by the hireling press, and its still baser agents, that I had turned my
wife out of doors to starve! How incessantly was this falsehood bawled
out, repeated, and reiterated, by the dirty hireling agents of the
contemptible Westminster Junto, so properly denominated by Mr. Cobbett
the Rump Committee! How often was this lie vomited forth upon the
hustings, by the _paid tools_ of the opposing candidates at the Bristol
and Westminster elections! Whenever I have argued for the right of every
Englishman to be free, for Universal Suffrage, or have pleaded the cause
of the poor, instead of answering my arguments, or controverting my
principles of justice and humanity, the answer has been, "you have
turned _your wife out of doors, to starve, Hunt, therefore we will not
listen to your doctrine_." This has been particularly the language of
that hypocritical faction the Whigs, or Burdettites; those pretended
sham friends of liberty, who, within the last seven years, have done
more to palsy public opinion, than all the Tories that ever lived
could have done. This Rump, this fag-end of a committee of Westminster
electors, that was once formed to support the freedom of election in
that city, but the members of which have, since the management of it got
into their hands, converted the power that they have assumed into an
engine of the basest corruption, and have proved themselves the most
tyrannical suppressors of public opinion, as well as the most determined
brutal destroyers of every thing like fair discussion; who, at all their
public meetings, whether held in Palace Yard or the Crown and Anchor,
have systematically put down, and forcibly prevented from delivering his
sentiments, every person that was not one of their own gang; who, with
coarse, vulgar, beastly hootings and yellings, have driven every honest
public man from their bacchanalian carousals at the Crown and Anchor;
this set of dirty underlings I have most narrowly watched, year after
year, during a long period; and, as I know all their tricks and
shufflings, I will faithfully lay them before the public, as I proceed
in my Memoirs. The ramifications of the mischief they have done, have
spread far and near. They have kept up a correspondence with some of
the most patriotic individuals in every principal town and city in the
kingdom; by which means they have frequently exercised the power which
they thus acquire, of stifling those sparks of popular fervour, that
would have long since kindled into an irrepressible blaze of patriotism,
had it not been for the sinister exertions of this foul extinguisher of
every particle of generous public liberty, that did not tend to promote
their own base and selfish ends; always acting, as they have done, under
the direction and immediate influence of their Grand Lama, or principal
juggler, Sir Francis Burdett, in whose pay they have most of them
been, directly or indirectly, for many years past. Unable to answer my
arguments, and dreading the exposure of their hero's trickery, this
gang, with a broad faced, impudent individual, of the name of Adams, a
currier, in Drury Lane, at their head, whenever I offered to address
them in public, have been always foremost in the cry of, "Hunt, you
turned your wife out of doors to starve;" and not satisfied with this,
these despicable wretches have worn the heels of their shoes off, in
running from door to door, and from pot-house to pot-house, to vilify me
behind my back, propagating the most bare-faced falsehoods, all of their
own fabrication. I will, by-and-bye, give the reader a specimen of one
of the stories invented by this Adams, and related to Mr. Cobbett by
the man himself, when he was confined in Newgate, in the year 1812; all
their lies ending with the usual burthen of the song, that "I had turned
my wife out of doors to starve." This man, Adams, was a witness in the
trial of Wright _v_. Cobbett, in the Court of King's Bench, some time
since, for a libel; and if he swore that which was attributed to him,
Mr. Cobbett neither did justice to himself nor to the public, by
declining to prosecute him for perjury.
But I will now proceed to detail the particulars of the settlement which
I made upon my wife at the time of our separation; and I have no doubt
that any statement, at the same time that it gives the lie direct to
the base assertions of the foregoing scoundrels, will convince every
unprejudiced, as well as every liberal and rational person in the
country, of the dastardly conduct of mine and my country's greatest
enemies, the hypocritical false friends of liberty. It will be
recollected by those who have done me the honour to read my Memoirs,
that when I married I received one thousand pounds as a fortune with my
wife; five hundred of which I lent immediately to one of her brothers,
without ever having taken it out of the house of my wife's father; which
five hundred pounds still remained, and continued to remain in his
hands, for several years after my being parted from his sister. I
mention this fact, here, to shew in what light her brothers and family
considered this separation. They looked upon it as a misfortune which
all lamented; but it is evident, from this circumstance, that they did
not look upon it in a criminal light; for, if they had done so, they
would not have continued a moment under such a pecuniary 61
HENRY HUNT.
