After the great public meeting, which had been held in Spa-fields, on the 15th of November, Mr. Cobbett, in the very next Number of his Register, published on the 23d of that month, came round all at once to Universal Suffrage; and he says, "In Nos. 16 and 18 I gave my reasons for excluding from the vote all persons who did not pay direct taxes." He then very clearly demonstrates the justice of every one having a vote, and adds, "But, it appeared to me, when I wrote Nos. 16 and 18, to be too difficult to put this right in motion all at once; and therefore I recommended the confining of the right of voting to the payers of direct taxes, until there should be time for a reformed Parliament to change the mode of taxing. Since, however, I have come to London, I have had an opportunity of consulting MAJOR CARTWRIGHT upon the subject; and the result is, my THOROUGH CONVICTION that nothing short Of UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE would be just, and that such a system is perfectly practicable." This was published on the 23d of November, 1816. The reader will have to recollect these things when I come to detail what took place at the meeting of delegates, in London, on the following January. Now, Mr. Cobbett says that "there are three things for which I contend—Universal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments, and Vote by Ballot."
As soon as I received Sir Francis Burdett's letter, declining to present the petition of the distressed people to the Prince Regent, I took the earliest opportunity of proceeding to Carlton House by myself. When I arrived there, I was informed that Colonel McMahon, his Royal Highness's secretary, had left town, and would not return till two o'clock the next day. I informed the under secretary, who was in waiting, who I was, and what was my business, and I made an appointment to wait on Colonel McMahon at two o'clock on the following day. I took care to knock at the gate at Carlton House at the appointed time, and the moment that the gate was open, the porter took off his hat, and, ringing a bell, accosted me by name, and requested me to walk forward to the front door, which I had scarcely reached before the large folding doors of Carlton House were thrown open, and I was politely requested by the attendants to walk in, as Colonel McMahon was ready to receive me. I was ushered into his apartments in great state, and was immediately introduced to him by name. I was most graciously received by the Secretary, to whom I stated that I was deputed to present to his Royal Highness a petition, agreed to at a meeting of nearly one hundred thousand of his distressed subjects of the metropolis, assembled in Spafields on the 15th, and that I wished to know when I could have an audience for that purpose. The Colonel then took his book, and informed me that the next levee would take place in about three weeks, which was the first opportunity that I could have of being introduced to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent. I told him that would be too distant a date, and I begged to know if there were no means of presenting the petition earlier, as I had promised to deliver the Prince's answer to the people on the second of December, when they would assemble again to hear what the answer was. To this he replied, that the only other means was to forward the paper through the Secretary of State for the Home Department, who, he had no doubt, would deliver it to his Royal Master immediately, as he knew it was considered by the Ministers as a matter of very considerable importance. I thanked him for his polite attention and obliging information, and I then retired with the same form as I entered, the Colonel attending me to the doors, which were thrown wide open as before.
I immediately wrote a letter to Lord Sidmouth, to appoint a time when I could have an audience, for the purpose of delivering to him the petition to be presented to the Prince Regent, and I carried this letter myself direct to the office of the Secretary of State, and sent it up to his Lordship, saying, that I would wait in the ante-room for an answer. In a very few minutes the servant in waiting returned, attended by an under secretary, who said that Lord Sidmouth would give me an audience immediately, and he desired that I would follow him. I did so, and was forthwith introduced into the audience room, where his Lordship received me with all that parade of overstrained politeness which belongs to a finished courtier. He was surrounded by some half-dozen lordlings, who, from the manner in which he ordered them out of the room, appeared to be hungry expectants, seeking and supplicating some place, office, or boon. They vanished in a twinkling, and his Lordship could not hear a word for the world, till I did him the honour to take a seat, which he politely drew for me. My letter had explained the object of my visit, and, after having briefly apologised for intruding at a time when he was surrounded by others, I expressed my wish to have the petition of 100,000 of the distressed inhabitants of the metropolis, who had assembled in Spafields the preceding Monday, presented to the Prince Regent; and I then put into his hands the petition: he read it over attentively, and having finished the perusal of it, he said that it was a most important paper, and was couched in such proper language, that he should feel it his duty to lay it before his Royal Master the very first thing on the following morning, and he had not the least doubt but every attention would be paid to the prayer of it. I begged to know if I might expect any reply from his Royal Highness. He answered, certainly not; it being the practice never to give any answer to petitions; but, if it was thought advisable to attend to the prayer of it, his Royal Highness's Ministers would immediately act upon it, and indeed he had no doubt that it would receive due attention. He then entered into familiar conversation as to the nature and extent of the meeting; and I embraced the opportunity of pointing out, in glowing terms, the great and severe distress under which the mass of the people were labouring, and expressing my earnest hopes that some relief would be granted to them. He next introduced the subject of the Memorial, a copy of which, he informed me, he had received several days before the meeting was held; and he declared, that if any attempt at going in a body to Carlton House had been made, it would have been resisted by the military, and that bloodshed would have been the consequence. He was perfectly aware that I had been the cause of setting aside the Memorial, and substituting the petition in its stead; and he emphatically added, "his Majesty's Ministers are greatly indebted to you, and they are fully sensible that you have been the cause of preventing a great public calamity; you have prevented the spilling of human blood." I told him that I had promised to attend another meeting, in the same place, on the Second of December, to acquaint them with the result of my application, and I promised him that I would represent it fairly. With this he appeared perfectly satisfied, and he repeated the assurance, that he would lay the petition before his Royal Highness the moment he could gain access to him in the morning, and that he had no doubt it would receive due attention.
