“THE FOLLY, COMMON TO ALL TYRANTS, IS THAT THEY PUSH THINGS TOO FAR.”
On the 15th June, 1810, the Court of King’s Bench was at last prepared
to hear the Attorney-General’s story. Mr. Cobbett, Mr. Budd, Mr.
Bagshaw, and Mr. Hansard accordingly appeared, to answer the charge
of writing, printing, and publishing a seditious “libel.” Stern
Ellenborough presided within, and a deeply-interested public waited
without, the Court.
Withal,--Mr. Attorney-General, Lord Ellenborough, and the expectant
public, each and every one knew, in his heart, that Mr. Cobbett was
about to be tried for exposing the king’s ministers; for his sarcasms
over the Duke of Clarence and “Mother Jordan;” for showing up Mrs.
Clarke; for his discoveries in political corruption; aye, and for
quarrelling with the _Morning Post_.
Mr. Attorney-General’s story, however, dealt with none of these topics.
The burden of his tale was, that the defendant charged the Government
with cruelty, and suggested to the wicked mutineers the cruelty and
injustice of their punishment. That certain brave and honourable
men had been driven from their own land, and had “sought shelter in
ours;” and had offered their blood for the glory and safety of their
adopted country. That the defendant’s paper was a libel on the brave
and honourable men; while its obvious tendency was to deter the common
people from entering the militia.
The speech of the defendant was temperate, even to tameness. The
opportunity of accumulating fire and passion, in support of unwelcome
truth, was thrown away. But there is little doubt that Cobbett had some
faith left in the honesty of a jury; besides a fallacious belief that
the ostensible cause of the prosecution was the real one, and that the
matter would be decided upon its merits. Had he, rather, boldly scorned
the adversary, and dared him to disprove that the present was an
episode in political warfare, which gave undue advantage (for the time)
to the cause of might against right: at the same time, reiterating his
wish to excite the public indignation against amateur tyranny, had kept
up an attitude of defiance,--the foe would have been cowed, although,
perhaps, not made more relenting. There was no mercy in Vicary Gibbs,
nor in Lord Ellenborough, toward the champions of the press; and Mr.
Cobbett, as champion for the day, should have recollected that the
cause itself was again on its trial. The day would be certain to go
against him; it was notoriously a personal attack; but, had he chosen
to disregard his own personality, and to hurl back in the Attorney’s
face the persecuting character which that worthy had given to his
office,--he would have dealt that stroke at licensed hypocrisy which
was left for the task of William Hone.
* * * * *
One grave error was committed by Mr. Cobbett in his defence: it was
very weak for him to say that the words were written _in haste_.[1]
Otherwise, the general burden of his speech was: how atrociously he
had been calumniated, from his first appearance as an independent
writer, to the present moment, with the Attorney’s unjust imputations
on his loyalty and honesty; and how the Government was known to be
influencing the propagation of such calumny. That he had done good to
his neighbours and to his country, according to his measure. That the
Attorney’s forced construction of his words could not be borne out.
That his attachment to the British soldier could not be questioned.
That the so-called Hanoverian legion was composed, to a great extent,
of persons of no country; and that they were a nuisance, from their
general bad behaviour, in whatever part of England they happened to be
quartered.[2]
This last was, of course, a fresh libel, of which the Attorney-General
did not fail to make a new point. And he had the meanness to try
and prove that the delay in the prosecution was the defendant’s own
doing.[3] He thought, too, that the defendant had better consulted his
character and fame, by going along with the three other culprits, in
suffering judgment to go by default.
Lord Ellenborough went through the libel _seriatim_, making his own
comments; and concluded, after asking the jury whether its tendency was
not to injure the military service,--
“It is for you to say whether these be words escaped in haste
from a man, otherwise writing temperately, but whose zeal
overshot his discretion; or whether they are the words of a man
who wished to dissolve the union of the military, upon which,
at all times, but now especially at this time, the safety of
the kingdom depends. If this latter be the case, surely the
defendant will meritedly fall under the character of that
seditious person, which the information charges him with being.
