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X.

1820.

50. Insurrec

tion in

April 2.

CHAP. Sway which the leaders of the movement had obtained over the working classes in the manufacturing districts. On Sunday morning, 2d April, a treasonable proclamation was found placarded over all the streets of GlasScotland. gow, Paisley, Stirling, and the neighbouring towns and villages, in the name of a provisional government, calling on the people to desist from labour; on all manufacturers to close their workshops; on the soldiers to remember the glorious example of the Spanish troops; and on all friends of their country to come forward and effect a revolution by force, with a view to the establishment of an entire equality of civil rights. Strange to say, this treasonable proclamation, unsigned, proceeding from an unknown authority, was widely obeyed. Work immediately ceased; the manufactories were closed from the desertions of their workmen; the streets were filled with anxious crowds, eagerly expecting news from the south; the sounds of industry were no longer heard; and two hundred thousand persons in the busiest districts of the country were thrown at once into a state of compulsory idleness, by the mandates of an unseen and unknown power. Never was there a clearer proof how powerful an engine fear is to work upon the human heart-how much its influence is extended by the terror being State Trials, awakened from a source of which all are ignorant. How i. 10; Ann. true are the words of Tacitus," Omne ignotum pro magnifico;" and how well founded was the boast of Marat, 412, 413; that with three hundred determined bravos he would observation. govern France, and cause three hundred thousand heads to fall.1

1 Scotch

Reg. 1820, 36, 37; Hughes, vi.

Personal

51.

of the in

and its sup

Fortunately at this juncture the energy of GovernOutbreak ment, and the spirit of the untainted parts of the country, surrection, were adequate to encounter the danger. Volunteer and yeomanry corps had shortly before been formed in various districts; regiments 800 strong had been raised in Edinburgh and Glasgow, entirely clothed at their own expense. Squadrons of yeomanry had been formed in

pression. April 3.

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X.

both towns, and they came forward at the approach of CHAP. danger with the most praiseworthy alacrity. At 2 P.M. 1820. on April 3, summonses were despatched to the Edinburgh squadron, which was 99 strong, to assemble in marching order; at 4 P.M. 97 were at the appointed rendezvous, and set out for Glasgow." Volunteer and yeomanry corps rapidly poured into that city; in a few days 5000 men, of whom 2000 were horse, with eight guns, were assembled in it. The crown-officers hastened to Glasgow, and directed the proceedings. This great demonstration of moral and physical strength extinguished the threatened insurrection. The expected movement in England did not take place; the appointed signal of the stopping of the London mail in vain was looked for a tumultuous body of insurgents, which set out from Strathaven, in Lanarkshire, melted away before they arrived in Glasgow; another between Kilsyth and Falkirk was encountered at Bonnymuir by a detachment of fourteen hussars and fourteen of the Stirlingshire yeomanry, totally defeated, and nineteen of their number made prisoners. Before the week had elapsed the danger was over; the insurgents saw they were over-matched; a rigorous search for arms in Glasgow revealed to them their weakness; numerous arrests paralysed all the movements of the leaders, and sent numbers into voluntary exile; the people gradually resumed their avocations; and this outbreak, which at first had appeared so threatening, was terminated with the sacrifice only of two men executed at Stirling, one at Glasgow, and seven or eight transported. But the rebellious spirit of the manufac

*The author has much pleasure in recording this just tribute to a fine and spirited corps, in the ranks of which some of the happiest days of his life have been spent. The Edinburgh squadron at that time, which was the successor of that in which Sir Walter Scott had served, and has immortalised, contained several young men destined to distinguished eminence: among others, the present Lord Justice Clerk, Hope; Mr Patrick Tytler, the historian of Scotland; Mr Lockhart, since editor of the Quarterly Review; and Mr Francis Grant, since so eminent as a painter in London.

1820.

CHAP. turing districts was suppressed in a far more effectual and X. better way, which neither caused blood to flow nor a tear to fall. They were morally slaughtered; the strength of their opponents, their own weakness, was evinced in an unmistakable manner. The ancient spirit and loyalty of the Scotch was shown in the most striking manner on this occasion the flower of the youth in all the counties ranged themselves in arms around the standard of their knowledge; Country; and Sir Walter Scott, whose chivalrous spirit 1820 was strongly roused by these exciting events, boasted, in 39; Scotch the pride of his heart, that at a public dinner of 800 ii. 100, 234; gentlemen in Edinburgh, presided over by the Marquess of Huntly, there were gentlemen enough assembled to have raised 50,000 men in arms.1*

1 Personal

1820, 37,

State Trials,

Hughes, vi. 414, 415.

52.

character of

tan.