obligation to me, which by them could have been so easily removed, as
they were all by this time in very good circumstances; and the brother,
James, who held this sum, was now in partnership with his elder brother,
John, the banker at Marlborough. My wife's fortune was, as I have said
before, one thousand pounds. The consideration then was, what sum I
should secure annually to Mrs. Hunt. I had given my attorney authority
to consent to, nay, to propose, the most liberal allowance; having made
him fully acquainted with my property and income, which I authorised
him to lay before her brother, who was acting in her behalf. After a
conference, my attorney informed me that he had proposed to allow Mrs.
Hunt an annuity of two hundred pounds, and secure it as a rent charge
upon my freehold and leasehold estates in Wiltshire and Somersetshire,
which he had no doubt would be accepted if I approved of it. My answer
was, "although this may be considered a liberal and handsome annuity to
my wife, when compared with the fortune I received with her, and as
a fair allowance, when taking all my property and prospects into
consideration, yet, as I am the _aggressor,/I>, I will, as far as I
have the power, make at least a pecuniary compensation. I shall not be
satisfied with what might be considered as fair; but I will make her a
liberal and generous allowance. I have now the means, and while I have
the means and the will to do her justice, I will put it out of my own
power to act otherwise. Go, and settle the annuity, draw up the deed,
and insert therein _three hundred pounds a year_, and I will sign it
immediately, for fear of any accident."
This was done as I directed, and it was also agreed that Mrs. Hunt
should have the care of our daughter, and I of our two sons, but that we
should both have free access to them whenever we pleased. All this being
arranged amicably, and in a manner perfectly satisfactory to Mrs. Hunt
and her relations, at least as far as pecuniary affairs went, and
as this annuity was regularly paid for nine years before another
arrangement was proposed by the trustee, her brother, which I shall
faithfully detail when I approach that period of my history, I would
fain hope that the calumnious cowards who have so often assailed me,
as having turned my wife out of doors to starve, will, at any rate, in
future, abstain from propagating such a bare-faced falsehood. When I
think of these things, perhaps I ought to thank them for urging me on to
this disclosure of my domestic arrangements; which, as I believe they
will not tell to my disadvantage, as to liberality, so I am quite sure
that nothing but such overwhelming and persevering calumnies would have
ever induced me to disclose them.
It was proposed that Mrs. Hunt should go and live with her relations;
but, as I thought three hundred pounds a year was quite sufficient to
make her independent of any one, and quite enough to enable her to keep
a small and respectable establishment of her own, I recommended that
she should take a house, and have her family to herself. She urged that
there would be the expence of purchasing furniture, &c. and that she
would rather, on that account, take furnished lodgings. I soon contrived
to overcome this difficulty; I was living in a large mansion, Chisenbury
House, containing four or five sitting rooms, and ten or twelve bed
rooms, amply and expensively furnished with plate, linen, china, and
every requisite for a large family, keeping a great deal of company. I,
therefore, without the least hesitation, followed up the liberality of
the original deed, by immediately offering a moiety of my household
furniture, plate, linen, china, books, &c. &c. which was more than
enough to furnish any moderately-sized house. This offer was no sooner
made than accepted this is another proof of the malignant falsehood
of the base editors of the venal press, and of the hireling tools of
"England's hope and Westminster's pride," the despicable Rump! "Well,
how did you manage to divide these things?" it will be asked! Why, in a
manner totally beyond the comprehension of these political _split-figs,
tailors, glass-cutters, leather- dressers, and curriers_ of the
Westminster Rump. Instead of doing as these fellows would have done
under such circumstances, instead of sending for a broker or an
appraiser, I acted as follows: I desired her to send for a cabinet maker
and his man, and make them pack up a half of every thing, which I should
leave entirely to her own choice; and as I was going from home, which I
did for the purpose of leaving the whole arrangement to herself, I left
an order for my bailiff to place any number of waggons and horses at her
disposal, to convey whatever she might choose to have packed up, to
her house at Marlborough, and before I left home I placed one hundred
pounds, exclusive of the annuity, in her hands, adding, that if she did
not pack up the best half of every thing, it was her own fault. Look at
this, ye venal, calumniating crew, and hide your diminished heads. Ye
paltry tools of the Baronet, ye _Places, Adamses, Clearys, Brookses, and
Richters_, belonging to the Rump of Westminster! You have dragged this
statement forth, you have given me an opportunity of doing justice to
myself, in this particular.
