671] As illustrated in the Prosecution and Punishment of WILLIAM COBBETT. [672 In order that my countrymen and that the two sureties in the sum of 1,000 pounds each; world may not be deceived, duped, and cheated that the whole of this sentence has been executed upon this subject, I, WILLIAM COBBETT, upon me, that I have been imprisoned the two of Botley, in Hampshire, put upon record years, have paid the thousand pounds TO THE the following facts; to wit: That, on the 24th KING, and have given the bail, Timothy Brown June, 1809, the following article was pub- and Peter Walker, Esqrs. being my sureties; lished in a London news-paper, called the that the Attorney General was Sir Vicary Gibbs, COURIER:- "The Mutiny amongst the LO- the Judge who sat at the trial Lord Ellenborough, “CAL MILITIA, which broke out at Ely, was the four Judges who sat at passing sentence Ellenfortunately suppressed on Wednesday by the borough, Grose, Le Blanc, and Bailey; and that "arrival of four squadrons of the GERMAN the jurors were, Thomas Rhodes of Hampstead "LEGION CAVALRY from Bury, under the Road, John Davis of Southampton Place, James "command of General Auckland, Five of the Ellis of Tottenham Court Road, John Richards "ringleaders were tried by a Court-Martial, and of Bayswater, Thomas Marsham of Baker Street, “ sentenced to receive 500 lashes each, part of which Robert Heathcote of High Street Marylebone, "punishment they received on Wednesday, and John Maud of York Place Marylebone, George "a part was remitted. A stoppage for their knup- Bagster of Church Terrace Pancras, Thomas "sacks was the ground of the complaint that ex- Taylor of Red Lion Square, David Deane of St. "cited this mutinous spirit, which occasioned John Street, William Palmer of Upper Street "the men to surround their officers, and demand Islington, Henry Favre of Pall Mall; that the "what they deemed their arrears. The first Prime Ministers during the time were Spencer "division of the German Legion halted yesterday Perceval, until he was shot by John Bellingham, at Newmarket on their return to Bury." and after that Robert B. Jenkinson, Earl of Li That, on the 1st July, 1809, I published, in the verpool; that the prosecution and sentence took Political Register, an article censuring, in the place in the reign of King George the Third, and strongest terms, these proceedings; that, for so that, he having become insane during my impridoing, the Attorney General prosecuted, as sedi-sonment, the 1,000 pounds was paid to his son, trous libellers, and by Ex-Officio Information, the Prince Regent, in his behalf; that, during my me, and also my printer, my publisher, and one imprisonment, I wrote and published 364 Essays of the principal retailers of the Political Register; and Letters upon political subjects; that, during that I was brought to trial on the 15th June, the same time, I was visited by persons from 197 1810, and was, by a Special Jury, that is to say, cities and towns, many of them as a sort of depuby 12 men out of 48 appointed by the Master of ties from Societies or Clubs; that, at the expirathe Crown Office, found guilty; that, on the tion of my imprisonment, on the 9th of July, 1819, 20th of the same month, I was compelled to give a great dinner was given in London for the pur bail for my appearance to receive judgment; pose of receiving me, at which dinner upwards of and that, as I came up from Botley (to which 600 persons were present, and at which Sir place I had returned to my family and my farm Francis Burdett presided; that dinners and other on the evening of the 15th), a Tipstaff went parties were held on the same occasion in many down from London in order to seize me, per- other places in England; that, on my way home, sonally; that, on the 9th of July, 1810, I, toge- I was received at Altou, the first town in Hamp ther with my printer, publisher, and the news-shire, with the ringing of the Church bells; that man, were brought into the Court of King's Bench to receive judgment; that the three former were sentenced to be imprisoned for some months in the King's Bench prison; that I was sentenced to be imprisoned for two years in Newgate, the great receptacle for malefactors, and the front of which is the scene of numerous hangings in the course of every year; that the part of the prison in which I was sentenced to be confined is sometimes inhabited by felons, that felons were actually in it at the time I eutered it; that one man was taken out of it to be transported in about 48 hours after I was put into the same yard with him; and that it is the place of confinement for men guilty of unnatural crimes, of whom there are four in it at this time; that, besides this imprisonment, I was sentenced to pay a thousand pounds TO THE KING, and to give security for my good behaviour for seven years, myself in the sum of 3,000 pounds, and a respectable company met me and gave nie a dinner at Winchester; that I was drawn from more than the distance of a mile into Botley by the people; that, upon my arrival in the village, I found all the people assembled to receive me; that I concluded the day by explaining to them the cause of my imprisonment, and by giving them clear notious respecting the flogging of the Local Militia-men at Ely, and respecting the employment of German Troops; and, finally, which is more than a compensation for my losses and all my sufferings, I am in perfect health and strength, and, though I must, for the sake of six children, feel the diminution that has been made in my property (thinking it right in me to decline the offer of a subscription), I have the consolation to see growing up three sons, upon whose hearts, I trust, all these facts will be engraven. Botley, July 25, 1812. WM. COBBETT. Published by R. BAGSHAW, Brydges-Street, Covent Garden. VOL. XXII. No. 22.] LONDON, SATURDAY, NOV. 28, 1812. [Price 1s. [674 673] naturally makes the nation hang down its head, when, before the bonfires are well extinguished, they see the enemy, who was described as being reduced to almost nothing, re-entering that city.These reflections are, however, useless; similar impositions will continue to be practised upon the people; and the people will continue to be the dupes of the hirelings whose business it is to buoy up their spirits by the means of falsehood, ushered forth in bonbastical language. The impostors who carry on this trade of deception, are not to be reclaimed, or to be shamed. The de upon them to-morrow. It is their business to deceive the people; to which may be added, that no small part of the people love to be deceived. They are afraid to look their situation in the face; they feel a SUMMARY OF POLITICS. WAR IN THE PENINSULA.