dungeon, and there I ascertained from his own mouth, and indeed from my
own observation, the truth of the statements which I had seen in the
paper. All that passed was in the presence of a turn-key, Mr. Hart
standing in the inside, and I on the outside, of a door composed of iron
bars. He said his wife was come from London, in hopes of being permitted
to administer to his comforts, and to alleviate the horrors of his
imprisonment; but she was nearly heart-broken, and was going to return
the next day, as she had been refused by the Visiting Magistrates
any further admission to him than to see him through the iron door; he
added also, that his health was impaired by the want of fresh air, as he
was only permitted to walk certain hours in the day, in a small court,
surrounded with high walls, which excluded a free circulation of air and
the genial influence of the sun. I told him who and what I was; and,
as I had come from Clifton on purpose to endeavour to render him some
assistance, I desired him to delay for a few days the departure of his
wife, while in the interval I would do my best to procure her admission
to him. As I was quite a stranger to the Magistrates, I could not answer
for my success, but I would at any rate make the attempt. He thanked
me, but with a deep sigh said, he feared my kindness would be in vain,
though his wife should certainly not leave the place till I had tried
the experiment.
I took leave of Mr. Hart, and repaired to the Visiting Magistrates; one
of them was from home; the second, a parson, I think, heard what I had
to say, was exceedingly civil and polite, but preached a good deal about
good order and the necessity of keeping up a strict prison discipline.
He, nevertheless, promised that he would do all that was in his power
at the next meeting of the Magistrates, which would take place in a
_fortnight_; but he emphatically observed, "you know I am but _one_,
Mr. Hunt." "_A fortnight_!" I exclaimed, "why, Sir, the poor woman will
leave Gloucester broken-hearted long before half that time arrives."
"Come, come, Sir," replied he, "these things cannot be accomplished so
easily as you imagine; and after all I must say, that although I promise
to do every thing that lies in my power to serve the unfortunate
prisoner, you must allow that his crime is a most heinous one. I cannot
give you any great encouragement to hope that I shall succeed with Sir
George Paull and the other Magistrates." This chap was a thorough Dr.
Colston in his heart, and I left him with a determination not to trust
my case in his hands. I next ordered my curricle and drove to Sir George
Paull's. I was introduced to him immediately, and I communicated the
object of my visit. He had received me very politely, but the moment
that I mentioned my business, he drew up, and began to hesitate and make
excuses. Before I left him, however, he admitted that Mr. Hart's case
was a very hard one, and he promised most faithfully that he would do
whatever was in his power to comply with my request, which was, that his
wife might have free access to him, and that he might have the liberty
of walking in a larger yard. But I found this could not be done under a
fortnight, and he politely assured me that he would write me the result
of the meeting of Magistrates.
Though in the manner of this gentleman, who I believe was chairman of
the quarter sessions, there was something much more honest and open
than in that of his brother justices, yet when I left him, to return to
Gloucester, I was not satisfied that I had done all that I could do, and
therefore I drove on to Bromsgrove, in Herefordshire, to call on Mr.
Honeywood Yate, of whom I had heard as an independent Magistrate, as
well as a friend of Reform. I soon enlisted him in the service; but he
was very much engaged with other business, which, after awhile, as Mr.
Yate was a very humane man, was made subservient to the cause of the
oppressed and persecuted captive. Mr. Yate went to Gloucester the next
day. Before I returned to Clifton I had the satisfaction of hearing that
there was an order made for Mrs. Hart to visit her husband in his room,
and for him to walk in the garden, I think, of the Governor. To the
kindness and humanity of Mr. Yate was Mr. Hart greatly indebted for this
indulgence. Without his assistance it might never have been granted; at
any rate it would have been protracted to a cruel distance.
Since that period I have never seen Mr. Hart except once, and that was
in London, after the term of his imprisonment had expired; and for the
trouble which I had taken in his behalf, I was amply rewarded by the
manner in which he expressed his sense of the accommodation that I had
been so instrumental in procuring for him. If he read this, it will
recall the whole to his recollection. Mr. White laboured under an
asthmatic complaint, and suffered greatly from his confinement; but I
understood that he was treated with proper respect and attention by the
Magistrates. Pittman, who was then the head turnkey of Dorchester Gaol,
called upon me the other day, and almost the first words he uttered
were, that the apartments allotted to Mr. White and his family, in
Dorchester Gaol, were quite a palace compared to the room in which he
found me. He said that Mr. White had two airy rooms over the Chapel,
which commanded a view of the circumjacent country, and that he had the
liberty of walking round the large open area of the Gaol, which was
composed of a beautiful gravel walk; that his was, in short, altogether
a very comfortable situation compared to that which I occupy in
Ilchester Bastile. He was here before the walls were lowered, and
consequently, he saw the place in all its native wretchedness.
