have found him come off with ultimate disgrace from the use of dishonourable means. The late manner in which he has retracted all his abuse of Sir Francis Burdett is a proof of my assertion. I am one of those who have constantly thought that the plucking off the feathers with which Sir Francis had been decked by an unmerited popularity, has been a very useful public and political act, not that ever I could see any wavering or inconsistency on the part of the Baronet, but, on the contrary, I have ever thought him both sincere and uniformly consistent. The evil has been that the mind of the people has marched, and Sir Francis has not been disposed to march with it. He at one time called upon the people to advance, but when they did advance he halted and kept in their rear. He has never been any thing more than an Independent Whig, or a Whig unconnected with the Whig Club. As a private character, it is well known the Baronet is generous to a fault among friends, but as a public character, he is, not inconsistently, an Aristocrat, and one who wishes to change the measures or the men, and not the form of the thing of a Government under which we live. With such a man as Sir Francis Burdett I would never quarrel, nor use any abuse towards him. I shall always look at him as I would at an unfashionable thrown aside garment. The politics of Sir Francis Burdett are not now the prevailing fashion, but as an unfashionable garment may be useful to those who have none, so the humanity of Sir Francis Burdett is useful wherever it bears, or on whomsoever it falls. The popularity which the Baronet once held as a political character was obtained more by glitter and tinsel than as the result of any sound political principles. Time has tarnished the tawdry tinsel, and the Baronet has neglected to substitute in its place the pure gold of purer principles. He possesses the common aristocratical failing of desiring to confine the human mind to existing institutions, and if the word Esquire could be changed for the word Baronet, Mr. Hunt would be nothing more than Sir Francis Burdett now is, as a political character, and in no wise equal to him as a private character. Sir Francis Burdett has not advanced towards Mr. Hunt as a political character, Mr. Hunt has gone back to Sir Francis Burdett. The Baronet is still consistent, and if he had advanced towards Mr. Hunt, I do not know that he would have been inconsistent; but going back is very different when sound principles were only to be found by advancing.

Towards Sir Francis Burdett, Mr. Hunt has promised a forbearance of abuse, and I sincerely hope he will be wise enough to extend that forbearance on the other side, and let it reach to me. I shall be sorry ever to have occasion to repel another falsehood from him, or any one who may lend him their names.

It is important to you, Republicans, that however humble the advocates of your principles may be, they should exhibit a clear moral character to the world, and be able to repel and disprove every charge to the contrary. It is upon this view of the matter that I take the liberty to fill the pages of "The Republican," with such letters as I have addressed to Mr. Hunt; and that there may never be occasion to write or print any more such, cannot be the more earnest wish of any one, than of

R. CARLILE.

TO MR. HENRY HUNT, ILCHESTER GAOL.

Sir, Dorchester Gaol, May 24, 1822. · FOR the third, and I now think the last time, I take up my pen to repel the falsehoods which you continue to put forth in the appendage to "The Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq., written by Himself." I am fully sensible that this species of jarring will neither do you or me any good, and it must do both a momentary injury; although, for my part, I am quite easy about the result. It makes no part of my disposition ever to have begun the quarrel with you: it arose from a dastardly attempt on your part to trample upon me when you thought I was knocked down by the common enemy, with a hope of making your peace with that enemy. All I require is, that you, and every reader of this letter, should bear in mind, that you drove me to resent the attempts you were making to injure me in the esteem of that portion of the people whose warm esteem I am proud in possessing. You are the first, I am happy to say you have been the only man (excepting your Knight Errant, whose sentiments I shall shew in the course of this letter to be rather volatile and not of much value or weight on any side,) who has ventured publicly, or to my knowledge, to impeach my public conduct or my private motives. I have fully explained in my former Letters, published in the 9th and

15th Numbers of Vol. V. of this Work, the manner of doing and the groundless cause you had for doing it, and it now. remains, in this Letter, for me to shew the public that you and your Knight Errant have published some further wanton and barefaced falsehoods. I will not content myself as you have done in this general assertion, I will particularize and demonstrate them to the satisfaction of even yourself, if you can feel satisfaction under such proofs.

I take up the subject in the order of its publication by you, and the first sentence I have to notice is at page 4, of No. 33, of your Address to your "beloved friends, fellowcountrymen and country women," (that beloved is a word of cant, the word of a Priest, not genuine, but perhaps platonic!) After some very evasive reasoning about what Annual Parliaments, Universal Suffrage, and Vote by Ballot would do, in which not one word is said about what the cherished checkmates, the Monarchy and Aristocracy, (the King and Lords) would do to prevent the conclusions drawn, you observe, "I have been led into this train of reasoning in consequence of another violent attack that has been made upon me by Mr. Carlile, because I do not choose to avow myself a Republican, and an enemy to all religion." This is false. I have not made any attack upon you upon any such grounds, nor for any such reasons; my Letters to you have been answers to wanton attacks and wilful falsehoods respecting my conduct and motives.