-After confident predictions, that the French would be speedily expelled from Spain; after such a description of the decrepid state of the enemy, as might have led one to suppose it impossible that he could longer maintain his ground in that country; after, in short, the people of England, the thinking people of England, the "most thinking people," had, through the representations of a hired press, been made to believe the war in Spain as upon the eve of a most glorious and successful conclusion, and had been in-tection of them to-day will be no check duced, accordingly, to make bonfires, to illuminate their houses, to give balls and masquerades, and to waste, in expressions of joy, the means of feeding their two millious of paupers for one day, at least, in the year; after all this, we now are in-conviction, that things cannot go on long in formed, that those same Frenchmen, whom the way they are now going. They are we looked upon as nearly annihilated, have afraid to know the truth; they hate the risen up in greater force than ever; have man that tells it them; they say, as did the driven our army from its advanced posi- Israelites of old, "prophesy unto us smooth tions; have re-entered the capital of Spain" things, prophesy unto us lies;" and to in triumph; have greatly harassed our army on its retreat towards Portugal; and, as appears from the official dispatches of Lord Wellington, was continuing its pursuit of parts, at least, of our army when those dispatches came away.There is nothing in this reverse in Spain to excite any peculiar degree of surprise. Such reverses have frequently happened in war; and, by every wise man they will be expected; because war is, in many respects, a game at chances. There are so many circumstances, wholly unforeseen, which arise in every war, that there is no commander who has not, at some time or other, experienced a reverse. But, in our case, it is the boasting; it is the bragging; it is the exaggerated statements which our news-papers promulgate, and which the people believe; these are the things that make any reverse in war of great consequence in England. In the present instance, the bragging was carried to such a length; the exultation at our entrance into Madrid; the hyperbolical stuff that was published upon the occasion, do their prophets justice, they are by no means backward in complying with their request; for of all the liars that the world ever saw, the Editors of the hired papers in London are certainly the greatest.Nevertheless, they have, as we shall presently see, certain inconveniences to con tend with, arising out of their own falsehoods. In the present instance, they find themselves not a little puzzled to account for the evacuation of Madrid and the retreat of our army. They represented the success of Lord Wellington as being so complete; they represented the French as being so cut up; so reduced in numbers; so fallen in spirit; so destitute of the means of even withstanding the further progress of our army; that they now do really seem to boggle; the falsehood does not seem to be quite ready at the tip of their lips.—————As to the real events of the war, it appears, that Lord Wellington had advanced further than his means could well allow. After the battle of Salamanca, he was tempted to push on to Madrid, and then Y partisans of the Ministers also cry him up, to attempt the capture of the fortress of Burgos. In this latter attempt he appears to have failed, after sustaining great loss in imen, and, which was of full as much importance, after giving the enemy time to gather round him. Hence he has been compelled to retreat, and, from the tenour of his dispatches, it appears probable, that he will be compelled to continue his retreat till he once more reaches his lines in Portugal, or, at least, until he gets back to the point whence he started at the beginning of the campaign. With regard to the detail of his operations, it would be impossible to give so good an account of them as the reader will find in the dispatches which are inserted below. There are, however, two or three facts stated, respecting the conduct of the German Troops, which appear to me worthy of particular notice.It appears, that Lord Wellington, having been informed of the intention of the enemy to advance for the relief of the Castle of Burgos, posted a picquet to watch their approaches in a certain quarter; that this picquet was commanded by an Officer of the Brunswick Legion; that this subaltern disobeyed his orders, and was taken with his picquet; and that in consequence of this, the enemy obtained possession of a point of great advantage to them. It is here said positively that the Officer disobeyed his orders; and, as he and his picquet were taken prisoners, the reader will" more grace," not running away, but reform his own opinion as to the motive for treating, withdrawing, retrograding, flinging such disobedience. In another part of back the army, changing front, taking up a his dispatches, Lord Wellington says, that new position, or the like; in which respect he had sent orders to the regiment of I shall beg to be permitted to follow their Brunswick Oels to take post on the ruins of example, and shall, in no case, call it runa bridge, in such manner as to prevent the ning away.