VOL. XV. No. 24] LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1809. [Price Is. S971 "Let high Birth triumph. Wat can be more great? TO THE INDEPENDENT PEOPLE OF HAMPSHIRE. GENTLEMEN, YOUNG. [895 jury, or at all tend to save his neck? Of this, one would think, the public robbers must be aware; but, they are so stung; they smart so severely; they are so full of resentment, against all who are not public robbers, that they cannot subdue In a former Letter, I spoke to you upon their passions to the command of reason. the subject of the personal attacks, which Against me, in particular, they entertain the associates in corruption were making such mortal antipathy, that I am sure there upon me; of which attacks I shall now is nothing but their cowardice, that withspeak to you more fully; because, an ex- holds them from attempting assassination. position of the falshood and malice of our In this county especially they are despeenemies will strongly tend to shew, not rate. They have (to whichever set, or only that their cause is bad, but that they gang, they belong) here seen all the reknow it to be bad, and that they have spectable part of the people turn their neither fact nor argument to advance in backs upon them with disdain, after havits defence. The truth is this: they seeing, for so many years, been the dupes of plainly, that, unless they can, by some one gang or the other; and this (to them) means or other, destroy the effect of my alarming change they ascribe principally publications, thosè publications will, in to me. No wonder, therefore, that they time, destroy corruption and public-rob-are not very nice in their attempts to obbery; that is to say, destroy the meat tain vengeance. which they feed upon; and, therefore, it is no wonder, that they are making such efforts to destroy the effect of those publications; and, yet, being quite destitute of the means of meeting me in the field of discussion; being quite unable to make head, to stand one moment, against me there, they have recourse to personal attack, just as if any thing that I did twenty years ago could have any connection with what I am now writing upon the subject of Parliamentary Reform; just as if my having acted thus or thus, while I was in the army, could have any commection with what I have now said about the Vote of the 310 upon Mr. Madocks's motion, or about the decision with respect to Castle-which I was concerned, at the time of my reagh, Wellesley, and Perceval, compared with the prosecution and sentence of Philip Hamlin. I am accusing the associates in corruption of various crimes against the people; I am exposing their robberies to the people; and I am proposing the means of preventing such robberies in future. Why do not the corrupt defend themselves, if they can? Is it common for the thief to attack the lawyer who is pleading against him? And, if he were to do it, would that gain him any credit with the Some of these attempts I noticed in a former Letter, where I spoke of some of the falshoods and misrepresentations they had me use of. I have now to speak of their last attempt; and, having so done; having once more shown the falshood, the malice, the incomparable baseness of the Associates in Corruption, I will never again take up any part of my paper, or the time of my Readers, with answering any thing that shall be published against me personally. The vile wretches have now pub-" lished, at an enormous expence; an expeace of not less, perhaps, than ten thousand pounds, a thing which they pretend is a true account of a COURT-MARTIAL, in leaving the army, in 1792. Why, Gendemen, they might, when they were at it, as well have gone the full length of the enemies of England in America, and published an account of my being tried for my life and left for execution. They might as well have accused me of high-way robbery, house-breaking, or any other offence. There would have been full as much truth in such a charge, as in what they have now published, which is a falshood, from one end to the other, as to what Major of the regiment, asked for my discharge, which, after many efforts, on the part of the commanding officer, Major Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and of General Frederick, the Colonel of the regiment, to prevail on me to remain (upon a promise of being specially recommended to the king, as worthy of being immediately promoted to the rank of Ensign) I obtained in the following words: 66 66 66 it means to cause to be believed respecting me. It contains, like most other deliberate falshoods, something which is true in words; but, then, the meaning is totally perverted by the suppression of all the material parts of the transaction. Suppose you were to say, If selling seats in par"liament be not punished, it is a shame "to hang a poor fellow for house-break"ing." Suppose you were to say this; and I, pretending to give an account of By the right hon. major lord Edward what you had said, were to drop the" Fitzgerald, commanding his Majesty's former part of the sentence, and accuse "54th Regiment of Foot, whereof lieut. you of saying, "It is a shame to hang a gen. Frederick is colonel. These are "poor fellow for house-breaking." This," to certify, that the bearer hereof, WILthough true in words, would be shame- "LIAM COBBETT, Serjeant Major in the fully false in meaning; and yet, even this "aforesaid regiment, has served honestly would not be more base and detestable, than" and faithfully for the space of eight years, the publication, of which I have spoken nearly seven of which he has been a above, and which the public robbers are non-commissioned officer, and of that circulating, at such an immense expence, "time he has been five years Serjeant all over the kingdom, and particularly in Major to the regiment; but having this county. They have sent hundreds "very earnestly applied for his discharge, and thousands of copies into Hampshire. "he, in consideration of his good beAll the gentlemen, who signed the last Re- "haviour, and the services he has renderquisition, have received them for nothing."ed the regiment, is hereby discharged. The post-office at Winchester has charged "Given under my hand and the seal of only a penny for their transmission to "the regiment, at Portsmouth, this 19th Twyford, for instance. The robbers, as day of December, 1791. they have came down from London in their carriages, have brought with them whole bales, which they have tossed out to all whom they met or overtook upon the road. A few days ago, a landau full of he and she peculators passed through Alton, tossing out these pamphlets as they went. The thing has been put into all the Inns, and other public places, particularly in Winchester, where it would certainly be put into the churches, if they were places of much resort; for, the Winchester Clergy appear to be perfectly convinced, that the way to prove that their brother, DR. O' MEARA, did nothing that was wrong, is to abuse me; that the way to whitewash the church, is to cover me over with dirt. EDWARD FITZGERALD." "Portsmouth, 19th Dec. 1791.