In the evening paper, the Courier, of the next day, it was announced that the Spafields petition bad been presented to the Prince Regent, who had graciously ordered FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS to be paid to the Spitalfields soup committee; which sum was to be taken from the Droits of the Admiralty. In consequence of this grant from his Royal Highness, the soup committee met, and called a public meeting in the city, for the purpose of promoting the subscriptions, and devising the best means of relieving the distress which now was admitted universally to prevail amongst the labouring classes in the metropolis; so that it was quite evident that our Spafields meeting had produced infinite good, that in all probability it had been the means of saving the lives of thousands, and relieving the distresses of tens of thousands. Mr. Fowell Buxton attended this meeting, and, after having described the unparalleled distress and misery of the people, he made a most animated and feeling appeal to the humanity of the public, to come forward to relieve them. This and all the other meetings that followed, and all the subscriptions that were raised, may very justly be ascribed to the meeting at Spafields; for till that meeting took place, the general overwhelming distress was little known, and less regarded, by the opulent and powerful, who alone had the means of relieving it. Notwithstanding this was undeniably the fact, yet the whole public press of the metropolis, with very few exceptions, was daily employed in spreading the most atrocious falsehoods and calumnies against me, for having attended that meeting. I was represented as a traitor, and one who wished to overturn the sacred institutions of the country, and to produce revolution, confusion, and bloodshed. The Times, the Chronicle, the Morning Post, and the Courier, held me up to public execration, and even pointed me out for destruction. The editor of the Times, who was then the notorious Dr. Slop, alias Dr. Stoddart, the present proprietor of the New Times, urged my assassination over and over again. As, however, no one would kill me in reality, he determined at least to kill me in print. Accordingly along article was inserted in the paper, announcing, in the gravest manner, the death of Hunt. It stated that I bad got drunk, at Mr. Thompson's gin-shop on Holborn-hill, and had fallen into one of the areas of the new buildings at Waterloo-place, opposite Carlton-House, where I was found dead. A few days afterwards, it was declared that they were misinformed as to my death, but that I was taken in a melancholy state of insanity to Bedlam; and the writer gave an account of the incoherent conversation which I had held with Major Cartwright, Mr. Cobbett, and Sir Francis Burdett, who had been to visit me. These accounts were given in such a serious manner, the details were so minute, and they had altogether so much the appearance of truth, that many of my friends and relations in the country were exceedingly alarmed, not having any idea that the editor of a respectable newspaper would have the impudence to put forth such barefaced falsehoods. There was also generally one scoundrel or other who gratified his malignity by writing to my family some dreadful story of my death, or of some serious injury which I had received.
On the Saturday previous to the 2d of December I drove again to London, and as I was sitting, in the evening of that day, in the room at the Black Lion, Water Lane, Dr. Watson and Mr. Thistlewood called to consult me upon what I meant to propose on the following Monday. I declined, however, to have any conversation with them upon the subject. I should, I told them, be there at the time appointed (one o'clock), on the ensuing Monday; but that I was going out of town on the next morning, and should return on the following day in time for the meeting. On Sunday morning I left London with my servant, and drove to a friend's, at Wanstead, in Essex, where I passed the day and slept, on purpose to be out of the way of the party which I had before met at Spafields; as, after what I had seen and heard when Mr. Castles was present, I was determined to avoid having any communication with any of them, unless it was in public.
