[5] Times, July 10th.
CHAPTER XX.
“TO PUT A MAN IN PRISON FOR A YEAR OR TWO DOES NOT KILL HIM.”
So the patriot was down. Down, among the felons. To keep company, for a period of two years, “with swindlers, and with persons convicted of the most detestable crimes,” was he set down; unless he should ransom himself away from their immediate society. There he was, torn away from home, subjected to untold difficulties, financial and other, and deprived of liberty—in the cause of humanity and of national justice.
The absurdity of this outrageous sentence was soon manifest. The whole country cried “Shame!” Even the toad-eating ministerial newspapers were silent. Save mutilation, it was going back two hundred years.
Not that this was a solitary affair: there were other sufferers in durance vile, or with the prospect of it over their heads; and the existing generation had not forgotten the victims of 1792-4. But this was so notorious: here was a man whose writings were patriotic, manly, eloquent;—and so far unsurpassed by those of any of his cotemporaries—bundled into jail for speaking the plain truth about public affairs, and proving it as he went along.
Exactly a year ago it had been openly declared that they were determined to crush him! And now the blow had fallen:—
“They thought that this savage sentence would break my heart, or at least silence me for ever. It was, indeed, a bloody stab. They thought they had got rid of me. Just after the verdict of guilty was found, Perceval met his brother-in-law Redesdale, at the portal of Westminster Hall. They shook hands, and gave each other joy!… Curtis[1] met Tierney in the Hall: ‘Ah! ah! we have got him at last,’ said Curtis. ‘Poor Cobbett! let him be bold now!’ The old place-hunter answered, ‘D—n him! I hope they’ll squeeze him!’ They did squeeze indeed; but their claws, hard as they were, did not squeeze hard enough.… The ruffians put me into prison in lucky time for me—put me into prison, and tied me to the stake of politics.”
But let that pass. A prison is a prison. A convicted libeller is a convicted libeller. And, a convicted libeller having made his bed, let him lie upon it! The wretch should have taken into the account, when he made his stab at a merciful but just executive, that he ran the risk of being thrown into the enforced companionship of other villains. He had made his choice: it was not for him to complain that the logic of events had left him in jail, and that folks outside were laughing at him. Yes, let that pass, it is no concern of ours. That which it behoves us to consider—that which is infinitely more interesting to us—is this question, What came of it all?