Part 12

Having enjoyed such a breakfast as keen sportsmen are accustomed to take, in the course of which we talked over the feats of the morning, and bestowed many well earned encomiums upon the staunchness and sagacity of my dogs, my friends proposed to start again for the field, till dinner time. I, however, positively refused to budge an inch, declaring that I would not fire another shot that day. I was, I told them, more than content with having killed ten brace of pheasants in one day, and therefore I would remain at home with Mrs. Vezey, till they returned. They tried hard to prevail upon me to accompany them, but I resisted their entreaties: they then endeavoured to rally me out of my plan, but I had made up my mind not to go out again, and consequently all their bantering was of no avail. I was not to be moved even by the good humoured jokes of the farmer, about my remaining alone with his wife; and, finding me to be immoveable, they set out by themselves. At length they returned, bringing with them one solitary pheasant, though they acknowledged that they had had ten shots each; and they were afterwards candid enough to confess that the dogs had actually caught that. Nothing daunted by their bad shooting, after they had dined and taken a sufficient quantity of good old stingo, and once more tried in vain to persuade me to bear them company, they sallied forth again, for the evening's sport; the best time of the day for pheasant shooting. About eight o'clock they came back, but they had only killed another pheasant, notwithstanding they assured me that they had actually seen above one hundred. Thus had these two sportsmen only killed three pheasants in the whole day, having had between them upwards of fifty shots; while I had killed ten brace at twenty shots, in about three hours. Of course I laughed at them heartily; in which I was joined most sincerely by Mrs. Vezey. I am quite certain that if I had continued in the field, and followed up the sport as my friends did, I should have killed fifty pheasants instead of twenty; and that too without having made them appear much thinned, so plentiful was the game in that country. After spending a very pleasant evening, we returned to Marlborough, where I slept with my friend Hancock, and shot my way home the next day; having, previously to my setting out, equally divided the game between the three, which was always the case in those friendly parties where I made one of the number.

This account has, I dare say, appeared to the reader to be a digression upon a trivial subject, but I shall now show him that the seemingly trifling circumstance which I have been narrating, led to a very important event of my life. About four or five days after this, I received a letter from Lord BRUCE, merely saying, "that my services were no longer required in the Marlborough Troop of Yeomanry, and he, therefore, requested that I would return my sword and pistols by the bearer." I wrote a brief answer, to say that I was astonished at his communication, but that I should attend on the next field-day, for an explanation, and that I should not fail to bring my arms with me. I own that I was at a loss to conjecture the cause of this unceremonious and laconic epistle of his lordship, and I conjured up a hundred imaginary reasons for this abrupt dismissal of me from his Troop of Yeomanry. I had been in it for many months; I had never been once fined, or received the slightest reprimand from his lordship or either of the other officers; nor could I recollect any one instance in which I had either failed to perform or neglected my duty as a soldier. But, though I could not recollect this, I now recollected the last sad foreboding words of my dying father--"I only wish I could have lived to see you well out of the Yeomanry Cavalry!"

On the following day came a letter from my friend, Hancock, the banker, which unriddled the mystery. He informed me that he also had received a similar communication from our colonel, Lord Bruce; that he knew of the dismissal which had been sent to me, and that it was a current report amongst the tools of Lord Aylesbury, at Marlborough, that we were dismissed from the troop, because we had shot so many pheasants on the first of October, upon one of his lordship's manors: what I meant to do on the subject, he was, he said, desirous to know, as he should like to go hand in hand with me; at the same time vowing vengeance against our colonel. I sent him a copy of the answer which I had written to his lordship, and apprised him that I would be at his house early on the morning of the next field-day, in my uniform, as usual, to accompany him to the place of exercise.

The day arrived, and we rode together to the field where we used to perform our evolutions. It was upon one of the plains in Savernake Forest, about half a mile from his lordship's house, but within full view of it. When we reached the ground the troop was assembling, and we fell into the ranks as formerly, to the utter astonishment of his lordship's vassals, who composed a great portion of the troop, and who had heard of our being discharged or dismissed, or, in plainer terms, turned out of the troop by the colonel.

