Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq., vol 3 | Page 6

Whigs themselves, I did accomplish it
effectually. At the appearance of such an antagonist as I was, all the
leading Whigs, united with those whom they had heretofore made the
people believe to be their greatest enemies, their chiefs of the low party,
now left that party, and joined the high party, though hitherto it had
been the constant study and care of both these factions, to make the
people give credit to the sincerity and purity of the opposition. To
banish this delusion was my grand object, in which I flatter myself, that
I succeeded to a miracle. I not only recounted the famous acts of the
Whig administration, and dilated upon the sinecures, pensions, and
places of profit, that the Whigs enjoyed out of the earnings of the
people; but I also caused the list of them to be published and placarded.
There were the sinecures of Lord Grenville and his family, the Marquis
of Buckingham and others, placed side by side with those of Lord
Arden and the Marquis Camden; Whigs and Tories were blended
together; and when this light was thrown upon the business, the people
soon saw through the mist of faction, by which they had been kept in
utter darkness. This mode of proceeding, of course, drew down upon
me the maledictions of both factions; nor was this all, for they joined
heartily in misrepresenting me, and fabricating every species of
calumny against me. There was no falsehood too gross to serve their
turn. They seem to have acted on the old rascally maxim, of throwing
as much dirt as possible, in the presumption that some of it will stick.
Perhaps, since the invention of printing, no man had ever been so
grossly attacked and belied as I was, by the whole of the public press;
with the exception of Mr. Cobbett, who stood manfully by me. I do not
know a single public newspaper in the kingdom that did not vilify me,
and labour in all ways to sully my character, and to depreciate my
exertions. The liberal and enlightened editor of the Examiner, took the
lead in making these attacks upon me, and professed to be desperately
alarmed, lest the public should imagine that he was the vulgar
candidate for Bristol, of the name of Hunt. He not only disclaimed all
connection with me, or even knowledge of me, but he professed to
lament, as a misfortune, that his name was "Hunt." This being the
subject of conversation one night, when Sir Francis Burdett and some
other friends were spending the evening with Mr. Cobbett, in Newgate;

the Baronet, speaking of this foul abuse from Mr. Leigh Hunt, said
"that the editor of the Examiner was not worthy to wipe the shoes of his
friend Hunt." This was what I was afterwards told by those who were
present. Nothing, indeed, could be more unfair than the conduct of Mr.
Leigh Hunt upon this occasion, because he was not writing from his
own knowledge, nor from the knowledge of any one that he could rely
upon; but all his information must have been derived from the venal
press; and to be sure, I was bespattered and misrepresented as much by
the opposition press, as I was by that of the ministerial hacks. I freely
forgive Mr. Hunt, however, as I have no doubt that he was imposed
upon, in fact, he has long, long since, honourably done me ample
justice, and made amends for his former attacks and mis-statements.
After the election was over, I returned by the way of Botley, in
Hampshire, on purpose to pay a visit to my friend Cobbett, who had
just been liberated from Newgate, after having been imprisoned there
for two years, if it might be called imprisonment, though I can scarcely
call it imprisonment, when compared to my incarceration in this
infamous bastile. I do not hesitate to say, that one month's
imprisonment in this gaol, is a greater punishment than one year's
imprisonment in Newgate; and that I have suffered many more
privations during the FORTY DAYS Of my solitary confinement here,
than Mr. Cobbett suffered during the whole of the two years that he
was in Newgate. As I have before said, his sentence was not much
more than living two years in London in lodgings. To be sure, he paid
dear for that accommodation, but actually little more than he would
have paid for ready furnished lodgings, of equal goodness, in any other
part of London. He would have paid just as much for good lodgings
upon Ludgate-Hill; and his lodgings in Mr. Newman's house were
equal, if not superior, to any on Ludgate-Hill. All his friends had free
access to him, from eight o'clock in the morning till ten at night, and his