CHAPTER V.

POLITICAL ENTANGLEMENTS - CHARGE OF LIBEL AGAINST MONTGOMERY HIS TRIAL IMPRISONMENT AT YORK CASTLE-RELEASE FROM PRISON SECOND IMPRISONMENT.

MONTGOMERY is re-homed, and his stay at Sheffield has every prospect of permanency and success. While he occupies the printing office, Mr. Gales's three sisters have come from Eckington and taken the bookstore: like a beloved brother he is received into their household, and the new establishment at the Hartshead is bustling with youthful enterprize.

Our friend had trenched himself in a position not likely to prove dangerous, while it was one of sufficient responsibility and labor to call forth his best efforts and incite to vigorous self-improvement.

What little things may sometimes cloud our sky and bring us into unlooked for straits, he will himself tells us.

"Little more than a month after I had become connected with the newspaper, I was one day called into the bookseller's shop, where business orders were received. There I found a poor-looking elderly man, whom I recollected to have seen in the street a little while before, when I was attracted both by his grotesque appearance, and his comical address, as a ballad-monger. He stood with a bundle of pamphlets in his hand, crying out in a peculiar tone, 'Here you have twelve songs for a penny.' Then he recapitulated

at length the title of each, thus: "The first song in the

book is'

6

so and so;

'the second song in the book'

and so; the third song'.

OS

so and so; and on he went 'so He now offered me

and so to the end of the catalogue. the specimen of an article in his line, and asked what he must pay for six quires of the same? I immediately replied that I did not deal in such commodities, having better employment for my presses; he must therefore apply elsewhere (I believe I named a place where he might be served). But,' he rejoined, like one who had some knowledge of the terms used by printers, 'you have this standing in your office.' "That is more than I know,' was my answer. Taking up the printed leaf, I perceived that it contained two copies of verses, with each of which I had been long familiar, but had never seen them coupled in that shape before; at the top of the page was the impression of a wood-cut [Liberty and the British Lion], which I recognized as having figured in the frontispiece of an extinct periodical, issued by my predecessor, and entitled the Patriot. The paper also, of which a large stock had devolved to me, was of a particular kind, being the material of certain forms for the registration of freeholds, under a still-born act of parliament, printed on one side only, and which had been sold for waste. On discovering this, I went up into the office, and asked when and for whom such things as I held in my hand had been printed, as I had no knowledge of the job? Oh, Sir,' said the foreman, 'they were set up ever so long ago by Jack [Mr. Gales's apprentice], for himself, and to give away to his companions; and the matter is now standing in the types, just as it was when you bought the stock in the office.' 'Indeed!'

I exclaimed; but how came the ballad-seller, who was bawling out his twelve songs for a penny the other day, to

A CHARGE OF LIBEL.

67

have a copy?' In explanation of this, he stated, that he had formerly known him, when he himself was an apprentice in an office in Derby, from which such wares were supplied to hawkers. Hearing his voice in the street, he had called him in for old-acquaintance sake, and, in the course of talking about trade, had shown him an impression of Jack's songs, by which he thought his old acquaintance might make a few pence in his strange way. 'Well then,' said I, 'let the poor fellow have what he wants, if it will do him any good; but what does he mean by six quires?' 'Not quires of whole sheets, but six times twenty-four copies of this size,' was the information I received on this new branch of literature. I then went down stairs and told my customer that he might have the quantity he wanted for eighteen pence, which would barely be the expense of the paper and working off. He was content; the order was executed, the parcel delivered by myself into his hand, and honestly paid for by him. I have often said, when I have had occasion to tell this adventure of my romantic youth (for adventure it was, and no every-day one, as the issue proved), that if ever in my life I did an act which was neither good nor bad, or, if either, rather good than bad, it was this.

"Two months afterwards, one of the town constables waited upon me, and very civilly requested that I would call upon him at his residence in the adjacent street. Accordingly I went thither, and asked for what he wanted to see me. He then produced a magistrate's warrant, charging me with having, on the 16th day of August preceding, printed and published a certain seditious libel respecting the war then raging between his Majesty and the French Government, entitled 'A patriotic song, by a clergyman of Belfast.' I was quite puzzled to comprehend what pro

duction from my press this charge alluded to, not the remotest idea of the ballad-seller occurring to me at the

moment."

A copy of the song was then shown him, which he instantly recognized as the same, sold unwittingly from his office, certainly not with any intention of raising a political breeze.

It was in vain that Montgomery explained the circumstances of the case, or tried to show that it could not be a libel upon the existing war, inasmuch as it was published long before hostilities between France and England began; it having been composed for an anniversary celebration of the destruction of the Bastile, and referring solely to the invasion of France by the Austrian and Prussian armies under the Duke of Brunswick, in July, 1792.

As the matter took a serious turn, a specimen of the song, with its libellous verse, may interest those curious to inspect the "mingled yarn" in our web of life.

"While tyranny marshals its minions around,

And bids its fierce legions advance,

Fair Freedom! the hopes of thy sons to confound,
And restore his old empire in France,-

What friend among men to the rights of mankind,
But is fired with resentment to see

The satraps of pride and oppression combined
To prevent a great land being free?

Europe's fate on the contest's decision depends;

Most important its issue will be,

For should France be subdued, Europe's liberty ends,
If she triumphs, the world will be free."

The last was the sinning stanza, bristling with treason against the nation.

Unexpectedly Montgomery finds himself in the clutches of the law, and arraigned before the Sheffield Sessions, charged with printing and publishing a false and scanda lous libel upon the present just and necessary war. Pleading "Not Guilty" to the indictment, bail was given, and the case laid over to the Doncaster Sessions, a few months later. Meanwhile, through the columns of the Iris, he begged his friends to suspend their verdict, avowing his willingness to trust his cause to the justice and intelligence of a British jury.

In January, 1795, the Doncaster Sessions came around. The case was argued with no inconsiderable ability and bitterness. The absurdity of seeking to ground a guilty intention upon an act so simple and natural was strongly set forth by the defendant's counsel.

"Did his client foresee, or could any man in his senses ever dream of the mighty injury that was charged in the indictment, as intended to have been done by the publication of six quires of a song, printed long before the present war was ever thought of? My client was applied to by this Jordan, to print six quires of these songs, which he agreed to print for eighteen pence! Eighteen pence! six pennyworth of paper, six pennyworth of printing, and six pennyworth of profit! Good God! Will any man believe, in times like the present, when prosecutions are so frequent, and the punishment for libels so severe, that a man not out of his senses, would run his neck into such a noose for sixpence! - would hazard his liberty by publishing anything that he conceived might be tortured into sedition for such a pitiful reward! Surely no! Where then is the intention specified in the indictment?"

But in vain.

The jurors found, that "James Montgomery, printer,