Just as we were sitting down to dinner, four of us, Mr. Bryant, his son, Mr. Clark, and myself, to our great surprise in marched Messrs. Watson, Thistlewood, and three or four strangers, whom they introduced as Mr. Watson, jun. Mr. Castles, Mr. Hooper, &c. who had followed us from the meeting, with an intention, as they said, of dining with me. I was very much disconcerted by this intrusion, and told them that I had private business to settle, that I had no idea of dining in public, and that dinner was only ordered for four. As, however, they did not appear to take the hint (although it was a pretty broad one), Mr. Bryant ordered more fish and some chops to be added to our dinner, and the table being lengthened, down we all sat together. Mr. Bryant took the chair, at my request.
Dinner being ended, Mr. Bryant drank the health of the King, which toast passed round till it came to Mr. Castles, who, having filled a bumper, substituted the following vulgar and sanguinary toast for that of the King—"May the last of Kings be strangled with the guts of the last priest;" a piece of brutality which had not even the miserable merit of being original, he having copied it from one of the French anarchists. This was a pretty specimen of the company that had intruded upon us! I remonstrated against such blackguardism, and declared that I would not remain in the room if there was any repetition of it. Mr. Castles, nevertheless, soon began again in a similar strain, and having put forth some most outrageous speech, as vulgar as it was seditious, both myself and Mr. Bryant insisted upon the worthy gentleman leaving the room, or holding his peace. He promised to do the latter, and he soon dropped off, or appeared to drop off, into a very sound sleep. This was a circumstance which struck me as being very suspicious, and therefore I was particularly guarded in what I said, and in what was said by others. At length two of the party, young Watson and Hooper, made a move to retire, and I insisted upon it that they should take their friend Castles with them; but he shammed so sound a sleep that it was with difficulty he was got out of the room, and it was only effected by my pulling the chair from under him; upon which he was in an instant as wide awake as any man in the room. This convinced me that his sleep was all a mere pretence. Soon after this the rest of the party left us, and Mr. Bryant and myself remained to talk over the curious adventures of the evening. We were both convinced that Castles was at any rate a great villain, and I was determined in future not to be in a room where he was.
On the next morning, Dr. Watson and Mr. Thistlewood came to apologise for the ill-behaviour of their friend Castles, who they assured me was at heart a very good fellow, but that he was overcome with liquor on the preceding evening, and that he now wished very much to have an opportunity of making an apology in person, for which purpose he was waiting hard by. I, however, positively refused to see him, saying, that I believed him to be a great scoundrel, and that I would on no account suffer him to come into my room again; and I not only cautioned the Doctor against him, but I believe I told him to take care, or Castles would bring him to the gallows. In fact, I made up my mind that as long as the Doctor and Mr. Thistlewood kept company with such a fellow, I would have nothing to do with them in private, nor would ever see them alone. The Doctor will recollect that, when they called on me in the evening afterwards, to make some inquiry about the proceedings which were to be adopted on the following meeting, intended to be held on the 2d of December, I declined to enter into any particulars, and did not even ask them to take a seat, although Mr. Mitchell, a liveryman of the city, was with me. I felt that I had been in very dangerous company, and, though I would not neglect my public duty, I was determined that I would not place myself in the power of such a man as Mr. Castles appeared to me to be.
On the day of the meeting of the 15th of November, the Courier newspaper roundly stated that HUNT had arrived at the meeting about one o'clock, and, after having addressed the multitude in a most inflammatory speech, had submitted to them a memorial to be presented to the Prince Regent, full of treasonable matter; and the corrupt knave, who conducts that paper, actually inserted one of the resolutions of the memorial which Dr. Watson and Mr. Thistlewood had submitted to me, and which I had rejected. The truth was, that the Government had previously procured a copy of the said memorial, from a person of the name of Dyall, one of the party who had called the meeting, and as this memorial had been unanimously agreed to by the Committee, my Lord Sidmouth, the Secretary of State, and his agents, made so certain that I should fall into this trap, and propose it to the meeting, that their principal organ, the editor of the Courier newspaper, actually inserted a copy of it in the paper, as having been proposed by me at the meeting. But they soon found, to their sorrow, that old birds were not to be caught with chaff; for that I had blasted their fondest hopes of bloodshed, by proposing a petition to the Prince Regent, of a nature totally the reverse of the said memorial; which petition was universally adopted by the meeting; and that I had undertaken to present it to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and had also promised to report the answer, if I received any, at the next meeting, which was appointed to be held on Monday, the 2d of December.