After we had remained a little time, one of his lordship's toad-eaters came to reconnoitre; and, as soon as he discovered us in the ranks, he retreated to carry the astounding intelligence to his patron. Messages now passed backwards and forwards, from the troop to his lordship's house, for nearly an hour before he made his appearance; a delay which had never before occurred. The cause was not only anticipated by Hancock and myself, but by all the members of the troop, and just as I was proposing to march to his lordship, since he did not appear disposed to come to us, he at last made his appearance, riding on his charger with slow and solemn pace.

I have since understood that, during this delay, several messages passed between his lordship's house, Savernake Lodge, and Tottenham Park, the seat of his father, the Earl of Aylesbury. Before I proceed, it may not, perhaps, be amiss to make the reader acquainted with the origin of this business. It turned out that Lord Bruce had been induced to write the aforesaid letters to me and Mr. Hancock at the earnest suggestion of his father, Lord Aylesbury, who had prevailed upon him, much against his own inclination and better judgment, to turn us out of the troop; though he had no other complaint to make against me but that I was too good a shot at his father's pheasants, and consequently a very unfit person to oppose the French in case of an invasion. His lordship saw and felt the difficulty of his situation, and for a long time he held out against the entreaties of his father; but the old earl was inexorable, and I am told that his mandate was at length delivered in such a tone and such a manner, that his son did not feel it prudent to resist any longer. The particulars I subsequently learned from one of the keepers, who was present at the interview when the earl came down from London; which I understand he did on purpose. Some envious and cringing tool of his lordship's having heard of our successful day's sport at Grove, on the first of October, wrote up to him an exaggerated account of it, stating that I, in company with Mr. Hancock, had killed an immense number of pheasants upon his lordship's manors; but at the same time this worthy intelligencer took care not to state where, and upon what manor we had been sporting. The old earl, who was the most tenacious, perhaps, about his game of any man in England, no sooner got the letter than he came post from town, in a great passion; and when he arrived at Tottenham, he immediately summoned all his keepers, to demand an account of their conduct for suffering his game to be destroyed in such a way. It was in vain that they all declared that we had not been into or near any of his preserves; that we had only been shooting upon a distant manor, where his lordship did not even appoint a keeper; and which manor he had expressly appropriated for the sport of the people of his Borough of Marlborough, and their friends. This was all to no purpose; he would hear no excuse; and as soon as he found that we were in his son's troop of Yeomanry, he dispatched a messenger for him. In the mean time he threw himself into the most violent fits of passion with the keepers; so much so, that he was frequently obliged to retire and recruit himself, by reclining upon a sofa, and when he had recovered his strength a little, he returned to the charge again with redoubled violence. The keeper, who was my informant, assured me that several times they were fearful, or, more correctly speaking, expected that he would break a blood vessel, by giving himself up to such unbounded fury. It seems the family at Tottenham did not know of the precaution that is used upon such occasions, by a testy old baronet of this county, who does not live a hundred miles from Stoneaston, which I am credibly informed is as follows--whenever the baronet has one of these sudden and violent paroxysms of passion, which is not very unfrequently, her ladyship prevails upon him to sit down while she pours copious libations of cold water over his head, as the only means of cooling his blood, and saving him from the rupture of a blood vessel upon the brain. At length his lordship's son, Lord Bruce, arrived, and the same scene was repeated; and it is said, that nothing but a promise from the gallant Colonel of the Wiltshire Regiment of Yeomanry, that he would immediately write to me and Mr. Hancock, and dismiss us from his troop, would pacify the old earl. This promise was performed in the way which I have described, by his lordship writing to each of us, to say "that he had no further occasion for our services." But now to return to the troop, which we left drawn up on the field of exercise: our colonel having at length arrived in the front of the ranks, he continued to direct his eyes quite to the opposite flank to that in which I was, and I could never catch his eye directed even askance towards me. After a considerable delay, the serjeant pulled out the roll-call, with which he proceeded till he came to the number filled by my name; he passed it over, and began to utter the name of the next man; but the name was scarcely half out of his lips, when I put spurs to my charger, and brushed up so furiously to him, that he reined back several paces ere he stopped; which he had scarcely done, with my horse's head almost in his lap, before I sternly demanded by whose authority he had passed over my name? In a tremulous voice he stammered out, that "it was done by order of Lord Bruce." I wheeled my horse suddenly round, and his head coming across the serjeant's breast nearly unhorsed him. I then rode briskly up to Lord Bruce, who reined his charger back also. I saluted him as my officer, and firmly demanded by what authority, or for what cause, he had given orders to have my name struck out of the muster-roll? Conscious of being about to persist in a dishonourable and unworthy act, after hesitating a little, he said, "Pray, Sir, did you not receive a letter from me?" I hastily answered, "Yes, and I am here to demand in person an explanation, and to know what charge you have to make against me, either as a soldier or a gentleman." He now seemed still more confused, and he looked everywhere except in my face. He then cast his eyes towards the troop, as much as to say, will you not protect me? will you not assist to get me out of this dilemma? but all was as silent as the grave, and every eye was fixed upon him. At length he mustered courage to say, "I make no charge against you; neither do I feel myself called upon to give you any reason for my conduct. I--I, as commanding officer of this regiment, have a right to receive any man into it, or to dismiss any man from it, without assigning any reason for my so doing."