In cases like the present, the law requires me to state my
opinion to the jury; and, where I have held a different opinion
to that which I have of the present case, I have not withheld
it from the jury. I do pronounce this to be a most infamous and
seditious libel.”
It was now midnight, and the jury had nothing in the shape of a doubt
in their minds. Why should they have? They had no doubts when they
took their seats in the morning. Juries were juries in those days; why
should they have doubts, at the end of a drama, for the particular
conclusion of which they were particularly brought together?
So they “consulted” for about two minutes, and returned their verdict
of “_Guilty_.”
J. SWANN to J. WRIGHT.
“I learned the unfortunate result of the trial about two
o’clock on Friday, and immediately hastened to the hotel,
Covent Garden, to see if Mr. Cobbett would require any bail,
but I found he had left town. I need not tell you how much I am
concerned at the verdict.…”
WM. C. to J. W.
“I found Mrs. Cobbett very well, and quite prepared for what
had happened. She bears the thing with her usual fortitude;
and takes hourly occasion to assure me that she thinks I have
done what I ought to do. In this she is excellent. She is the
only wife that I ever saw, who, in such circumstances, did not
express _sorrow_, at least, for what the husband had done; and,
in such cases, sorrow is only another word for _blame_. Nancy
was a good deal affected, but she soon got over it. If I had
but about three weeks for preparation I should like it better;
but I must settle things here as well as I can. Dr. Mitford
will tell you _what has been suggested to me_, and what (if
anything) will be done in consequence of it.
“Send me by the coach to-morrow … Mother Clarke’s book, for I
must notice the contents of it this week. You will have, in
my writing, twenty-four columns, the greater part of it by
to-morrow’s and next day’s posts. The rest of the double-number
I should like to have made up of proceedings about reform,
such as have appeared in the _Times_ and other daily papers;
but, at present, the more harmless the things are the better.
I shall write as boldly as ever, but I will take care of my
subjects. The proofs of approaching scarcity can be no longer
disguised. It will be very great and complete indeed. I shall
be disappointed if the quartern loaf be not half-a-crown before
Christmas. I wonder whether it be true that Buonaparte has
stopped the exportation of corn from his dominions? If it be,
you will soon see the effect of it. You see, that no rascal of
a newspaper has touched upon the subject. It will come upon us
by-and-bye with a vengeance.”
_What had been suggested?_
The reader will recollect [_ante_, p. 96] that the notion of any
intercession on his behalf was warmly deprecated by Mr. Cobbett from
the very first; and no sign of a craven spirit had appeared during
all these twelve tantalizing months. His mind was made up. The
long-deferred prospect of a term in prison had been getting still more
remote, and its accompanying terrors would be unheeded. But, back
again among his beloved fields and woods, and surrounded by a little
family which could but dimly appreciate the situation; struck with
anxious cares that must result from his predicament, he listens to a
_suggestion_.
The form and the terms of that suggestion are unknown, and will
probably remain unknown; that is of little consequence, however.
Suffice it to say, that before a week was out, negotiations were going
on, through Mr. John Reeves, for some measure of indulgence, by which,
at least, the Attorney-General was to hold his hand, and not move the
Court for judgment. At the same time, a farewell article was prepared
for the _Political Register_; for Mr. Cobbett foresaw that he could not
continue it without softening his tone, if he were to be indulged; and
softening his tone was out of the question. Preparations were made for
disposing of the remaining sets of the work, and for renouncing his
profession of political writer, “until better days.”
This weakness did not last long. There would seem to have been a
suspicion that the Government were enticing him into making the
sacrifice before letting the law come down in all its force.
WM. C. to J. W.
“I will not sacrifice fortune without securing freedom in
return. It would be both baseness and folly. Your threat to
R[eeves] was good, and spoke my sentiment exactly. I have not
time for telling you my plan now; but let it suffice that,
really, from the bottom of my soul, I would RATHER be called up
than put down the _Register_.”
On the following day, Peter Finnerty posted up to London with full
powers to stop negotiation, and to see that the farewell article was
cancelled. Need it be said that the affair got wind? It was intended to
get it in the wind. No one can doubt that this was a final effort to
add to the discomfiture, and tarnish the reputation, of a really brave
man, by exposing him to the charge of having sold himself at last.