I understand there has been a great desire amongst this crew, to see how
I should get over this part of my domestic history. The base vermin,
some of them, I know, expected that I should follow the example of
_higher authority_ and traduce my wife, as a justification for my own
errors and frailties. Gracious God!--traduce my wife!--calumniate the
mother of my children! Rather than have been guilty of such baseness,
rather than have done this, even if she had been exactly the reverse of
what she is, instead of being all truth, purity and goodness, if she had
been guilty of some errors and indiscretions, even then I would rather
have plucked my tongue from my mouth, and have cast it into the fire,
much rather than have uttered a breath of slander against my wife, or
have whispered a calumny against the mother of my children.
Mrs. Hunt did as I requested her, and the first time I paid her a
visit, at her new residence, at Marlborough, which was about a month
afterwards, I found that she had not only got furniture enough to
furnish a comfortable house, but that she had a room-full over what was
necessary. Some of my readers will stare to hear me talk of visiting
my wife, under such circumstances, and after such a formal separation.
But so it was; and I can say further, though we have had the misfortune
to be divided, I do not believe that any human being ever heard either
of us cast any reflection, or throw out any the slightest imputation
against the other. I have always treated her and spoken of her as the
amiable mother of my children, and she, I believe, has spoken of me at
all times as the affectionate, though in this respect the unfortunate
father, of her children.
Thus have I, without the slightest disguise, given a faithful and
unvarnished detail of this melancholy and distressing event. This has
been the only drawback, the only thing that my enemies could ever bring
fairly against me, that I was separated from my wife--an assertion which
was too true to admit of dispute; but all the other calumnies against
one are as false and as groundless, as that _of having turned my wife
out of doors to starve_. Having said thus much, I am sure that the
reader will not expect that I shall be constantly wounding the feelings
of an amiable and extensive family, by dwelling upon and publishing
every little anecdote of my private domes tic concerns. It is enough
to say here, that it is now nearly nineteen years since this event
occurred, and I will briefly add, that, placing this unfortunate family
affliction out of the question, no man living ever enjoyed nineteen
years of such uninterrupted domestic felicity with less alloy than I
have done. No man's home was ever more agreeable than mine was at all
times to me; and I sincerely believe, that this alone has enabled me
to support and to survive the great public exertions that I have been
constantly making for so many years past.
To all those who may exclaim against my errors, I can only say, in the
language of the greatest Reformer that ever came upon the earth,
"_let him or her that is without sin cast the first stone." How many
profligate and abandoned scoundrels will read this, and casting their
hypocritical eyes up, "like a duck in thunder," will exclaim and rave
against my failings! How many profligate, debauched rakes, when sneaking
home to their wives and families from stews and brothels, will, to
disguise their own debauchery, profess to rail still at me! How many
abandoned, though slyly intriguing city dames, will cast their arms
around their husbands' necks, as a proof of their own virtue, or rather
to disguise their own frailties, and exclaim aloud against me! None but
the truly virtuous know how to make a liberal allowance for the
failings of others. My father used to observe, and he set it down as
an invariable rule, that the most abandoned and profligate secretly
intriguing females, were always the most unforgiving, unrelenting
persecutors of any one of their own sex, who had committed an error, or
fallen into a misfortune of this sort. A lady, of the parish of Enford,
who having been railing in an unmerciful manner against a servant girl
who had the misfortune to have an illegitimate child, my father remarked
privately to me, that it was a sure proof to him, that she was no better
than she should be. A few weeks afterwards, this very same dame was
detected in an intrigue with the _house thresher_!
