The ministers, however, were obliged to repeal the income tax, as a bribe to the landed interest, upon whom it was considered to fall particularly heavy, although the removal of it was looked upon as a boon to every one who paid it. This was a peace offering, such as our present ministers appear determined not to bestow upon us, notwithstanding we are now in the sixth year of peace. This year there was a loan of twenty-three millions raised. The taxes were enormous, that of the poor rates alone having amounted to five millions. The average price of the quartern loaf, during the twelve months, was one shilling. The prime minister was the Right Honourable Harry Addington, now Lord Sidmouth; Mr. Perceval was Attorney, and Mr. Manners Sutton was the Solicitor-general; the Chief Justice Lord Kenyon, having received his sentence, and been condemned to be banished to another world, by the Judge of judges, Mr. Law was created Lord Ellenborough, and appointed Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
On the third of January, 1803, a special commission was issued under the Great Seal, to inquire of certain high treasons committed within the county of Surrey; and on the twenty-first of January, it was opened at the Sessions House at Newington—present on the bench, Lord Ellenborough, Sir Alexander Thompson, Sir Simon Le Blanc, and Sir Alan Chambre. The grand jury were sworn, composed of Lord Leslie, foreman, Lord William Russel, Sir Thomas Turton, and others, and after a long speech from the newly made Chief Justice, which, by the bye, was quite unnecessary, the said grand jury returned a true bill against Edward Marcus Despard and twelve others; throwing out the bills that were preferred against SOME OTHERS who were known to have been deeply implicated with Colonel Despard. The Court then adjourned to the fifth of February, after having, at the request of the prisoner Despard, assigned Mr. SERGEANT BEST and Mr. GURNEY as his counsel.
On Saturday, the fifth of February, 1803, the court met, pursuant to adjournment, at the Sessions House at Newington, the same Judges presiding as before. Edward Marcus Despard and twelve others were placed at the bar, and severally pleaded not guilty. On Monday, the seventh of February, the Court met again at nine o'clock in the morning—present, Ellenborough, Thompson, Le Blanc, and Chambre, as before. There were nine counsel employed by the crown, as follow: Attorney and Solicitor General, Perceval and Manners Sutton, Sergeant Shepherd, Plumer, Garrow, Common Sergeant, Wood, Fielding, and Abbott. Counsel for Colonel Despard, Mr. SERGEANT BEST and Mr. GURNEY. The prisoner being placed at the bar, the following jury were sworn, Grant Allan, William Dent, William Davidson, Gabriel Copland, William Coxson, John Farmer, John Collinson, James Webber, Gilbert Handyside, John Hamer, Peter Dubree, and John Field. I am sure the reader will agree with me, that nothing can be more desirable than to record the names of all the parties concerned in such melancholy and bloody transactions, that they may be handed down to posterity for the use and information of the rising generation, that they may be enabled the better to judge of the motives and management of the prosecutors, and the degree of guilt or innocence of the accused. What a subject for the reflecting mind, to watch the rise and progress of those concerned in the various transactions of this sort, which have occurred during our own time, and within our own memory. As my opinion is, that Colonel Despard fell a sacrifice to the intrigues and the spy plots of the ministers of that day, and their detestable agents, that the verdict was obtained against him by perjury, and that he was in no degree guilty of the charges that were preferred against him, it will be most interesting to watch the progress of those concerned in his prosecution and trial, and to mark their end.