And the effort was, to some extent, successful. Absurd versions
of the story were circulated for years afterwards, and ridiculous
misrepresentations are still afloat: all of which have the merit
of being consistent, on one point, viz., in the exhibition of an
unquenchable hatred toward one of the bravest and faithfulest souls
that ever breathed.
After Finnerty’s departure, the spirits of the little household arose
once more. “Indignation and resentment took place of grief and alarm;”
Mrs. Cobbett and her little Nancy got their courage back again; and the
master wrote up to London--“The best way is to be as calm as possible,
and to wait with patience for better days.” Even Mr. Wright, inspired
with returning pluck, thinks there ought to be “something powerful”
sent up for next week’s paper.
On the 5th of July, the four defendants answered to their bail, while
the Attorney-General prayed the judgment of the Court. Fresh hypocrisy
was uttered, of course:--
“The army, against whom this libel is in a peculiar manner
directed, calls on the Court for judgment against its
traducer.… The Government calls for confirmation of its legal
powers.… The country calls for protection against the numerous
evils which the propagation of such publications was calculated
to engender.… Justice is called for; and justice, to be sure,
will be tempered with mercy. But the Court will not forget that
mercy is due to the public, as well as to the defendant at the
bar.”
The defendants were forthwith committed to the King’s Bench prison,
with directions that they be brought up on the following Monday to
receive sentence.
The _Register_, meanwhile, had been for two consecutive weeks without
any contribution to the topics of the day, on the part of the editor;
and now, again, he is compelled to apologize, for the third time,
for a similar omission.[4] He had not nearly completed his domestic
arrangements, before it was necessary to leave Botley for the last
time. And, as for sitting down to write for the information or the
amusement of the public, every one must feel the impossibility of his
being able so to divert his mind from the circumstances in which he was
now placed. He could not banish the thought, that exactly ten years ago
to the very day, he landed in England, “after having lost a fortune in
America solely for the sake of that same England;” yet his reflections,
he added, were “in some measure driven out by the contempt which I feel
for the venal slaves who have seized upon this (as they regard it)
moment of my depression, to misrepresent and insult me.”
Westminster Hall was crowded on the following Monday. Strangers were
ordered to be removed from the lower part of the Court; but the
order had to be disregarded, for fear of adding to the confusion.
Ellenborough, with three other judges, occupied the bench, of whom Mr.
Justice Grose was the one selected to pass sentence. After judgment had
been prayed, in the usual form, the judge proceeded to remark upon the
enormity of the offence:--
The libel was a work which no well-disposed mind could doubt to
have been framed for the most pernicious objects. Looking at
the time at which it was written--looking at the circumstances
of the world--there could be no doubt of the evil intentions
of the paper. The whole tendency of it was, in so many words,
to excite unwillingness and dislike to the service of the
country, amongst those who are to be its defence, and to
insult those foreigners who are in our service, to deprive
the country of their honourable assistance, and to paralyze
the energies of the State. The objects of the libel were too
palpable for doubt, &c.… “The jury found you, William Cobbett,
guilty, upon the fullest and most satisfactory evidence. If
it were to be allowed, that your object was not to enfeeble
and embarrass the operations of Government, there can be no
ground for exculpating you from the guilt of libelling, for the
base and degrading object of making a stipend by your crime.
If there had been no other imputation upon you, the Court, as
protecting the purity and peace of the public mind, would have
felt itself called on to punish you severely. It is strange
that a man who mixes so much in general and private life, as
you do, should not see that such acts, as those for which you
have been tried, are only productive of mischief to every mind
that is influenced by them; and that they necessarily terminate
in punishment on the guilty authors. It is strange that
experience should not have taught you, and that you should be
only advancing in a continual progress of malignity. What were
the circumstances which you distorted in your libel? the whole
intention of which was to throw disgrace on the Government, and
to disgust and alienate the army. If you had anything to offer
in extenuation, you might have offered it; the Court would
have received it; and, at all events, impartial justice would
have been dealt to you. I now pass the sentence of the Court
upon you, William Cobbett, as the principal criminal amongst
those who now stand before the Court: the Court do accordingly
adjudge that you, William Cobbett, pay to our Lord the King
a fine of 1000_l._; that you be imprisoned in His Majesty’s
gaol of Newgate for the space of two years, and that at the
expiration of that time, you enter into a recognizance to keep
the peace for seven years--yourself in the sum of 3000_l._, and
two good and sufficient sureties in the sum of 1000_l._ each;
and further, that you be imprisoned till that recognizance be
entered into, and that fine paid.”
