has been such, even by common report; I hereby solemnly promise not to
write, or have published, one more line as long as I remain in this
prison. And further; if any one will come forward and prove, that I have
ever been the inmate of a brothel, or been ever seen within the walls
of a house of ill-fame, since the day I was married, _twenty-five years
ago;_ or that I ever, in the whole course of my life, seduced, and
afterwards deserted, a female; I do hereby solemnly declare, that upon
such proof being established, I will, within one month from the time I
leave this gaol, voluntarily banish myself from this country; and so far
from ever appearing again in public, I will never again set foot upon
British ground. I make no protestations of being more virtuous than
other men; but after having made this voluntary offer, if no one accept
it, if no one come forward, then in common charity, for the sake of the
national character, let these my calumniators for ever afterwards hold
their peace. It may be said this is nobody's business; but this answer
will not do; it has been every venal knave's business; it has been the
business of the corrupt scoundrels of Bristol; it was the daily and
hourly business of the debauched editors of the public newspapers of
that city, when I offered myself as a candidate there at two contested
elections. It has also been the business of the corrupt and profligate
editors of almost all the London daily, and most of the London Sunday
newspapers, to abuse and calumniate my private character, whenever
I have come before the public, at the call of my distressed
fellow-countrymen; whether it was at a public meeting, or at a contested
election, they made it their business to vomit forth every species of
unmanly abuse against me. It has, even in a still greater degree, been
the business of those hirelings composing the Westminster Rump; it has
been the particular business of the Whigs, the Burdettites, and the
Tories; all equally hostile to real liberty; it has been their business
openly and covertly to slander and vilify me, for the last twelve or