William Cobbett
The English writer William Cobbett (1763–1835) was an uncompromising champion of the poor and of human decency. This did not endear him to the powers-that-be who gave him two years in Newgate for protesting flogging in the army. Nothing deterred, he continued his radical writings and thus found himself at the age of 68 prosecuted by the government for sedition. Here is his defiant speech from the dock.
This is the second time in my life that I have been prosecuted by an Attorney-General, and brought before this Court. I have been writing for thirty years, and only twice out of that long period have I been brought before this Court. The first time was by an apostate Whig. What, indeed, of evil have the Whigs not done? Since then, although there have been six Attorneys-General, all Tories, and although were I a crown lawyer I might pick out plenty of libels from my writings, if this be a libel, yet I have never for twenty-one years been prosecuted until this Whig Government came in. But the Whigs were always a most tyrannical faction; they always tried to make tyranny double tyranny; they were always the most severe, the most grasping, the most greedy, the most tyrannical faction whose proceedings are recorded in history. It was they who seized what remained of the Crown lands; it was they who took to themselves the last portion of Church property; it was they who passed the monstrous Riot Act; it was they also who passed the Septennial Bill. The Government are now acquiring the credit for doing away with the rotten boroughs; but if they deserve credit for doing them away, let it be borne in mind that the Whigs created them. They established an interest in the regulation, and gave consistency and value to corruption. Then came the excise laws, which were brought in by the Whigs, and from them, too, emanated that offensive statute by which Irish men and Irish women may be transported without judge or jury. There is, indeed, no faction so severe and cruel; they do everything by force and violence; the Whigs are the Rehoboam of England; the Tories ruled us with rods, but the Whigs scourge us with scorpions! The last time I was brought before this Court, I was sent out of it to two years’ imprisonment among felons, and was condemned to pay, at the expiration of the two years, a fine of £1,000 to the King, which the King took and kept. . . . In order to avoid being confined in the same cells with common felons, I was obliged to ransom myself at the rate of ten guineas per week, which I paid to the jailor, and my other expenses amounted to ten guineas a week more; so that I was obliged to pay twenty guineas a week for 104 weeks. I was carried seventy miles from my family, and shut up in jail, doubtless from the hope that I should expire from stench and mortification of mind. It pleased God, however, to bless me with health, and though deprived of liberty, by dint of sobriety and temperance, I outlived the base attempt to destroy me. What crime had I committed? For what was it that I was condemned to this horrible punishment? Simply for writing a paragraph in which I expressed the indignation I felt, and I should have been a base creature indeed if I had not expressed it. But now, military flogging excites universal indignation. If there be at present any of the jury alive who found me guilty and sentenced me to that punishment, what remorse must they not feel for their conduct when they perceive that every writer in every periodical of the present day, even including the favourite publication of the Whig Attorney-General, are now unanimous in deprecating the system of military flogging altogether! Yes, for expressing my disapprobation of that system, I was tossed into a dungeon like Daniel into the lions’ den. But why am I now tossed down before this Court by the Attorney-General. What are my sins? I have called on the Government to respect the law; I have cautioned them that hard-hearted proceedings are driving the labourers to despair; that is my crime. If the Government really wish to avoid disturbances in the country, let them give us back the old laws; let them give the people the old game law, and repeal the new law; and let them do away with the other grinding laws that oppress the poor. I have read, with horror which I cannot describe, of a magistrate being accused to the Lord Chancellor of subornation of perjury; I have read of that magistrate being reinstated, and I have shuddered with horror at supposing that a poor starving labourer may be brought before such a man, and, in conjunction with another such magistrate, may be doomed to seven years’ transportation for being out at night, and such a magistrate may be himself a game-preserver! This is a monstrous power, and certainly ought to be abolished. The ministry, however, will perhaps adopt the measures I have recommended, and then prosecute me for recommending them. Just so it is with Parliamentary Reform, a measure which I have been foremost in recommending for twenty years. I have pointed out, and insisted upon, the sort of reform that we must have; and they are compelled already to adopt a large part of my suggestions, and avowedly against their will. They hate me for this; they look upon it as I do, that they are married to Reform, and that I am the man who has furnished the halter in which they are led to Church. For supplying that halter, they have made this attack on me, through the Attorney-General, and will slay me if they can. The Whigs know that my intention was not bad. This is a mere pretence to inflict pecuniary ruin on me, or cause me to die of sickness in a jail; so that they may get rid of me because they can neither buy nor silence me. It is their fears which make them attack me, and it is my death they intend. In that object they will be defeated, for, thank Heaven, you stand between me and destruction. If, however, your verdict should be – which I do not anticipate – one that will consign me to death, by sending me to a loathsome dungeon, I will with my last breath pray to God to bless my country and curse the Whigs, and I bequeath my revenge to my children and the labourers of England.