Before I proceed with my narrative, I must mention a few circumstances,
which it will not be improper to record. At the latter end of this year,
1813, there was a most remarkable fog, which extended fifty or sixty
miles round London, accompanied by a severe frost, which lasted six
weeks without intermission. The average price of wheat this year was one
hundred and seven shillings and ten-pence halfpenny, and the quartern
loaf was one shilling and five-pence: these were glorious times for the
farmers, whose antipathy to jacobins and levellers, or rather reformers,
increased in proportion to the high price of corn and bread. To be sure
John Gull was taxed pretty handsomely, but the farmers, at least such of
them as looked only to self, always contrived to squeeze their taxes out
of the earnings of the labourer. Those, on the contrary, who thought
that the labourer had a right to something more than what would barely
keep life and soul together, could not cultivate the soil to the same
advantage. The supplies voted this year were SEVENTY-SEVEN MILLIONS,
FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVEN THOUSAND, FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE
POUNDS.
While the British arms were crowned with complete success in Spain,
the Government was carrying on, both by sea and land, a ruinous and
disastrous war in America. The American frigate Chesapeake was taken by
the Shannon; but, in return, the Americans captured the Java frigate.
The British troops were compelled to evacuate Fort Erie and Fort George,
which were taken possession of by the Americans, and ultimately the
American fleet took, burnt, sunk, or destroyed the whole of the English
fleet on Lake Erie. Every real lover of liberty in England deprecated
this war with our brethren of America; but the enemies of liberty now
began to boast that they would put down and destroy the principles of
Republicanism throughout the world. I always considered the war with
America to be a most unjust war; and, although I lamented to hear of
the destruction of human lives, and the spilling of human blood, and
particularly that of my own countrymen, yet I always wished success to
the Americans, who were fighting for their rights and liberties against
an invader, who would gladly have reduced them to that state of slavery
from which they had emancipated themselves by a glorious and successful
struggle. The late harvest was very fine, and the crops were good; corn,
therefore, began to fall, and of course the landed interest caught the
alarm, and set about sounding the tocsin for a corn bill, to keep up the
price of the grain. In consequence of this, the subject was frequently
discussed in Parliament. The Ministers professed to disclaim the
proposition, but they set their friends, the Country Gentlemen, forward
to propose the measure. It was at length settled, that corn should not
be imported unless the price of wheat was above eighty shillings per
quarter. Although a farmer myself, I always exclaimed against this
measure, notwithstanding it did not appear likely that the country would
be immediately affected by it, as there was no probability of the price
of wheat being much below eighty shillings a quarter during that season.
At this period I was fully occupied in a most laborious and uprofitable
speculation. I had taken a farm of nearly four hundred acres. This farm
had been occupied by a Major Andrews, a retired militia officer, who had
commenced farmer, a business of which he was totally ignorant, and in
the pursuit of which he sunk a good fortune; yet when he quitted this
farm, or rather when his property and stock were seized and sold under
an execution, perhaps the county of Hants could not have produced its
equal for foulness and bad condition. I had occupied three thousand
acres of land in Wiltshire, and I will venture to say, that there was
not half the quantity of couch grass upon the whole of it that I now
found upon the cleanest acre on Cold Henly Farm. Couch grass is the most
injurious of all weeds, and, in some parts of Wiltshire, it is very
appropriately called "the farmer's devil." This farm of Cold Henly was
about seven miles from my residence at Middleton Cottage, and therefore
I had ample exercise in riding to and fro, and attending all day to the
cleaning of the land. The proprietor of the farm was a clergyman, and,
as he professed to be very friendly with me, and gave me to understand
that he should be happy to continue me as a tenant after my lease was
out, I spared neither pains nor expense in cultivating the land, in
hopes of hereafter reaping a reward for my labour. In fact, it was
absolutely necessary to have the soil perfectly clean and free from all
sorts of weeds and grass, to be enabled to cultivate it upon the drill
system, as laid down by Tull. I believe that in the course of the first
summer I burned forty thousand cart loads of couch, which made as many
bushels of ashes for manure. Almost all the land required to be ploughed
five or six times, by means of which, and of innumerable draggings and
harrowings, and incessant and persevering labour, the farm became, in
my hands, altogether as _clean_ as it was _foul_ and overrun with every
description of weeds and grass, before I came to it. I was induced to
expend a large sum of money in improving this farm, from the promises of
the cunning, artful, and deceitful old clergyman, who was the proprietor
of it. The buildings, which were very extensive, and miserably
dilapidated, I put into complete repair; and, perhaps, altogether
I expended on the land and offices three times as much as a common
rack-renting farmer would have done. Being fully satisfied that I was
greatly benefiting his estate, the parson not only gave his consent to
any alteration that I thought proper in the course of husbandry, which
the old tenant was bound in his lease to pursue, but he took all
occasions to encourage me to do so; and, as my proceedings were so
extremely beneficial to his farm, which he never failed to acknowledge,
I did not once dream that he would hereafter, for the sake of
litigation, pretend to object to it. As this farm was a manor of itself,
and was well stocked with game, I had plenty of shooting of all sorts
upon it, as well as over the manor of Longparish, over which I also held
the deputation.
