other coercive measures it decreed heavy penalties against any
infringement of the stamp act, such as: 'Every person who shall
knowingly and wilfully retain or keep in custody any newspaper not duly
stamped, shall forfeit twenty pounds for each, such unstamped newspaper
he shall so have in custody'--'every person who shall knowingly or
wilfully, directly or indirectly, send or carry or cause to be sent or
carried out of Great Britain any unstamped newspaper, shall forfeit one
hundred pounds,' and 'every person during the present war who shall send
any newspaper out of Great Britain into any country not in amity with
his Majesty, shall forfeit five hundred pounds.' Stringent measures
these, with a vengeance! The onslaught initiated by Parliament was well
seconded by the judges, and Lord Kenyon especially distinguished himself
as an unscrupulous (the word is not one whit too strong) foe to the
press. To such an extent was this persecution carried, that the printer,
publisher, and proprietor of _The Courier_ were fined and imprisoned for
the following 'libel' upon the Emperor Paul: 'The Emperor of Russia is
rendering himself obnoxious to his subjects by various acts of tyranny,
and ridiculous in the eyes of Europe by his inconsistency. He has now
passed an edict prohibiting the exportation of timber deal,' etc. To
fine a man £100 and imprison him for six months for this was a little
overstepping the mark, and a reaction soon followed, as a proof of which
may be noticed the act 39th and 40th George III., cap. 72, which allows
the newspaper to be increased from the old regulation size of
twenty-eight inches by twenty to that of thirty inches and a half by
twenty.
William Cobbett now makes his bow as an English journalist. He was
already notorious in America, as the author of the 'Letters of Peter
Porcupine,' published at Philadelphia; and, upon his return to England,
he projected an anti-democratic newspaper, under the title of _The
Porcupine_, the first number of which appeared in November, 1800. It was
a very vigorous production, and at once commanded public attention and a
large sale. Nevertheless it was but short lived, for the passions and
fears to which it ministered soon calmed down; and, its occupation being
gone, it naturally gave up the ghost and died. Among other celebrities
who now wrote for the newspapers are Porson, the accomplished but
bibulous Greek scholar and critic; Tom Campbell, several of whose most
beautiful poems first appeared in the columns of _The Morning
Chronicle_, Charles Lamb, Southey, Wordsworth, and Mackintosh. These
last five wrote for _The Morning Post_, and raised it, by their
brilliant contributions, from the last place among the dailies--its
circulation had actually sunk to three hundred and fifty before they
joined its ranks--to the second place, and caused it to tread very
closely upon the heels of _The Chronicle_. Tom Campbell, besides his
poetry, wrote prose articles, and was also regularly engaged as a writer
in _The Star_. Porson married James Perry's sister, and many scholarly
articles which graced the columns of _The Morning Chronicle_ toward the
close of the eighteenth century are generally believed to have emanated
from his pen. Mackintosh had written foreign political articles in _The
Oracle_ and _Morning Chronicle_, but, marrying the sister of Daniel
Stuart, the proprietor of _The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_, he
transferred his services to those journals, as well as occasionally to
_The Star_, which belonged to a brother of Stuart. Southey and
Wordsworth's contributions to Stuart's papers were principally poetry.
Charles Lamb's contributions were principally short, witty paragraphs,
which he contributed to any of the papers that would receive them, and
for which he received the magnificent remuneration of sixpence each!
