Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 3

by Henry Hunt

I took leave of Mr. Hart, and repaired to the Visiting Magistrates; one of them was from home; the second, a parson, I think, heard what I had to say, was exceedingly civil and polite, but preached a good deal about good order and the necessity of keeping up a strict prison discipline. He, nevertheless, promised that he would do all that was in his power at the next meeting of the Magistrates, which would take place in a fortnight; but he emphatically observed, "you know I am but one, Mr. Hunt." "A fortnight!" I exclaimed, "why, Sir, the poor woman will leave Gloucester broken-hearted long before half that time arrives." "Come, come, Sir," replied he, "these things cannot be accomplished so easily as you imagine; and after all I must say, that although I promise to do every thing that lies in my power to serve the unfortunate prisoner, you must allow that his crime is a most heinous one. I cannot give you any great encouragement to hope that I shall succeed with Sir George Paull and the other Magistrates." This chap was a thorough Dr. Colston in his heart, and I left him with a determination not to trust my case in his hands. I next ordered my curricle and drove to Sir George Paull's. I was introduced to him immediately, and I communicated the object of my visit. He had received me very politely, but the moment that I mentioned my business, he drew up, and began to hesitate and make excuses. Before I left him, however, he admitted that Mr. Hart's case was a very hard one, and he promised most faithfully that he would do whatever was in his power to comply with my request, which was, that his wife might have free access to him, and that he might have the liberty of walking in a larger yard. But I found this could not be done under a fortnight, and he politely assured me that he would write me the result of the meeting of Magistrates.

Though in the manner of this gentleman, who I believe was chairman of the quarter sessions, there was something much more honest and open than in that of his brother justices, yet when I left him, to return to Gloucester, I was not satisfied that I had done all that I could do, and therefore I drove on to Bromsgrove, in Herefordshire, to call on Mr. Honeywood Yate, of whom I had heard as an independent Magistrate, as well as a friend of Reform. I soon enlisted him in the service; but he was very much engaged with other business, which, after awhile, as Mr. Yate was a very humane man, was made subservient to the cause of the oppressed and persecuted captive. Mr. Yate went to Gloucester the next day. Before I returned to Clifton I had the satisfaction of hearing that there was an order made for Mrs. Hart to visit her husband in his room, and for him to walk in the garden, I think, of the Governor. To the kindness and humanity of Mr. Yate was Mr. Hart greatly indebted for this indulgence. Without his assistance it might never have been granted; at any rate it would have been protracted to a cruel distance.

Since that period I have never seen Mr. Hart except once, and that was in London, after the term of his imprisonment had expired; and for the trouble which I had taken in his behalf, I was amply rewarded by the manner in which he expressed his sense of the accommodation that I had been so instrumental in procuring for him. If he read this, it will recall the whole to his recollection. Mr. White laboured under an asthmatic complaint, and suffered greatly from his confinement; but I understood that he was treated with proper respect and attention by the Magistrates. Pittman, who was then the head turnkey of Dorchester Gaol, called upon me the other day, and almost the first words he uttered were, that the apartments allotted to Mr. White and his family, in Dorchester Gaol, were quite a palace compared to the room in which he found me. He said that Mr. White had two airy rooms over the Chapel, which commanded a view of the circumjacent country, and that he had the liberty of walking round the large open area of the Gaol, which was composed of a beautiful gravel walk; that his was, in short, altogether a very comfortable situation compared to that which I occupy in Ilchester Bastile. He was here before the walls were lowered, and consequently, he saw the place in all its native wretchedness.

Before I proceed with my narrative, I must mention a few circumstances, which it will not be improper to record. At the latter end of this year, 1813, there was a most remarkable fog, which extended fifty or sixty miles round London, accompanied by a severe frost, which lasted six weeks without intermission. The average price of wheat this year was one hundred and seven shillings and ten-pence halfpenny, and the quartern loaf was one shilling and five-pence: these were glorious times for the farmers, whose antipathy to jacobins and levellers, or rather reformers, increased in proportion to the high price of corn and bread. To be sure John Gull was taxed pretty handsomely, but the farmers, at least such of them as looked only to self, always contrived to squeeze their taxes out of the earnings of the labourer. Those, on the contrary, who thought that the labourer had a right to something more than what would barely keep life and soul together, could not cultivate the soil to the same advantage. The supplies voted this year were SEVENTY-SEVEN MILLIONS, FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVEN THOUSAND, FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS.

