chin, and a blustering ready wit. His gesture
was awkward, his style disjointed, his voice
croaking, and his accent provincial; but his
energy and readiness won the people. His
querulous cowardice in Ilchester jail
disenchanted his admirers, and showed the man
selfish, shallow, and purposeless.

The meeting on Friday, the 15th, was ostensibly
to consider the propriety of petitioning the
Prince Regent on the distressed state ot the
country. The distress was only too evident. The
meeting, so far, was justifiable; for taxes were
still as heavy as during the war, and government
showed no signs of lowering them. Spafields
teemed with rough eager men, Irish from Gray's
Inn courts, watchmakers from Clerkenwell,
butchers from Newgate–street, shopmen from
Holborn and Cheapside, coatless weavers from
Spitalfields, and dangerous–looking fellows from
Whitechapel. In great greasy waves the hardy
hungry mass surged round the black prison walls,
and jostled and fought their way to the centre of
the whirlpool that rolled and billowed in its
impatience for the man of the people—Cobbett's
friend—the denouncer of the Regent and all the
foes of freedom. A company of the Guards,
commanded by Captain Gronow, was sent to
garrison the Spafields prison, whose outer walls
they instantly loopholed for musketry. Flying
artillery, also drawn up in the court–yard, was
in ambuscade behind the prison gates.

At half–past twelve, the Rev. Mr. Parke
addressed the crowd from the window of a
hackney–coach. Having let the lion loose, it was now
necessary to advise the lion to behave well. He
urged tranquillity on a hundred thousand people
met to feel their own power. But they must,
anyhow, maintain their rights and liberties.
The meeting then adjourned to the Merlin's
Cave, and there, at about one, Hunt and
the Watsons, wearing cockades, arrived in an
open chariot, waving Reform flags. Thunders
of cheers when the well–known white hat (then
a badge of the Radical cause) appeared gliding
over the black waves of heads that parted
shouting before his carriage, and closed roaring
behind it. The roar of a south–western gale
when his well-known blue frock–coat and yellow
waistcoat drew nearer. Fresh hurricanes when
his top–boots—the top–boots that marked the
bold honest farmer—appeared before their eyes.

Soon that brazen, oily–tongued man, with
the fair fat face, set to work with extended
hands, waving his white hat, and clenching his
fist. He denounced the hireling press that
ridiculed him. The papers talked (as talking
gentlemen in parliament have since talked) of
the improvidence and indolence of the poor. It
was untrue. What was the cause of non–
employment? Taxation. What was the cause
of taxation? Corruption. He pointed to
Coldbath–fields prison, called it "the British
Bastille," and hinted at a bad end to it. It was the
people's duty, he said, to petition before employing
physical force. What insolence it was in
profligate minions of government to say people
suffered nothing from taxation! "They lhad
heard of an impudent fellow called George
Canning; a man who had the audacity, the
unparalleled insolence, to call the people of
England a swinish multitude, offscourings, and all
sorts of opprobrious epithets. But who was this
Canning? What was his family? Who were his
ancestors? Where was his nobility? The Whigs
were wolves in sheep's clothing. They had
attempted to put down the friends of freedom.
They had brought a gownsman, a Mr. Brougham,
to the hustings to overpower him (Hunt),
but he had sent him packing, neck and heels."
Hunt then, amid whirlwinds of cheers, praised
Burdett, Major Cartwright, and Cobbett, and
anathematised the Tories. He concluded by
proposing an address to the Prince Regent,
begging him to convene parliament, in order that
public wrongs might be redressed. The elder
Watson seconded the motion. The many–
headed monster waved its mixed hands, like
weapons in the air. The meeting was then
adjourned for a fortnight; the next mob would
be larger, more prepared, more dangerous.
Hunt sat down at last. Instantly his horses
were unharnessed and led off, and the mob
seized his chariot and dragged it, shouting.
Eventually the too impulsive mob ran the chariot
against a wall, and so disabled it (Hunt secretly
cursing at the expense) that the demagogues
had to get out and walk. Hunt retired to his
hotel in Bouverie–street, where the Spencean
philanthropists thrust themselves upon him, and
philanthropically shared his dinner, and proposed
philanthropical toasts. There, too, came Castle,
the spy, and proposed an infamous and
detestable toast; not being kicked out, he
remained, and fell into a fox sleep, listening as
he slept. The crowd rolled hither and thither
after nightfall. They stole some bread at a
baker's near Exeter 'Change. They carried off
some fish in the Strand. They broke the windows
of some bakers in St. Martin's–lane. They
attacked and hurt several Bow–street officers.
But there were no leaders; the time was not
ripe; by degrees the crowds went home, and by
nine all was quiet.

On the 2nd of December the adjourned meeting
took place, amid universal alarm. Mr. Hunt,
in his inflexible white hat, came to town from
Essex in his tandem. As he bowled along Cheapside
at about twenty minutes to one o'clock, he
was stopped by Castle, the spy, who was moving
with the crowd, and told by that reliable person
that it was no use going on to Spafields, as the
meeting had been broken up two hours before,
and that the people were then advancing on the
Tower, which the reformers had seized an
hour ago. Our country squire was too shrewd.
He wanted talk and applause, not action and
bloodshed, so on he went. The spy was,
nevertheless, partly right; for a sedition had indeed
already broken out in Skinner–street.

Hunt was at Merlin's Cave by one o'clock;
a Mr. Clarke was already in the chair. Again
the orator poured forth his denunciations.
Finding, he said, that Sir Francis Burdett was at
Brighton, he (Hunt) himself had undertaken to