"Alarmed at them i said yes they do but put to death; I rejoice exceedingly "some of them are verrey mutch harden in it that I was the cause of saving his life, " and think their will be no more he said i am sorry that they should think so Becaus which I saw I should do, by the di "they have but gust [just] made A beginning lemma in which I placed all the parties "he ask Wether we had hird of any Person the moment the first confession ap"being taken in Battle that day on suspicion peared. "of theas firs i said i did not know he ask if the confession is true, or it is a lie: Now," said I, "this story of "we though [thought] the Poor Peopel would "assist to find thos Persons out that Set theas" then the poor young man (who is an 66 places on fire if the farmers was to gave" orphan, and who has no soul that will ❝them 2s. a day we said we did not know and be permitted to visit him or speak to "he seamed so verrey mutch Pleased a bout "theas firs he stopt a haf a nower his hole "him except in the presence of the jailor) "conversation was as sutch he was person "has spoken truth, or he has been pre"well drest and verrey good horse new saddel" vailed upon to speak falsehood. If the "and Bridel Wich made more imprission on whole story be a lie, or the confession my mind and some little time after i was at be believed to be false, then what a .66 a Publick house in Battel wich Mr. B"ockupies their was several Peopel their "shameful thing here is with regard "Which among them their was one "to me! And if the story of the con" and -I new both verrey well i whent" fession be true, and the confession be ❝out and they came after me and son fell into "believed, "conversation concerneng theas firs had been said he wish some one would set fir "HANG -and Mr. said he would do it if he could do it said he would make one to "help he said he would go with me to set "Muster Watts his bildings on fir if I would go i said if i did any sutch thing i should do "it by myself. "to the Premises of Mr. 66 * Privat "THOMAS GOODMAN." WILL THEY STILL THIS POOR YOUNG "MAN! Let the parson answer that!" This was a devil of a dilemma. To spare a man who confessed that he had set five fires, while another was hanged, in the same town, for setting one fire, and when another was hanged for knocking down Bingham Baring; to Upon this the bloody thing observed, spare this five-fire man, under these that Goodman had been cautioned that circumstances, did seem pretty diffiany-thing which he might say would cult; but, then, to hang him after the produce no alteration in his fate. And works of the Reverend Rush and Wal"then it adds: "The great importance ter Burrell and Co., would have been to "of Goodman's confession speaks for proclaim to the whole nation, in words "itself. We hope, and are assured, written in blood, THAT THE AC"that it received the due consideration CUSATION AGAINST COBBETT "of the Government;" though, ob- WAS FALSE! Exceedingly do I reserve, it had just before said that his joice, however, that this young man confession was to make no alteration was spared: and it is not impossible in his fate! Soon after this the Bloody that he may yet live, and come to me Old Times had great pleasure in an and give me the true history of these nouncing "that the life of this poor confessions. I rejoice that the accusa"deluded young man was to be spared; tion against me saved his life. Nobody but that double vengeance ought to believes the accusation to be true: "fall on the heads of Carlile and Cob-every-body sees clearly that it was false "bett." My readers, look at these from the beginning; but, for the sake three confessions; see how they go on of saving his life, I would not only have improving; observe what a tissue of lies they are; then bear in mind that this man, who confesses that he set five fires, was spared, while the young man, nineteen years of age, was hanged, at Winchester, for knocking down Bingham Baring. Far, however, be it for me to lament that the author, or reputed author, of this tissue of lies was not the confession be believed to be true, but would rather have it be believed that I actually gave him the pipe and the matches and went with him to set the fire. I would rather have that be believed of me by every man and woman in the kingdom, than that this young man's life should not have been spared. I thank the Ministers for spar ing it, and do not care a straw about their motive for the act. and all the villages round about? Who is fool enough to believe that they did not do this; and, above all things, who is fool enough to believe that they would have forborne to publish the corroboration, if they had obtained it! was HANGED! That is ENOUGH! What atrocious villain it was, what blood-hunting tyrant it was, who put to poor Cook the question, that drew forth this denial, I do not yet know, but the denial was stated by the bloody Old Times. I will find the blood-hunting tyrant out, if I can ; but, here is enough to show what efforts were making to get at me, in some way, or in any way! I have not room to point out all the curious things connected with these confessions; but, I pray you to read them all attentively; to observe