habit of associating; in fact it opened to my view such
scenes of villainy, fraud, hypocrisy, and injustice, practised upon
mankind by those who contrived to govern them by what is called religion
and law, that I involuntarily re-echoed, with an exclamation, the
sentiments of Mr. Clifford, and pronounced aloud, "That there is no
tyranny so infamous as that which is carried on under the _forms_ of law
and justice."
I had here an opportunity of meeting men of talent and men of experience,
and particularly some eminent men of the law, who, although they were not
public characters, like Mr. Clifford, and therefore did not promulgate
their sentiments so publicly as he did, yet all admitted the truth of his
description of the state of the courts of law; and my Lord Kenyon was
spoken of with great freedom, and his decisions were canvassed with very
little ceremony.
I have already mentioned, that Colonel Despard was confined in the Tower,
by the Secretary of State, Lord Hobart, in virtue of the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus act, and that Mr. Clifford had promised that he would take
me to the Tower, and introduce me to the colonel. The day having at length
arrived for the performance of his promise, Clifford called on me, and we
walked together to London Bridge, where we took a boat to Tower stairs.
After entering our names in the book, which has been invariably the
practice at the Tower, we were admitted to the apartment of Colonel
Despard. He was a mild gentleman-like man.
Mr. Clifford introduced me by name, as a country friend of his, and the
colonel received me with great courtesy and politeness. During our stay he
inveighed with some warmth against the injustice of his treatment, and the
protracted length of his imprisonment, which he said, I think, was then
nearly six years. Two beef-eaters were always in the room with him, when
any person was admitted, and they never left the room, even when his wife
came to see him; but, as far as was in their power, consistent with the
orders which they had received, and were obliged to obey, they conducted
themselves with great propriety and civility toward the colonel and his
friends. He laughed heartily at the idea of a visit from me, who was at
the time a prisoner in the King's Bench, and Clifford surprised him when
he said, that I had entered my name "Mr. Henry Hunt, King's Bench," which
I had done.
To shew me the stile in which the procession accompanied the prisoner, Mr.
Clifford proposed a walk upon the terrace. He had described this ceremony
to me, and it appeared so preposterous, that he saw I looked doubtful as
to whether I should believe him to be serious. When he observed that I
looked suspicious, he always took uncommon pains to convince me by some
unequivocal proof, and this was his motive for proposing a walk. A guard
of soldiers was called, and the procession was as follows:--One of the
beef-eaters walked first, with his sword drawn; then followed two
soldiers, carrying arms, with their bayonets fixed; then came Colonel
Despard, with Mr. Clifford and myself, one on each side of him;
immediately behind us marched two more soldiers, carrying arms, with fixed
bayonets; and another beef-eater, with a drawn sword, brought up the rear.
In this manner we walked the parade or terrace for about half an hour,
taking care to speak loud, so that the whole of our conversation was heard
by the beef-eaters. After our walk we sat with him a short time, and then
took our leave.
Anxious to hear something more of the particulars relating to the
confinement of the colonel, I called a coach, and ordered the coachman to
put us down at the King's Bench, where Mr. Clifford had engaged to dine
with us. As we rode along, I began to ply my companion, to inform me what
desperate offence Colonel Despard had committed, which called for such
rigorous treatment. His answer was this--"He served the government
faithfully and zealously, as a soldier; he advanced money for them upon
some foreign station; but the government was ungrateful and ungenerous to
him, and in consequence of some quibble, they have refused to repay him
what he advanced on their account. He complained and remonstrated, he
became importunate for justice, he was considered troublesome, and for
complaining they have sent him to prison, under the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus act, as the only effectual means of answering his just
complaints." "And can it be possible," I asked, "that justice will not in
the end be done to this unfortunate gentleman?" "Depend upon it," replied
Clifford, "he is too honest ever to gain redress. If he would crouch and
truckle to his persecutors, he might not only be set at liberty, but all
that they have robbed him of would be returned. This, however, he never
will do. He, poor fellow! expects that when the operation of the Habeas
Corpus act is restored, he will be able to bring his cruel persecutors to
justice; but he will be deceived! He is marked out for one of that
monster, Pitt's, victims. When he comes out, which will be when the
suspension act expires, and not before, I know that he will demand to be
put upon his trial. But the ministers, who have always a corrupt majority
at their beck, will easily procure an act of indemnity; and as they have
nothing to charge him with, they will refuse to give him a trial, and they
will laugh at him. And this is the boasted freedom of the people of
England! This is the way in which the ministers serve those who oppose
them! These are the methods they take, first to punish, and then to drive
their opponents into violence and into acts of desperation!!! I know that
he will complain, and that he has just cause of complaint, and I dread the
consequence, because I know full well their arts, and the power which they
have to carry their diabolical plans into execution. If he be troublesome,
they will stick at nothing, and I should not be the least surprised if
they were ultimately to have some of their spies to swear away his life!"