This was a critical moment of my life. It is in vain now to lament my want of discretion. I was young--I was devoted to the service of my country--I was a soldier--I was insulted without the shadow of a pretext to justify the insult--I was wounded in the most tender part--my patriotic zeal! At such a moment I could take no counsel of cold, calculating prudence. I sternly replied, "then, my lord, you are no longer my officer--you have offered me a deliberate insult, which it seems you are not prepared to explain or apologise for; I therefore demand that satisfaction which is due from one gentleman to another; and mark me well, unless you give me that satisfaction I will post you as a coward:" upon which I took my pistols from the holsters, and was taking my sword from the belt, in order to cast them with defiance at his horse's feet, these arms being the only thing that I possessed belonging to the government. Expecting, perhaps, that I was going to make use of them in a different way, his lordship wheeled suddenly round, and clapping spurs to his charger, he was, without once looking behind him, soon out of sight; he having wheeled into the gateway of Savernake Lodge, his lordship's residence.

While this was passing, I had hurled the sword and the brace of pistols upon the ground, and my friend Hancock had moved out of the ranks and come up to me. As long as our gallant commander was visible I kept my eyes fixed upon him; and when, on his disappearance, I looked round, I found the whole troop staring with astonishment, which, when they had recovered from a little, was followed by a general laugh. My friend Hancock was talking loud and in rather a coarse way, which I checked; and then riding up to the centre, in the front of the troop, I addressed my comrades, something in the following strain:--"Gentlemen, you have lost your commander, You have seen and heard the cause. As, however, a troop without a commander is like a ship without a sail or a rudder, I, for once, will give the word. To the right wheel--dismiss--every man to his quarters." Upon this, every man made the best of his way home, and I returned to Marlborough to dine and spend the evening with my friend Hancock.

If I had paid more regard to prudence, and not acted with such precipitation, I should have put this lord so much in the wrong, that he would have had no small difficulty in satisfactorily accounting for his unwarrantable conduct; for, without much vanity, I may say, that there was not a better soldier in the regiment, a man more devoted to the service of his country, and very few indeed, if any, who would have so "greatly dared," in opposing its enemies with his fortune and his life. The affair, as it was quite natural that it should, soon got wind throughout the county, and particularly amongst the members of the various corps, the ten troops of Yeomanry. His lordship, however, did not choose to meet me, but rather preferred to settle the point in the courts of law.