-Serjeant Major Cobbett having most pressingly applied for his discharge, at major lord Edw. Fitzgerald's request, ge"neral Frederick has granted it. General "Frederick has ordered major lord Edw. 66 Fitzgerald to return the Serjeant Major "thanks for his behaviour and conduct during the time of his being in the regi"ment, and major lord Edward adds "his most hearty thanks to those of the "General." The object of my thus quitting the army, to which I was, perhaps, more attached than any man that ever lived in the world; was, to bring certain officers to justice for having, in various ways, wronged both the public and the soldier. With this object in view, I went strait to London, the moment I had obtained my liberty and secured my personal safety, which, as you will readily conceive, would not have been the case if I had not first got my discharge.I must here go back a little, and give an account of the measures, which, while in the regiment, I had taken, preparatory to this prosecution; and, in order to give the reader a full view of t Ports- all the circumstances; in order that he Very may be able to form a just opinion of Serjeant what I was in the army, I will give Now, then, what is this publication, upon which the fool-knaves rely for the demolition of my character? It consists of certain documents, relating to the aforementioned Court-Martial, and, as I shall show you by-and-by, these documents, as they stand in this publication, present to the Reader a tissue of the vilest falshoods. But, first, I must give something of a history of the Contra itself. Late in the ye England with my e mouth in t soon after g ments of mind, with much less of heartburning than from men, whom one cannot help despising; and, if my officers had been men of manifest superiority of mind, him a short account of my progress. I enlisted at Chatham in 1784; I joined the regiment, in Nova Scotia, in 1785; I was almost immediately made a Corporal; in a few months afterwards II should, perhaps, not have so soon conwas made a Serjeant; and, at the end of about a year and a half, I was made the Serjeant Major.-—---While I was a corporai I was made clerk to the regiment. In a very short time, the whole of the business, in that way, fell into my hands; and, at the end of about a year, neither adjutant, pay-master, or quarter-master, could move an inch without my assistance. The military part of the regiment's affairs fell under my care in like manner. About this time, the new discipline, as it was called; that is to say, the mode of handling the musket, and of marching, &c. called "Dundas's System," was sent out to us, in little books, which were to be studied by the officers of cach regiment, and the rules of which were to be immediately conformed to.--Though any old woman might have written such a book; though it was excessively foolish, from beginning to end; still, it was to be complied with it ordered and commanded a total change, and this change was to be completed before the next annual review took place. To make this change was left to me, who was not then twenty years of age, while not a single officer in the regiment paid the least attention to the matter; so, that when the time came for the annual review, I, then a corporal, had to give lec-tures of instruction to the officers themselves, the colonel not excepted; and, for several of them, if not for all of them, I had to make out, upon large cards, which they bought for the purpose, little plans of the position of the regiment, together with lists of the words of command, which they had to give in the field. Is it any wonder, that we experience defeats? There was 1, at the review, upon he flank of the Grenadier Company, with my worsted shoulder-knot, and my great, high, coarse, hairy cap; confounded in the ranks amongst other men, while those who were commanding me to move my hands or my feet, thus orthus, were, in fact, uttering words, which I had taught them; and were, in every thing excepting mere authority, my inferiors; and ought to have been commanded by me.-It was impossible for reflections of this sort not to intrude themselves; and, as I advanced in expe rience, I felt less and less respect for those, whom I was compelled to obey. One suffers injustice from men, of great endow ceived the project of bringing them, or I rest were boozing and snoring, we gutted military justice in Nova Scotia and New Thus prepared, I went to London, and, on the 14th of January, 1792, I wrote to the then Secretary at War, SIR GEORGE YONGE, stating my situation, my business with him, and my intentions; enclosing him a letter or petition, from myself to the king, stating the substance of all the complaints I had to make; and which letter I requested Sir George Yonge to lay before the king.I waited from the 14th to the 24th of January, without receiving any answer at all, and then all I heard was, that he wished to see me at the war-office. At the war-office I was shown into an anti-chamber amongst numerous anxious-looking men, who, every time the door, which led to the great man, was opened, turned their eyes that way with a motion as regular and as uniform as if they had been drilled to it. These Plainly seeing what was going forward, people eyed me from head to foot, and II, on the 7th of March, made, in a letter to never shall forget their look, when they Mr. Pitt, a representation of the whole saw, that I was admitted into Paradise case, giving him a history of the obstacles without being detained a single minute in I had met with, which letter concluded Purgatory.