Upon the trial of Colonel Despard a number of witnesses swore the most outrageous things against him, but the two principal witnesses were two soldiers; one of these men, it is said, left England immediately afterwards, and was never again heard of by any one in this country; the other, as I was informed by Mr. Clifford, confessed upon his death bed, that he had been bribed to swear against the Colonel, that what he had sworn was false, and that he had been instructed what to say, and he did so, for doing which he received a considerable sum. These were two fellows of the most abandoned character, as came out upon their cross-examination, (SUCH AS IT WAS), but the evidence for the prosecution was so inconsistent, and so ridiculously improbable, that one is astounded at the thought, how it was possible for any twelve men in the kingdom, indiscriminately and fairly chosen, to have said guilty upon such testimony, and that principally upon the testimony of accomplices. But, what was more extraordinary than all the rest, was, that, although there was a ROOM FULL of witnesses for the prisoner, many of them most respectable, who were ready and willing to disprove a great deal that the witnesses for the prosecution had sworn, and to prove that several of the principal witnesses were not worthy to be believed upon their oath, yet, to the astonishment of the Court, to the grief and sorrow of the prisoner's friends and relations, to the wonder of the whole country, the counsel for the prisoner never called one of these witnesses. Gracious God! the bare recollection of this circumstance freezes one's blood with horror! I have received a letter from a friend of the colonel, to say, that when they found the counsel were only calling a few witnesses to character, they, the colonel's friends and relations, wrote him a note, imploring him to demand that these most important witnesses should be called and examined. But he returned this fatal answer, "I have trusted my case in the hands of my counsel, and in them I place implicit confidence; I shall therefore not interfere with them." Oh fatal confidence!
It is not for me to accuse the counsel of having betrayed and sold their client; but it is my firm and unalterable opinion, that, had these witnesses who were in attendance been called for the prisoner, no jury would ever have pronounced the word—guilty. Thank God! I made up my mind long, long ago, never to trust my life or my liberty in the hands of a counsel! I have not the least doubt, not the shadow of a doubt upon my mind, that, if the government could have been sure that I would have trusted my defence in the hands of a counsel, if they could have indulged in a well-grounded hope, that I would have committed my case to the keeping of the worthy Counsellor Scarlett, but that they would have tried and convicted me and my friends of high treason, for attending the peaceable meeting at Manchester; for which, as it was, they could not even get me convicted of a conspiracy, though they had packed a tractable Yorkshire Whig jury. But if they could have got me to place a brief in the hands of the worthy and able WHIG SCARLETT, I should have been tried for high treason, and the evidence of Hulton, Entwistle, and Andrew, would have been so beautifully managed, that I am quite sure a packed Yorkshire Whig jury, with the Halls, the Chaytors, the Hultons, the Chadwicks, and the Oddys, at their head, would, under the dexterous management of the worthy hermaphrodite politician, Mr. Scarlett, have, and upon the self-same evidence, found me guilty either of high treason, or of sheep stealing, whichever might have best suited the purpose of the prosecutors. Under such circumstances, had I left my life in the hands of Mr. Scarlett, notwithstanding I should have subpoenaed, and had in attendance, one hundred and fifty witnesses, to contradict all the perjury sworn by the aforesaid trio, I should not have been surprised if Mr. Scarlett, instead of calling them, had contented himself with calling, perhaps, Parson Hay and Mr. Nadin to my character, under the pretence that, twenty years before, they had known me a very loyal man in the Everly or Marlborough troop of yeomanry cavalry.
The only witnesses called for poor Colonel Despard, were three complete Government men; Lord Nelson, Sir Alured Clark, and Sir Evan Nepean, Bart. Gracious God! only look at this! The counsel for the prisoner well knew that these evidence to character were not worth a straw; for they had not known any thing of Colonel Despard for many years past, and yet these men were called, and others of the most vital importance were not called. Gracious God! as Mr.—— now Sir Thomas Lethbridge, would say, it almost makes my hair stand an end upon my head! Two out of three, viz. Clark and Nepean, upon their cross-examination, evidently gave such testimony as told much more against him than for him. But Lord Nelson spoke of him as follows:— " We went on the Spanish Main together; we slept many nights together under the same blanket, in our clothes, upon the ground; we have measured the height of the enemy's walls together. In all that period of time, no man could have shown more zealous attachment to his Sovereign and his country than Colonel Despard did. I formed the highest opinion of him at that time, as a man and an officer; seeing him so willing in the service of his Sovereign. Having lost sight of him for the last twenty years, if I had been asked my opinion of him, I should certainly have said—if he be alive, he is certainly one of the brightest ornaments of the British army." This was certainly a just and true description of Colonel Despard's character; but let us see how Lord Nelson finished his cross-examination, by the Attorney General. What your Lordship has been stating, was in the year 1780?— "Yes." Have you had much intercourse with him since that time?—"I have never seen him since the 29th of April, 1780." Then as to his loyalty for the last twenty-three years of his life, you know nothing?—"NOTHING." Gracious God! and THERE Mr. SERGEANT BEST left his examination. Let the reader only look back at the trial, and read the mawkish cross-examination of the villain Windsor, by the learned Sergeant, and he will make up his mind to two things the very moment he has finished it:—the first is, never to feel surprise again at the verdict against Colonel Despard; and the second is, that he will never trust his own life in the hands of an aspiring place-hunting lawyer.