--The Editor of the TIMES enemy from repairing it; and that he had has, then, asserted, the necessity of flinging the mortification, however, of learning, the back our army is to be wholly ascribed to next night, that this regiment had been the Ministers; than which I do not rememobliged to abandon ils post.- -He says no ber a more bold assertion. The assertion more upon the conduct of this regiment is not, indeed, attempted to be proved, exupon this occasion. He does not add the cept by some vague statements as to a want reason why they were obliged to abandon of means, founded upon that passage in the it. Of far greater interest, however, are dispatches where the writer says, that other views of these military operations."his means were limited;" a phrase, by And, first, as connected with party politics at home. The intelligent reader must have perceived, that, of late, a junction has been in view between the whigs and the little knot of Lord Wellesley and Mr. Canning. Hence on the part of the former an incessant crying up of Lord Wellington, to which they were formerly not at all accustomed. The more immediate partisans of Lord Wellesley cry up Lord Wellington, of course, as they always have done. The the bye, which does not appear to carry any great signification in it; for, whose means are not limited? Where is the commander; where is the human being; where is the nation, whose means have not some limits? This phrase, therefore, contains, and cau contain, no complaint against the Ministers, until it be proved, that they were enabled to put unlimited means into his hands; and, as such a position cannot be maintained, the charge against the Mi nisters, founded upon this phrase, must fall | three hundred men together, not one of whom would have been received into any regiment in the service, previous to the commencement of the anti-jacobin war.. It is easy to talk about dispatching ten. thousand men to Spain at a moment's warning; but, in the present state of our resources, the execution of such a measure is to the ground.--The same writer talks of "a miserable economy." What does he mean? Does he know of any men, any money, any warlike means that we have to spare? Does he want the war in the Peninsula to cost us more than twenty millions of pounds in a year? This writer says, that if 10,000 men had been sent out in-a matter of some difficulty. If Lord Welstantly upon our Ministers hearing of the lington stood in need of an immediate reinvictory of Salamanca, great things might forcement of ten thousand men to enable have been done. He says, that "the him to keep his ground at Madrid, it was "whole mechanism of the French force in his fault, and not the fault of the Ministers, “Spain would have been broken to pieces, that he was compelled to retreat; because, "never more to be re-constructed;" and, he must have known, that it would be a at this very moment we are told, that the matter of great difficulty for the Ministers French have a force nearly double in point to send him ten thousand men in the course of numbers to our's. How, then, were of several months, and that it was physi10,000 men to have produced such won- cally impossible for them to do it on a sudders? Besides, whence were they to come, den. It appears, that, even if he had apand whence the means of transporting plied for the men the moment he got posthem? The Courier of the 24th instant session of Madrid, there was not time to gives us a specimen of the sort of troops assemble them at the sea-ports in England, now shipping off to fill up the gaps, made to ship them in transports, to land them, in our army by the late battles. It is im- and to march them to join him before the possible to believe, that the Ministers are time when he was obliged to retreat.- -It not driven to take recruits of this sort by appears to me, therefore, that, his being the absolute want of native soldiers. In obliged to abandon the capital of Spain, short, it is notorious that the country has and to retreat before the French army, been drained, till the Government have cannot fairly be ascribed to the Ministers, been compelled to resort to the inlisting of in any degree whatever, unless it should poor, feeble creatures, such as would, on appear, that his advance to Madrid was in no account, have been received into the consequence of peremptory commands from army only a few years ago; and, that, for home. If that was the case, then, indeed, want of men of any size or description, boys, it was for the Ministers to know the extent at even 13 years of age, are anxiously of his means, compared with those of the sought after, and with great difficulty ob- enemy, and it was for them to provide him tained, at ten times the bounty, and more amply with every thing necessary for mainthan ten times the bounty, that was given taining the ground which they had ordered to a grenadier of twenty years of age, at the him to take. That this, however, should time when I entered into the army. I my-have been the case, is altogether improbaself have seen, not long ago, upwards of * Last week about a thousand men from the King's German Legion marched into this town, in three divisions, from Bexhill, on their route to Portsmouth, there to embark to join Lord Wellington's army in Spain. Most of them had been taken prisoners in the French service, and volunteered from the different prisons in which they were confined. They are for the most part fine looking young men ; and their uniform gives them an appearance very different from that which they exhibited when they passed through this town, a short time since, in their yellow jackets, from the depot at the Isle of Wight, to join their Legion at Bexhill.