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.