ABSTRACT
First published in The Examiner, X, 7 December 1817, pp. 769–71. This piece is continued in The Examiner, X, 14 December 1817, p. 785–6. Hunt here again expresses his contempt for the ministerial papers and his support for freedom of the press; for earlier pieces on this subject, see Vol. 1, pp. 103–6, 112–14 and 199–202. This piece was written as a new law to control the press was being considered in France (see The Examiner X, 23 November 1817, p. 744); similar measures were being considered in England. After again castigating the ministers and the Allies for believing that Waterloo had demonstrated that might makes right, Hunt goes on to note that in fact these governments recognize the power of public opinion in their desire to control it. Hunt, watching the failed trials against radical publishers Wooler and Hone (see headnote above, p. 82), continued to believe in the power of the press to resist oppression. In this case, he seems to have been right, for the suggestion that there be new legislation for the press was met with indignation not only in The Examiner but in The Morning Chronicle as well, and the proposers, according to Hunt in the continuation of this article (p. 785), backed down.