While the British arms were crowned with complete success in Spain, the Government was carrying on, both by sea and land, a ruinous and disastrous war in America. The American frigate Chesapeake was taken by the Shannon; but, in return, the Americans captured the Java frigate. The British troops were compelled to evacuate Fort Erie and Fort George, which were taken possession of by the Americans, and ultimately the American fleet took, burnt, sunk, or destroyed the whole of the English fleet on Lake Erie. Every real lover of liberty in England deprecated this war with our brethren of America; but the enemies of liberty now began to boast that they would put down and destroy the principles of Republicanism throughout the world. I always considered the war with America to be a most unjust war; and, although I lamented to hear of the destruction of human lives, and the spilling of human blood, and particularly that of my own countrymen, yet I always wished success to the Americans, who were fighting for their rights and liberties against an invader, who would gladly have reduced them to that state of slavery from which they had emancipated themselves by a glorious and successful struggle. The late harvest was very fine, and the crops were good; corn, therefore, began to fall, and of course the landed interest caught the alarm, and set about sounding the tocsin for a corn bill, to keep up the price of the grain. In consequence of this, the subject was frequently discussed in Parliament. The Ministers professed to disclaim the proposition, but they set their friends, the Country Gentlemen, forward to propose the measure. It was at length settled, that corn should not be imported unless the price of wheat was above eighty shillings per quarter. Although a farmer myself, I always exclaimed against this measure, notwithstanding it did not appear likely that the country would be immediately affected by it, as there was no probability of the price of wheat being much below eighty shillings a quarter during that season.

At this period I was fully occupied in a most laborious and uprofitable speculation. I had taken a farm of nearly four hundred acres. This farm had been occupied by a Major Andrews, a retired militia officer, who had commenced farmer, a business of which he was totally ignorant, and in the pursuit of which he sunk a good fortune; yet when he quitted this farm, or rather when his property and stock were seized and sold under an execution, perhaps the county of Hants could not have produced its equal for foulness and bad condition. I had occupied three thousand acres of land in Wiltshire, and I will venture to say, that there was not half the quantity of couch grass upon the whole of it that I now found upon the cleanest acre on Cold Henly Farm. Couch grass is the most injurious of all weeds, and, in some parts of Wiltshire, it is very appropriately called "the farmer's devil." This farm of Cold Henly was about seven miles from my residence at Middleton Cottage, and therefore I had ample exercise in riding to and fro, and attending all day to the cleaning of the land. The proprietor of the farm was a clergyman, and, as he professed to be very friendly with me, and gave me to understand that he should be happy to continue me as a tenant after my lease was out, I spared neither pains nor expense in cultivating the land, in hopes of hereafter reaping a reward for my labour. In fact, it was absolutely necessary to have the soil perfectly clean and free from all sorts of weeds and grass, to be enabled to cultivate it upon the drill system, as laid down by Tull. I believe that in the course of the first summer I burned forty thousand cart loads of couch, which made as many bushels of ashes for manure. Almost all the land required to be ploughed five or six times, by means of which, and of innumerable draggings and harrowings, and incessant and persevering labour, the farm became, in my hands, altogether as clean as it was foul and overrun with every description of weeds and grass, before I came to it. I was induced to expend a large sum of money in improving this farm, from the promises of the cunning, artful, and deceitful old clergyman, who was the proprietor of it. The buildings, which were very extensive, and miserably dilapidated, I put into complete repair; and, perhaps, altogether I expended on the land and offices three times as much as a common rack-renting farmer would have done. Being fully satisfied that I was greatly benefiting his estate, the parson not only gave his consent to any alteration that I thought proper in the course of husbandry, which the old tenant was bound in his lease to pursue, but he took all occasions to encourage me to do so; and, as my proceedings were so extremely beneficial to his farm, which he never failed to acknowledge, I did not once dream that he would hereafter, for the sake of litigation, pretend to object to it. As this farm was a manor of itself, and was well stocked with game, I had plenty of shooting of all sorts upon it, as well as over the manor of Longparish, over which I also held the deputation.

