Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
hundred other daily acts of petty tyranny that are practised upon me here;
and, to render this conduct the more pointed, unjust, and odious, the
_bell_ which was hung at the same time, and for the same purpose, in the
room of my fellow-prisoner, Mr. Kinnear, remains untouched, for his
constant use and convenience. And yet I understand my gentleman gaoler
complains of what he calls my attacks upon him, although he cannot deny
the truth of one of my statements.
From the comparison which I have drawn, the reader will perceive, that
_one month's_ imprisonment in this bastile, is worse than _a year's_
imprisonment in the King's Bench. In the King's Bench I enjoyed the
rational society of all my friends, and I was particularly pleased with
the society of Mr. Clifford. I have since suffered many great
inconveniences and disappointments, which I might have avoided, if I had
given credit to some of his statements, which, at the time, I thought
totally impossible to be correct, but which I have since, by experience,
and to my cost and sorrow, found to be true to the very letter. I was
induced by him to believe many of the infamous acts attributed to the
ministers and their agents, and the cruelties practised by their tools and
myrmidons; but it was not possible for me to give full credence to many of
the stories and anecdotes which he recounted of the _Judges_ upon the
bench, in connivance with the _gentlemen_ at the bar. It was difficult to
make me comprehend and credit, the infamous and disgraceful practice of
the masters of the crown office, in procuring and packing a special jury,
which he assured me was constantly and invariably done in every political
cause, where the crown was the prosecutor; but he brought me so many
proofs, that, at length, it was worse than self-deception to doubt it. But
that the _Judges_ upon the Bench, in violation of their solemn oaths,
would lend themselves to _delay_, to _deny_, or _sell_ justice, was a
crime which I could not be persuaded to imagine was within the verge of
possibility, though he solemnly assured me that all this was not only
done, but that it was the every day practice, particularly in political
matters. To think that, upon the ex-parte statement of one of the counsel,
a Judge would submit to make himself acquainted with the case before he
came into court; to think that a Judge could be _spoken with_ privately,
upon a cause that he was going to try openly in public court, that he
would be influenced by unworthy motives, or take a _bribe_, was so
abhorrent to every notion of justice that I had imbibed, it was to me so
horrible, that I could scarcely listen with any degree of temper to his
recital of numerous instances of the kind, which, he assured us, had come
within his own knowledge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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