After a very short speech from Mr.SERGEANT BEST and Mr. Gurney, wherein they both apologized to the jury for its length, and a very long and able reply from the Solicitor-General, and a very long summing up by Lord Ellenborough, the jury withdrew for about twenty-five minutes, and a little before three o'clock on the Tuesday morning, they returned a verdict Of GUILTY. The foreman added, "MY LORD, WE DO MOST EARNESTLY RECOMMEND THE PRISONER TO MERCY, ON ACCOUNT OF THE HIGH TESTIMONIALS OF HIS FORMER GOOD CHARACTER, AND EMINENT SERVICES TO HIS COUNTRY." The Judge said not a word. But where is the man of the present day, who has read of the verdict of wilful murder given by the jury, at Horsham Assizes, against the person upon the preventive service, who deliberately shot a man, and who has since read of the pardon that has bean granted to that person, but would have expected that the very strong and emphatic recommendation of the jury, for the extension of mercy to Colonel Despard, would have received some attention. No! no! Colonel Despard had opposed and exposed the Government, and he was hanged in the front of the county gaol at Horsemonger Lane, and after having been suspended about twelve minutes and a half, his head was taken off, (the King having most graciously remitted the execution of the remainder of the sentence.) Thus died Colonel Despard, who, though he was not a man of great talent, yet he was, in the language, the words of Lord Nelson, "as brave as Caesar." But, as the vulgar saying goes, "the death of the horse is the life of the "dog," and "it is an ill-wind that blows nobody good." The learned Sergeant BEST displayed such extraordinary talents upon this trial, that he was rewarded with a silk gown within one month afterwards. It has been confidently asserted that when the Prince Regent had incessantly, but in vain, urged the Lord Chancellor to promote a certain Welsh Judge, this venerable Peer once answered, "I "cannot conscientiously recommend venality "to the English Bench." "Ellenborough, Thompson, Le Blanc, and Chambre, the four Judges, have long, long ago gone to stand at the bar of a special commission to receive the sentence of the Judge of judges; but it is doubtful whether they carried with them so strong a recommendation to mercy as that which was urged, in vain, for poor Despard. We all recollect how the then Attorney-General, Spencer Perceval, went out of the world headlong by a shot, from the unerring aim of Bellingham. The junior counsel for the exown, ABBOTT, and the senior counsel for the prisoner, BEST, are both now placed in the same seat in the Court of King's Bench. It also is a fact worth recording, that the most violent of all Colonel Despard's associates had no Bill found against him, although two were preferred, one in Surrey and one in Middlesex. It came out in evidence, that this person was more violent and more determined than any other, and made use of the most outrageous denunciations against the Government, and against any of his comrades who might betray them, or refuse to go the lengths that he did. The Government had this evidence, and it came out, upon the examination of Thomas Blades, that this person threatened that he would blow any one's brains out that showed any symptoms of cowardice, and that he would plant a dagger in the breast of any one who should divulge their secret. And yet, the same Grand Jury that found the Bills against Colonel Despard and others, threw out the Bills against this said violent and courageous gentleman. This is exactly the same game that was played by Edwards and Castles; these two scoundrels were the most violent, and urged on their unfortunate victims to deeds of desperation, yet they escaped not only punishment but even indictment. What a lesson for all Reformers, to avoid the snares of the most violent men, who are generally the agents of Government! All these worthies contrived to get into my company, Castles ONCE, Edwards ONCE, and this said person who played such an active part in Colonel Despard's affair ONCE, and only once each; once was quite enough for me. It has often been said, by my friends, that Providence interfered to prevent my falling into the trap of these villains. It is very true; but Providence interfered in this way, Providence gave me resolution never to attend any private meetings, never to be concerned in any private cabal, never to get drunk, or associate with persons who frequented public houses; in fact, Providence has filled my heart with a desire to promote the welfare and happiness of my fellow-creatures, by a bold, straight forward, public, open course. In private life, I have relaxed into all the delightful enjoyments of domestic happiness, where I have very seldom suffered politics and her boisterous