The consequence attending the statement of which I am complaining has been incalculable—for Cook’s poor brother, who is a man of unblemished character, is totally ruined—no one will employ him. Degraded in the estimation of his neighbours, his few creditors came upon him; his landlord gave him warning to quit his house. Such have been the effects of a poison, disseminated in a manner that has admitted of no antidote. A similar fate, also, attended the other bail:—Mrs. Cook turned out of her lodging at an hour’s notice, and her necessaries stopped until she had paid rent for a certain time she could not inhabit.
I think I shall be pardoned if I pause for a moment, and ask the candid and liberal reader whether the Reporter of such unprincipled and profligate falshoods is not entitled to some, and what reward? Slitting his nose! cutting off his ears—or, exalting him to a situation, where he may receive the kindred filth of his own pestiferous principles. I am a friend to the liberty of the press in its fullest extent; and have given many convincing proofs of it: but I am not so incorrigible an offender against the law of libels, as to deny my title to a gibbet, had I been the author of so vile, so miscreantic, and so reptilized a calumny!
The reader will recollect that Cook had deposited the money he was detained for, under what I call a stupid, useless Act of Parliament, calculated for no possible convenience for a defendant; who could, without the aid of this idiotic act, always deposit the debt and costs with a Sheriff’s-officer until he gave a bail-bond: but, under this Act, the debt is directed to be paid into Court, with ten pounds costs; and when the defendant has justified bail, he must be at the expence of a motion, to get the money restored: but here, this miserable defendant was denied the benefit of that Act, or, indeed, any existing law whatever. But it is some consolation to say, that he is the only man in the kingdom that is to be told, that neither law, justice, or humanity dare approach him:—for he has been denied the right of submitting his case to a Jury, whether he owed the money or not. The ten pounds costs having been deposited with the debt, the plaintiff’s attorney has laid his hands upon the whole, and the cause ended by a legalized robbery: for the infamous statement in the newspaper, before mentioned, has shut out the possibility of bailing the action and trying it.
Nor can the reptilized attorney, Wooley, who robbed them under pretext of defending them, as stated in the beginning of this treatise hope for a protraction of his iniquities longer than the ensuing term, when I shall apply to the Court of King’s Bench, to appoint Cook an Attorney; and I beg the candid reader will believe, when I assert that I have used great economy in the expenditure of the vast sum of Wooley’s iniquity, which the premier fiend of hell would tremble to count over: but perhaps the hour is at no great distance, when I shall be more profuse in the description of these person’s sufferings, and oppression; when I undertake the task of identifying the men with the crimes, and the crimes with the men.
In fine, the poor beggared brother has lost the money, without a possibility of a remedy: and, as a proof that Cook, wretched as his situation is at this day, was not, and is not, without the good opinion of many respectable men, an eminent tradesman, as any in the city of Westminster, offered to indemnify bail to any amount for him, or bail him, if he could do it without becoming subject to Newspaper calumny.
Immediately after bailing the assault, Cook was arrested the second time, and taken to a lock-up house (for the same malignant fate pursued him, to the exclusion of all possibility of bailing him) where he remained until a habeas could be sued out; upon which he was taken to the Fleet-prison, destitute of the means of procuring a supper or a bed, and subject to the ruffianly insults of the unfeeling and uniformed part of the prisoners.—About three days after he was committed to the Fleet, the Sessions, for Middlesex commenced, when he and his wife were both indicted for the pretended assault.
Cook being in the Fleet, I procured bail for the wife only; O say procured—for, during forty years’ practice I never before, in any one instance, hired bail: and, upon her being liberated, the magistrate, of course, granted a supersedeas to the warrant. Yet, astonishing as it may appear, at least to every professional man, this ill-fated woman was seized on the Saturday-night following, as she was going into the Fleet to her husband, by a ruffianly fellow named Creswell, a city constable; and a companion, disdaining to be behind-hand with his master in brutality; who took her to the Poultry Compter, where she was kept until Monday in the most shocking of all situations, among felons and prostitutes of the most abandoned description.
That those who were paid for this outrage should not regard the supersedeas does not astonish me; but that the keeper of the compter should set a legal instrument at defiance, that strictly forbade him to molest or imprison the defendant, I do confess, staggers every conjecture I have been able to make upon the subject:—I hope his conduct proceeded from sheer ignorance, and I have some reason to think it did. However, determined not to desert these unhappy people in any extremity, I attended the Alderman at Guildhall, who very judiciously told this Mr. Constable Creswell he could not take notice of any thing but the supersedeas; and, of course, the woman was discharged. Notwithstanding this determination of the Alderman, this same Creswell took her into the County of Middlesex and delivered her to a constable belonging to Marlborough-street-office; and, after being wearied and tortured for two or three hours more, she was again discharged. It seems that at Marlborough-street (to use a trite phrase) the cat jumped out of the bag! for there arose a violent contention between Shenstone, the nominal prosecutor, and these upright, assiduous, ministers of justice, respecting, first, the amount of their wages, and, secondly, who was so pay them?—which, I am informed, ended in that species of mutual satisfaction that thieves generally experience, in dividing the plunder of an empty purse!
Another act of outrage was committed by this Creswell against Cook and his wife, about a fortnight previous to the execution of the warrant in question; when he apprehended, and took them to the Compter, without any warrant at all! where they were kept for the whole night. In the morning they went before Sir Matthew Bloxam, with all the marks and bruises they had received from Creswell over-night: but as the worthy Alderman will, in all probability, be called upon in a court of Justice, as a material witness, I shall add no more at present, than that he acted like himself upon the occasion; and, thinking that Cook had as much right to his own watch as Creswell, with a severe reprimand compelled him to return it; [62] at the same time we shall see if Creswell’s indemnity for all these outrages will shelter him from the wholesome scourge of criminal justice.
I hope and trust that there is not a lover of genuine liberty, but will contribute a little to enable these oppressed people to obtain impartial justice; not only against Constable Creswell, but against his employers, whose abominations can have no reliance upon impunity, but from the destruction of Cook. And here I must repeat Lord Ellenborough’s assertion, that although the parties may not be entitled to respect, yet the laws must be respected! therefore, the same laws that punish crimes, must protect innocence; and I hope brutal constable Creswell, and rapacious lawyer Woolley, [63] will receive a lesson, that will inspire them with some small portion of reverence for his Lordship’s opinion.