In the following term a criminal information was filed against me, for challenging the noble lord and gallant colonel to fight a duel. As I could not deny the fact, I suffered judgment to go by default, rather than try the question in the Court at Salisbury; my counsel, Mr. Garrow and Mr. Burrough (the present Judges), having informed me, that it was useless to defend it, as I could not plead the provocation, however great, with any chance of obtaining a verdict. But they were of opinion that, when the affidavits on both sides came to be read, the Court would never call me up for judgment.

In this conclusion they were incorrect; but it is not wonderful that such a conclusion should have been drawn by them; for the late Lord Kenyon expressed a very great unwillingness to proceed, and, term after term, he intimated to my counsel that he hoped I had seen my error, and that I would make an apology to his lordship, which would save the Court the trouble of taking any further steps in the affair. My counsel answered, that they were not instructed to say whether I would do this or not. His lordship then stated, that in case I did so before the next term, he understood that the other party would not press for judgment; and Mr. Erskine and Mr. Vicary Gibbs, who were employed against me, added, that so far from wishing to degrade me, they did not even wish that I should make any personal apology to his lordship. If my counsel would say for me, that I admitted the offence against the law, and regretted the uneasiness that I had given to his lordship, there should be an end to the business.

This offer Lord Kenyon strongly urged my counsel to accept. Mr. Burrough, who was junior counsel, said, that he knew my feelings upon the subject so well, that he would undertake, although in my absence, to say, that I was perfectly sensible that I had been provoked to offend the laws of my country, and that he was ready to make the most ample apology to those offended laws; but that, as I considered Lord Bruce to be the aggressor, he could not, on my part, undertake to make any apology to him, and he was fearful that I should never be persuaded to do it, though he would communicate the wish of his lordship and the court upon the subject.

This affair had now been before the Court four or five terms, and had been as often put off by Lord Kenyon. In the mean time, the affair created a considerable sensation amongst all the Yeomanry Corps in the kingdom, and in none more than in the different troops of the Wiltshire Yeomanry; and the conduct of their Colonel was canvassed very freely. Every gentleman in the regiment, and, in fact, every member of the whole of the volunteer force of the country, felt that it was a common cause, as he might be placed in a similar situation, and, consequently, if I were punished, he himself might be liable to arbitrary and unjust dismissal by a superior officer. The Court felt and knew this. Many, very many, members of the Wilts regiments, declared that they would immediately resign if I were sentenced to any fine or imprisonment; and several of my particular friends and acquaintances never failed to, what they called, keep up my spirits, by volunteering this declaration as often as I met them. Mr. Wm. Tinker, of Lavington, with whom I was particularly intimate, and my friend, Mr. Wm. Butcher, of Erchfont, both unequivocally declared that they would not remain in the regiment another moment after I had received any sentence.

The next term came, and when my counsel were again called upon to know whether they were instructed to make the necessary apology, the answer was, that I was sorry for having violated the laws of my country, but that the illegal and unjustifiable provocation given by Lord Bruce was such, that I had declined to make any submission whatever to his lordship. Lord Kenyon begged Mr. Garrow to do his duty by his client, and make it for me; and Mr., now Lord, Erskine also begged his friend Garrow to do it, declaring he would accept the slightest acknowledgment made in his, Mr. Garrow's, own way; that he felt for me, and did by no means wish to degrade me in the slightest degree.

Mr. Garrow rose, and in a spirited manner said, "that he thought I had offered quite a sufficient apology to the offended laws of my country; and that he, for one, did not feel that, under all the circumstances, Lord Bruce was entitled to any apology whatever. If Mr. Hunt had felt disposed, of his own accord, to suffer him to say that he was sorry for having challenged his lordship, he would have done it with all his heart, without believing that the slightest stigma would have been fixed upon that gentleman's character, either as a soldier or a gentleman. But Mr. Hunt had a right to have his own feelings upon the subject, and he could not blame him; and so far from making any apology for Mr. Hunt, in his absence, without his consent, he, as his counsel, with all the respect which he entertained for the court, yet would not take upon himself to advise him to do it against his inclination."

