3381. [Robert Southey] to Henry Brougham, [before 6 November 1819]⁠* 

SIR,

You have had your day at Wigton and at Kendal, and sufficiently elated you seem to have been at having had the field to yourself. [1]  Wherever you obtain that fit audience which you lose no opportunity of seeking, it would not be easy for an opponent to gain a hearing; and certainly no person who regards his own character as a gentleman would expose himself to a personal altercation with one who cares so little in all his public conduct for the urbanities of life. There is one requisite of a demagogue, Mr. Brougham, which you possess in perfection: when you address the rabble you address yourself admirably to their humour, and cast aside every thing in feeling or manner by which they could possibly distinguish you from one of themselves. The press, however, is open to your antagonists, and in bringing you by this means before the tribunal of sober minds, they run no risqué of being silenced by the clamour of your friends, or the brickbats of your partizans.

You have insisted that the Loyal Address of the County of Cumberland was privately prepared, and clandestinely circulated. Privately prepared any paper must be which is not got up at a public meeting; but how that which was circulated by the Lord Lieutenant, and lay publicly for signatures can be said to have been clandestinely brought forward, it would be difficult to understand if we did not know that political orators sometimes indulge in bolder licences of speech than have ever been claimed by the poets.

The Address you are pleased to say is very long indeed and extremely dull. In a matter of taste, who shall presume to dispute the sentence of a Scotch Reviewer? [2]  but with regard to the length of the paper, that point may be determined by a six inch rule, and your own speech, which is precisely upon the same subject appears even in its abbreviated report to be more than thrice as lengthy. Let that pass. Whether the Address be long or short, ill-written or well, is of no moment: you are welcome to display your own skill in the niceties of composition by animadverting upon its style, – but you shall not misrepresent its meaning as you have done, without being called to an account.

It is stated in the Loyal Address, that men are now no longer disqualified for popular favor by notorious infamy, and that it matters not how profligate they may be in the relations of private life, how base in their dealings, how bankrupt in character and fortune, nor how openly they may live in habitual violation of the laws both of God and Man. You have thought proper to comment upon the expressions as if they were applied to the “noble, honorable, and respectable personages who attended the county meeting at York:” [3]  you have thought proper to say, that these personages are described in the Address as having no stake in the country and nothing to lose. Mr. Brougham, this was not, and could not be misapprehension on your part. The writer of the Address is not a fool that he should throw out such senseless aspersions; nor could you, Sir, be so stupid as thus grossly to mistake the meaning of a plain and obvious allusion to the mob-heroes of the day. If it had been possible for a man of the bluntest understanding to make the mistake, the very next sentence in the paper would have shown him his blunder, where the Whigs who have attended the public meetings in question are distinctly alluded to as persons of rank and respectability. You did not misunderstand the passage, and I accuse you, Sir, of having deliberately and wilfully misrepresented it.

But this, Sir, is not the only misrepresentation of which you were guilty, in your speech. You said – “What do you think of this paragraph, Gentlemen, that, admitting lives were lost at Manchester – yet greater and far more extensive evils must arise, if the people are allowed to assemble; – the paragraph proceeds to say, under such circumstances, in contempt of the constituted authorities, – but you cut off the last member of the sentence, make your full stop where it suits your purpose, and then proceed to argue and inveigh against the mutilated passage, as if you had given its whole meaning. You call it slavish, and base, and pitiful, and low, and cowardly, and then you ask if they are Englishmen who have said this? Truer Englishmen than yourself, Mr. Brougham, in birth, in breeding, in all their opinions, principles, and feelings. [4] 

The Radicals met at Manchester for the purpose of proclaiming once more their determination to effect a change in the Constitution of the British Government. They came in military order; they bore black flags and bloody daggers for their banners; [5]  they had been cautioned by the Magistrates not to meet at that place, on that day. – A short time before the meeting, they had attacked and nearly murdered two special constables, who went to look at them when they were performing their exercise; and in the same neighbourhood, a constable was shot for having discharged his duty in apprehending one of their leaders. [6]  There was nothing equivocal in the object of the meeting. The Radicals avowed their object, – it was Liberty, according to their acceptation of the word, or Death. It is notorious that pikes had been manufactured for their use, and that they had been regularly drilled and taught to perform military manoeuvres. [7]  They had passed resolutions for the destruction of all property in the funds; and one branch of these hopeful Reformers had declared against all landed property also. [8]  That they are unlawful as being tumultuous and in terrorem populi [9]  I, for one, maintain, and rely upon the best legal authorities for the opinion. Nor is there any man of common sense who can doubt but that worse evils than those which resulted at Manchester would ensue, if the people are allowed to assemble under such circumstances as these, and in contempt as they then and there did, of the constituted authorities. These circumstances, Mr. Brougham, you have overlooked, you have mutilated the paragraph in the Address, for the sake of keeping them out of sight; and you have then represented the promotion of that Address, as saying, that no meetings of the people ought to be allowed.

Is this fair dealing, Sir? is it honorable? is it consistent with the principles of a Gentleman, or of an honest man? if you are insensible to these considerations, I ask you whether it is good policy for the sake of a momentary triumph, to avail yourself of artifices so easily detected; and so sure to be exposed? By what unhappy obliquity of intellect is it that you should not perceive the extreme impudence of this dishonesty in public life? Have you lived so exclusively among Scotch critics and factious Englishmen as not to know that the Laws of Honor allow no benefit of Clergy for a breach of truth? And are you so utterly incorrigible that you still persist in bringing false accusations for personal or party purposes, convicted as you recently have been of such practices, and still “flagrant from the scourge” of the Quarterly Reviewer? [10]  – Take heed, Sir, errors of opinion may be outgrown, errors of judgement may be repaired, errors of conduct may be forgiven: to all these things the world is charitable, as it ought to be; but he who has been branded for unfair conduct bears about with him a stigma which nothing can efface.

VINDEX. [11]