Coleridge had first appeared in the newspaper world as a contributor of
poetry to _The Morning Chronicle_, but was soon after regularly engaged
upon _The Morning Post_ and _The Courier_. Some of his prose articles
have been collected together into a volume, and republished with the
title of 'Essays on His Own Times.' He was especially hostile to France,
and the best proof of the ability and vigor of his anti-Gallican
articles is that Napoleon actually sent a frigate in pursuit of him,
when he was returning from Leghorn to England, with the avowed intention
of getting him into his power if possible. The First Consul had
endeavored to get him arrested at Rome, but Coleridge got a friendly
hint--according to some from Jerome Bonaparte, and according to others
from the Pope, who assisted him in making his escape. Bonaparte had
probably gained intelligence of the whereabout of Coleridge from a
debate in the House of Commons, in the course of which Fox said that the
rupture of the Peace of Amiens was owing to Coleridge's articles in _The
Morning Post_, and added that the writer was then at Rome, and therefore
might possibly fall into the hands of his enemy. Napoleon was very much
irritated by the attacks upon him in _The Morning Chronicle_ as well as
by those in Cobbett's _Political Register_--_The Porcupine_ under a new
name--the _Courrier François de Londres_--the French _emigrés'_
paper--and _L'Ambigu_, which was rather a political pamphlet, published
at periodical intervals, than a regular newspaper. He therefore thought
proper peremptorily to call upon the English Government to put these
papers down with a high hand. But the British cabinet sent this noble
reply:
'His Majesty neither can nor will in consequence of any
representation or menace from a foreign power make any concession
which may be in the smallest degree dangerous to the liberty of the
press as secured by the Constitution of this country. This liberty
is justly dear to every British subject; the Constitution admits of
no previous restraints upon publications of any description; but
there exist judicatures wholly independent of the executive,
capable of taking cognizance of such publications as the law deems
to be criminal; and which are bound to inflict the punishment the
delinquents may deserve. These judicatures may investigate and
punish not only libels against the Government and magistracy of
this kingdom, but, as has been repeatedly experienced, of
publications defamatory of those in whose hands the administration
of foreign Governments is placed. Our Government neither has, nor
wants, any other protection than what the laws of the country
afford; and though they are willing and ready to give to every
foreign Government all the protection against offences of this
nature which the principles of their laws and Constitution will
admit, they can never consent to new-model those laws or to change
their Constitution to gratify the wishes of any foreign power.'
But Napoleon indignantly declined to avail himself of the means of
redress suggested to him, and continued to urge the English Government;
who at length made a sort of compromise, by undertaking a prosecution of
Peltier, the proprietor of _L'Ambigu_. Mackintosh was his counsel; and
in spite of his speech for the defence, which Spencer Perceval
characterized as 'one of the most splendid displays of eloquence he ever
had occasion to hear,' and Lord Ellenborough as 'eloquence almost
unparalleled,' Peltier was found guilty--but, as hostilities soon after
broke out again with France, was never sentenced. The best part of the
story, however, is, that all the time ministers were paying Peltier in
private for writing the very articles for which they prosecuted him in
public! This did not come out until some years afterward, when Lord
Castlereagh explained the sums thus expended as 'grants for public and
not private service, and for conveying instructions to the Continent
when no other mode could be found.' The trial of Peltier aroused a
strong feeling of indignation in the country; the English nation has
always been very jealous of any interference with its laws at the
dictation of any foreign potentate, as Lord Palmerston on a recent
occasion found to his cost.
Cobbett was soon after tried for a libel--not, however, upon Napoleon,
but upon the English Government. There must have been an innate tendency
in Cobbett's mind to set himself in opposition to everything around him,
for whereas he had made America too hot to hold him by his
anti-republican views, he now contrived to set the authorities at home
against him by his advanced radicalism. He had to stand two trials in
1804, in connection with Robert Emmet's rebellion. On the second of
these he was fined £500, and Judge Johnson, one of the Irish judges, who
was the author of the libels complained of, retired from his judicial
position with a pension. These reflections in question upon the Irish
authorities would hardly be called libels now-a-days, consisting as they
did chiefly of ridicule and satire, which was, after all, mild and
harmless enough. In 1810, Cobbett got into trouble again. Some militia
soldiers had been flogged, while a detachment of the German Legion stood
by to maintain order. Cobbett immediately published a diatribe against
flogging in the army and the employment of foreign mercenaries. He was
indicted for a 'libel' upon the German Legion, convicted, and sentenced
to two years' imprisonment, to pay a fine of £1,000, and to find
security in £3,000 for his good behavior during seven years--a sentence
which created universal disgust among all classes, and which was not too
strongly designated by Sydney Smith as 'atrocious.'
_The Oracle_--which, by the way, boasted Canning among its
contributors--was rash enough to publish an article in defence of Lord
Melville. The House of Commons fired up at this, and, led on by
Sheridan--_quantum mutatus ab illo!_--Fox, Wyndham, and others, who had
formerly professed themselves friends to the liberty of the press, but
who were now carried away by the virulence of party spirit, caused the
publisher to be brought before them, and made him apologize and make his
submission upon his knees.
