Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
On the next morning, Dr. Watson and Mr. Thistlewood came to apologise
for the ill-behaviour of their friend Castles, who they assured me was
at heart a very good fellow, but that he was overcome with liquor on
the preceding evening, and that he now wished very much to have an
opportunity of making an apology in person, for which purpose he was
waiting hard by. I, however, positively refused to see him, saying, that
I believed him to be a great scoundrel, and that I would on no account
suffer him to come into my room again; and I not only cautioned the
Doctor against him, but I believe I told him to take care, or Castles
would bring him to the gallows. In fact, I made up my mind that as long
as the Doctor and Mr. Thistlewood kept company with such a fellow, I
would have nothing to do with them in private, nor would ever see them
alone. The Doctor will recollect that, when they called on me in the
evening afterwards, to make some inquiry about the proceedings which
were to be adopted on the following meeting, intended to be held on the
2d of December, I declined to enter into any particulars, and did not
even ask them to take a seat, although Mr. Mitchell, a liveryman of the
city, was with me. I felt that I had been in very dangerous company,
and, though I would not neglect my public duty, I was determined that
I would not place myself in the power of such a man as Mr. Castles
appeared to me to be.
On the day of the meeting of the 15th of November, the _Courier_
newspaper roundly stated that HUNT had arrived at the meeting about
one o'clock, and, after having addressed the multitude in a most
inflammatory speech, had submitted to them a memorial to be presented to
the Prince Regent, full of _treasonable matter_; and the corrupt knave,
who conducts that paper, actually inserted one of the resolutions of the
memorial which Dr. Watson and Mr. Thistlewood had submitted to me, and
which I had rejected. The truth was, that the Government had previously
procured a copy of the said memorial, from a person of the name of
Dyall, one of the party who had called the meeting, and as this memorial
had been unanimously agreed to by the Committee, my Lord Sidmouth, the
Secretary of State, and his agents, made so certain that I should fall
into this _trap_, and propose it to the meeting, that their principal
organ, the editor of the _Courier_ newspaper, actually inserted a copy
of it in the paper, as having been proposed by me at the meeting. But
they soon found, to their sorrow, that old birds were not to be caught
with chaff; for that I had blasted their fondest hopes of bloodshed,
by proposing a petition to the Prince Regent, of a nature totally the
reverse of the said memorial; which petition was universally adopted
by the meeting; and that I had undertaken to present it to his Royal
Highness the Prince Regent, and had also promised to report the answer,
if I received any, at the next meeting, which was appointed to be held
on Monday, the 2d of December.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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