About twelve o'clock I started from Wanstead in my tandem, and, as I was driving down Cheapside at a pretty smart pace, I met a considerable crowd going towards the Mansion-House; and, just after I passed Bow- Church, I saw Mr. John Castles amongst those who appeared to be going in a contrary direction from that which led to Spafields. He beckoned me, and I drew up to the pavement to inquire the cause of what appeared to me rather extraordinary. Before, however, I could put the question to Mr. Castles, he inquired where I was going? to which I replied, "to Spafields, to be sure." "Oh," said he, "the meeting has been broken up these two hours nearly; young Watson has got possession of the Tower, and we are all going thither; turn your horses' heads and come with us." I gave him a look that appeared to strike him dumb, and laying my whip upon my wheel-horse, I passed rapidly on, exclaiming "what a ——— scoundrel!" I looked at the clock of Bow-Church, and saw that it wanted a quarter of an hour to one. I drove on at a smart pace towards Spafields, and observed to my servant, that I had no doubt in my own mind that Castles, the villain whom we had met, was an agent of the Government, a spy; and the suspicions which I entertained of him when I first met him, were now fully confirmed.
When we reached Spafields, the throng was very great, much larger than even at the first meeting of the 15th of November. By the kindness of the multitude I was enabled to drive up to the door of the Merlin's Cave, in the front of which the people were assembled. My servant returned with my tandem, with orders to have my horse Bob, which I drove as leader, ready in the evening with a saddle and bridle on, that I might ride him home to my Inn from the meeting. The cheers of the congregated tens of thousands were almost insupportable; I never heard such before. I made my way into the Merlin's Cave with difficulty, as it was again taken possession of by the police. When I entered the room, I found very few persons there except the newspaper reporters, and the police magistrates with their officers, and none of those that had taken any part at the previous meeting but Mr. William Clark, who was again appointed to take the chair. Watson, Thistlewood, Preston, and all that party were absent, but I had no knowledge of the cause, any farther than the intimation which I had received from the very worthy Mr. John Castles, not one word of which did I believe to be true.
After having addressed the people, I moved a string of resolutions, the first of which inculcated the necessity of peaceable conduct, and denounced as the greatest enemies of Reform all those who should commit any act of violence, or any breach whatever of the peace. Another resolution was, to agree to petition the House of Commons for a Reform in the representation of the people, upon the principle of universal suffrage, annual parliaments, and vote by ballot. The resolutions being seconded by Mr. Haydon of Welbeck-street, were all passed, and the petition which I proposed was unanimously agreed to, and was, as will hereafter be seen, signed by twenty-four thousand of the suffering unrepresented people, and which was presented to the Honourable House by Lord Cochrane.
Towards the latter end of the meeting information was brought to me that, in the course of the day, there had been some serious riots in the city; I therefore immediately cautioned all those who had attended our meeting to avoid mixing themselves up in any way with those illegal and foolish proceedings. I told them that I should ride home to my hotel upon my favourite horse BOB, and, as I knew they would attend me, I earnestly entreated them that, as soon as they had protected me to my abode, they would each of them peaceably and quietly return home, and not give the enemies of Reform an opportunity of attributing disorderly conduct to any part of the meeting. This advice they promised me they would attend to. I then mounted my horse, and almost the whole assembly accompanied me to my inn. As we passed in the front of the House of Correction, in Cold Bath Fields, I observed great numbers of constables and police officers assembled, armed with their staves of office, &c. &c., as if for the purpose of protecting that building from the fury of the populace. But there was not the slightest occasion for this, as the people did not evince the least disposition to do any harm to any one; and, notwithstanding the immense pressure of the crowd, I do not believe that there was a single pane of glass broken.
When we arrived at the Black Lion in Water-lane, I stood up in my stirrups, and demanded of the people if they would grant me one favour? A thousand voices exclaimed "Yes, Sir, any thing that you wish." I then requested them to disperse immediately, and return to their homes. They answered, "We will, we will!" I alighted and went into my inn, and in a very few minutes afterwards the whole of this immense multitude had dispersed, and were on their way homeward, without doing any mischief.