In 1805 appeared _The News_, a paper started by John Hunt and his
brother Leigh, then but a mere boy, but who had, nevertheless, had some
experience in newspaper writing from having been an occasional
contributor to _The Traveller_, an evening paper, that was afterward
amalgamated with _The Globe_, which still retains the double title. The
year 1808 was fruitful in prosecutions for libels, but is chiefly
remarkable for the appearance of Hunt's new paper, _The Examiner_. This
was conducted upon what was styled by their opponents revolutionary
principles, an accusation which Leigh Hunt afterward vehemently
repudiated. This same year also gave birth to the first religious paper
which had as yet appeared, under the name of _The Instructor_, as well
as to _The Anti-Gallican_, which seems to have quickly perished of
spontaneous combustion, and _The Political Register_, an impudent piracy
of the title of Cobbett's paper, and directed against him. In 1809,
Government passed a bill in favor of newspapers, to amend some of the
restrictions under which they labored. This was done on account of the
high price of paper: and yet in the following year another attempt was
made to exclude the reporters from the House of Commons. These men had
always done their work well and honestly, although in their private
lives some of them had not borne the very best character. A capital
story is told of Mark Supple, an Irish reporter of the old school, who
was employed on _The Chronicle_. One evening, when there was a sudden
silence in the midst of a debate, Supple bawled out: 'A song from Mr.
Speaker.' The members could not have been more astonished had a
bombshell been suddenly discharged into the midst of them; but, after a
slight pause, every one--Pitt among the first--went off into such shouts
of laughter, that the halls of the House shook again. The
sergeant-at-arms was, however, sent to the gallery to ascertain who had
had the audacity to propose such a thing; whereupon Supple winked at him
and pointed out a meek, sober Quaker as the culprit. Broadbrim was
immediately taken into custody; but Supple, being found out, was locked
up in a solitary chamber to cool his heels for a while, and then having
made a humble apology, to the effect that 'it was the dhrink that did
it,' or something of the kind, was set at liberty. But the reporters at
the period of this unjust and foolish exclusion--for it was successful
for a time--were a very different class of men; and Sheridan told the
House that 'of about twenty-three gentlemen who were now employed
reporting parliamentary debates for the newspapers, no less than
eighteen were men regularly educated at the universities of Oxford or
Cambridge, Edinburgh or Dublin, most of them graduates at those
universities, and several of them had gained prizes and other
distinctions there by their literary attainments.' It was during this
debate that Sheridan uttered that memorable and glowing eulogium upon
the press which has been quoted in the first of the present series of
articles.
It has been shown that at one time the church was the profession which
most liberally supplied the press with writers; but now the bar appears
to have furnished a very large share, and many young barristers had
been and were reporters. The benchers of Lincoln's Inn endeavored to put
a stop to this, and passed a by-law that no man who had ever been paid
for writing in the newspapers should be eligible for a call to the bar.
This by-law was appealed against in the House of Commons, and, after a
debate, in which Sheridan spoke very warmly against the benchers, the
petition was withdrawn upon the understanding that the by-law should be
recalled. From that time to the present, writing in the newspapers and
reporting the debates have been the means whereby many of the most
distinguished of our lawyers have been enabled to struggle through the
days of their studentship and the earlier years of their difficult
career.
The last attempt of the House of Commons against the press culminated in
Sir Francis Burdett's coming forward in its behalf, and, in an article
in Cobbett's paper, among other things he asserted that the House of
Commons had no legal right to imprison the People of England. In acting
thus, Sir Francis amply atoned for the ridiculous attempt which,
prompted by wounded vanity, he had made a few years before to engage the
interference of the House of Commons in his behalf in what he called a
breach of privilege--the said breach of privilege consisting merely in
an advertisement in _The True Briton_ of the resolutions passed at a
public meeting to petition against his return to Parliament. The results
of his bold attack upon the power of the House of Commons, his
imprisonment, the riots, and lamentable loss of life which followed, are
so well known as to render any particularizing of them here unnecessary.