This year, 1814, was one of the most eventful periods in the history of the world. The first week in January, Dantzic was occupied by the allies, whose grand army passed the Rhine, and occupied Coblentz. The treacherous and dastardly Murat, King of Naples, basely betrayed and deserted his patron, his friend, his benefactor, and his relation, Napoleon, by concluding a treaty with England; and on the 17th he openly joined the allies against France. Of all the despicable, base, and treacherous conduct of the base and dastardly crowned heads, during the whole war, this desertion of Napoleon, by his brother-in-law, Murat, was the most base and dastardly. To be sure, during the whole of this long and bloody war, carried on by the despots and tyrants of the earth, their conduct was one continued exhibition of treachery, falsehood, selfishness, and deception. This abandoned race of Sovereigns, Kings and Emperors, who assume a divine origin, and set up a claim of divine rights, have, by their acts, unequivocally proclaimed to the whole world that no reliance can be placed in their words, their bonds, or their oaths. They have all of them broken the most solemn treaties, and violated the most sacred and binding obligations, without the least regard to truth, to honour, or to honesty. At the very time that the Governments of the different states of Europe have, in high-sounding language, been preaching about national faith, national honour, and national credit; the favoured Ministers of each of them, in conjunction with their masters, have, wherever it suited their interested and corrupt purposes, without the least regard to precept or principle, unblushingly violated and abandoned all national credit, honour, and faith; and have rendered faith, honour, and credit, mere bye-words among nations. If a man in common life were to act in the same unprincipled and dastardly manner as these Sovereign Princes have done, he would be shunned and spurned out of all society. If one of the "lower orders" were to conduct himself in a similar manner, he would be kicked out of the company of the most abandoned frequenters of the lowest brothels and tap-rooms; no man would employ him or have any transaction with him; he would be driven from amongst even the lowest of mankind, and deservedly left to starve, to perish, and to rot upon a dunghill.

The moment that the fortune of war turned against Napoleon, all the royal, mean, cringing, timid, time-serving, contemptible wretches, who had filled up the measure of his glory, and almost worshipped him when he was victorious; those who had partaken of his bounty, and whose whole existence had depended on his smiles; all those that he had elevated to power, and who had reigned by his sufferance, now joined the tide and swelled the torrent that was collected to overwhelm him. Sweden and Denmark having, like others, been bribed by English gold, drawn from the sweat of John Gull's brows, had now joined the allies against France, and the first action upon the territory of Old France took place on the 24th of January, when Mortier was defeated; and on the 27th the army commanded by Napoleon in person, at St. Dizier, in Champagne, was overpowered by numbers, and repulsed with considerable loss. The tyrants of Russia, Austria, and Prussia met at Basil, and soon after all their armies advanced. Blucher and Bernadotte, Crown Prince of Sweden, crossed the Rhine with their numerous hordes, and the armies of France gave way. Nancy, Troyes, Vitry, and Chalons were taken by the allies. But Napoleon having rallied his divisions, defeated first the Russians, and then Blucher, who led his army on to attack Marmont, but he was defeated a second time. Prince Schwartzenburg advanced with the troops under his command direct for Paris, but Napoleon attacked him with an inferior force, beat him, and obliged him to retreat. The battles were now so numerous, and the success was so equally balanced, that it would require a history of itself to recount them. With an army which was never one third as strong as that of the invaders, Napoleon contested every inch of the ground, and fought so bravely and so skilfully, that the issue was for some time doubtful. At length the numerous hordes of the confederated nations of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Bavaria, flushed with their success, pushed on to Paris, to defend which Marshals Marmont and Mortier had but very inadequate means. The assailants, two hundred thousand in number, reached the northern side of Paris on the 29th of March, and on the following day a desperate battle took place. It was not till they had sacrificed fifteen thousand men that the allies could make themselves masters of the posts which the French held in the neighbourhood of Paris. Not disposed to run the risk of another engagement, and especially of the arrival of Napoleon, who was hastening back by forced marches, the coalesced despots were glad to obtain the surrender of the capital, by granting honourable terms to Marmont, who accordingly withdrew with his troops from Paris, which Maria Louisa had already quitted. On the 1st of April all the allied Sovereigns entered that city as conquerors. The Emperors of Russia and Austria, and the King of Prussia, all of whom had been so repeatedly conquered by Napoleon, who had generously, although foolishly, restored two of them, after having conquered them and taken their capitals, now, in return for his generous conduct to them, had the meanness and the cowardice to declare that Napoleon was the only obstacle to the establishment of a peace; upon which he magnanimously, to save the effusion of human blood, did not hesitate to offer his resignation. This was accepted; the French Senate met, and agreed to a provisional Government, till a Constitution could be formed, and they passed a decree on the 2d of April, declaring Napoleon Buonaparte and his family to have forfeited the Imperial Crown. It was agreed to by all the allied Sovereigns that Napoleon should retire to the Isle of Elba, which he was to possess in full sovereignty—that he and Maria Louisa should, for life, retain the titles of Emperor and Empress—that a large revenue should be granted to both of them, and to the Empress the Duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, which were to descend to her son. The treaty being thus arranged, on the 4th day of April, 1814, the brave Napoleon signed his abdication of the Crowns of France and Italy. On the 13th the treaty between the allied Powers and Napoleon received the signatures of the contracting parties, and on the 28th of April he embarked at Frejus, in Provence, for the Isle of Elba, in the British frigate the Undaunted.

