flatter myself, that I succeeded to a miracle. I not only recounted the
famous acts of the Whig administration, and dilated upon the sinecures,
pensions, and places of profit, that the Whigs enjoyed out of the
earnings of the people; but I also caused the list of them to be
published and placarded. There were the sinecures of Lord Grenville and
his family, the Marquis of Buckingham and others, placed side by side
with those of Lord Arden and the Marquis Camden; _Whigs_ and _Tories_
were blended together; and when this light was thrown upon the business,
the people soon saw through the mist of faction, by which they had been
kept in utter darkness. This mode of proceeding, of course, drew down
upon me the maledictions of both factions; nor was this all, for they
joined heartily in misrepresenting me, and fabricating every species
of calumny against me. There was no falsehood too gross to serve their
turn. They seem to have acted on the old rascally maxim, of throwing as
much dirt as possible, in the presumption that _some_ of it will stick.
Perhaps, since the invention of printing, no man had ever been so
grossly attacked and belied as I was, by the whole of the public press;
with the exception of Mr. Cobbett, who stood manfully by me. I do not
know a single public newspaper in the kingdom that did not vilify me,
and labour in all ways to sully my character, and to depreciate my
exertions. The liberal and enlightened editor of the _Examiner_,
took the lead in making these attacks upon me, and professed to be
desperately alarmed, lest the public should imagine that he was the
vulgar candidate for Bristol, of the name of _Hunt_. He not only
disclaimed all connection with me, or even knowledge of me, but he
professed to lament, as a misfortune, that _his_ name was "Hunt." This
being the subject of conversation one night, when Sir Francis Burdett
and some other friends were spending the evening with Mr. Cobbett, in
Newgate; the Baronet, speaking of this foul abuse from Mr. Leigh Hunt,
said "that the editor of the _Examiner_ was not worthy to wipe the shoes