how they go on improving; to observe that To this I shall, upon this part of the the last brings in a whole batch of ac- subject, add only these never-to-be-forcused persons, but that blanks are pnt gotten facts: FIRST, that GOODMAN, Who instead of their names, while my name had SET FIVE FIRES, and who said is always put at full length; to observe, that he had been deluded by Mr. Cob also, that the pretended instigation bett, had his LIFE SPARED; and that which Goodman received from me Cook, who KNOCKED DOWN BINGwas, according to his own confession, HAM BARING (without seriously hurtreal or pretended, in the presence of a ling him), and who denied that he had great number of persons; to observe ever known any-thing of Mr. Cobbett, that the "REVEREND" Rush lives very near to Battle, and that the three justices, Burrell and Co., are landowners and persons of great authority in and round Battle, one of thein being, I believe, a banker in Battle itself; yet while they are affecting to believe Goodman, or are, at least, circulating his confessions, they produce not one of the about four hundred people in whose presence the pretended instigation took In short, nothing is clearer than that place. They produce not one breath this whole affair arose out of an anxious from any of the four hundred persons, desire to destroy me, or to fill me and except from one who has a rope round my family with alarm, so as to drive his neck, and who has been guilty of me off and put me hors de combat. Just five crimes, each of which, according to at this same time, while the Bloody Old their view of the matter, deserves to be Times and the Sussex parsons and juspunished with death. Will any-body tices were at work, TREVOR accused me believe that these justices and this parson in the BIG HOUSE. I shall not go did not think it worth while to try to into the nonsense which the reporters find out whether there were others to ascribed to him on the occasion: sufconfirin the declaration of Goodman? fice it to say, that if he had any rational Nay, do not Burrell, Tredcroft, and object in view, it was to induce the Blunt certify, under their hands, that Attorney-General to prosecute me for they went to see the condemned Good- sedition; upon the ground, especially, man from an "ANXIOUS WISH that my writings instigated the laTO ELICIT THE TRUTH" And bourers to set the fires. What this man what did Goodman tell them? Why, said, or, rather, what was published that he went to hear the lecture of Mr. under his name, is of no more conseCobbett, at Battle, and that there quence to any of us than are the croakwas a gret number of peopel" pre-ings of a toad, or the brayings of an sent at the lecture along with him. Very well, then, they had only to ride over to Battle, and there "clicit the truth in a moment, which truth they were so very "anxious" to elicit! And who is fool enough to believe that they did not go to Battle, aye, and to Burwash and Seddlescomb and Crowhurst, 66 ass, other than as it shows the simultaneous movement which stupidity duly mixed with malignity, were making at the time here referred to. The London press, which had looked very quietly on, as long as the attacks were confined to the Bloody Old Times and its provincial whelps, and of the attorney, Mr. FAITHFULL, of Staple's Inn, to write first to these reverends; the name of one was HENRY HOWARD; and that of the other BEEVOR. I did not care a straw for the libel; but I wanted to get at the "most noble " Marquis. From HOWARD Mr. Faithfull received a sort of hubble-bubble answer; but without an acknowledgment of having got the intelligence from SLAPP. Mr. BEEVOR's answer was honest and direct, and in the following words : parsons so pious, and the justices so "anxious to elicit the truth," became alarmed at the works of Trevor, seeing that those works tended of necessity to some legislative measure relative to the press, which they knew, though it might be intended, like the bills of 1819, solely for me, must be general in its operation, things not having arrived quite at that pass to pass an act levelled at me by name, which, besides its uselessness, besides the impossibility of enforcing it, would have exposed the bill passers to everlasting ridicule mixed Shropham, Larlingford, Jan. 4th, 1831. with reproach. The London press, SIR,-In reply to your letter, asking from therefore, in general, censured and ridi- whom I heard the report alluding to Mr. Cobculed the effort of TREVOR; and some Thomas Beevor was mentioned by me, I refer bett, and which you have learnt from Sir of the papers insisted that there was an you to the REV. THOMAS SLAPP, Old Buckintention to assail the press through enham, Norfolk, as the individual from whom my sides; and therefore they joined I heard such report. me in showing that the affair of Goodman was a thing hatched up from beginning to end. It was just when the Bloody Old Times and all the stupid parties were cock-a-whoop, that the Marquis of BLANDFORD, that this "most noble" person, wrote to a Parson in Norfolk, that I "had absconded in consequence "of a connexion with the fires having "been traced to me." This letter of the most noble fellow