train to interfere with my rural felicity; but whenever I have come before the public, I have always, with an inflexible resolution, cast all selfish considerations behind me, and given a loose to that "amor patria" with which my bosom ever glows, when I am in the presence of my fellow-countrymen. I have always said bolder things, and used more of what is called violent language, in public, than I ever allowed to escape from my lips in my happy privacy. In that privacy I have been in the habit of associating with friends holding different political sentiments from my own, without ever quarrelling with them, or thinking the worse of them, on that account. My safety has, I repeat, arisen from my political honesty. I have never joined in any intrigue, any cabal, any faction; I have openly and boldly contended for the natural and legitimate right of every man to enjoy political freedom; and I pray God that I may breathe my last before I alter my opinion upon this subject.
I had now resided in Bath nearly a year, occasionally visiting my farm at Chisenbury and Littlecot. During my residence at Bath a circumstance occurred of some importance to me and my family. A brewer, of the name of Racey, had, as I have before hinted, borrowed upwards of seven thousand pounds of my father, without any other security than his own bond, in which sum he was indebted to him at his death. As he had not paid his interest up regularly, I was induced to look a little more minutely into his concerns; especially as I found that he was living a very debauched life. My uncle, William Powell, of Nurstead, a quaker, who was left joint trustee and executor with myself to my father's will, and had taken the most active part in the management of my father's affairs, appeared to place full as much reliance in the credit of this said brewer as my father had done, and he had several times resisted my importunities, to demand jointly with me better security for this money than the brewer's own bond. I argued, that my father had a perfect right to exercise his own judgment, and give what credit he pleased, as it was his own property; but that my uncle and myself, acting as trustees for my brothers and sisters, were not justified in suffering so considerable a sum of money to remain in this man's hands without better security. He, however, still persisted that the brewer had a good stock, and a good trade; that he regularly examined his stock every half year, and he found that it was in a flourishing state. My answer was, the man lives a very debauched life, and therefore his affairs must be in a precarious state; but the quaker was inflexible, and nothing was done in the matter. The brewer continued his debauched course, and neglected and quarrelled with his family, and my uncle Powell continued his confidence. At length, the old man carried his excesses so far, that he not only quarrelled with his eldest son, but he actually turned him out of doors. This young man was a great intimate of mine, with whom I had contracted a sort of school-boy friendship; he, therefore, fled immediately to me for protection, when he was driven from his father's house. I laboured with great zeal and perseverance to promote a reconciliation between the father and the son, but I found the former implacable, and rancorously vindictive against his son, who had been interfering about some of his father's debaucheries; and he was consequently not to be forgiven. The young man saw that his father's affairs were going fast to ruin, and knowing the large sum that he was indebted to me and my family, he communicated to me the real situation of his father, and advised me to take some measures to secure the property that he was indebted to us as executors under my father's will. I went to my uncle once more, and represented the matter to him, but he was as obstinate as ever: he answered, that I had taken a prejudice against the old man, in consequence of his quarrelling with his son; and that he should decline taking any hostile measures against him; and that he had a large stock of good beer, for he had lately examined it. I informed him that he was imposed upon, that the old brewer had filled up all his large casks, amounting to between two and three thousand barrels, with small beer, in order to deceive him, and make him believe that it was strong beer. At this he stared a very incredulous stare, and said that he would look into it, but he delayed it so long that, when he did join me in taking decisive measures, the whole property sold for about two thousand pounds, so that we were minus about five thousand pounds; and every shilling of this loss I attribute to my quaker uncle's obstinacy—a failing, notwithstanding all their good qualities, to which this sect is very subject.