Parliament met, after the general election, on 21st Death and April. Its results had made no material difference in the Mr Grat respective strength of parties, but, if anything, strengthened the ministerial ranks,-the usual result of public disturbances, which awaken men to a sense of the necessity of supporting the Government, whatever it is, which is intrusted with the duty of repressing them. One distinguished member of the House, however, Mr GRATTAN, never took his seat in the new Parliament, and expired soon after the session commenced. He was the last of that bright band of patriots, who, warmed into life by the great struggle for Irish independence in 1782, when the chains in which that country had so long been held by England first began to be broken, were, after the Union, transferred to the British Parliament,2 which they caused

June 6.

2 Ann. Reg.

1820, 142,

143; Mar

tineau, i. 263.

* “ We have silenced the Scottish Whigs for our time, and, I think, drawn the flower of Scotland round the King and Constitution. Literally I do not exceed the mark, when Lord Huntly, our Cock of the North, as he is called, presided over 800 gentlemen, there was influence and following enough among us to raise 50,000 men, property enough to equip and pay them for a year, young men not unacquainted with arms enough to discipline them, and one or two experienced generals to command them. I told this to my Whig friends who were bullying me about the popular voice-and added, they might begin when they liked, we were as ready as they."-Sir WALTER SCOTT to Lord SIDMOUTH, 17th February 1821; Sidmouth's Life, iii. 343.

to resound with strains of eloquence rarely before heard CHAP. within its walls.

X.

1820.

53.

ter as a

and orator.

He was not so luminous in his exposition of facts as Pitt, nor so vehement in his declamation as Fox; but in His characburning thoughts, generous feelings, and glowing language, statesman he was sometimes superior to either. Occasional passages in his speeches, when quoted or repeated, are perhaps the finest and most imaginative pieces of eloquence in the English language. It was justly observed by Sir James Mackintosh, in moving a new writ for Dublin, which he had long represented, that he was perhaps the only man recorded in history who had obtained equal fame and influence in two assemblies differing from each other in such essential respects as the English and Irish Parliaments. Forty years before his death, he had been voted a grant to purchase an estate, by the Irish Parliament, in consideration of his eminent national services, a thing unknown in an individual not connected with the public establishments. He had been at first a decided opponent, but afterwards a warm supporter of the Union, hoping, as he himself expressed it, that Ireland, instead of receiving laws from England, should henceforth take an equal share with her in legislating for the united empire. It is only to be regretted that his genius, great as it was, had been through life chiefly directed to an unattainable object. The independence of Ireland was the chief aspiration of his mind, and he lived to see that it was hopeless. He said, in his figurative and beautiful language, "I have sat by its cradle, I have followed its hearse." Hence his name, with the exception of the Union and the shackles burst in 1782, is linked with no great legislative improvement in his native country for Catholic emancipation, of which he was the strenuous and able advocate, has failed, by the admission of its warmest supporters, to prove such. It is remarkable that the Irish or Celtic character, gifted, often beyond the Anglo-Saxon, with the brightest imaginative qualities, has in general been found deficient in that practical turn and

VOL. II.

2 E

X. 1820.

CHAP. intuitive sagacity which is necessary to turn them to any good purpose; and that, amidst all our admiration of their genius, we are too often reminded of the elegant allegory told of the Duke of Orleans, that every fairy invited to his christening sent him a gift of person, genius, 1 Parl. Deb. or fortune; but that one old fairy, to whom no invitation had been given, sent one fatal present-that he should be unable to make any use of them.1

i. 1056,

1058.

54.

the yeomanry force.

One of the first measures adopted by Government, with Increase of the sanction of Parliament, was the increase of the yeomanry force, which was so much augmented that before the end of the year it amounted to nearly 35,000 men, all animated with the best spirit, and for the most part in a surprising state of discipline and efficiency. Without doubt, it takes above a year to make a good horsesoldier; but it often excites the wonder of military officers how quickly men of intelligence and spirit, such as usually compose the yeomanry corps, if previously able to ride, acquire the rudiments of skill even in the cavalry service; and still more, how quickly their horses learn it. The Duke of Wellington recommended that the militia should be called out throughout the kingdom; but this was thought not advisable, probably because it was doubtful how far, in the manufacturing districts, such a force could be relied on. Two thousand men, however, were added to the marines, which rendered disposable an equal amount of the regular force stationed in the garrison seaport towns. Such was the vigour of Lord Sidmouth in following up the measures for the increase of the yeomanry force, that the king happily said of him, “If England is to be preserved England, the arrangements he 2 Ann. Reg. has made will lead to that preservation."2 Without doubt, Sidmouth's the powerful volunteer force, organised especially in the 322; Parl. manufacturing districts at this period, and the decisive new series.' demonstration it afforded of moral and physical strength

1820, 43;

Life, iii.

Deb. i.1167,

on the part of the Government, was the chief cause of

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