Hunt was born at Widdington, in the parish of Upavon, near Salisbury Plain, on the 6th November 1773. His father was a respectable farmer and our hero, when young, being designed for the church, obtained the rudiments of a classical education. At sixteen years of age, however, he altered his mind and joined his father, and having attained great proficiency in his new business, he was treated with great confidence by his father, from whom, at this early age, he imbibed principles diametrically opposed to those which he afterwards espoused. At the time of the threatened invasion in the year 1795, Hunt joined the Evelyn corps of militia; but his commanders having refused to permit their men to quit the county in which they were enrolled, our hero, indignant at the supposed cowardice of his fellows, after having delivered himself of his maiden oration, urging them to volunteer in a new corps, threw his sword at his commander's feet, and immediately afterwards joined a corps established under the patronage of Lord Bruce. It appears, however, that although his lordship's loyalty was greater than that of the officers of the Evelyn militia, his attachment to his manorial rights was so strong, as to occasion a serious quarrel with his followers; for some of them having exercised their powers of sharp-shooting against his lordship's pheasants, they immediately obtained their dismissal from his troop. Hunt was enraged at this supposed affront, and riding to the parade, he publicly challenged his late noble commander to fight a duel. Lord Bruce had not expected to meet with so violent a reception, and fairly fled; but in a few days afterwards he obtained a criminal information against his challenger, in the Court of King's Bench, who was in consequence fined 100_l._, and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment. Old Hunt by this time had discharged the debt of nature, and the penalty was soon paid; but the six weeks during which our hero was detained in the Queen's Bench prison served to banish all those feelings of loyalty with which he had before been inspired; and having associated himself with some persons, who were professed democrats, he soon joined them in their political creed. At about this time he was married to the daughter of a respectable inn-keeper, for whom he is said to have formed a most romantic attachment. The heat of his passion appears to have worn off very soon; and ere five years had elapsed he seduced another man's wife, who eloped with him from Brighton. The conduct of Hunt in reference to this person appears to be of a most extraordinary character; for in his Memoirs, he speaks of the unalterable attachment which he bore her, and with the most fulsome declarations of his love for her, dwells on the happiness which he had experienced in her society up to the time of the publication of his work, when she was still living with him (1824). His indignant and injured wife, it appears, received an annuity of 300_l._