In the meantime the English army under Lord Wellington had advanced from Spain, invested Bayonne, and passed the Odour. A division under Marshal Beresford entered Bourdeaux. At Toulouse Wellington had a battle, and the dispirited skeleton of an army under Soult was defeated about the time that the news arrived of a cessation of arms.

Although Napoleon had retired, it yet required very considerable address to replace on the Throne of France the Bourbons—a race that was deservedly despised and execrated by the whole French nation, with the exception of the lazy, indolent, rapacious, and profligate priesthood, and a few of the old bigotted nobility. The provisional Government presented to the Conservative Senate a CONSTITUTION, and proposed that Louis, the brother of Louis the Sixteenth, should, on the acceptance of that constitution, be declared King of France. It is time now to turn our eyes towards England, from the affairs of which the reader will remember that I broke off at the period when the Parliament had settled that corn should not be imported, unless the price was above eighty shillings a quarter. Motions were now made to address the Prince Regent, to seize the favourable opportunity to procure from the allied Powers some salutary regulations respecting the slave trade. The country, both in and out of Parliament, was mad drunk with GLORY. The House manifested its intoxication by a profligate and extravagant grant of the public money to Wellington, who was also created a Duke. While this was going on within the walls of Parliament, the farmers were drunk and mad without, and were amusing themselves by burning and hanging Napoleon in effigy. Deputies had already arrived in England, to invite Louis the Eighteenth to return to France. He entered London on the 20th of April, with great pomp and state; he came from his retreat at Hartwell, attended by the Life Guards and many of the King's carriages, and accompanied by our magnanimous conqueror, the Prince Regent. He took up his residence at Grillon's hotel, in Albemarle-street, where be held his Court, and was congratulated by the Lord Mayor (Sir William Domville), and the citizens of London, and also by many of the nobility, all of whom would no doubt have as readily paid their devoirs to a mastiff dog, if he had been called a King. Louis left London in great state, to embark for France, on the 23d of April, and he set sail from Dover on the 24th, in the Royal yacht, and landed at Calais in four hours. His public entry into Paris took place on the 3d of May, and on the 14th of the same month a grand farce, or funeral service, was performed in France for the Kings Louis the Sixteenth and Seventeenth, the Queen and the Princess Elizabeth. Louis was no sooner in possession of power, than he discovered that the Constitution which had been framed, and on his presumed acceptance of which he had been restored, was NOT PRACTICABLE, and that the people of France must submit to receive as a boon, one of his own manufacture. "Put not your trust in Princes." The Marshals had been brought over one by one, and peace was at length settled upon the terms which the Allies dictated. By this treaty France was to keep her ancient boundary, with some additions; the navigation of the Rhine was to be free; the territory of Holland and the Netherlands were to be incorporated and governed by the Stadtholder; Germany was to form a federal Government; and Switzerland to be independent.