This year, 1814, was one of the most eventful periods in the history
of the world. The first week in January, Dantzic was occupied by the
allies, whose grand army passed the Rhine, and occupied Coblentz. The
treacherous and dastardly Murat, King of Naples, basely betrayed and
deserted his patron, his friend, his benefactor, and his relation,
Napoleon, by concluding a treaty with England; and on the 17th he openly
joined the allies against France. Of all the despicable, base, and
treacherous conduct of the base and dastardly crowned heads, during the
whole war, this desertion of Napoleon, by his brother-in-law, Murat, was
the most base and dastardly. To be sure, during the whole of this long
and bloody war, carried on by the despots and tyrants of the earth,
their conduct was one continued exhibition of treachery, falsehood,
selfishness, and deception. This abandoned race of Sovereigns, Kings and
Emperors, who assume a _divine origin_, and set up a claim of _divine
rights_, have, by their acts, unequivocally proclaimed to the whole
world that no reliance can be placed in their words, their bonds, or
their oaths. They have all of them broken the most solemn treaties, and
violated the most sacred and binding obligations, without the least
regard to truth, to honour, or to honesty. At the very time that the
Governments of the different states of Europe have, in high-sounding
language, been preaching about national faith, national honour, and
national credit; the favoured Ministers of each of them, in conjunction
with their masters, have, wherever it suited their interested and
corrupt purposes, without the least regard to precept or principle,
unblushingly violated and abandoned all national credit, honour, and
faith; and have rendered _faith, honour_, and _credit_, mere bye-words
among nations. If a man in common life were to act in the same
unprincipled and dastardly manner as these Sovereign Princes have done,
he would be shunned and spurned out of all society. If one of the "lower
orders" were to conduct himself in a similar manner, he would be kicked
out of the company of the most abandoned frequenters of the lowest
brothels and tap-rooms; no man would employ him or have any transaction
with him; he would be driven from amongst even the lowest of mankind,
and deservedly left to starve, to perish, and to rot upon a dunghill.
The moment that the fortune of war turned against Napoleon, all the
royal, mean, cringing, timid, time-serving, contemptible wretches, who
had filled up the measure of his glory, and almost worshipped him when
he was victorious; those who had partaken of his bounty, and whose whole
existence had depended on his smiles; all those that he had elevated to
power, and who had reigned by his sufferance, now joined the tide and
swelled the torrent that was collected to overwhelm him. Sweden and
Denmark having, like others, been bribed by English gold, drawn from the
sweat of John Gull's brows, had now joined the allies against France,
and the first action upon the territory of Old France took place on the
24th of January, when Mortier was defeated; and on the 27th the army
commanded by Napoleon in person, at St. Dizier, in Champagne, was
overpowered by numbers, and repulsed with considerable loss. The tyrants
of Russia, Austria, and Prussia met at Basil, and soon after all their
armies advanced. Blucher and Bernadotte, Crown Prince of Sweden, crossed
the Rhine with their numerous hordes, and the armies of France gave way.
Nancy, Troyes, Vitry, and Chalons were taken by the allies. But Napoleon
having rallied his divisions, defeated first the Russians, and then
Blucher, who led his army on to attack Marmont, but he was defeated a
second time. Prince Schwartzenburg advanced with the troops under his
command direct for Paris, but Napoleon attacked him with an inferior
force, beat him, and obliged him to retreat. The battles were now so
numerous, and the success was so equally balanced, that it would require
a history of itself to recount them. With an army which was never one
third as strong as that of the invaders, Napoleon contested every inch
of the ground, and fought so bravely and so skilfully, that the issue
was for some time doubtful. At length the numerous hordes of the
confederated nations of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Germany, Denmark,
Sweden, and Bavaria, flushed with their success, pushed on to Paris, to
defend which Marshals Marmont and Mortier had but very inadequate means.
