The readers of the _Examiner_, however, were not at one with their editor upon this point. One correspondent thought it ill-befitting a Reformist to overlook all the merits of a fellow-labourer, just at the moment of his being down, and “to dwell with a malignant ecstasy on all the failings that industrious malice could scrape together from years of bold and zealous service.” It was also pointed out, with much justice, that Mr. Cobbett was singular in this: that he not only confessed his errors when he had found them out, but argued clearly and decisively against them. Of course, the _Examiner_ was so clever that it had no errors to retract. Leigh Hunt appears to have discovered, in after-years, that he often made extravagant demands upon other people’s virtue; and the allusion, in his autobiography, to some want of charity toward other people’s opinions, points to this period, when intolerance could animate the Radical quite as easily as the privileged mind. Mr. Redhead Yorke had long been converted from Radicalism, and had no sympathy for the delinquent. But he was, now, on the other side. [5] _Times_, July 10th. CHAPTER XX. “TO PUT A MAN IN PRISON FOR A YEAR OR TWO DOES NOT KILL HIM.” So the patriot was down. Down, among the felons. To keep company, for a period of two years, “with swindlers, and with persons convicted of the most detestable crimes,” was he set down; unless he should ransom himself away from their immediate society. There he was, torn away from home, subjected to untold difficulties, financial and other, and deprived of liberty--in the cause of humanity and of national justice. The absurdity of this outrageous sentence was soon manifest. The whole country cried “Shame!” Even the toad-eating ministerial newspapers were silent. Save mutilation, it was going back two hundred years. Not that this was a solitary affair: there were other sufferers in durance vile, or with the prospect of it over their heads; and the existing generation had not forgotten the victims of 1792-4. But this was so notorious: here was a man whose writings were patriotic, manly, eloquent;--and so far unsurpassed by those of any of his cotemporaries--bundled into jail for speaking the plain truth about public affairs, and proving it as he went along. Exactly a year ago it had been openly declared that they were determined to crush him! And now the blow had fallen:--