I trust the reader will not think that I am endeavoring to justify the
crime of incontinency, seduction or debauchery; quite the reverse; there
is a very broad distinction between justifying a crime, and making a
liberal and humane allowance for the frailties of poor human nature.
Those females who are really chaste, and who practice rather than
profess virtue, are always tender and sparing of their censure of
the misfortunes and errors of others of their own sex: so it is with
honourable and virtuous men; although they would by no means encourage
vice, yet they take a very different course to eradicate it, than that
of declaiming publicly against those who have not been so successful as
themselves in resisting temptation.
How many living instances could I point out, as illustrations of this
self-evident proposition. It was but yesterday I had before me a glaring
specimen of the sort of canting hypocrisy which is the object of my
censure. It was a reverend and dignified pillar of the church, as demure
as a saint, turning up his eyes, and professing and preaching morality,
which I had more than once or twice before heard him do, while, with
a sanctified leer, he expressed great horror at my breach of conjugal
chastity, or violation of the marriage vow. The reader will easily
imagine the manner in which I eyed him, while he was uttering these
truly religious and moral doctrines, when I inform him that, only a few
hours before, an old neighbouring farmer had been relating to me and
my friends, a little of the private history of this chaste and pious
parson. It seems, by this old gentleman's account, that this now worthy
and dignified clergyman of the Church of England, who was originally a
mere clerical adventurer, the better to enable himself to perform that
duty which he had recently sworn that he was called by the Holy Ghost to
execute, took to himself an antiquated damsel for a wife; but what she
was deficient in beauty and youth, she made up in the scale by the
weight of her purse; and my informant observed that, during the life
time of the "first madam," not a servant girl could live in his house,
without giving evident proofs that the rosy-gilled priest was not quite
purified from the sinful lust of the flesh, notwithstanding the call he
had received from the Holy Ghost, and the all-powerful ordination of the
Holy Bishop of the diocese to boot.
I could not only, fill this number, but I could fill a volume, with
instances of this sort in this very neighbourhood. Let me only take half
a score of clergyman, and half a score of magistrates, of this part
of the county of Somerset; and in merely detailing the scenes of
_debauchery, seduction and desertion_ of which they have been
notoriously guilty, I could fill a book that would excite the horror and
detestation of every rational mind. Let it be observed that I do not
by any means class the whole, nor any considerable portion, of the
magistracy or clergy in this list; God forbid I should, because I
believe there are many, and I know there are some, very excellent and
truly good men amongst them. "Well," it may be said, "and what of all
this, because some Justices and Parsons are profligate, debauched, and
abandoned, would you infer that to be any justification or palliation
for your errors?" Not in the least. I do not wish to assume any such
ridiculous proposition. All I mean to say is, it brings me to this
conclusion, that as we are by our very nature liable to err, and that as
it is quite clear that those who are the most forward to condemn
others are not always totally free from the frailties of human nature
themselves; it therefore behoves us, while we have "the _beam_ in our
own eye," not to be too officious in exposing the "_mote_ in the eye
of another." But, after all, I will boldly and fearlessly rest my own
character upon the following issue. If any one of those who have been
railing against me, will come forward; _if any person_, male or female,
will come forward and establish _one act of seduction_ against me, even
from the earliest period of my life, up to this hour; if they will
produce one illegitimate offspring of mine, or prove that there ever
has been such, even by common report; I hereby solemnly promise not to
write, or have published, one more line as long as I remain in this
prison. And further; if any one will come forward and prove, that I have
ever been the inmate of a brothel, or been ever seen within the walls
of a house of ill-fame, since the day I was married, _twenty-five years
ago;_ or that I ever, in the whole course of my life, seduced, and
afterwards deserted, a female; I do hereby solemnly declare, that upon
such proof being established, I will, within one month from the time I
leave this gaol, voluntarily banish myself from this country; and so far
from ever appearing again in public, I will never again set foot upon
British ground. I make no protestations of being more virtuous than
other men; but after having made this voluntary offer, if no one accept
it, if no one come forward, then in common charity, for the sake of the
national character, let these my calumniators for ever afterwards hold
their peace. It may be said this is nobody's business; but this answer
will not do; it has been every venal knave's business; it has been the
business of the corrupt scoundrels of Bristol; it was the daily and
hourly business of the debauched editors of the public newspapers of
that city, when I offered myself as a candidate there at two contested
elections. It has also been the business of the corrupt and profligate
editors of almost all the London daily, and most of the London Sunday
newspapers, to abuse and calumniate my private character, whenever
I have come before the public, at the call of my distressed
fellow-countrymen; whether it was at a public meeting, or at a contested
election, they made it their business to vomit forth every species of
unmanly abuse against me. It has, even in a still greater degree, been
the business of those hirelings composing the Westminster Rump; it has
been the particular business of the Whigs, the Burdettites, and the
Tories; all equally hostile to real liberty; it has been their business
openly and covertly to slander and vilify me, for the last twelve or
fourteen years. I now, therefore, call upon every one of these
corrupt and despicable knaves to come forward, either individually or
collectively, and substantiate _some one_ of those charges which they
have so long, so repeatedly, and so unblushingly preferred against me.