I had contracted a great predilection for the son, with whom I had had an intimacy for some years; and, notwithstanding the loss I had sustained by his father, he prevailed upon me to join him in a brewing concern at Clifton, near Bristol: as he had not a shilling of his own, I was to find the cash, and he judgment. I did this mainly to set him up in business, although I was not without expectations that it might ultimately become a profitable concern. I therefore engaged to find a capital of six or eight thousand pounds; from two to three of which was to be sunk in building a brewery, the erection of which I was to superintend, and complete the fabric after my own plan. As soon as this was done, I was only to find the money, and my young friend was to manage and conduct the brewing concern. I agreed to all this upon one condition only, which was, that there should be nothing brewed in our brewery but genuine beer and porter, made of malt and hops alone. After some parley upon this point it was at length assented to.
The brewery was built upon the site of an old distillery, at the rising of a spring called Jacob's Well, at the foot of Brandon Hill, and immediately below Belleview, at Clifton. The whole was soon completed under my own eye, and finished entirely on my own plan. I took advantage of the declivity of the hill, on the side of which the premises were situated, to have it so constructed that the whole process of brewing was conducted, from the grinding of the malt, which fell from the mill into the mash-tun, without any lifting or pumping; with the exception of pumping the water, called liquor by brewers, first into the reservoir, which composed the roof of the building. By turning a cock, this liquor filled the steam boiler, from thence it flowed into the mash-tun; the wort had only once to be pumped, once from the under back into the boiler, from thence it emptied itself, by turning the cock, into the coolers; it then flowed into the working vats and riving casks, and from the stillions, which were immediately above the store casks into which it flowed, only by turning a cock. These store casks were mounted on stands or horses, high enough to set a butt upright, and fill it out of the lower cock; and then the butts and barrels were rolled to the door, and upon the drays, without one ounce of lifting from the commencement of the process to the end. This was a great saving of labour. I left the concern in the hands of my young friend, with every prospect of success, and I then returned to my farm at Chisenbury; having, as I was taught to believe, laid the foundation of a lucrative concern, from which I expected to derive a liberal interest for the money I had advanced, which was about eight thousand pounds, and at the same time afford a handsome income for my young friend. But such is the uncertainty and precarious state of all speculative concerns of this nature, and such the inconstancy of friendship, that, instead of ever receiving one shilling from this concern, I found it still continue to be a drain upon my purse. Bills were coming due, I was told, and they must be provided for, or the credit of the firm would be blasted. Duty, to a large amount, was to be paid every six weeks, and as often I was called upon to assist in making up the sum. I now began, although much too late, to curse the hour that I became connected with trade. I, however, did not despair. I met all the demands, till, having called in a considerable sum of money, which I had lent to a friend, an attorney, upon his note of hand, he gave me bills, payable at one, two, and three months, for the amount. These were all absorbed at the brewery, and paid away in the course of trade, for malt, hops, &c. but the first, second, and third, all the said bills, were as regularly dishonoured as they became due. So much for friendly attorneys! and though I had a sufficient sum in my bankers' hands, Stuckey and Co. to meet the deficiency, with some exertion of my own, yet, such a ticklish thing is credit, and particularly in the illiberal city of Bristol, that I found my bankers always looked shy at any bills that were carried to them afterwards. My friend, the attorney, renewed the bills, with a solemn promise that they should be regularly paid when they became due; but the word and honour of an attorney, at least of this attorney, was good for nothing. Fortunately, I only paid one of them away in the trade; for that and the others were as regularly dishonoured as before.