ABSTRACT
First published in The Examiner, X, 2 March 1817, pp. 129–31. This is the first of a series of letters ‘To The English People’; see The Examiner, X, 9 March 1817, pp. 145–6; 16 March 1817, pp. 161–2; 30 March 1817, pp. 193–4; 20 April 1817, pp. 241–2; 27 April 1817, pp. 257–9; 4 May 1817, pp. 273–5; 11 May 1817, pp. 289–91; 18 May 1817, pp. 305–7; 25 May 1817, pp. 321–3; 9 June 1817 (a rare Monday issue), pp. 353–4; 15 June 1817, pp. 369–71; and 22 June 1817, pp. 385–7. On the events behind this move to suspend habeas corpus and thus allow the government to arrest its opponents without bringing them to trial, see headnotes above, pp. 81–3 and 96. For the ‘Report of the Secret Committee’ that was used to justify this move, see The Examiner, X, 23 February 1817, pp. 121–3. Hunt compares this suspension of habeas corpus, which he sees as a blatant attempt to halt parliamentary reform, with Pitt’s suspension in 1795 (following an attack on George III’s carriage). Hunt also finds great irony in the fact that Castlereagh, who had been found guilty on 25 April 1809 by the House of Commons of selling a seat in Parliament and who thus, for Hunt, represents the corruption of the government, would be the one to ask for the suspension of a key civil right. Hunt finds it ludicrous that a government not popularly elected would think it had the right to ask the people to curtail constitutional guarantees.
