Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 1

by Henry Hunt

In these sentiments my friend Waddington agreed with me, and he readily joined in a determination never to suffer any thing of the sort to take place at our table again while we remained together. This resolution we managed to keep, though we had a difficult task to perform when Mr. Clifford and the Rev. Dr. Gabriel dined with us, which was regularly twice a week. The reverend doctor, in particular, we found it incumbent upon us to keep within strict bounds; for, when he had got a little too much wine, though he was an old man, and a dignitary of the church, it was with great difficulty we could restrain him from indulging in obscene conversation, with which my friend and myself were equally disgusted. The doctor was a wit and a scholar, but, as Mrs. Waddington and her family, as well as other amiable females both of her and my friends, frequently visited us, his language was not to be tolerated, and, consequently, I undertook one morning to remonstrate with the doctor upon the subject. He freely acknowledged his error, but attributed it to a foolish habit that he had acquired at college, of which he could never afterwards wholly break himself. At the same time, he pleaded that he never forgot himself so far as to disgrace his profession, unless he had taken too much wine—which, by the bye, was every day when he could get it. I made known to the doctor our resolution to limit him to a bottle, and that his visits were to be continued upon that understanding. To this he readily assented, and thenceforth we found him to be a well-informed and entertaining companion, on the two days in the week that he was invited to dine with us. The doctor was reduced in circumstances, and was living within the rules. It was he who built the octagon chapel at Bath, of which he was the proprietor, and where he preached for many years. He was a man of letters, and, when sober, a perfect gentleman; but, when ever so little elevated, he betrayed, even to us comparative strangers, that he was a complete free thinker. Many of my readers will recollect the literary controversy which took place between him and, I believe, Doctor Gardiner, of Bath. I forget what were his politics, but I believe he was a Whig. One thing I perfectly recollect, which was, that when he was going to relate an obscene story or anecdote, he always gave us a preliminary intimation of it by sneezing. He was, on the whole, one of the most extraordinary of the numerous extraordinary characters that I became acquainted with while I remained at the King's Bench, during my first visit there of six weeks, in the years 1800 and 1801.

This was a very distressing season for the poor; and Mr. Waddington and myself gave a ton of potatoes to the poor prisoners in the King's Bench every week; nor, during the time that I was there, did we ever fail to relieve not only every applicant, and they were numerous, but also to seek privately for objects of distress within the walls; and wherever we found an unfortunate object, we did our best to alleviate his misery. Some we found almost naked, without clothes or even bedding; some who were pining, in secret, silent want, who were ashamed to make their wretchedness known. These we never failed to succour. The Marshal likewise assisted us in these acts of charity, and did every thing that humanity and kindness could suggest, to ameliorate the condition of the unhappy prisoners in his custody.

It being now the season when those who toil for us naturally expect some proof of our friendship and gratitude, to enable them to enjoy their long anticipated merriment, I sent home directions to Mrs. Hunt to have my usual Christmas present given to each of my servants. It consisted of a good piece of beef, some potatoes, and faggots to dress it with, the quantity given being in proportion to the size of the family. This good custom I learned from my father, and I regularly continued it every year; but it was always done, I hope, with a becoming spirit, without any ostentation. I never, as many did, caused my little charitable acts to be blazoned forth in the public newspapers. I will venture to say, that, while we were in the King's Bench, Mr. Waddington and myself gave away, privately, a larger sum, in comparison with our incomes, than, any of the publicly blazoned forth charitable men in the city of London, who were lauded up to the sky for their benevolent disposition. Every Christmas, each servant, who had worked for me during the year, received a present of beef enough to keep each person a week, which was never noticed in any of the public newspapers, though they constantly teemed with pompous accounts of the generosity, benevolence, and charity of my more opulent neighbours, who never gave half so much; in fact, who never gave a twentieth part so much as myself, in proportion to their means.

A circumstance of this sort, which happened not a hundred miles from this place, and the description of which was given to me by a farmer, has caused me a hearty laugh. It was lately paragraphed in all the country as well as the London papers, and spread far and near, that a worthy and reverend magistrate, in this neighbourhood, had, with great liberality, given away an ox to his parishioners; some, in their great bounty, added eight or ten sheep to the boon. I was one day speaking with due praise of this act before a farmer of the neighbourhood, who had called to visit me; upon which he burst into a loud horse laugh, and exclaimed, "Oh, the old cow!" The fact was, as he informed me, that the worthy magistrate had an old Norman cow, that had done breeding, and consequently gave no more milk; and as every farmer in the country well knows that the Devil himself could not graze an old cow of this sort to make her fit for the butcher, the worthy parson very properly gave her away amongst his parishioners; and the praises of this mighty gift were hawked about in almost every newspaper in the kingdom!