Mr. Erskine appeared to assent to this; but Mr. Vicary Gibbs jumped up, and with great petulance said, "Well, then, my lord, we demand that he may be brought up. We pray the judgment of the court." Lord Kenyon said, it must be so, then; and he fixed a day in the following Michaelmas Term, for me to attend to receive judgment.

As this will bring me to a very important epoch in my life, I shall pass over briefly several minor occurrences, that would have been considered as great events in the history of many persons who have written an account of their own lives. I shall, however, slightly touch upon one or two circumstances which, within the last month, have been brought to my recollection in the following rather extraordinary way. A lady, travelling from London to Bath, in her road to Ilchester, accompanied by the gaoler of that place, was questioned by a fellow passenger, a gentleman, how far they were travelling westward? The gaoler, naturally enough wishing to disguise his name and occupation, answered, "I am going to Bath, sir; and that lady is going on to Ilchester." The word Ilchester was no sooner pronounced than his hearer turned to the lady, and said, "Ah! that is where Mr. Hunt is confined, and treated with so much severity. Perhaps you will see him, madam?" She replied that it was possible, as she had some slight knowledge of me, and in return she wished to be informed if he knew me. He replied that he knew me very well, and had known me ever since I was a boy, and that he also knew my father and all my relations, as well as Mrs. Hunt and her relations. This naturally enough excited the curiosity of the lady, who knew me personally only, and who was sure to see me, as she was coming to visit a gentleman at the gaol; and as for the gaoler, any information that he could get about my private affairs and my family would be a great treat, he having no knowledge of me except as a public character. His curiosity was, consequently, whetted to a very keen edge; and my readers will not have much difficulty in believing, that, during the remainder of the journey, Mr. Hunt was a subject of conversation; and I have no doubt that all the actions of my life were canvassed with great freedom and some earnestness.

This, to them, unknown gentleman was Charles Gordon Grey, Esq. of Tracey Park, near Bath, who was as communicative as our passengers could wish; and the lady's, as well as the gaoler's, curiosity was gratified almost to satiety. The lady has, however, candidly confessed to me, that, although Mr. Grey was a great political opponent of mine, yet, altogether, his account of me had prejudiced her in my favour; and she has related to me many anecdotes of my life, that had totally escaped my recollection. One of them was as follows, of which, I believe, Mr. Grey was an eye-witness, and, therefore, could speak to it with perfect accuracy. I was, as I have already informed my readers, always an enthusiast in any thing I undertook, and in nothing more so than as a hunter. One day, at the end of a very severe stag-chace, after a run of nearly thirty miles, the hounds pressed the beautiful animal so close, that they caught him as he was swimming over a deep part of the river Avon, between Salisbury and Stratford. Myself, with the master of the hounds, Michael Hicks Beach, Esq. of Netheravon, and two or three gentlemen, amongst whom was, perhaps, Mr. Gordon Grey, were up with the hounds at the time; and we were all very much distressed to see the noble animal, which was a large red deer, and which had afforded us so much sport, becoming a prey to the hounds, without it being possible for us to save him. Mr. Beach at first urged the whipper-in to attempt it, but he declined, adding, that as he could not swim well enough to encounter so many difficulties as he should meet with, the hounds would certainly drown him, as well as the stag, if he were once to venture into the deep water. While every one was lamenting in vain the sad fate of the poor animal, which appeared nearly exhausted, as the hounds had repeatedly pulled him under the water, I had slipped on one side, hitched my horse's bridle to a stake in the hedge, and stripped in buff, before the rest of the sportsmen had perceived what I was doing. I sprang to the river's brink, plunged at once off the high bank into the midst of the foaming stream, and swam to the assistance of the almost expiring stag. The moment that I dashed head foremost into the stream, the remainder of the pack, which had not before ventured into the watery element, but had kept yelping and baying upon the banks, now to a dog leaped in after me. None but those who were eye-witnesses of this scene can have any idea of the danger in which I appeared to be placed. Many of the hounds, that had been worrying the stag, seeing a naked man rise as it were from out of the deep, for I had been obliged to dive several yards to break my fall from off the steep bank, instantly quitted the hold they had on the stag, and swam towards me, as if to seize upon more tempting prey. My fellow sportsmen, who had scarcely recovered from their astonishment at seeing me unexpectedly plunge into the water, and who now apprehended my inevitable destruction by the hounds seizing upon me, gave all at once an involuntary scream, and implored me to retreat as quickly as possible; but, having once made up my mind to accomplish an object, the word retreat was not in my vocabulary. Nothing daunted, I swam boldly up, and faced the approaching pack, calling each hound by his name, which I fortunately knew, and, which was still more fortunate, my voice was as well known to them. I swam and fought my way through them, cheering and hallooing to them, as if in the chace. They all turned, and continued to swim with me again up to the poor stag, with the exception of one old hound, Old Trojan, who, unperceived, seized fast hold of me by the thumb of the right hand, which at once checked my progress and gave me great pain. I called him by his name, but it was in vain, for he held fast; upon which, with considerable effort, I dragged him under water, and seizing him by the throat with the other hand, I held him there till he let go his hold. During this struggle we both disappeared under the water together, to the great consternation of the anxious beholders. Up we came together again, but I continued to grasp him firmly with my left hand by the throat, and I, for a short time, exhibited the caitiff in this state, with his mouth open and his tongue out; to shew how completely I had subdued him, I gave him one more ducking under water and let him go: I then continued my course without further interruption towards the stag, who had, meanwhile, drifted twenty or thirty yards down with the current, which was very rapid, surrounded by every hound in the pack (twenty-two couple), with the exception of poor Old Trojan, who now kept at a very respectful distance behind us.