The assailants, two hundred thousand in number, reached the northern
side of Paris on the 29th of March, and on the following day a desperate
battle took place. It was not till they had sacrificed fifteen thousand
men that the allies could make themselves masters of the posts which the
French held in the neighbourhood of Paris. Not disposed to run the risk
of another engagement, and especially of the arrival of Napoleon, who
was hastening back by forced marches, the coalesced despots were glad
to obtain the surrender of the capital, by granting honourable terms
to Marmont, who accordingly withdrew with his troops from Paris, which
Maria Louisa had already quitted. On the 1st of April all the allied
Sovereigns entered that city as conquerors. The Emperors of Russia and
Austria, and the King of Prussia, all of whom had been so repeatedly
conquered by Napoleon, who had generously, although foolishly, restored
two of them, after having conquered them and taken their capitals, now,
in return for his generous conduct to them, had the meanness and
the cowardice to declare that Napoleon was the only obstacle to the
establishment of a peace; upon which he magnanimously, to save the
effusion of human blood, did not hesitate to offer his resignation.
This was accepted; the French Senate met, and agreed to a provisional
Government, till a Constitution could be formed, and they passed a
decree on the 2d of April, declaring Napoleon Buonaparte and his family
to have forfeited the Imperial Crown. It was agreed to by all the allied
Sovereigns that Napoleon should retire to the Isle of Elba, which he was
to possess in _full sovereignty_--that he and Maria Louisa should, _for
life_, retain the titles of Emperor and Empress--that a large revenue
should be granted to both of them, and to the Empress the Duchies of
Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, which were to descend to her son. The
treaty being thus arranged, on the 4th day of April, 1814, the brave
Napoleon signed his abdication of the Crowns of France and Italy. On
the 13th the treaty between the allied Powers and Napoleon received
the signatures of the contracting parties, and on the 28th of April he
embarked at Frejus, in Provence, for the Isle of Elba, in the British
frigate the Undaunted.
In the meantime the English army under Lord Wellington had advanced from
Spain, invested Bayonne, and passed the Odour. A division under Marshal
Beresford entered Bourdeaux. At Toulouse Wellington had a battle, and
the dispirited skeleton of an army under Soult was defeated about the
time that the news arrived of a cessation of arms.
Although Napoleon had retired, it yet required very considerable address
to replace on the Throne of France the Bourbons--a race that was
deservedly despised and execrated by the whole French nation, with the
exception of the lazy, indolent, rapacious, and profligate priesthood,
and a few of the old bigotted nobility. The provisional Government
presented to the Conservative Senate a CONSTITUTION, and proposed that
Louis, the brother of Louis the Sixteenth, should, on the acceptance of
that constitution, be declared King of France. It is time now to turn
our eyes towards England, from the affairs of which the reader will
remember that I broke off at the period when the Parliament had settled
that corn should not be imported, unless the price was above eighty
shillings a quarter. Motions were now made to address the Prince Regent,
to seize the favourable opportunity to procure from the allied Powers
some salutary regulations respecting the slave trade. The country, both
in and out of Parliament, was mad drunk with GLORY. The House manifested
its intoxication by a profligate and extravagant grant of the public
money to Wellington, who was also created a Duke. While this was going
on within the walls of Parliament, the farmers were drunk and mad
without, and were amusing themselves by burning and hanging Napoleon in
effigy. Deputies had already arrived in England, to invite Louis the
Eighteenth to return to France. He entered London on the 20th of April,
with great pomp and state; he came from his retreat at Hartwell,
attended by the Life Guards and many of the King's carriages, and
accompanied by our magnanimous conqueror, the Prince Regent. He took up
his residence at Grillon's hotel, in Albemarle-street, where be held
his Court, and was congratulated by the Lord Mayor (Sir William
Domville), and the citizens of London, and also by many of the nobility,
all of whom would no doubt have as readily paid their devoirs to a
mastiff dog, if he had been called a King. Louis left London in great
state, to embark for France, on the 23d of April, and he set sail from
Dover on the 24th, in the Royal yacht, and landed at Calais in four
hours. His public entry into Paris took place on the 3d of May, and
on the 14th of the same month a grand farce, or funeral service, was
performed in France for the Kings Louis the Sixteenth and Seventeenth,
the Queen and the Princess Elizabeth. Louis was no sooner in possession
of power, than he discovered that the Constitution which had been
framed, and on his presumed acceptance of which he had been restored,
was NOT PRACTICABLE, and that the people of France must submit to
receive as a boon, one of his own manufacture. "Put not your trust in
Princes." The Marshals had been brought over one by one, and peace was
at length settled upon the terms which the Allies dictated. By this
treaty France was to keep her ancient boundary, with some additions; the
navigation of the Rhine was to be free; the territory of Holland and the
Netherlands were to be incorporated and governed by the Stadtholder;
Germany was to form a federal Government; and Switzerland to be
independent.