Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. - Volume 3

Excerpt

MEMOIRS OF HENRY HUNT.

This wanton outrage was perpetrated in the presence of those, who will, perhaps, blush when they read this. I do not say that this was done by the Magistrate; but it was done by the gang that surrounded him, and I know the villain who did it. The poor thing lay senseless for some time; no one of the numerous spectators daring to go to her assistance. When she came to her senses, she was covered from head to foot with blood, that had flowed from the wound, which was on the scalp, and was four inches in length. In this state she came running to me, and made her way up to the front of the procession:—we halted, horror-struck at her appearance. The blood was streaming down her snowy bosom, and her white gown was nearly covered with the crimson gore; her cap and bonnet and clothes had been torn to rags; her fine black hair reached her waist; and, in this state, she indignantly recounted her wrongs. O God, what I felt! There were from four to five thousand brave Bristolians present, who heard this tale, and with one accord they burst forth in exclamations of revenge; every man of them was worked up to such a pitch of excitement by the cruelty of the atrocious act, that they would have instantly sacrificed their lives, to have executed summary justice upon the cowardly authors of it. I own that I never was so near compromising my public duty, by giving way to my own feelings, as I was at this moment. Burning with indignation, I half turned my horse's head; but, recovering my reason, I took the fair sufferer by the hand, and led her forward, admonishing my friends not to be seduced into the trap, that had been so inhumanly set for them. In this state we proceeded through the streets of Bristol; the poor girl streaming with blood. I took her to my inn, sent for a surgeon, and had the wound dressed and the scalp sewed up. She never failed to attend the election every day afterwards, and she displayed as genuine a specimen of female heroism, as ever I met with in my life.

I could relate a hundred such instances of the manly conduct of my loyal opponents during the election, if I chose; but, in spite of their baseness, we continued steadily and resolutely to attend the poll, from nine till four, for fifteen days; our enemies writhing with the expense that was daily incurred, and groaning under the lash of my daily exposures.

The above-named Mr. Goldney was, in his private character, esteemed a very worthy man; but when he gave way to the baleful system of factious politics, he became as great a tool, and as blind a bigot to the over-ruling power of intimidation, as any one of the execrable gang that composed the Members of the White Lion Club. "But list! O list!" Amiable as Mr. Goldney is, he could not resist the temptation of coming to Ilchester, out of his own County of Gloucester, forty miles, to have a peep at the captive in his cage. I, however, felt just as much superior to him, when I saw him here, as I did when he was running about with Burn's Justice in his hand, exclaiming, "Stop, and hear the Riot Act read!" If he meant to gratify himself, by having a peep at him, whom the Courier calls a fallen leader of the rabble, he never was more disappointed in his life; for he came just at the time that I had substantiated before the Commissioners all my charges against the Gaoler and the Magisstrates....