The "wit in the dungeon" was James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), who was educated at Christ's Hospital, and began his literary life with "a collection of poems, written between the ages of twelve and sixteen," and published in 1801 as
Juvenilia
. In 1808 he and his brother John started a weekly newspaper called the
Examiner
, which advocated liberal principles with remarkable independence. On February 24, 1811, Hunt published an article in defence of Peter Finnerty, convicted for a libel on Castlereagh, and exhorting public writers to be bold in the cause of individual liberty. The same number contained an article on the savagery of military floggings, for which he was prosecuted, defended by Brougham, and acquitted. His acquittal drew from Shelley a letter of congratulation, addressed to Hunt as "one of the most fearless enlighteners of the public mind" (Dowden's
Life of Shelley
, vol. i. p. 113).
In March, 1812, the
Morning Post