-Sussex Paper. ble; and, indeed, the friends of Lord Wellington ought to be the last to encourage the supposition; for, the affirmative of it would completely strip him of the far greater part of the merit which has been given to his victories; it would strip him of the merit of conception, arrangement, and combination, and leave him merely that of execution.These opponents of the Ministers, who profess a species of admiration of Lord Wellington approaching to Eastern adoration, in their eagerness to cast blame upon the Ministers, seem to overlook the dilemma, in which they place the object of their worship; for, either he was left to pursue his own plans, or he was not; either his advance forward into Spain was the effect of his own choice, or, it was the effect of orders which he received from home. If the latter, the merit, or, at least, all the sign in disgust and leave the army to find higher part of the merit, of the victory of its way back to Portugal as it can, in conSalamanca and of the capture of Madrid, sequence of this alleged neglect on the part belong to the Ministers; if the former, of the Government at home. then, he, himself, was the master of his whole paragraph (in the Times news-paper But, the own movements, and ought to have pro- of the 23d instant), is so curious and so portioned them, together with all his un- ominously important, that I shall quote it dertakings, to the extent of the means at length before I proceed farther with my which he had within his power.- -No- observations.--The writer says, "It is thing, in my opinion, can be more foolish," the business of a General to gain victories, to say nothing of the injustice of it, than to "it is the business of a Minister to turn impute the failure at Burgos to the Minis-" those victories to good account, and to ters. They are charged with neglect in not "make one "the fruitful mother of a hunsupplying the commander with battering "dred more.' Our General has, over cannon for the carrying on of the siege." and over again, discharged his duty. Why, before the Ministers did know, or could know, that he had undertaken the "discharged it without benefit to his coun"How grating must it be to him to have siege, it was too late for them to send a try or her cause, and to find his most dispatch to him on the subject; he was "glorious victories followed by the necesobliged to give up the siege before there" sily of retreat! It would be matter of was time for them to send him a letter in" curious speculation to see how Ministers answer to any application that he might" would act, if his great mind would alhave made for battering cannon. How, "low him to give way to this distressing then, was it possible for them to ship those "sentiment; if he were to resign in discannon, to convey them to a sea-port in "gust and leave the army to find its way Spain or Portugal, and to cause them to reach him 400 miles by land? To have" prepared for such an event? Have they "back to Portugal as it could. Are they supplied him with cannon in time to have" a plan of their own for closing the cam. been of any service to him, they must have "paign with success?-and have they a possessed the means of sending him the "General of their own, another Lord cannon in a letter; they must have been "Chatham, ready for its execution? Our conjurors, and, whatever they may be else," Lord Wellington knew too much of them army is, indeed, critically situated. "Reduced as it has been by sickness and to suppose them to be that. It seems to service, we understand that the united me, though, certainly, I profess not to be a force of Lord Wellington and Sir RowGeneral, that, before I undertook a siege, land Hill, at present (we hope) united I should have made an estimate of my means for carrying that siege through; in" and 20,000 Portuguese. the Douro, is barely 36,000 British that estimate, I might have erred, and" 60,000 is at Madrid. Should he form a Soult with might have undertaken the siege with in-" combined plan of operations with Souadequate means, which appears to have" ham, he might bring a force of nearly been the case, in this instance; for, it is" 100,000 men to bear upon the British impossible to believe, that any man of "army. In such an event Lord Welcommon sense could have undertaken a siege in the heart of Spain, could have under-" could not even stop at Salamanca; he lington must of necessity fall back. He taken the siege of a fortress there, in the expectation of being supplied with a batter-" ing train from the banks of the Thames, and that, too, while he knew that the army of the enemy was equal in force to his own." The supposition is so absurd that it never could have been engendered in the brain of" any man not stultified by party rancour. 66 on 66 must retire behind Ciudad Rodrigo. One step preparatory to such a course of ac"tion has been taken, as matter of laud"able precaution: the sick and wounded "were moved on the 25th ult. from Ma"drid to Salamanca. This circumstance gave the real patriots of Madrid much -Fair, as I flatter myself, is this view concern, as well it might. It was but of the matter; obvious as, it appears to 100 indicative of a change about to overme, is the fact, that no blame whatever "cloud all the bright prospects of loyal can attach to the ministers for the recent" deficiencies of the Cabinet will still be hope. We, however, trust that the reverses in Spain, one of the assailants (as they have been hitherto) countergoes so far as to throw out a hint of the balanced by energy in the field. possibility, that Lord Wellington may re-rely on the talents of the Marquis of 66 66 We |