Originating with this affair was a Government prosecution of _The Day_,
the upshot of which was that Eugenius Roche, the editor--who was also
proprietor of another flourishing journal, _The National Register_--one
of the most able, honorable, and gentlemanly men ever connected with the
press, of whom it has been truly said that 'during the lapse of more
than twenty years that he was connected with the journals of London, he
never gained an enemy or lost a friend,' was most unjustly condemned to
a year's imprisonment.
The next important event is the trial of the Hunts for a libel in _The
Examiner_ in 1811. Brougham was their counsel, and made a masterly
defence; and, though Lord Ellenborough, the presiding judge, summed up
dead against the defendants--the judges always appear to have done
so--the jury acquitted them. Yet Brougham in the course of his address
drew the following unfavorable picture of the then state of the press:
'The licentiousness of the press has reached to a height which it
certainly never attained in any other country, nor even in this at
any former period. That licentiousness has indeed of late years
appeared to despise all the bounds which had once been prescribed
to the attacks on private character, insomuch that there is not
only no personage so important or exalted--for of that I do not
complain--but no person so humble, harmless, and retired as to
escape the defamation which is daily and hourly poured forth by the
venal crew to gratify the idle curiosity or still less excusable
malignity of the public. To mark out for the indulgence of that
propensity individuals retiring into the privacy of domestic
life--to hunt them down and drag them forth as a laughing stock to
the vulgar, has become in our days with some men the road even to
popularity, but with multitudes the means of earning a base
subsistence.'
Soon after this trial and another provincial one connected with the same
'libel'--one gets quite sick of the word--in which the defendants were
found guilty in spite of Brougham's exertions in their behalf and the
previous verdict of the London jury in the case of the Hunts, a debate
arose in the House of Commons on the subject of _ex-officio_
informations generally, and especially with regard to their
applicability to the case of newspapers. In the course of this debate
Lord Folkestone charged the Government with partiality in their
prosecutions, and said: 'It appears that the real rule which guides
these prosecutions is this: that _The Courier_ and the other papers
which support the ministry of the day, may say whatever they please
without the fear of prosecution, whereas _The Examiner_, _The
Independent Whig_, _The Statesman_, and papers that take the contrary
line, are sure to be prosecuted for any expression that may be offensive
to the minister'--an accusation which was decidedly true.
In 1812 the Hunts were again prosecuted for a libel upon the Prince
Regent, and sentenced to be imprisoned two years, and to pay a fine of
£500. Bat the imprisonment was alleviated in every possible way, as we
gather from Leigh Hunt's charming description of his prison in his
Autobiography.
'I papered the walls with a trellis of roses; I had the ceiling
colored with clouds and sky; the barred windows were screened with
venetian blinds; and when my book cases were set up with their
busts and flowers, and a pianoforte made its appearance, perhaps
there was not a handsomer room on that side of the water.... There
was a little yard outside, railed off from another belonging to a
neighboring ward. This yard I shut in with green palings, adorned
it with a trellis, bordered it with a thick bed of earth from a
nursery, and even contrived to have a grass plot. The earth I
filled with flowers and young trees. There was an apple tree from
which we managed to get a pudding the second year. As to my
flowers, they were allowed to be perfect.'
We have now arrived at a period which may almost be called that of the
present, inasmuch as many well-known names which still continue to adorn
our current literature first begin to appear, together with many others,
the bearers of which have but recently departed from among us. Cyrus
Redding, John Payne Collier, and Samuel Carter Hall still survive, and,
it is to be hoped, are far off yet from the end of their honorable
career; and William Hazlitt, Theodore Hook, Lord Campbell, Dr. Maginn,
Dr. Croly, Thomas Barnes, William Jordan, and many others, belong as
much to the present generation as to the past. Among other distinguished
writers must be mentioned Jeremy Bentham and David Ricardo, who
contributed articles of sterling merit upon political economy and
finance to the newspapers, and especially to _The Morning Chronicle_, in
which journal William Hazlitt succeeded Lord Campbell, then 'plain John
Campbell,' as theatrical critic. Cyrus Redding was at one time editor of
_Galignani's Messenger_, and was afterward connected with _The Pilot_,
which was considered the best authority on Indian matters, and in some
way or another, at different times, with most of the newspapers of the
day. John P. Collier wrote in _The Times_ and _Morning Chronicle_,
Thomas Barnes in _The Morning Chronicle_ and _Champion_, Croly and S. C.
