FOOTNOTES
[1] “In after-life he [‘my father’] described the ‘Hydra’ as a hell upon the waters, and the brutal flogging of the sailors for the most trivial offences as something too horrible for contemplation. ‘Often,’ he used to say, ‘have I wondered that men, who were treated as if they had neither hearts nor souls, should yet, in the hour of danger and of duty, forget their wrongs and indignities, act like true heroes, and pour out their heart’s blood with sublime unselfishness for a country that treated them so detestably.’—Charles Mackay, “Forty Years’ Recollections,” i. p. 13.
[2] On the previous 25th of October, the occasion of the King’s entering the fiftieth year of his reign, there had been great “rejoicings.” The Parliamentary Reformists, however, did not approve of it, holding that the prosperity of the country was a hypocritical and delusive cry. Mr. Cobbett boasted of his refusal to subscribe toward giving the twelve hundred thousand paupers “that rarity, that luxury, a bellyful,” and gave very good reasons for it. The Whig papers, too, heaped much derision upon the affair. One of the incidents of the day was a fellow sticking up a placard at Charing Cross, in these terms: “May God disperse the votaries of Cobbett, as the clouds of this day!”
[3] The friends of order were fairly proficient in the language of the fish-market; e.g., “To the indignation and execration of the British nation do we therefore consign this damning specimen of the abominable and infamous sentiments by which the base faction are impelled in their most unprincipled and diabolical pursuits,” was the remark of the Post, at the close of its comments upon the wicked Chronicle.
[4] The “profession and character” of the fraternity had just been roughly assailed in Parliament by Mr. Windham. The question of excluding reporters from the gallery of the House of Commons was one which would come up at intervals, and it was one upon which most public men changed their opinions, from time to time, according to circumstances. Mr. Windham was now for shutting the gallery; and he described the publishers of the Debates as bankrupts, lottery-office keepers, footmen, and decayed tradesmen, and he had heard “that they were a sort of men who would give into corrupt misrepresentations of opposite sides.” As Mr. Wright was the only person among the parliamentary reporters who could be put under the head of “bankrupts,” the Political Register gave Mr. Windham a castigation.
The venal writers of the day, of course, called this black treachery and ingratitude. But then such writers had no interest in upholding the craft—rather the other way. Of this class was the Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, one of the foulest pieces of rubbish that ever disgraced the periodical press. This paper recommended that Cobbett’s article (which was in extremely temperate terms) should be framed and glazed by every public man, as a warning never to trust this wretch, &c.
The Satirist was one long-drawn libel. The editor must have been utterly insusceptible of shame, or else must have been in the habit of deadening his moral feelings by artificial means. Even the good and patriotic Whitbread was represented as one who delighted in practising, upon his own estate, that tyranny against which he declaimed in the House of Commons. As for Finnerty, he is always “the miscreant,” and Mr. Wardle, “the l——r.” Wright is described as “the poor devil who now corrects Cobbett’s bad English, edits his Parliamentary History, brushes his coat, puffs him in coffee-houses and debating-shops, and does all his other dirty work,” &c.
It is very difficult to please everybody. The Examiner presently began to write down Mr. Windham, supporting itself with this affair of the reporters, and howled at Mr. Cobbett for not doing the same. The fact being that Cobbett was especially careful to avoid needless animadversions upon his old friend.
[5] Lord Colchester’s “Diary and Correspondence,” ii. 240.
[6] Lord Folkestone had reminded the House, on the 26th March, that it had been the practice of Andrew Marvel to write a full account of the proceedings of the House of Commons to his constituents every week.
CHAPTER XIX.
“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.”
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 1000l.; 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 3000l., and two good and sufficient sureties in the sum of 1000l. 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.