However Mr. Batt thought the account very satisfactorily settled; and if
Cook had been murdered the next day, it might have remained undisturbed;
but, in my opinion, this receipt will prove the fruitful mother of a
monstrous progeny! It was a cunning trick for a Brewer! It is a pity he
was so scanty of a _few grains_ (I mean of common humanity and candor)
_but he is a_ BREWER!—As to myself it is conduct inexplicable! but time
may mature this mis-shapen fœtus of a _mash-tub_; and it may live to
prove that the mutilated worm that is trod in the earth to day, may rise
a scorpion to-morrow, and sting its oppressor to the heart.
After all, it is to be wished, for the sake of public, justice and common
humanity, that Mr. Meux would, for the present, discharge a man from
prison, of whose integrity and anxiety to do him justice he has had such
convincing proofs; and I am not without a hope that he will do it, as I
see by the writ his Attorney is one of those few men who disdain making a
bill of costs out of the bowels of wretchedness. If Mr. Meux thinks the
man possessed means of paying for a dinner when he was taken to a
sponging house, he has been criminally imposed upon: for, from the moment
he arrested him, to the present time, he has not had the means of
procuring a two-penny loaf, but from the most mortifying mendicity. I do
not wish to make any observations upon the unprovoked conduct of
arresting him, for I firmly believe Mr. Meux is wholly ignorant of his
wretched situation.
After Cook’s trial for the pretended assault, the public will be favored
with the names and residences of the parties who are the principal
objects of this publication; a great number of whom will be compelled to
attend in Court, to give evidence on particular points connected with the
trial.
I have only to add, in conclusion, that, as I begun with an apology for
writing these pages at all, I now feel an equal inclination to apologize
for having written them so ill, and so unworthy the pen of any man laying
the least claim to literary abilities;—it has been an odious task; but my
end is answered if it procures the injured man and his wife that justice
I think them entitled to; and I hope the sale of it will afford them some
relief.