I do not give any name, neither do I, in the remotest degree, bring forward the circumstance by way of taunt or ridicule. There was nothing improper in it, but the contrary; and, of course, the old cow afforded many a hearty meal, and many a porridge-pot full of good wholesome broth to those amongst whom she was divided, who, no doubt, were very thankful to the worthy justice for the present. I only mention it to shew that it "is not all gold that glitters," and how such a thing is trumpeted forth when it is once set a going. I know it is the practice of many persons to give a trifle at this time of the year, and then get one of their dependents to send, and not unfrequently they themselves send, an account of it to the county paper. Away goes the news, and a person's name is blazoned forth all over the kingdom, as a most charitable man or woman, when it often happens that a great deal of misery, poverty, wretchedness and want presents itself to their view all the year round, without their ever once extending that aid which, to bestow in private, would afford them ten times as much heart-felt pleasure, and real satisfaction, as they can gain from their ostentatious annual newspaper fraud. I have given away four times the value of this said cow, every Christmas, for ten or fifteen years together, without having ever once had, or wishing to have, my name held up in a public newspaper, as an example of charity and liberality to the poor. Yet, twenty years ago, before I was known as a reformer, when, for instance, I was in the King's Bench, a pound note, a fifth part of what Mr. Waddington and I gave away privately, besides the ton of potatoes, would have caused my name to cut a pompous figure in all the vehicles of news, both in town and country. I may, without boasting, declare, that scarcely a month in my life ever passed without my having given away more than the value of the said old cow, to relieve and assist my fellow creatures in distress; and yet the public well know how my name has been bandied about in every newspaper in England, Ireland, and Scotland, and, of late years, in almost every paper in Europe, as the greatest enemy of the poor, as their deceiver, their deluder, their plunderer! I have been held up, for political purposes, by the venal press, as a sort of ferocious monster, who longed to gorge upon the life-blood of my fellow countrymen! It will be asked by some, how comes it that all the public press has been induced to represent you as a monster of this description? The answer is easy. For this plain reason: because all those who belong to the public press, the liberal press, have been the agents or the, tools of one or the other of the two great political factions, nick-named Whigs and Tories; because throughout the whole of my political life, I have honestly opposed the peculations, the plunderings, and frauds of the borough-mongers of both those two factions upon the people, upon the earnings of the poor; because I have never in any way been, nor ever would be, linked on to either of those factions; because I have fairly, manfully, and openly stood up for the political rights of my poorer fellow countrymen, and never for one moment of my life have compromised those rights, in order to secure or promote my own interest.

I repeat again, that I have not introduced the subject of the old cow with any invidious motive. As far as the thing went it was a praiseworthy and charitable act. I have myself many times done the same thing; have fatted an old cow, and given the beef away to the poor, which has been worth, to them, from ten to fifteen pounds; very excellent meat to eat, and I have partaken of some of it in my own family; though it would have scarcely fetched any thing to have been sold to a butcher. And if this should meet the eye of the worthy justice, he will take it as it is meant, and not as any sarcasm at him, though the said justice is one of the number who was induced to sign the infamous order to exclude my female friends from visiting me; which I would fain hope he did against his own judgment, and I am sure, from the personal kindness I before received of him here, he did it much against his inclination. Some may say that my statement, of what I have done, is an egotistical digression; that I am sounding my own trumpet; and that to do so is no proof of a truly charitable disposition; but let them recollect that I am compelled to this digression, in order to do justice to my own calumniated character; let them recollect that I am writing my own history, and that, as all the press of Europe has been sedulously and malignantly employed to prejudice the public against me, I owe it to myself, to my children and family, to the myriads of my fellow countrymen who have honoured me with their confidence; I owe it to them, to show, past all contradiction, that my accusers are slanderers; that my conduct deserves to be otherwise spoken of than it has been; and this duty I can perform only by speaking candidly and boldly of such facts as may tell in my favour; facts, be it remembered, which admit of being proved or disproved by thousands of living witnesses. I make no assertions which are morally or physically incapable of being refuted; I appeal to evidence, which is still in existence; and if my enemies can convict one of having, in my defence, gone beyond the limits of truth, I will be content, ever after, to listen in silence to their calumnies.

But it is now time to change the scene again to the King's Bench. I was there every day in the society of men who had not merely mixed in the busy scenes of the metropolis, but of whom I found that many had been connected with the government; many had borne a part in all the dirty tricks, frauds, perjuries, and bribery practised at elections. Of such abominations as I did not think it possible ever to have occurred, the reality was clearly proved to me, by those who had been eye witnesses of them, and who had participated in the plunder. Circumstances brought me into strange company, and here I saw men of all persuasions in religion, and of all parties in politics.

The year 1800 was a very busy year, and the price of provisions was at its height, in consequence of which, there were many riots both in London and the country. The parliamentary remedy for this evil was, an act, passed on the 12th of February, forbidding the sale of bread till four and twenty hours after it had been baked.

Towards the close of 1799, Buonaparte became the first consul of France, and he immediately wrote a letter himself to the King of England, offering to treat for peace. The British ministers, however, treated the offer with contempt, and they were sanctioned in their conduct by the legislative bodies. Oh, fatal policy! if this offer had been accepted, millions of lives might have been spared—oceans of blood and hundreds of millions of money might have been saved to the nation. Mr. Fox and Mr. Whitbread opposed the address in the House of Commons, but it was carried by 265 against 64. High debates and strong divisions took place in the Irish House of Commons, upon the Union, when Lord Castlereagh began to make a figure by his intrigues; British gold prevailed over Irish patriotism, and the majorities were in favour of the Union. Mr. Waithman now first began to figure upon the stage of politics in London, and a motion which he made, in favour of peace, was carried unanimously at a Common Hall. The House of Commons, on the motion of Mr. Tierney, divided 44 for peace and 143 for war; this was on the twenty-sixth of February, and on the eleventh of May, at a field-day in Hyde Park, a shot wounded a young gentleman, who stood near the King, for whom no doubt it was intended. The same evening his Majesty was at Drury Lane theatre, when a man in the pit, whose name was Hatfield, standing up on one of the benches, fired a pistol at him; but he was pronounced to be deranged in his intellects, and he was confined accordingly.

All our magnanimous allies had by this time deserted us, with the exception of the Emperor of Germany, whose friendship was purchased by another loan of two millions of money, to be raised in taxes upon John Bull; or, to apply a more appropriate name, John Gull—for, so zealous were his faithful representatives in the Commons, that they voted away forty-eight millions for the service of the year; and to prevent, or rather silence any grumbling, the Habeas Corpus suspension act was passed.