On Saturday, the 1st of July, the Weekly Political Register takes for its motto the above paragraph from the Courier, and begins with the following comments:—
“Local Militia and German Legion.—See the motto, English reader! See the motto, and then do pray recollect all that has been said about the way in which Buonaparte raises his soldiers. Well done, Lord Castlereagh! This is just what it was thought your plan would produce. Well said, Mr. Huskisson! It really was not without reason that you dwelt, with so much earnestness, upon the great utility of the foreign troops, whom Mr. Wardle appeared to think of no utility at all. Poor gentleman! he little imagined how a great genius might find useful employment for such troops. He little imagined that they might be made the means of compelling Englishmen to submit to that sort of discipline, which is so conducive to the producing in them a disposition to defend the country at the risk of their lives. Let Mr. Wardle look at my motto, and then say whether the German soldiers are of no use. Five hundred lashes each! Aye, that is right! Flog them! flog them! flog them! They deserve it, and a great deal more. They deserve a flogging at every meal-time. ‘Lash them daily! lash them duly!’ What! shall the rascals dare to mutiny? and that, too, when the German Legion is so near at hand? Lash them! lash them! lash them! They deserve it. Oh, yes! they merit a double-tailed cat! Base dogs! What! mutiny for the price of a knapsack? Lash them! flog them! Base rascals! Mutiny for the price of a goat’s-skin; and then, upon the appearance of the German soldiers, they take a flogging as quietly as so many trunks of trees! I do not know what sort of a place Ely is; but I really should like to know how the inhabitants looked one another in the face while this scene was exhibiting in their town. I should like to have been able to see their faces, and to hear their observations to each other, at the time. This occurrence at home will, one would hope, teach the loyal a little caution in speaking of the means which Napoleon employs (or rather, which they say he employs) in order to get together and to discipline his conscripts. There is scarcely any one of these loyal persons who has not, at various times, cited the hand-cuffings, and other means of force, said to be used in drawing out the young men of France; there is scarcely one of the loyal who has not cited these means as a proof, a complete proof, that the people of France hate Napoleon and his Government, assist with reluctance in his wars, and would fain see another revolution. I hope, I say, that the loyal will, hereafter, be more cautious in drawing such conclusions, now that they see that our ‘gallant defenders’ not only require physical restraint, in certain cases, but even a little blood drawn from their backs, and that, too, with the aid and assistance of German troops. Yes; I hope the loyal will be a little more upon their guard in drawing conclusions against Napoleon’s popularity. At any rate, every time they do, in future, burst out in execrations against the French for suffering themselves to be ‘chained together and forced, at the point of the bayonet, to do military duty,’ I shall just republish the passage, which I have taken for a motto to the present sheet. I have heard of some other pretty little things of the sort; but I rather choose to take my instance (and a very complete one it is) from a public print, notoriously under the sway of the ministry.”
So much for your “comment-maker.”
What personage had the distinction of walking home from church with Mr. Perceval, on the following day, history does not record: his comments, then, remain in oblivion. No matter that, however. In about three weeks after the above publication, Mr. Cobbett has news from London, which he thus retails:—
“… I have a most serious business to impart to you, and that is, that I hear from Mr. White, that the miscreants are about to prosecute me for the article about the flogging of the local militia. What I wish you to do is to go to Mr. White and ask him,
“1. Whether the thing be certain?
“2. What is to be done in it by me, in the first instance?
“3. At what time it will be required for me to be in town to give bail?
“4. When the trial will take place?