rather let me perish this instant, than harbour a thought so base, so unfeeling, and so opposite to every act of my life!" I therefore acknowledged Mr. Wragg's letter, and told him that, although he was a perfect stranger to me, and although the prisoners were all strangers to me, yet my heart would not allow me to entertain any unworthy suspicions of him; and as the lives of our fellow-creatures were at stake, I would do every thing in my power to enable them to obtain a fair trial. With this view I would, by the same post, write to London, and endeavour to procure a public meeting, for the purpose of raising a subscription to assist them, lamenting, at the same time, my own want of the means to assist them. Before I went to bed I wrote to Mr. Cleary, who was secretary to Major Cartwright and the Hampden Club, and also a sort of general secretary to the Westminster committee. I desired him to lay a copy of Mr. Wragg's letter before some of the patriotic friends of liberty, justice, and humanity, in London, and to get them to call a public meeting, at the Crown and Anchor, on the following Monday, to raise a subscription, to enable the prisoners to fee counsel before their trial, which was to take place at Derby, in the following week. I added, "if there should be any _hitch_ or difficulty, still by all means to call the meeting, and I will pay for the room and the advertisements, and take the chair myself, if no other person more eligible offers." I wrote also to Mr. West, the wire-worker, in Wych-street, to the same effect, and to inform him of what I had written to Cleary. Mr. West was the person who had taken a very decisive, active, and manly part in assisting Dr. Watson and Thistlewood, in getting up their defence, when they were imprisoned under a similar charge; therefore, I thought him the most likely man I knew in London or Westminster to promote such a measure. The reader will bear in mind that I did not get Mr. Wragg's letter, urging me to come forward in behalf of these poor fellows, till five o'clock in the afternoon, when I returned home to dinner from shooting; that before I went to bed, I wrote an answer to the attorney of the prisoners, unhesitatingly promising to do all that lay in my power to serve them; and that I also wrote to Mr. Cleary and Mr. West, to procure a public meeting, and, without any reservation on my part, to call it in _my name_, in the metropolis; and the reader will not fail to recollect, that the HABEAS CORPUS ACT was still suspended, and that the Seditious Meeting Act was in full force.