We soon came up to the stag; but now the most difficult part of the task commenced; now "the tug of war" began, for I had no sooner laid my hand upon the poor animal than the whole pack began their attack upon him with redoubled vigour. One of the gentlemen threw me his whip, which I applied to the backs of the dogs with one hand, while I held the stag with the other. This, however, had little or no effect; they were too much accustomed to the lash to be driven from their game in this way. One of my friends, therefore, called out to me to take the other end, which I did, and laid on about their heads and ears lustily. Still I found that they would not let go their holds without I almost beat out their brains; and I was consequently obliged to take another course, which was this--the first hound that I came near to I grasped by the throat till he let go; and in this state, with his mouth still open, I held him a short time under water. This mode of proceeding had the desired effect, and I continued it with every hound till I set the poor animal perfectly free. By this time I was almost exhausted myself, for I had been in the water at least twenty minutes; and that too at the end of a very severe chace, in a cold day in February. My friends on the bank kept giving their advice, and amongst the number was Tom, the whipper-in, who had refused to venture into the water; and, as a punishment for his cowardice, I requested my friends either to make him hold his tongue, or throw him in and give him a ducking. In the midst of all this I recollect to have hailed the huntsman, and desired him to take my clothes off the wet meadow, and to lead my favourite mare about to keep her from taking cold. Some of my readers will wonder how I could be so much at my ease under such circumstances, and particularly as I have said I was nearly exhausted. This I shall easily explain. The hounds being all checked off, the stag, poor fellow, lay most patiently floating upon the stream; and, as I had now taken him round his velvet-skinned neck, I supported myself with great ease, and gained strength to swim with one hand while I held him with the other, till I arrived at the opposite bank, where my brother sportsmen were waiting, with the greatest anxiety, to assist in taking him out of the water. But, as the water was nearly ten feet deep, I of course could gain no footing; and as the bank was four feet above the river, those on the outside could not reach him. I contrived, however, to fasten the thongs of their whips round different parts of his body, so that they were enabled at length, with great difficulty, to drag him safe on shore, without the poor stag having received any material injury. As soon as this was accomplished, and not before, was I dragged out in the same way, with the thongs of my fellow sportsmen's whips. I was certainly so exhausted that I could not stand without holding, while they rubbed me dry with their pocket handkerchiefs; but I soon recovered, and having put on my clothes, I mounted my favourite chesnut mare, Mountebank, and rode with my friends, who all accompanied me to the Inn, the only house in the borough of Old Sarum, where this story is frequently related to this day.

