Part 13

Mr. Cobbett, very properly, attributed a great portion of the evils which the people endured to the corrupt state of the public press, which he denominated "blind guides." "They are," said he (in speaking of the provincial papers), "some of them tools of corruption, and some of them dumb dogs, that have not the courage to take the part either of right or wrong; they are neither one thing nor the other; they are quite vapid, and, therefore, will the public 'spew them out of their mouths.' Not, indeed, such papers as the Nottingham Review, the Stamford News, the LIVERPOOL MERCURY, and some others, the proprietors of which do honour to the press, and the pages of which will always be read with pleasure and advantage." This is the way in which he spoke and wrote of Mr. Egerton Smith, the proprietor of the Liverpool Mercury, in the year 1816.

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.

It was now for the first time that I heard any thing of the riots which had taken place in the city. A second edition of the Courier gave a most exaggerated account of them, misrepresenting every thing, and heading the statements "Spafelds Meeting;" when the truth was, that so far from any of the persons who attended the Spafields meeting having had any hand in the riots, they actually knew nothing of the matter, till they heard it from their neighbours, after they had returned home from the meeting. The fact was this: Watson and Thistlewood found that I would not have any thing to do with their wild schemes, whatever they might be; they therefore assembled in Spafields about eleven o'clock in the morning, more than an hour before the persons who meant to attend the meeting began to meet together; they mounted the waggon, and addressed the few individuals that surrounded them, perhaps at the time two or three hundred; the elder Watson harangued them upon the advantages of the Spencean plan, and young Watson, urged on by Castles, having briefly addressed them, jumped from the waggon, and called upon those who wished to be led on to victory to follow him; the villain Castles taking care to leave a few bullets, wrapped up in an old stocking, so exposed in the waggon, that those who remained could not avoid seeing them. The whole of what occurred was reported by Mr. Spectacle Dowling, a confidential reporter of the Sunday Observer, who swore to the particulars afterwards with an astonishing degree of minuteness, although other reporters who were present declared, that not one-tenth of what was said could be heard.

About forty persons followed young Watson, accompanied by his friend Castles; and Mr. Dowling the reporter followed this little squad of desperadoes, no doubt for the purpose of giving a faithful detail of what passed, although he was sent by Mr. Clement, of the Observer, to report the proceedings of the meeting to be held in Spafields at one o'clock. It appears that having been reinforced by a party of distressed sailors and others, who were returning from the Old-Bailey, where they had been to witness the hanging of some criminals, these gentry attacked and began to plunder the shop of Mr. Beckwith, a gun-smith, in Skinner-street. It is said that young Watson was seized there by a man of the name of Platt, and that, in order to save himself, he fired a pistol loaded with powder and wadding only, which wounded the said Platt in the groin. Young Watson was, however, seized and taken up stairs into a back room, and the front doors of the shop and the windows were closed. During the confusion Platt escaped over a back wall of the premises, and as young Watson was left in the house a prisoner at large, he walked into a front room, opened a window that looked into the street, and waved his handkerchief to the multitude, to make an effort to relieve him. This they immediately attended to: a sailor volunteered his services, and being hoisted up by the people, he threw himself through the fan-light over the front door, which he soon opened, and Watson was released without any resistance. They then seized some of the guns, and pushed forward towards the Exchange, firing in the air as they passed along Newgate-street and Cheapside. They entered the Exchange; upon which the doors were closed upon them, and Alderman Wood, who was a second time Lord Mayor, and Sir James Shaw, seized a sailor or two, one of whom proved to be Cashman, who was then bearing the tricoloured flag. The rest of the party, headed by Watson, marched off to the Tower, where, as it was afterwards sworn, Thistlewood demanded of the soldiers upon duty on the parapets to surrender the Tower to them. Some of the party broke into a gunsmith's shop in the Minories, and carried off several of his guns, some finished and others not finished. By this time, however, a half-dozen of horse soldiers made their appearance upon Tower-hill, upon which the authors of this mighty insurrection all fled with the greatest precipitancy, helter skelter, the devil take the hindermost, without the soldiers having made a charge, raised an arm, or even approached near to them.

So much for this disgraceful and contemptible riot, during the whole of which not one life was lost, and, with the exception of Platt, not one person was even wounded or hurt. While these things were going on, it has been seen that Castles had contrived to way-lay me, in Cheapside, on my road from Wanstead towards Spafields; and, as I have before observed, kindly invited me to accompany him to the Tower, which he said young Watson had got possession of for more than an hour before.