was looked upon as containing most authentic intelligence, coming from such high authority. It was so pleasing, too, to the minister of peace and of charity to whom it was sent, and whose piety has been rewarded by a couple of good fat livings, that he lost not a moment in spreading it about amongst his brethren of his peaceloving, pious, and charitable calling. Two of these conveyed the glad tidings to Sir THOMAS BEEVOR, who, being in town about a fortnight afterwards, communicated the information to me. The object was to bring the lie home to the "most noble Marquis; to bring the foul libel home to him, and for a particular reason that I shall byand-by have to mention. A reverend fellow of the name of SLAPP was he that had communicated the agreeable intelligence to the subaltern reverends who had communicated it to Sir THOMAS BEEVOR. I instructed my I am, Sir, your obedient servant, E. C. Faithfull, Esq., Upon receiving this letter, Mr. Faithfull wrote to SLAPP as follows: SIR, Mr. William Cobbett (author of The Political Register), having heard from Sir Thomas Beevor, that a report existed that he had absconded in consequence of some of the been traced to him; by his direction I saw fires which had lately taken place having Sir Thomas Beevor, who informed me he heard. the report from the Rev. E. R. Beevor, to whom I immediately wrote, requesting him to inform me from whom he heard it; and yeswhich I send you on the other side. terday I received a letter from him, a copy of I am instructed to inform you, that, unless you immediately contradict this infamous report, or favour me with the name of your authority (if any you have), my instructions are to commence proceedings against you without further notice; and, in order to save the trouble of personal service of process on you, I will thank you for the name and address. of your attorney, to whom I may deliver process on your behalf. I am, &c., he had heard from several Members of the House, existed the evening he wrote, that Mr. Cobbett had absconded. I may also add that another noble lord stated in my presence at a public dinner last week, that this report was very general in London at the period in question. I am, Sir, 'Your obedient servant, T. P. SLAPP. E. C. Faithfull, Esq. Having now got the proof of the libel of the Marquis, or the means of proving that SLAPP was a liar, I wrote to the former the following letter, which I published in the Register of the 29th of January : MY LORD, Bolt-Court, Jan. 27th, 1831. I have been informed that, a few weeks ago, your Lordship, by letter, told a Clergyman of the Church of England, that the guilt of setting some of the fires had been brought home to me, and that, in consequence, I had absconded. The object of this present letter is, to request your Lordship to have the goodness to inform me whether you ever did communicate, in the manner above-mentioned, such information; and to apprise you, at the same time, that this letter will be published in the next Register, and also any answer that your Lordship may be pleased to give thereto. I am, your Lordship's most humble and most obedient servant, WM. COBBETT. To the Marquis of Blandford. him, that the law regards, as reason regards, the handing about of a lie to be to tell a lie. A man is not to shelter himself against the charge of lying and slandering by saying, or even proving, that the lies and slanders were current in other people's mouths. If I were to say of a man that he was a nasty, lazy, squandering ass, who had made himself a beggar by his gambling; had been chased off the turf as a black-legs, and ́ had turned patriot merely because he had nothing left to lose; if I were to say that this was reported of a man, even though I brought my authority, which this most noble fellow does not, I am to be answerable for the statement, to be sure, as completely as if it had. originated with myself. The character of men would be in a pretty situation, indeed, if slanderers were to be screened by a justification of this sort. parson is open to prosecution as well as the most noble Marquis; for he handed about the calumny himself: and were it not for the condition of forgiveness implied in the second paragraph of Mr. Faithfull's letter, I would pull up the parson yet, and go down to the Assizes at Norwich, and paint this minister of peace and charity in his true colours. To this letter I received the following" answer : January, 29th, 1831. SIR, I have never stated" that the Guilt of setting some of the Fires had been brought home to you."-My statement was as follows: "There is a Report that some connexion with the Fires has been traced to Cobbett, and tha he has absconded."