This was considered as a great point gained by my enemies; and the members of the stockpurse association were greatly rejoiced, that they had got me into what was considered by some of them as being a serious scrape. Others openly expressed themselves in this way, "That they would much rather have paid their money to Stone, if he had given me a good thrashing, than to have me punished by legal proceedings." And one of them, a parson prig, had the insolence and the folly to tell me, that they would get a _better man_ for me next time, for that they were determined to bring down one of the _prize-fighters_ to give me a drubbing. This fellow was then, and still is, an insufferable cockscomb, and I remember very well my answer to him. I told him, that I knew all the prize-fighters of any note, and they knew me; and that, with the exception of GULLEY and CRIBB, who I was certain would not undertake any such office, I was sure that if any one of them made the attempt, I should serve him in the same way that I had served Stone.
Another of the stock-purse gang, MICHAEL HICKS BEACH, of Netheravon, one of the M. P.'s for Cirencester, had brought an action of trespass against me, which was also to be tried at the same assizes; so that, with this, and the writ of inquiry in the case of Simpkins and Hunt, which was for the third time to be executed before one of the judges, my hands were pretty full of law business. This circumstance, however, did not deter me from doing my duty to the public, when occasion offered. I was very well aware that I had drawn down the indignation and the hatred of the aristocratical upholders of a corrupt system of government, by the open and avowed hostility that I had always expressed, in public and in private, against the supporters and abettors of the system; and I will now proceed to shew the reader, which, perhaps, I ought to have done before, the main cause of this inveterate hostility against me, and of the stock-purse conspiracy being formed, for the declared purpose of putting me down, and, if possible, driving me out of the county.
It will be recollected that I stood forward publicly at the county meeting, that was held relative to Lord Melville's peculations, and that I had afterwards called the county members to account for their conduct, in not opposing the two shillings a bushel additional duty that was imposed upon malt. These were mighty offences, not easily to be forgiven; but the grand offence, that which was so unpardonable, that it was never to be expiated, was, that I had caused a requisition to be signed, and procured a county meeting, in order to censure the Duke of York, and to send up a vote of thanks to Colonel Wardle, for his having detected and exposed the infamous transactions practised by the famous Mrs. Mary Anne Clarke, and the Commander in Chief, with regard to promotions and exchanges in the army.