In the evening the elder Watson and Thistlewood were taken near Paddington or Islington, as they were endeavouring to make their escape into the country. The worthy Mr. John Castles no doubt surrendered himself, and soon after Preston and Hooper were apprehended, and they were all five committed to prison. I believe a reward of 750l. was offered for the apprehension of the chief conspirator, young Watson. The next day the London papers were crammed full of the most wonderful accounts of this most wonderful plot and insurrection; attributing the whole of it to ME, and to the Spaflelds meeting. The London press had raised such an outcry as never was heard of before; and if ten thousand of the inhabitants of the city had been massacred, there could not have been greater consternation produced throughout the whole country; which consternation was sedulously kept up by the most abominable falsehoods promulgated by almost the whole of the country provincial newspapers. As a faithful account of the whole transaction was published at the time by Mr. Cobbett, in his Register of the 13th of December, in a letter which he addressed to me on the subject, and as it contains matter worthy to be recorded in my Memoirs, I shall insert it verbatim.

"A Letter to Henry Hunt, Esq. of Middleton Cottage, near Andover, on the London Plots.

"London, 13th Dec. 1816.

"Sir--The summer before last, when you came over to Botley and found me transplanting Swedish turnips amidst dust, and under a sun which scorched the leaves till they resembled fried parsley, you remember how I was fretting and stewing; how many times in an hour I was looking out for a south-western cloud; how I watched the mercury in the glass, and rapped the glass with my knuckles to try to move it in my favour. But great as my anxiety then was, and ludicrous as were my movements, ten thousand times greater has been that of Corruption's Press for the coming of a PLOT, and ten thousand times more ludicrous its movements in order to hasten the accomplish ment of its wishes! You remember how my wife laughed at me, when, in the evening, some boys having thrown a handful or two of sand over the wall, that made a sort of dropping on the leaves of the laurels, I took it for the beginning of a shower, and pulled off my hat and held up my hand to see whether more was not coming, though there was nothing to be seen in the sky but the stars shining as bright as silver. Just such has been the conduct of Corruption's sons upon hearing of the discovery of Mr. Watson's and Mr. Preston's papers.' They sigh for a PLOT. Oh, how they sigh! They are working and slaving and fretting and stewing; they are sweating all over; they are absolutely pining and dying for a Plot!

"In these their wishes it is hard to say which character is most prominent, the fool or the knave; for, if by any means, they were to make out the real existence of a Plot for the destruction of the Government, would such proof tend to the credit of that Government in the eyes of the world at large, or in those of the people of this kingdom? Would it tend to make the world believe that the Government is good, and is beloved by the people? Would it tend to lessen the mass of misery that is now in existence? Would it tend to enable the Landlords and Farmers to pay the interest of the Debt? And, if it would have no such tendency, what good could arise to the Government from the producing of even undeniable proof of the existence of a Plot of any sort, however extensive?

"But, as clearly appears from all their publications, the main hope of Corruption's sons has been to trace a Plot to YOU! In order to effect this, they have stuck at no thing that villainy could suggest. They have asserted as admitted facts hundreds of falsehoods. As a specimen of these, the Times, Sun, Courier, and others have stated 'on authority,' that you and I were in close consultation, on the Sunday before the riots, with Lord Cochrane, in the King's Bench Prison. You know that you were at Wanstead, in Essex, all that day; and I know that I was at Peckham, in Surrey, never having seen you on that day, and not until the succeeding Tuesday. The wretched man who conducts the Sun newspaper asserted, that I came up for the express purpose of organizing the Plot; and that, having prepared every thing, I set of to Botley the night before it broke out.--Here I have been in London, however, without having stirred out of it one minute from that time to this. I could mention a hundred other falsehoods which the sons of Corruption have sent forth with equal boldness, with equal impudence, and with equal baseness. But, the Times newspaper, always preeminent in infamy, asserted, that 'Young Cobbett' was one of the persons who spent the evening with you after your return from the Spa-fields Meeting on the Monday. The object of this falsehood was to alarm his mother and sisters for his safety, seeing that that statement was accompanied with other falsehoods calculated to excite a fear that all who were with you that evening would be implicated in some state crime! It is for the Courier, the Sun, the Post, and some others to be guilty of premeditated falsehoods, but it is only, I believe, for Walter, the Proprietor of the Times, and the instigator to the killing of the brave Marshal Ney, to be guilty of such baseness as this.