Such is one of the anecdotes that Mr. Gordon Grey related of me, and which circumstance, with a hundred others of a similar nature, had entirely escaped my memory, and would never have been related here, had it not been for the journey in the Bath stage coach; although the mark, which Old Trojan's tooth made on the thumb of my right hand, is always present to my view, particularly when I am writing, and which mark, I observed at the time, would always bring the event to my recollection, as I should carry it with me to the grave. That I shall carry it there is certain, for it is still perfectly visible, though it was inflicted twenty-eight years ago.

Such was the man whom Lord Bruce dismissed from the Marlborough troop of yeomanry, as unworthy to rank amongst those who had volunteered their services to repel the invasion of a powerful, menacing foreign foe! Such was the man and such was his zeal and enthusiasm--such his devoted patriotism, that, had it been practicable to lay a mine of gunpowder under the Boulogne flotilla, he would, with the same alacrity as he now rescued the stag, have dashed into the sea with a lighted torch in one hand while he swam with the other! Such was the man who would have fearlessly applied the torch to the train, and freely have blown them and himself together into the air, to have saved his country! And this was the sort of man that Lord Bruce knew me to be when, to gratify the rage of his father, he undertook to dismiss me from the Wiltshire Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry, because I had, forsooth, killed ten brace of pheasants at twenty shots!

Well, the day at length arrived for my attending the Court of King's Bench, to stand, for the first time, upon its floor to receive judgment. Mr. Justice Garrow and Mr. Justice Burrough were my counsel; and the former made an eloquent appeal to the court, declaring that he would much rather be placed in my situation than that of the noble lord; and winding up his speech with a high eulogium upon my character, he said, that if he lived in my neighbourhood, I should be the first man that he would seek for as a friend, &c. &c. The present Lord Erskine and the late Sir Vickery Gibbs were employed to pray for the judgment of the court against me; but his lordship conducted himself with the greatest moderation and even kindness towards me, and never uttered one single offensive or unkind sentence in the whole of his eloquent harangue. But the little, waspish, black-hearted viper, Gibbs, whose malignant, vicious, and ill-looking countenance was always the index of his little mind, made a most virulent, vindictive, and cowardly attack upon me, which was so morose and unfeeling, and so uncalled for by the circumstances, that, if I had not been held back by any attorney, I should certainly have inflicted a summary and a just chastisement upon him upon the spot, by dashing back his lies, together with his teeth, down his throat. I was, however, restrained, and sentence was passed by old mumbling Grose, that I should pay ONE HUNDRED POUNDS to the King, and be committed to the custody of the Marshal of the court for SIX WEEKS. There sat, squatting upon the bench, KENYON, Chief Justice, GROSE, LAWRENCE, and LE BLANC; all four of them gone, long, long ago, to receive their sentence from the Judge of another and a higher court, the JUDGE of JUDGES; and the Lord have mercy on them! say I. I paid the fine immediately, and two friends, who were in court, entered into recognizances in five hundred pounds each, and myself in one thousand pounds, to keep the peace towards this gallant lord for three years.

I was handed over to a tipstaff, who very civilly conducted me and my friends in a coach to the King's Bench, which place I had the evening before been to reconnoitre with my friend Mr. Wm. Butcher, who had come to town with me, and had voluntarily become one of my bail. My friends anticipated that I should be committed to the King's Bench, as I had made up my mind not to offer any apology to Lord Bruce.

At this time Mr. Waddington was a prisoner in the King's Bench, for forestalling hops; and as he had conducted his defence before the court with great energy and considerable talent; and, as he was convicted upon an old obsolete statute, he was not esteemed guilty of any moral crime. I had imbibed a notion that the debtors in the prison were generally a set of swindlers, and I was, therefore, anxious to avoid their society, or having anything to do with them; which feeling, however erroneous, increased my desire to become acquainted with Mr. Waddington. The chief temptation, however, undoubtedly was his being a man who had become celebrated for the spirit which he had several times evinced before the court, in defending himself against what was generally considered as a mere political prosecution. I made several inquiries about him, but I only learned that he was not within the walls, and that he had apartments over the lobby, without the gates. I was, as yet, too great a novice to comprehend what was meant by imprisonment without being in prison.