On the following day, not only the Courier and the Morning Post, but every paper published in the metropolis (with the exception of the Statesman, which was then conducted by Mr. Lovell), joined in pouring forth a torrent of falsehood, misrepresentation, and abuse of me. I do not know that I can give a more correct account of what took place in London, more fairly represent the conduct of the public press upon this occasion, than by giving an extract from Mr. Cobbett's Register, which was published the ensuing week, as follows, headed "SPA-FIELDS MEETING:"
"Since my long acquaintance with the press, I do not think that I have ever witnessed so much baseness of conduct as this Meeting has given rise to. If Mr. Hunt had been the most notorious pick-pocket; if he had been a raggamuffin covered with a coat hired for the day; if he had been a fellow who took up his lodgings in the brick-kilns or in the niches on Westminster Bridge; and if he had actually proposed to the Meeting to go directly and plunder the silversmiths' shops and cut the throats of all those who opposed them; if he had drank off a glass of human blood by way of moistening his throat: monstrous as this is, it is a real fact, that, if he had been and had done all this, the London press could not have treated him in a worse manner than it has. The Statesman newspaper is an exception; but, I believe, that it is almost the only exception. Talk of violence indeed! Was there ever violence like this heard of in this world before? And, what is the monstrous crime which has emboldened these literary ruffians to make this savage assault, and which induces them to suppose that they shall finally escape with impunity? They, the vile wretches, are the real mob. They attack in body; they know that defence is impossible; they know, that a hundred times the fortune of Mr. Hunt would not purchase enough of their columns to contain an answer to their falsehoods. Is this manly, is this fairness, is this discussion, is this liberty of the press? Infamous cowards! They merit to be dragged by a halter fastened round their necks, and whipped through the streets. They talk of decency and decorum indeed! They call people blackguards and ruffians! They pretend to complain of misrepresentation and exaggeration! They! who set up one common howl of foul abuse and viperous calumny.
"But, what is the act which has awakened all those filthy curs, and put them in motion? Some persons, no matter who, but, I believe, some suffering tradesmen, in London, agreed to call a meeting of distressed people in Spa-fields, in order to present a petition on the subject of their sufferings: one of the Committee, who had called this Meeting, wrote to Mr. Hunt to come and assist at it. This he did. Being there, he proposed a Petition, which was agreed to. This Petition has appeared in the Statesman newspaper, to which I refer the reader; and when he has looked at it, he will be convinced, that, if the language of moderation be desirable, the language of this petition is much more moderate than that of almost any petition, which has recently appeared in print. Upon what ground, then, is this outrageous abuse founded? The Meeting separated very quietly; never did any Meeting partake less of riotous behaviour. In the evening of the same day, a mob of boys and others attacked some bakers' and butchers' shops. But, whose fault was this? Was it Mr. Hunt's, who seems to have spent a quarter of an hour in endeavouring to convince his hearers, that to commit such acts was to prove themselves unworthy of relief; or, was it the fault of those pestiferous vehicles of falsehood, the Courier and the Times, who are incessantly inveighing against the avarice of bakers and butchers?
"It is clear, that these proceedings of the evening had no connection with the Meeting, but, on the contrary, that every thing which was said at the Meeting had a natural tendency to prevent them. As to the attack on the office of the Morning Chronicle, that might possibly arise out of what Mr. Hunt said at the Meeting. And, what then? Was he to endure the calumnies, the unprovoked calumnies, of that paper for years, and never reply a word? It would have cost him hundreds of pounds to cause to be published in that paper answers to a hundredth part of the base attacks upon him contained in that same paper. And, was he never to answer in any way? Was he, when he had a hundred thousand men within his hearing, to abstain from expressing his indignation at the conduct of that paper, lest, by possibility, the indignation might be catching? The Morning Chronicle, The Courier, and Times, make no scruple to endeavour to cause him to be knocked in the head; they point him out for either hanging or murdering; they are ready beforehand with an apology for any one who may take his life. And is he, who can find no entrance into their columns, without covering his paragraph with gold, to abstain from uttering a word against them when he comes before a public meeting, lest the people should espouse his cause and demolish their windows? Whence have they derived this privilege of assaulting him with impunity? He has no newspaper in his hands. He has no means of answering them through the press. They assail him, sitting snugly in their offices. They assail him daily. And, is he never to open his lips at any time, or at any place?
"Where, then, is the ground of all this infamous abuse? After accusing Mr. Hunt of having raised a mob for treasonable purposes, some of the papers have, in the most serious manner, asserted that he was insane, and that he had been to a madhouse! Is not this a pretty stretch of calumny? Is a man bound to endure this in silence? 'He has his redress at law.' Oh! the base cowards! Their answer is worse than their crime.
"Was it any fault in an Englishman, living in the country, to come to London to take part at a Meeting of Englishmen in distress? Was this any fault? No one can say that it was.—The Meeting had been advertised many days before any knowledge of it reached Mr. Hunt; he was requested to come up; and who can blame him for coming? However, it is not a question of blame or no blame; he had a right to come, and he chose to exercise his right. If, indeed, the invitation had been from persons in prosperity, he might have easily declined; but, I do not see how he was to resist the call of people in distress.