"However, even these falsehoods will tend to good. There are yet many very worthy people, who have believed in the statement of these sons of Corruption; who, judging too much from their own hearts and minds, have not been able to work themselves into a belief, that other men could be so totally void of all sense of moral feeling as coolly to put upon paper, in the most serious and solid manner, and to send forth as acknowledged truths, that which they know to be utterly false. To such worthy persons it seems to be a libel on human nature to suppose, that such black-hearted villainy can be in existence. They cannot conceive how a man can dare walk the streets, or how he can look even his acquaintances or his own family in the face, after being guilty of such shameful conduct. They now see, however, that this really is the case; and, though there are some who will still, from corrupt motives, affect to believe in the statements of these corrupt men, there will, I hope, be found a great many to say, that they have been deceived, and that they will be deceived no longer.

"The unfortunate men, whom want and ruin have driven to deeds of desperation, are not, with all their temptations, more desperate in their way than are the sons of Corruption in theirs, without any temptation at all. The numerous and ponderous facts, the clear and forcible arguments, by which they have been assailed, leave them no means of defence.--They have been driven to the wall, beaten, subdued. They dare not show themselves, in the field of dispute. They, therefore, resort to false accusations; and, unable to find any thing upon which to put a false construction, they have, at last, thrown aside all attempts to discover the means of misrepresentation, and have had recourse to open, unblushing, to sheer invented falsehoods. That love of fair play, for which all orders of Englishmen in all ages have been so famed, finds no place in the bosoms of these degenerate men.--They enter the ring with seeming bravery, but being, round after round, knocked down and crippled, they use, like a Dutchman, their remaining strength to draw out a snigarsnee to run into our bowels. Let us, however, by a steady and cool perseverance in the cause of our country's freedom and happiness, endeavour to break the arm that wields this hateful instrument of malignity and cowardice.

"You, conscious of your honourable motives, and listening only to your courage, have always been deaf to the intreaties of those who cautioned you against the danger of spies and false-witnesses. But, do you think that the wretches who could be base enough to publish falsehoods such as I have enumerated above: who could coolly represent you as having been sent first to gaol and then to Bedlam; and who, in order to deter me from my duty, could exhibit my son as being in danger of his life, and thereby cause alarm in his mother and sisters: do you think that men so lost to all sense of shame, and so devoted to every thing that is corrupt; do you think they would hesitate one moment to bribe villains to swear falsely against you or against me or against any man, whom they thought it their interest to destroy? Nay, do you think that they would hesitate one single half moment to be guilty, for such a purpose, of the blackest perjury themselves? Be you assured, that there is nothing of which such men are not capable; intimidation, promises, bribes, perjury, any thing such men are capable of recommending to others, or of doing themselves. Your country life, your sober habits, your dislike of feastings and carousings; these are great securities; but, while you follow the impulses of your public-spirit and your valour, I hope you will always bear in mind, that there are such things as false-swearing in the world, and that a defeated coward has never been known to be otherwise than inexorably cruel. The proprietor of the Morning Post, in his paper of last Monday, says, that Cobbett and Hunt ought at least to lose their lives; and the author of the Antigallican has, I am told, put the drawing of a gallows in his Paper, with a rope ready for use, having my name on it, or very near it.--And, you may be well assured, that, if the false oaths of these men could do the job, those oaths would be very much at our service. Therefore, though I am quite sure, that these menaces will not deter you from doing any thing, which you would have done if the menaces had never been made; yet, as being proofs of the shameless, the remorseless, the desperate villainy of these tools, their present conduct ought to impress on your mind the necessity of being on your guard, so far, at least, as not unnecessarily to expose yourself to the consequences of false-swearing. These men and their associates call the younger Mr. Watson (whom they, without proof, charge with shooting Mr. Platt) an assassin, though they themselves state, that the shot arose from the seizure of Watson by Platt, and that the former, like a wild enthusiast as he appears to have been, expressed his sorrow on the instant, and actually went to work to save the life of the wounded man. Nobody justifies, or attempts to justify, the shooter; but, if he were an assassin, what are these men who, while they keep their names hidden, are endeavouring to produce persecution and ruin and death in every direction? The man who shot Mr. Platt, though highly criminal, is not a thousandth part so criminal as these men, who to premeditated bloody-mindedness add a degree of cowardice such as was never before heard of.

