and satire, which was, after all, mild and
harmless enough. In 1810, Cobbett got into trouble again. Some militia
soldiers had been flogged, while a detachment of the German Legion stood
by to maintain order. Cobbett immediately published a diatribe against
flogging in the army and the employment of foreign mercenaries. He was
indicted for a 'libel' upon the German Legion, convicted, and sentenced
to two years' imprisonment, to pay a fine of L1,000, and to find
security in L3,000 for his good behavior during seven years--a sentence
which created universal disgust among all classes, and which was not too
strongly designated by Sydney Smith as 'atrocious.'

_The Oracle_--which, by the way, boasted Canning among its
contributors--was rash enough to publish an article in defence of Lord
Melville. The House of Commons fired up at this, and, led on by
Sheridan--_quantum mutatus ab illo!_--Fox, Wyndham, and others, who had
formerly professed themselves friends to the liberty of the press, but
who were now carried away by the virulence of party spirit, caused the
publisher to be brought before them, and made him apologize and make his
submission upon his knees.

In 1805 appeared _The News_, a paper started by John Hunt and his
brother Leigh, then but a mere boy, but who had, nevertheless, had some
experience in newspaper writing from having been an occasional
contributor to _The Traveller_, an evening paper, that was afterward
amalgamated with _The Globe_, which still retains the double title. The
year 1808 was fruitful in prosecutions for libels, but is chiefly
remarkable for the appearance of Hunt's new paper, _The Examiner_. This
was conducted upon what was styled by their opponents revolutionary
principles, an accusation which Leigh Hunt afterward vehemently
repudiated. This same year also gave birth to the first religious paper
which had as yet appeared, under the name of _The Instructor_, as well
as to _The Anti-Gallican_, which seems to have quickly perished of
spontaneous combustion, and _The Political Register_, an impudent piracy
of the title of Cobbett's paper, and directed against him. In 1809,
Government passed a bill in favor of newspapers, to amend some of the
restrictions under which they labored. This was done on account of the
high price of paper: and yet in the following year another attempt was
made to exclude the reporters from the House of Commons. These men had
always done their work well and honestly,