The Society, of which Mr Holcroft was a member, seemed with the progress of these events to increase in amazement; and it might almost be said, in stupefaction. This was visible in the thinness of its meetings, its feeble resolutions, and long adjournments. Each man saw himself the butt of obloquy. Each man knew that Mr Reeves’s association was sitting in a room of the same tavern immediately over his head; and that this association was the focus of the opprobrium cast on them all. They supposed themselves to be watched by the very waiters. Thus wantonly and unjustly set up as a mark for public reproach, it is not much to be wondered at, that some petulant ebullitions occasionally burst forth. But was this guilt so enormous? Was it high-treason?
When Mr Holcroft first heard that a few of its members had been taken into custody, he felt the greatest astonishment. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘either there have been practices of which I am totally ignorant, or men are running mad!’ The persons apprehended were severally, and some of them repeatedly examined before the privy council. The three estates of the kingdom had declared the existence of treason and conspiracy; and the nation seemed generally to credit the assertion. Mr Holcroft had been told more than once, that a warrant was issued against him. Incredible as the rumour would have been at any other time, he now believed it to be true.
A warrant having according to report been issued against him, made it probable that he should also be examined before the privy council; and he therefore prepared for the event. The late John Hunter, and other medical men, had prescribed sea-bathing for him; and he intended to have gone out of town for this purpose. But on the first report of the warrant, he determined not to go, and took care to appear publicly, that he might not seem to evade inquiry. Many surmises and rumours prevailed during the summer of 1794. One week the persons in custody were immediately to be brought to trial: the next it was said the crown-lawyers had declared that a case of treason could not be made out, and that they would be tried for seditious practices. At length, when the affair seemed almost to have sunk into forgetfulness, it was suddenly revived; and a commission was appointed on the till then supposed highly improbable charge of high-treason. The proceeding astonished Mr Holcroft, as well as others; but he had no idea it was intended that he should be involved in it.
Soon, however, assertions to the contrary were spread: and many serious reflections suggested themselves to his mind. ‘Surely,’ said he, ‘this age has more general information, and therefore more virtue, more wisdom, than the past. There cannot be another meal-tub plot. No Titus Oates could now impose his execrable fictions on mankind. Or is it possible that sophistry may have convinced itself that it is better twelve men, the partisans of reform, should die, than that Government should seem to have disgraced itself by asserting the existence of a treasonable conspiracy without any proof?’ At one moment he could not believe himself in danger: at the next, the facts that stared him in the face destroyed every ground of rational calculation, and left the mind bewildered in suspense. It was at this period that Mr Holcroft addressed the following letter to his daughter and her husband, who were in Devonshire.[[12]]
‘My Dear Friends and Children, The reason of my writing to you at this moment is to prevent any unnecessary alarm; to which, indeed, I hope you would not have been very liable, even if I had not written, and if you had previously heard the strange intelligence I am about to communicate, through any other channel.
‘It is asserted in the Morning Post of to-day, and I have before received the same information from various people, that a bill is to be presented to the Grand Jury, containing a charge of high-treason against thirteen persons, of whom I am one. As it is impossible that either this or any other crime against the Government can be proved on me (my principles and practice having been so totally opposite to such supposed crimes) I hope, and most seriously recommend that you will feel the same tranquillity I do. The charge is so false and so absurd, that it has not once made my heart beat. For my own part, I feel no enmity against those, who endeavour thus to injure me; being persuaded, that in this, as in all other instances, it is but the guilt of ignorance. They think they are doing their duty: I will continue to do mine, to the very utmost of my power; and on that will cheerfully rest my safety. I must again conjure you to feel neither alarm nor uneasiness. Remember the most virtuous of men are liable to be misunderstood, and falsely accused. But the virtuous man has no need to fear accusation. If it be true that my name is in the indictment, it will oblige me again to defer the happiness of seeing you, and the hope of recruiting my health by the excursion. Of the latter it is true I have need, and to be a witness of your happiness would give me no small pleasure: but the man of fortitude knows how to submit to all necessities; and if he be wise, frequently to turn events which others consider as most disastrous, to some beneficent end. Shall I own to you, that though I could not wish to be falsely accused, yet being so accused, I now feel an anxious desire to be heard? Let my principles and actions be inquired into, and published: if they have been erroneous, let them become moral lessons to others; if the reverse, the instruction they will afford may more effectually answer the same purpose. I hope, Sophy, you know something of me: endeavour to communicate what you know to Mr Cole, and your mutual fears will then surely be very few. Observe that, as I have yet received no notice whatever from Government, I have the above intelligence only from report. If it be false, I shall soon be with you: if the contrary, you of course will hear from me the moment I have any thing to communicate. Be happy, act virtuously, and disdain to live the slaves of fear.’
Newman-street, Sept. 30th, 1794.
On the same day he sent the following letter to the Morning Post, which was published the next day.
‘To the Editor of the Morning Post.
‘Sir, In your paper of yesterday, my name is mentioned among those said to be inserted in a bill to be presented to a Grand Jury on Thursday next, containing charges of high-treason. If this be the fact, I have no wish to influence the public opinion, by a previous affirmation of my own innocence: I desire only to appear before my country. However, as I have not been a day absent from home for more than twelve months, and never received from any magistrate the least intimation of any suspicion against me; till I have official notice, my own consciousness obliges me to consider your intelligence as unfounded.