- -Sir George Yonge heard my thus : I have now, Sir, done all a man story; and that was apparently all he want- can do in such a case. I have proceeded ed of me. I was to hear from him again in "regularly, and, I may add, respectfully, a day or two; and, after waiting for fifteen" from first to last: if I am allowed to days, without hearing from him, or any one "serve my country by prosecuting men, else, upon the subject, I wrote to him again, "who have injured it, I shall do it: if I reminding him, that I had, from the first," am thwarted and pressed down by those, told him, that I had no other business in "whose office it is to assist and support London; that my stock of money was neces- "me, I cannot do it: in either case, I sarily scanty; and, that to detain me in Lon-" shall be satisfied with having done my don was to ruin me. Indeed, I had, in the " duty, and shall leave the world to make whole world, but about 200 guineas, which" a comparison between me and the men was a great deal for a person in my situa- "whom I have accused."This letter tion to have saved. Every week in London, especially as, by way of episode, I had now married, took, at least, a couple of guineas from my stock. I, therefore, began to be very impatient, and, indeed, to be very suspicious, that military justice in England was pretty nearly a-kin to (which, by-the-by, the public robbers have not published) had the effect of changing the place of the Court-martial, which was now to be held in London; but, as to my other great ground of complaint, the leaving of the regimental books unsecured, it had no effect at all; and, it will be recollected, that, without those books, there could be, as to most of the weighty charges, no proof produced, with out bringing forward CORPORAL BESTLAND, and the danger of doing that will be presently seen.- -But, now, mark well as to these books; as to this great source of that sort of evidence, which was not to be brow-beaten, or stifled by the dangers of the lash. Mark well, these facts, and from them judge of what I had to expect in the way of justice.On the 22nd of January, I wrote to Sir George Yonge for the express purpose of having the books secured; that is to say, taken out of the hands, and put out of the reach, of the parties accused. On the 24th of January, he told me, that HE HAD taken care to give directions to have these documents secured. On the 18th of February, in answer to a letter, in which I (upon information received from the regiment) complained of the documents not having been secured, he wrote to me, and I have now the letter before me, signed with his own hand, that he would write to the Colonel of the regiment about the books, &c. "Although," says he, "I cannot doubt but that the re"gimental books have been properly se"cured." This was on the 18th of February, mind; and, now it appears, from the documents, which the public-robbers have put forth, that the first time any order for securing the books was given, was on the 15th of March, though the Secretary told me he had done it on the 24th of January, and repeated his assertion in writing, on the 18th of February. There is quite enough in this fact alone to shew the public what sort of a chance I stood of obtaining justice. Without these written documents nothing of importance could be proved, unless the non-commissioned officers and men of the regiment should happen to get the better of their dread of the lash; and, even then, they could only speak from memory. All, therefore, depended upon those written documents, as to the principal charges. Therefore, as the Courtmartial was to assemble on the 24th of March, I went down to Portsmouth on the 20th, in order to know for certain what was become of the books; and, I found, as, indeed, I suspected was the case, that they had never been secured at all; that they had been left in the hands of the accused from the 14th of January to the very hour of trial; and that, in short, my request, as to this point, the positive condition as to this most important matter, had been totally disregarded.There remained, then, nothing to rest upon with safety but our extracts, confirmed by the evidence of Bestland, the corporal, who had signed them along with me; and this I had solemnly engaged with him not to have recourse to, unless he was first out of the army; that is to say, out of the reach of the vindictive and bloody lash. He was a very little fellow: not more than about five feet high; and had been set down to be discharged when he went to England; but, there was a suspicion of his connection with me, and, therefore, they resolved to keep him. It would have been cruel, and even perfidious, to have brought him forward under such circumstances; and, as there was no chance of doing any thing without him, I resolved not to appear at the Court-martial, unless the discharge of Bestland was first granted. Accordingly, on the 20th of March, I wrote, from Fratton, a village near Portsmouth, to the Judge Advocate, stating over again all the obstacles that had been thrown in my way, complaining particularly that the books and documents had been left in possession of the accused, contrary to my urgent request and to the positive assurances of the Secretary at War, and concluding by demanding the discharge of a man, whom I should name, as the only condition upon which I would attend the Court-martial. I requested him to send me an answer by the next day, at night, at my former lodging; and told him, that, unless such answer was received, he and those to whom my repeated applications had been made, might do what they pleased with their Court-martial; for, that I confidently trusted, that a few days would place me beyond the scope of their power. No answer came, and, as I had learned, in the meanwhile, that there was a design to prosecute me for sedition, that was an additional motive to be quick in my movements. As I was going down to Portsmouth, I met several of the serjeants coming up, together with the music-master; and, as they had none of them been in America, I wondered what they could be going to London for; but, upon my return, I was told by a Capt. Lane, who had been in the regiment, that they had been brought up to swear, that, at an entertainment given to them by me before my departure from the regiment, I had drunk" the destruction "of the House of Brunswick." This was false; but, I knew that that was no reason why it should not be sworn by such pers |