"Let me now, before I proceed to other topics, hastily trace the progress of the developement of the Plot, as given to us through the channel of these same Papers. When Mr. Watson the elder was taken, the sons of Corruption promised the public a series of grand discoveries. His answers to the questions put to him, appear, however, to have been perfectly open and frank. All that was really found out from him was, that he was a surgeon who had lived in great esteem, and had a family who had been rendered so miserable by want, that 'a lovely daughter of his had died for the want of the things, such as wine, &c. necessary to her recovery.' His story, of the truth of which there appears to be no doubt, would have softened any hearts but those of the sons of Corruption, who, instead of expressing compassion for his calamities, are as loudly vociferating for his blood, as they did for the blood of Marshal Ney. They tell us, that he attributed all the sufferings of himself and others 'to the Oligarchy;' but, not a word does he seem to have said, that can justify these detestable writers in imputing to him any share in any Plot or in any Riot.

"The lodgings of himself and his son have been searched, and all their papers seized, amongst the rest, we are told, a Letter from you to the younger Watson. Oh! what a prize! How the eye must have glistened upon the sight of your name at the bottom of a letter to the 'Chief Conspirator,' as they call him! With what eager haste were the contents run over! With what trembling, what slavering expectation must those contents have been perused! Alas! how the head must have turned slowly away and the Letter have fallen gently upon the table, when those contents became intelligible to the fluttering senses, now returned to a state of coolness!

"Corruption's darlings confess, that there was nothing in 'this' letter that showed you to have bad any criminal hand in 'the conspiracy.' How came these newspaper writers to know the contents of your letter? Who was it that authorized them to publish this account of your letter? Either they know its contents, or they do not: if the latter, they have published what they do not know to be true; if the former, why do they not publish the whole of those contents? The reason is this: the contents of your letter would convince every man who should see them, that you were not only ignorant of any Plot or Conspiracy; but that, if your correspondent really had any such views (which I do not believe) your letter was calculated to check any hope that he might have entertained of having your co-operation. This is what, I venture to say, the contents of your letter would have proved to the satisfaction of every well-wisher to the peace and happiness of the country; and because they would have proved this, these base writers have carefully kept them out of their columns!

"But, Mr. Preston, they tell us, boldly avows the intended 'insurrection,' and confesses all that can be wished, except, indeed, the main thing, which is, that you had a hand in the said 'insurrection.' However, this is all a falsehood; and, if the proof of its falsehood be not made clearly appear before this day month, I will be content to pass for an ideot for the rest of my life. The account of Mr. Preston's 'confessions,' as the sons of Corruption call them, you shall have in their own words. The Lord Mayor, it seems, went to Mr. Preston's home, and having examined him and his papers, found no grounds for detaining him; but, since that he has been, it appears, taken up and kept in custody, and the following is the account which Corruption's Press gives of his examination: "'The next person of importance who has been apprehended is Thomas Preston, who is called the Secretary to the Spa-fields Committee. This poor wretch lives with his two daughters in a small room in Greystoke-place, Fetter-lane. He has undergone two or three examinations, in all which be has been as communicative as the most zealous could have wished.--The substance of all he related is accurately thus--that a plan of insurrection was formed--that it was as general as it was good, but that precipitancy had injured its progress, though it had not defeated its object. The plan, he asserted, must still be carried into effect--it was too powerful to be resisted when properly undertaken; and the only resource left to the Government, in order to its being averted, was, by the Prince Regent answering the petition of the people, and the immediate adoption of Parliamentary Reform. 'The soldiers,' he added, 'were not firm;' their friends were starving, but they having a provision, forgot their pledge and duty. He acknowledged his connection to the fullest extent with the Spa-fields Meetings, to which he was joint Secretary. He knew the two Watsons, and had frequently acted with them upon the Committees, and various other occasions. He denied having taken the slightest part in the riotous proceedings of Monday, and deprecated in the strongest manner the horrid system of taking away the life of a fellow-creature. He frequently repeated, that the plan was constitutional, and delivered the whole of his account in the most undisguised and enthusiastic manner.' In another examination he is stated to have said, that 'the PLOT had been going on for EIGHT YEARS, and that he himself HAD WRITTEN TO THE LATE MR. PERCEVAL ON THE SUBJECT, urging him to ADOPT it, as the only means of SAVING THE NATION!'

"Now, when your laughing fit is over, let me ask you, whether you ever heard of a Plot and Insurrection like this before? What! an eight years' Plot! a good Insurrection! Dennis, in his criticism upon Addison's silly play of Cato, ridicules the idea of the conspirators against Cato's life picking out Cato's own hall for the scene of their consultations; but these modern Plotters beat Syphax and his associates hollow; for they, in order to further their view of destroying the government, communicate their Plot to the Prime Minister himself!