Gracious God! I little thought how prophetic these words were. Was this
really the case, Mr. _Justice Best_? you were his counsel upon his trial;
you must know if this were really the case!!! But more of this hereafter.
After the death of poor Despard, Clifford and myself never met that I did
not recall to his recollection, the prophetic conversation that took place
in the coach, as we passed over London Bridge, and up the Borough, on our
return from the Tower.
All the particulars of the trial and the execution of Colonel Despard are
fresh in my memory; but I shall be much obliged to some friend, who may
chance to read this, to send me the _Trial_ itself, through my publisher,
Mr. Dolby. I shall also be much pleased, if some one will furnish me with
the names of those persons who were waiting in readiness to come forward
and prove that the witnesses, who swore to the facts against the colonel,
were persons of the most infamous character, and not worthy to believed
upon their oaths; which persons were neglected to be called by Mr.
Sergeant Best. Clifford told me their names often, but they do not occur
to me now; therefore I shall be obliged to some one to furnish me with the
particulars.
When we got back to the King's Bench, we were informed, by Mr. Waddington,
that there had been a great inquiry for me in my absence, as some friends
out of the country had been to visit me, and had, foolishly enough, made
much stir in the King's Bench in their endeavour to find me. Mr.
Waddington, however, having learned what was going on, satisfied their
inquiries so far as to induce them to be quiet, and promise to call the
next day. Some of my readers will be surprised that a prisoner should have
been from home! But the fact was, that I was committed to the _custody of
the Marshal of the Court_ for six weeks, and I had given him ample
security for being at all times ready to appear, in case he should be
called upon to produce his prisoner. They were not then so particular as
they now are.
The visit to the Tower made a lasting impression upon my mind, and, after
what I had witnessed, I was easily persuaded by Mr. Clifford that the
account which he gave me of the treatment of other prisoners confined
under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus act, was perfectly true. These
horrible facts created in my breast a deep-rooted never-ceasing antipathy
to that tyranny which is perpetrated under the disguise, under the false
colour, the mere forms of law and justice, and sanctioned by the
hypocritical mummeries of superstition, instead of real religion. After
dinner, Clifford described to us a scene of which he had been a spectator
in the Tower, the week before, when he went there with Mrs. Despard to
consult with the colonel, and to make his will; the colonel being then,
and having long been labouring under a serious complaint, which had been
brought on by the length of his confinement, and which was considered as
dangerous by his physician. During the whole of that time the beef-eaters
remained in the room so that even the sacred obligation of making his last
will could not be performed, unless it was done in the presence and in the
hearing of the officers of the Tower; and they actually became the
subscribing witnesses to his will.
I had now become acquainted with many political characters, and I was
frequently invited by Mr. Clifford to go down to Wimbledon with him, on a
Sunday, to join the public parties of Mr. Horne Tooke, from whom he
promised to insure me a hearty welcome. Deep-rooted vulgar prejudice
against this extraordinary and highly gifted man had, however, got such
possession of my feelings, that I continually made some excuse; for I had
imbibed a notion that he was an artful intriguing person, of an
insinuating address, who frequently led young politicians into scrapes and
difficulties. My idea of him in politics was, that he was a violent
Jacobin, and an enemy to his King and country; and this was quite enough
to make me avoid his company. The real fact was, that I was afraid to
trust myself in his society. I had no wish to become a politician, and as
I found that the principles of liberty, which Mr. Clifford inculcated, had
made a considerable impression upon my mind, I was afraid to encourage too
far my natural propensity to resist injustice, oppression, and tyranny. I
did not wish to fan the flame which Mr. Clifford's eloquence and
convincing arguments had lighted in my breast. Another reason for my
refusing to make one of the Wimbledon parties was, the probability that I
should there meet with Sir Francis Burdett, whom I was induced to look
upon almost as a political madman, a dangerous firebrand in the hands of
Mr. Tooke, who appeared to me to be nothing less than a designing
incendiary. Mr. Clifford took some pains to persuade me out of my
ridiculous notions; yet, in the account which he gave me of Mr. Tooke's
character, he in some measure confirmed me in the opinion that I had
previously formed, as Mr. Tooke certainly made Sir F. Burdett a puppet to
carry on his hostility against those ministers who had persecuted him, and
aimed a deadly blow at his life.
Mr. Tooke was a man of profound talent, a persevering friend of liberty,
and an implacable foe to the measures of Mr. Pitt. But he only supported
partial, not general liberty: he was no friend of universal suffrage; he
supported the householder, or rather the direct tax paying suffrage. To
those who contended for universal suffrage, namely, the Duke of Richmond,
Major Cartwright, and others, he made this comprehensive, intelligible
reply, "You may go all the way to Windsor, if you please, but I shall stop
short at Hounslow;" thus implying, that he was not prepared to give
political freedom to more than one half of the people, that he would not
go farther than Hounslow, which is not half way to Windsor. Sir Francis
Burdett gloried in being thought a disciple of Mr. Tooke.
