[24] On the subject of military depravity _The Examiner_ contained the following: "The presiding genius of army government has become a perfect Falstaff, a carcass of corruption, full of sottishness and selfishness, preying upon the hard labour of honest men, and never to be moved but by its lust for money; and the time has come when either the vices of one man must be sacrificed to the military honour of the country, or the military honour of the country must be sacrificed to the vices of one man." (_The Examiner_, October 23, 1808.) [25] _The Examiner_, April 10, 1808. [26] Maj. Hogan, an Irishman in the English Army, unable to gain promotion by the customary method of purchase, after a personal appeal to the Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the army, gave an account of his grievences in a pamphlet entitled, _Appeal to the Public and a Farewell Address to the Army_. Before it appeared Mrs. Clarke, the mistress of the Duke of York, sent Maj. Hogan L500 to suppress it. He returned the money and made public the offer. The subsequent investigation showed that Mrs. Clarke was in the habit of securing through her influence with the commander-in-chief promotion for those who would pay her for it. After these disclosures, the Duke resigned. _The Examiner_ sturdily supported Maj. Hogan as one who refused to owe promotion "to low intrigue or petticoat influence." It likened Mrs. Clarke to Mme. Du Barry and called the Duke her tool. [27] _The Examiner_, October 8, 1809. [28] _Ibid._, March 31, 1811. [29] "Surely it is too gross to suppose that the Prince of Wales, the friend of Fox, can have been affecting habits of thinking, and indulging habits of intimacy, which he is to give up at a moment's notice for nobody knows what:--surely it cannot be, that the Prince Regent, the Whig Prince, the friend of Ireland--the friend of Fox,--the liberal, the tolerant, experienced, large-minded Heir Apparent, can retain in power the very men, against whose opinions he has repeatedly declared himself, and whose retention in power hitherto he has explicitly stated to be owing solely to a feeling of delicacy with respect to his father." (_The Examiner_, February 28, 1812.) [30] _The Examiner_, March 12, 1812. The contention between Canon Ainger and Mr. Gosse in respect to Charles Lamb's supposed part in this libel is set forth in _The Athenaeum_ of March 23, 1889. Mr. Gosse's evidence came through Robert Browning from John Forster, who first told Browning as early as 1837 that Lamb was concerned in it. [31] Mr. Monkhouse says that it was then politically unjustifiable. (_Life of Leigh Hunt_, p. 88.) [32] Brougham wrote of his intended defense, "it will be a thousand times more unpleasant than the libel." For a narration of his friendship for Hunt, see _Temple Bar_, June, 1876. [33] _The Examiner_, February 7, 1813. [34] _The Examiner_, December 10, 1809. [35] _Correspondence_, I, p. 179. [36] _The Reflector_, I, p. 5.