I arrived at the prison about two o'clock, and was conducted into the coffee room, kept by Mr. Davey, the Marshal's coachman, where we were soon accommodated with a very good dinner. In the mean time I had made the necessary inquiry for an apartment, but the prison was represented to be very full; and I was shewn one or two rooms, where the parties occupying them had no objection to turn out, to accommodate me, for a certain stipulated sum. Amongst the number I was shewn up into a very good room, which was occupied by a lady, who, it was said, would give up her room for ten pounds. When we entered the room she was singing very divinely, she being no less a personage than Mrs. Wells, the celebrated public singer. With great freedom she inquired which was the gentleman, me or my attorney, who accompanied me; and upon being informed that I was the prisoner, she eyed me over from head to toe, and then, with that art of which she was so much a mistress, she simpering said, that "she was loath to part with her room at any price, but that, as I appeared a nice wholesome country gentleman, I should be welcome to half of it without paying any thing." As I was not prepared to enter into a contract of that sort, I hastily retired, and left my attorney to settle the quantum of pecuniary remuneration with her.

We dined very pleasantly, I think six of us; and, before the cloth was removed, I had a visit from my friend, the Rev. John Prince, the chaplain of the Magdalen, and vicar of the parish of Enford, whose churchwarden I was. I stated to him the difficulty I had in procuring a suitable apartment; which he no sooner heard than he volunteered his services to go immediately to his friend and neighbour, the Marshal, with whom he had no doubt he should readily arrange that matter for me to my satisfaction. I was much pleased to have such an advocate as Mr. Prince, a man so well known, and so much esteemed for his piety and goodness of heart. But he soon returned, looking very grave, and said, that he could do nothing with the Marshal, who would not enter into any conversation with him upon the subject; but told him, that if Mr. Hunt wanted any thing, he was ready to do whatever lay in his power to serve him, but that his attorney was the proper person to transact such business, and that it was quite out of the worthy parson's line.

My attorney, Mr. Bird, immediately waited upon the Marshal; and, while he was gone, Mr. Prince informed me, that his old friend Jones had behaved quite rudely to him, and expressed himself very much surprised that a man of his calling should think of interfering in such matters. Poor Prince was, therefore, fully impressed with an idea that Mr. Jones would do nothing to accommodate me, as he had quite huffed him. In ten minutes, however, Mr. Bird returned, with the news that he had settled every thing with the Marshal; that I should have an apartment over the lobby, but that I must go with him to the Marshal, and enter into security not to escape, &c. &c. I immediately complied; and, as we went along, he informed me, that I was to give a bond for five thousand pounds not to escape; and that it would not be necessary for me to return again within the walls. This I readily agreed to, and the matter was settled in ten minutes. I was to have the room over the front lobby, and the run of the key.

I returned to my friends elated with the prospect of my being so comfortable, as I had been very much disgusted with the scenes of profligacy and drunkenness that I had already witnessed within the walls. Mrs. Filewood, the principal turnkey's wife, who kept the lobby, was to prepare my bed, and get every thing ready for me in my room by ten o'clock, the time at which my friends were to leave the prison. When the hour arrived, I was shown into a very spacious room, nicely furnished, with a neat bureau bedstead, standing in one corner. My hostess, who was a pretty, modest-looking woman, was very communicative, and so attentive that I really felt quite as comfortable as if I had been at an inn. It was, in fact, much better than the apartments I had been in at the inn, in London, the Black Lion, Water Lane. There was a good fire in the room, and every thing bore the air of cleanliness and comfort, and I went to bed and slept till day-light, as sound and as well as I ever slept in my life.