Upon all occasions, they have unequivocally and unanimously denounced
me as an enemy to social order, an enemy to the Whigs, an enemy to the
Tories, and an enemy, as they say, to the country.
Now, then, is their time to silence me, if they have it in their power
to establish one of the crimes with which they have charged me; but
if they remain silent, and cannot establish any one of their charges
against me, what a race of cowardly, profligate beings they must feel
themselves to be! But the fact is, that all
these vermin _know_ that they were propagating the most barefaced and
wanton falsehoods against me. And who are these men that have been the
foremost to accuse me? Some of the most degraded, swinish, and abandoned
of the human race. And what has been the cause of all their hostility to
me? Why, merely because I have been the undisguised and uncompromising
advocate of the people's rights and liberties; because I have publicly
and unequivocally, upon all occasions, maintained the right of annual
parliaments, universal suffrage, and vote by ballot: in this I have been
joined by the great mass of the people of England. and Scotland. For
my public exertions in 1816 and 1817, to promote this great cause, I
received the most cordial testimony of the regard and esteem of my
fellow-countrymen--I received repeated votes of thanks from almost every
town and city of consequence in the kingdom, and particularly from the
North, and from Scotland. I believe I had the approbation of _nine
tenths_ of the industrious and most valuable classes of the community,
because I fearlessly advocated the right--the constitutional right of
all these useful and industrious classes to partake--practically to
partake, of that constitution which compelled them to risk their lives
and property, if called upon by the government, in its defence. This
I did, regardless of all, of every faction, whether _Whig, Tory_, or
_Burdettite_; for at this period there was a considerable faction,
composed principally of _petty shop-keepers_, and _little tradesmen_,
who, under the denomination of _tax-paying housekeepers_, enlisted
themselves under the banners of Sir Francis Burdett, in order to set
themselves up as a sort of privileged class, above the _operative_
manufacturer, the artizan, the mechanic, and the labourer. Thus, at the
very time that all these classes of operative manufacturers, artizans,
mechanics, and labourers, consisting of three-fourths of the population
of the kingdom; at the very time, in 1816, when almost the whole of
these persons had become united in one object, and had held meetings all
over the kingdom, and upwards of a million and a half of them had signed
petitions to be presented to Parliament, demanding universal suffrage;
at this very juncture, which was immediately after the first meeting
held in Spa-fields, lo and behold, Sir Francis Burdett, _hitherto our
great leader_ in the cause of public liberty, DECLARED OFF and deserted
us, by avowing himself the enemy of universal suffrage, and declaring
that he would not support any reform that had for its object to extend
the suffrage beyond _house__ holders_; thus, at one sweeping blow,
blasting the hopes, and driving out of the pale of the constitution, at
least two-thirds of the population; and that part, too, the most useful
and most industrious, and therefore the most beneficial to the nation!
The Baronet declared that he would support the _householder suffrage_
--that those who occupied a house, and paid King's and Parish taxes
directly to the tax-gatherer, should have a vote for members of the
Commons' or People's House of Parliament; but that all the junior
branches of families, all lodgers, every person who was not the master
of a house, should be excluded altogether from any share in electing
those who make the laws, by which EVERY ONE'S liberty, life, and
property is to be disposed of.