eny the challenge, by turning the
acceptance of it into an attack, and defending their Places and Pensions
by a prosecution.

I will here drop this part of the subject, and state a few particulars
respecting the prosecution now pending, by which the Addressers will
see that they have been used as tools to the prosecuting party and their
dependents. The case is as follows:

The original edition of the First and Second Parts of the Rights of
Man, having been expensively printed, (in the modern stile of printing
pamphlets, that they might be bound up with Mr. Burke's Reflections on
the French Revolution,) the high price(1) precluded the generality
of people from purchasing; and many applications were made to me from
various parts of the country to print the work in a cheaper manner. The
people of Sheffield requested leave to print two thousand copies for
themselves, with which request I immediately complied. The same request
came to me from Rotherham, from Leicester, from Chester, from several
towns in Scotland; and Mr. James Mackintosh, author of _Vindico
Gallico_, brought me a request from Warwickshire, for leave to print ten
thousand copies in that county. I had already sent a cheap edition to
Scotland; and finding the applications increase, I concluded that the
best method of complying therewith, would be to print a very numerous
edition in London, under my own direction, by which means the work would
be more perfect, and the price be reduced lower than it could be by
_printing_ small editions in the country, of only a few thousands each.

1 Half a crown.--_Editor_.

The cheap edition of the first part was begun about the first of last
April, and from that moment, and not before, I expected a prosecution,
and the event has proved that I was not mistaken. I had then occasion to
write to Mr. Thomas Walker of Manchester, and after informing him of my
intention of giving up the work for the purpose of general information,
I informed him of what I apprehended would be the consequence; that
while the work was at a price that precluded an extensive circulation,
the government party, not able to controvert the plans, arguments,
and principles it contained, had chosen to remain silent; but that I
expected they would make an attempt to deprive the mass of the nation,
and especially the poor, of the right of reading, by the pretence of
prosecuting either the Author or the Publisher, or both. They chose to
begin with the