Hall in _The New Times_--a newspaper started by Stoddart, the editor of
_The Times_, after his quarrel with Walter--Maginn in _The New Times_,
_Standard_, _John Bull_, and many others, William Hazlitt in _The
Morning Chronicle_, _Examiner_, and _Atlas_, and Theodore Hook in _John
Bull_, of which he was the editor.
In 1815, the advertisement duty, which had hitherto stood at three
shillings, was raised to three shillings and sixpence, and an additional
halfpenny was clapped on to the stamp duty. There were then fifty-five
newspapers published in London, of which fifteen were daily, one hundred
and twenty-two in the provinces of England and Wales, twenty-six in
Scotland, and forty-nine in Ireland.
And here let us pause to consider the position which the press had
reached. It had survived all the attempts made to crush it; nay, more,
it had triumphed over all its foes. Grateful to Parliament, whenever
that august assemblage befriended it, and standing manfully at bay
whenever its liberties had been threatened in either House, it had
overcome all resistance, and Lords and Commons recognized in it a safe
and honorable tribunal, before which their acts would be impartially
judged, as well as the truest and most legitimate medium between the
rulers and the ruled. The greatest names of the day in politics and in
literature were proud to range themselves under its banners and to aid
in the glorious work of extending its influence, developing its
usefulness, and elevating its tone and character; and the people at
large had learned to look upon it as the firm friend of national
enlightenment, and the most trustworthy guardian of their constitutional
liberties.
LIFE ON A BLOCKADER.
Life in the camp and in the field has formed the staple of much writing
since the commencement of the war, and all have now at least a tolerable
idea of the soldier's ordinary life. Our sailors are a different matter,
and while we study the daily papers for Army news, we are apt to ignore
the Navy, and forget that, though brave men are in the field, a smaller
proportion of equally brave serve on a more uncertain field, where not
one alone but many forms of death are before them. Shot and shell it is
the soldier's duty to face, and the sailor's as well, but one ball at
sea may do the work of a thousand on shore: it may pass through a
vessel, touching not a soul on board, and yet from the flying splinters
left in its path cause the death of a score; its way may lie through the
boilers, still touching no one, and yet the most horrible of all deaths,
that by scalding steam, result. It may chance to hit the powder
magazine, and sudden annihilation be the fate of both ship and crew; or,
passing below the water line, bring a no less certain, though slower
fate--that which met the brave little Keokuk at Charleston, not many
months since.
Life at sea is a compound of dangers, and though the old tar may
congratulate himself in a stormy night on being safe in the maintop, and
sing after Dibdin--
'Lord help us! how I pitys
All unhappy folks on shore'--
to the majority of our present Navy, made up as it is, in part at least,
of volunteer officers and men, it is essentially distasteful, and
endured only as the soldier endures trench duty or forced marches--as a
means of sooner ending the Rebellion, and bringing white-winged Peace in
the stead of grim War.
The history of our ironclads, from their first placing on the stocks, to
the present time, when Charleston engrosses them all, is read with
avidity, but few know anything of life on our blockaders, or, thinking
there is not the dignity of danger associated with them, take little or
no interest in what they may chance to see concerning them. Those who
have friends on blockade duty may be interested to know more of their
daily life than can be crowded into the compass of home letters, and the
writer, one of the squadron off Wilmington, would constitute himself
historian of the doings of at least one ship of the fleet.
Wilmington, Charleston, and Mobile, alone remain of all the rebel ports,
but it is with the first we have to do--where it is, how it looks, &c.
Right down the coast, some 450 miles from New York, and a hundred or
more from the stormy cape of Hatteras, you will see the river which
floats the merchandise to and from the docks at Wilmington, emptying
into the ocean at Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river has
two mouths, or rather a mouth proper, which opens to the south of the
cape, and an opening into the side of the river, north of the cape
called New Inlet. Perhaps more seek entrance by this inlet than the
mouth, which is guarded by Fort Caswell, a strong, regularly built fort,
once in Union hands, mounting some long-range English Whitworth guns.
One other fort has been built here since the commencement of the war.
This inlet is guarded by a long line of earthworks, mounted by Whitworth
and other guns of heavy caliber. Wilmington lies some twenty miles from
the mouth, and fifteen north of New Inlet.