The Sunday parties at Wimbledon were composed of the disaffected persons
in London and Westminster. Amongst the number stood pre-eminent the noted
Charing-Cross tailor, Frank Place, who was always an avowed republican _by
profession;_ poor Samuel Miller, the shoemaker, in Skinner-street,
Snow-hill; poor old Thomas Hardy, and many others, with whom I did not
become acquainted till some time after this period, though I collected
their characters from my friend Clifford. Mr. Thelwall had cut the
concern, and set up in another line, that of a fashionable teacher of
elocution.
At this period my taste leaned more to the sports of the field, to
hunting, shooting, and fishing, than to any thing else; and as these
amusements were more congenial to my habits and my large farming concerns
in the country, I never, while I was the first time in prison, sought much
for political information, though I necessarily heard a great deal of
politics from my friends Waddington and Clifford, as well as from numerous
political characters with whom I became acquainted, in consequence of
their coming to visit the former gentleman. Indeed, seldom a day passed
without seeing some half dozen or half score of them. Mr. Waddington's
friends were almost all opposition men in politics; but his relations were
one and all backbone loyalists, or rather royalists.
My young friend, William Butcher, was delighted with the society of Mr.
Clifford. Butcher was a disciple of Thomas Paine; he had been bred up in a
country village, where the clergyman, Mr. Evans, of Little Bedwin, who was
his associate, had instilled into his mind all the principles of Paine,
both political and theological, and consequently Butcher was delighted
with the society that he had met with at our table. Butcher was a famous
great arm-chair politician; over the bottle he would be as valiant as any
man, yet he would never _act_. The reason he used to assign for never
meddling in active politics was, that, except in a republic, no private
citizen could ever attain the eminence of being the first man in the
country; and no man, he thought, could have a proper stimulus, unless he
could hope to be placed at the head of the government. Washington was his
idol, and the American constitution was his creed in politics. He was
enraptured to hear me listen with so much earnestness and attention to the
political dogmas of Clifford, as he was pleased to call them; for Mr.
Clifford never professed to wish for a republican government; he always
contended that the English constitution, if it were administered in its
purity, was quite good enough for Englishmen. In this opinion I then
concurred with him, and from this opinion I have never once in my life
swerved, up to this hour. A government of King, Lords, and Commons, so
that the latter are fairly chosen by all the commons, would secure to us
the full enjoyment of rational liberty. I am for that liberty which is
secured and protected by the government of the laws, and not by the
government of the sword. But those laws must be such as are made by the
_whole_ commons, the whole people of England, and not the arbitrary laws
that are made by the few for the government of the whole; not the laws
that are made by the few, for the partial and unjust benefit of the few,
at the expence and cost of the whole.
Mr. Clifford was the brother-in-law of Sir Charles Wolseley, the worthy
Baronet's first lady being Mr. Clifford's sister. My good and excellent
friend, and true radical, Sir Charles Wolseley, baronet, is, as well as
myself, the political disciple of the honest Counsellor Clifford. If
Clifford, poor fellow! were now alive, how he would laugh to see two of
his staunchest and most disinterested political disciples caught in the
toils of the boroughmongers! But he would also laugh to see the melancholy
state to which the said boroughmongers are reduced! Now they have caught
us they do not know what to do with us.
Through Mr. Clifford I learned how they managed matters in the courts, and
Mr. Waddington, who by this time had had considerable experience, was most
violent against the injustice of the persecution which he had experienced.
At this period he possessed a large quantity of hops, perhaps half the
hops in the kingdom, which he had purchased upon a speculation, that there
would be a very bad crop. His calculations turned out to be correct, and
the hops that he had purchased at ten pounds a hundred were now worth
twenty-two and twenty-three pounds. They were all in the Borough, and he
was selling them off, at this advance in price, when the conspiracy was
formed against him, at the head of which was Mr. Timothy Brown, of the
firm of Whitbread and Brown. Mr. Pitt, in order to punish Mr. Waddington,
for calling the meeting at the Paul's Head Tavern, in the City, to
petition the King for peace, and the removal of ministers, lent himself
and his agents to further the objects of this conspiracy of brewers
against Mr. Waddington; and as Kenyon, the chief justice, was a devoted
instrument of the minister's, Mr. Waddington was not only fined and
sentenced to six months imprisonment, for forestalling hops, but acts of
parliament were passed to permit the brewers to use foreign hops, quassia,
or any other drug, or ingredient, as a substitute. By these unjustifiable
and partial proceedings, the very same hops that were worth, and had been
selling at, twenty-three pounds a hundred, were reduced down to five
pounds, and even to three pounds a hundred.