The fine of £1,000 and imprisonment of the Hunt brothers in 1813 drew from Shelley a vehement protest. In a letter to Hogg[223] he lamented the inadequacy of Lord Brougham's defense and fairly boiled with indignation at "the horrible injustice and tyranny of the sentence" and pronounced Hunt "a brave, a good, and an enlightened man." He started a subscription with twenty pounds, and later he must have offered to pay the entire fine, for Hunt recorded in his _Autobiography_ that Shelley had made him "a princely offer,"[224] which he declined, as he did not need it. The offer was actuated solely by a hatred of oppression, for the two men had little or no personal knowledge of each other at the time.
It is impossible to decide the exact date of their first meeting. Hunt says that it took place before the indictment for libel on the Prince Regent.[225] This evidence would make it fall sometime between March, 1812, the date of Shelley's letter mentioned above, and February, 1813, the beginning of the incarceration. But a letter from Shelley to Hunt dated December 7, 1813, demanding if he had made the statement that Milton had died an atheist, from its very formal tone, leads one to believe that they had not met up to that time and that Hunt, writing from memory many years afterwards, made a mistake. Thornton Hunt gives as the immediate cause of the two men coming together, Shelley's application to Mr. Rowland Hunter, the publisher and stepfather of Mrs. Hunt, for advice regarding the publication of a poem. He referred Shelley to Leigh Hunt. The next meeting was in Surrey Street Gaol. Thornton Hunt, in a delightful reminiscence of Shelley,[226] says that he had no recollection of him among his father's visitors in prison, but he remembered perfectly the latter's description of his "angelic" appearance, his classic thoughts, and his dreams for the emancipation of mankind. The real intimacy began after Shelley's return from the continent in 1816 when Shelley, in search of a house before he settled at Marlow, was the guest of Hunt at Hampstead during a part of December.[227] A close companionship followed uninterruptedly for two years until Shelley went to Italy, and there are recorded in the letters and journals of each many pleasant evenings at Hampstead and at Marlow, filled with poetry and music, with talks on art and trials of wit, with dinners and theater parties. Mary Shelley and Mrs. Hunt became as great friends as their husbands.