Mr. Hansard was then sentenced to three months’ imprisonment in the
King’s Bench, and to enter into recognizances for three years. Mr. Budd
and Mr. Bagshaw were each sent to the same prison for a period of two
months.
A smile[5] arose on Cobbett’s face as the terms of this dread sentence
were unfolded,--a sentence which must needs either crush its victim
into irrevocable ruin, or so press down upon an unknown and unsuspected
buoyancy, as to bring upon its authors a recoil from the effects of
which they would never escape.
From that hour, the sword which had been so near laying by to rust, had
its blade new tempered, whilst the scabbard was clean cast away for
ever.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Augustus de Morgan gives a story which he had from Francis Place.
Place was, with others, advising Cobbett as to the proper line of
defence. “Said Place, ‘You must put in the letters you have received
from Ministers, Members of the Commons, from the Speaker downwards,
about your _Register_, and their wish to have subjects noted. You must
then ask the jury whether a person so addressed must be considered
as a common sower of sedition, &c. You will be acquitted; nay, if
your intention should get about, very likely they will manage to stop
proceedings.’ Cobbett was too much disturbed to listen; he walked about
the room, ejaculating, ‘D---- the prison!’ and the like. He had not
the sense to follow the advice, and was convicted.” _Vide_ “Budget of
Paradoxes,” p. 119.
[2] Robert Huish, who is by no means favourably disposed towards
Cobbett, says upon this point, “The truth was on Cobbett’s side, as
every one can substantiate who had ever the misfortune to reside in the
place where the German mercenaries were quartered.”
[3] “The use which Sir Vicary Gibbs generally made of his power of
issuing _ex officio_ informations was to lay an information against the
offending writers, but not to proceed to trial, exacting a promise from
them that, if he did not pursue it, they would write nothing offensive
to the Government, and thus holding it _in terrorem_ over their
heads.”--Andrews’s “British Journalism,” ii. 57.
[4] This omitting to write for two or three weeks, together with the
rumoured dropping of the _Register_, created tremendous sensation
among the scribbling fraternity. The _Morning Chronicle_ returned to
Cobbett all the warm feelings which Perry had received from him. The
_Examiner_, on the other hand, was mercilessly unjust. That vigorous
paper was then in its early priggish days, and could brook no rivalry.
Leigh Hunt looked with contempt upon all the set of Cobbetts and
Cochranes, as not Reformists after his sort, and he now proceeded to
attack Cobbett violently for his timidity, and for his whining about
being torn from his home, &c.; adding that politicians must be prepared
to endanger individual freedom for the sake of the general good. But
then the “spirit of martyrdom had been inculcated” in the Hunts from
the very cradle.
The readers of the _Examiner_, however, were not at one with their
editor upon this point. One correspondent thought it ill-befitting a
Reformist to overlook all the merits of a fellow-labourer, just at the
moment of his being down, and “to dwell with a malignant ecstasy on
all the failings that industrious malice could scrape together from
years of bold and zealous service.” It was also pointed out, with
much justice, that Mr. Cobbett was singular in this: that he not only
confessed his errors when he had found them out, but argued clearly and
decisively against them. Of course, the _Examiner_ was so clever that
it had no errors to retract.
Leigh Hunt appears to have discovered, in after-years, that he often
made extravagant demands upon other people’s virtue; and the allusion,
in his autobiography, to some want of charity toward other people’s
opinions, points to this period, when intolerance could animate the
Radical quite as easily as the privileged mind.
Mr. Redhead Yorke had long been converted from Radicalism, and had no
sympathy for the delinquent. But he was, now, on the other side.
[5] _Times_, July 10th.