-I have only to add that this Report was very general in the House of Commons and in the different Club Houses on the day on which I added this Postscript to the letter addressed to the Reverend Gentleman you have alluded to. The The circumstance of the report being very general" in the House of Commons and in the different Club-houses, only makes the retailing of it so much the worse. Of the House of Commons I shall attempt no description; but the other places are called Hells; and these were pretty places to pick up a slanderous report to be sent of to a gabbling Parson-justice, that he might send it off all over a great county, an object which he set about accomplishing with all possible speed! Mind, too, the opening of the letter, to clap the thing in a postscript; so like a gossipping, maligNow, my friends, you have all the nant parson's wife; so like any-thing case before you. The parson did not but a gentleman; and when the public like a showing up in a court of justice, are informed, that more than six weeks which I certainly would have given had not passed over the writer's head him, for the sake of the cloth; and, if between the writing of this slanderous I do not give the Marquis such a show-postscript to the Parson and his writing · ing up (and I do not say that I will not to me, the man whom he was slanderyet), it is because I despise him and his ing, a most friendly letter, expressing a report too; otherwise I would teach desire to co-operate with me in the cause' I am Sir, your most obedient servant, BLANDFORD. of parliamentary reform, and that, too, driven in 1817; and they had a without my having written to him on vague hope that I should be frightened the subject! When the public are told to do the same again. They forgot that this, I may safely leave it to them to there were three points in which the characterize the writer. circumstances were totally different. The main thing to observe upon here FIRST, I had then two bondsmen bound is, however, the simultaneous movement in sums of two or three thousand that was going on. We have before pounds each, for my good behaviour seen Bloody Old Times, the curate for two years and a half then to come; of Crowhurst, Walter Burrell and Co., and which bonds would have been forand Trevor and his reporthers, all as feited by a conviction for libel. SECOND, busy as wasps round a honey-pot; all I had, then, seven children, the oldest in the hum of zealous exertion; but of them not more than seventeen, and Blandford and Slapp let us in to the the youngest of them only three. He verbal slander that was going on that was then three is now six feet high; From those respectable places where and, instead of little children to rear up the Marquis says that he picked up his and provide for, I have, by God's blesslander, I dare say that hundreds upon sing and my own industry and care and hundreds of letters went off to the par- example, sons to support me. THIRD, sons, and other tax-eaters, in every part and greatest of all, I HAVE NOW of the kingdom; well might the report DONE MY WORK. I have written, be very general that I had absconded. since the day I stepped on board to go Scores of persons came to Bolt-court to to Long Island, fifteen copyright books, inquire about the matter, and were sur- exclusive of the Register. But, above prised to hear that I was still in Eng- all things, I have, by the HISTORY OF land. Men are so prone to believe that the PROTESTANT REFORMATION, which I that which they wish to happen will first resolved upon in Long Island, happen, that they rush hastily to con- made it utterly impossible that this clusions; first deceive themselves by church establishment, which has so long their hopes, and then deceive others by been my bitter persecutor, can long retheir too eager expectations. By the main what it now is. In short, look at time that the wish reaches the third or the petitions that come pouring in from fourth pair of lips, it becomes an ac- all parts of the kingdom; look at the complished event; and thus were the pamphlets; look even at the newsfools and the Knaves of the Hells de-papers, and put your finger, if you can, ceived by their own stupid malignity. on a passage containing real and effiTREVOR'S motion was only the outward cient hostility to the system which I and visible sign of the secret workings have so detested, and say, if you can, that were going on. I knew this well that I am not the maker of the nation's I could judge, from the columns of mind. I had only begun my work in Bloody Old Times, what was going on 1817; I have now done it. If I can in the Hells and amongst all the tax-help it, my carcass shall not be swung eaters; but I knew that the beasts had from a tree, or crammed into a dungeon deceived themselves, and every gentle- to rot; but either of these shall be done man that spoke to me on the subject to that carcass before it shall be driven will say that I treated the machinations to quit English ground. It is very with scorn. The stupid beasts did not curious that I have, for a long while, wish to make any stir with me, except entertained a wish to go to Paris (where the Bloody Old Times, which cared no- I never was), to go to Madrid and to thing about the noise or the odium, so Rome; and had begun to think of prethat injury were inflicted on me. The parations for the journey once or twice; tax and tithe-eaters only wanted me but always, when it has come to the to be silenced, and, above all things, point, I have shrunk back from it, under driven out of the country. They had the apprehension of affording bloody it in their recollection that I was so villains a pretext to say that I had turned |