In the next sentence you again repeat a charge that I have fabricated falsehoods about you: this I deny, and again challenge you to the proof of one. Assertion will not do in a case of this kind: disprove one statement, and you will have done something to shake the whole. Yes, after I had told you the only authority 1 had about the men coming armed to the Manchester Meeting, you then up and said it was not true, and that there was no proposition made to you of the kind. This is a delicate subject to touch upon, but I know what I am now writing will be read to a greater extent in Lancashire than in any other county, and I appeal from your assertion to every Reformer in that county, whether there was not a general disposition to come to that Meeting armed; whether representations were not understood to have been made to you upon the subject; and whether the answer of Mr. Hunt was not as common as if it had been made by proclamation, that the Reformers should bring no other arms to that Meeting than a good conscience if they did he would not meet them. This is

the only exception you have taken to any statement that I have made, and against that exception I make my appeal to those who must be the competent judges of the matter in dispute. Let the Reformers of Lancashire decide this part of the matter. I protest that I have stated nothing as invention: I know that for me to propagate a falsehood among them would be like throwing myself into a river with a mill-stone about my neck. I shall stand or fall by their decision, as it is from them that I derive a very large portion of my support. You had filled them with that right notion, that they would never have liberty until they turned out and fought for it, and they prepared, and of course thought you had prepared likewise.

The next point on which you cavil is a false assumption of an expression of mine; you say, "The story of the linking of arms' is well told; (mark that, Mr. Hunt, 'well told!') but it is a barefaced falsehood, invented by Hulton to justify himself, and adopted by Carlile for a much baser purpose. Now I refer to my Letter in "The Republican" of the 1st of March, and I find that I have used no such words as "linking of arms;" it is a false imputation of yours. I knew well that the evidence of that nature was denied at York when brought forward by Hulton, and I knew that you were right upon that subject; therefore I could not use any such phrase, the idea never entered my mind. My expression was, "linked themselves as compact as possible:" now, linking arms is far from being the most compact mode, and in a large body of people it is not practicable, and in no instance is it common but to make a lane or to form a ring. If I had used the words “jammed or pressed themselves," I should have expressed my meaning better, but I deny that my expression implied a "linking of arms;" it has been perverted to this sense for a base purpose of yours, and not for an exposure of a “much baser purpose" of mine. But much as has been said about this linking of arms, it is a matter of perfect indifference and nothingness. It relates to nothing, and proves nothing beyond the simple act itself. It answered your purpose, and you were right to invalidate the evidence of Hulton, but even if the linking of arms had occurred, it would have been a proof above every other that the people did not throw stones or brick bats, or make any thing like a resistance to the military. There could have been no better proof of the absence of violence or resistance on the part of the people, than the act of linking themselves together in the face of a

mounted cavalry regiment coming upon them. Would it have been an act of violence to stand firm and motionless to be cut down, even if the object had been to save the life of another? I think not. It would have been a species of fidelity or martyrdom towards you, as it really was in many instances, and not an act of resistance, nor a runaway act as you called it.

The next point, where you say, as a palliation of your former meaning about the runaway multitude, that it was the duty of the people to run away, and the duty of the leader not to run, is a paltry evasion and shuffle of the first assertion. If the act of the Yeomanry Cavalry was unlawful, it was the duty of both to resist, or both to retreat and seek a better opportunity for resistance than offered at that moment. There was no other duty connected with the mat

When the cavalry were advancing to the hustings there was no idea that they were coming upon the pretence of a warrant. The warrant was a mere pretence; the dispersion of the Meeting, and the intimidation of those who attended it, were the whole and the sole objects both of Magistrates and the Yeomanry Cavalry. The warrant was only a subterfuge, an excuse for those objects.

The story about the letters will exhibit you and your Gentleman-Journeyman in as clear a light as I could wish. Your joint lies are bound down to dates; so let me arrange them. In No. 30, of your "Memoirs," in noticing that I had addressed a letter to you, you observe, that you have received a letter from one of the parties attacked, and that “The Gentleman begins his letter- Dear Sir, I have this moment read Carlile's statement respecting you; if these facts are as much misrepresented as those with which I am connected, it is indeed an atrocious string of falsehoods.'" Now, mark! " By another letter I find that Mrs. Fildes, of Manchester, has come in for her share, and that she has written to Mr. Carlile to contradict all that he has stated; and another (which makes the third letter) says, all that he has insinuated against Mr. Harrison, of Stockport, is an infamous falsehood." Now, here are three letters mentioned relating to three distinct objects, or a pretended contradiction by three persons of different parts of my letter in No. 9, Vol. V. of " The Republican.' Knowing, as I did,

that I had not attacked or made the least allusion to any gentlemen in that letter; knowing that I had said nothing disreputable of Mrs. Fildes, I, of course, concluded that it was all an invention of yours, and challenged you to say