Your kind conversation with my wife on Monday sensibly affects me— I am often backward in expressing acknowledgments of services but I am never insensible of them. On the present occasion, however, many untoward accidents have combined to prevent me from dropping you a line until now. — I was ill when I came here, seriously ill. My application to the Court for leave to sit until the second Information was read proceeded from real indisposition. I was ready to fall & I believe had the Court delivered it in civil terms I should have fallen—But Lord Ellenborough's NO! — (you might have heard it to the entrance door of Westminster Hall from the Palace Yard) — was as good as Thieves' vinegar; it startled me and recovered me till I was taken out of Court.This emphatic "No!" from Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough became part of the radical story of Hone's eventual triumph in the courtroom. For a contemporary engraving, see Charles Williams's . [return] I have met with very little accomodation too at this place — so that, though I am in general pretty adaptable to circumstances, no great comfort has been my portion. The prison is full and decent rooms not to be had but at an enormous price. I think I shall have one tomorrow which though dark & not very airy will be better than wandering in the area or idling in the coffee room without the power of writing in it. Like the Seer of old I shall get a table & a chair & a stool (& a few books withal) and make myself happy as I can. If my conduct have the approbation of such men as you I desire nothing further—I have no wish to goad Government to extremity but were all their force in array against me and if I stood single handed, in a just quarrel, I should defy their efforts and say as the man did to love "Ah Jupiter! you are in a passion—you are wrong and you fly to your thunder."

I have received so many kindnesses from you and I owe you so much of service on the Fenning account that nothing I can say on paper or verbally will put you in possession of my feelings. There is an abundance of the heart which the mouth cannot utter; when all that a man hopes for is the power which the mouse had of shewing hers, as we read in the spelling book, to the fine old lion who was caught in a net after he had been kind to her.

All this, by the by, is to apologize to you for not writing as soon as I heard you had called in the Old Bailey — Will you do more? — drop me a few lines directed there unless you reckon upon coming this way before "the first day of next Term" & do me the honour of a call. — I want your opinion of the stand I take to obtain Copies of the Informations before pleading.The context of Hone's controversial stance in the courtroom is explained in the biographical fragment on "Publishing the Parodies." This you see is refused on the ground of custom—precedent—which I say would be more honoured in the breach than in the observance. When the powers that be encroach so much & so daily by new precedents against us, it is worth trying, surely, to make them go back a little and create a precedent for us.—