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CHAP. XVI.]

DRILLING OF THE RADICALS.

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upon oath, that "in various parts of the neighborhood of Bury there are nightly assemblies of great numbers of men, who meet together to learn and practise military training." Other witnesses swear, on the 9th, to having seen the same thing going on in the neighborhood of Bolton. Many of the informations relate to the drilling of a large number of persons on Sunday, the 8th, at Tandle Hill, near Rochdale. One of the informants speaks of a man who told him that he had been drilled there on that day, and that a similar meeting would take place on the Sunday following, but that that would be the last. These dates are very important. An impression was generally produced at the time that the training had been going on in secret for a long while, and that it was a part of the general tactics of the radical reform movement, the dark purpose of which was placed beyond doubt by the extreme care with which the practice had been concealed for many months. But there is, in fact, no evidence whatever to show that anything of the kind existed anywhere previous to these first days of the month of August; and we have just seen that the persons engaged in the drilling themselves spoke of it with perfect frankness, as far as appears, and without seeming to have any intention to deceive, as something that would be all over in a few days. It has all the look of having been merely a preparation for some particular occasion. That it was really nothing more we are assured by Bamford. It was, according to his straightforward account,1 adopted solely with a view to the great meeting to be held at Manchester on the 16th of this month. "It was deemed expedient," says Bamford, "that this meeting should be as morally effective as possible, and that it should exhibit a spectacle such as had never before been witnessed in England. We had frequently been taunted by the press with our ragged, dirty appearance at these assemblages; with the confusion of our proceedings, and the mob-like crowds in which our numbers were mustered; and we determined that, for once at least, these reflections should not be deserved." Of four injunctions issued by the committees, the observance of two-cleanliness and sobriety was left to the good sense of individuals; that of the other two, order and peace, was provided for by general regulations. The drilling was the discipline adopted to secure order in their movements. “These drillings,' Bamford adds, “ were also, to our sedentary weavers and spinners, periods of healthful exercise and enjoyment. .. When dusk came, and we could no longer see to work, we jumped from our looms, rushed to the sweet, cool air of the fields, or the waste lands, or the green lane-sides. . . . . Or, in the gray of a fine Sunday morn, we would saunter through the mists, fra1 Life of a Radical, i. pp. 177–180.

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grant with the night odor of flowers and of new hay, and, ascending the Tandle Hills, salute the broad sun as he climbed from behind the high moors of Saddleworth. There was not any arms no use for any no pretence for any; nor would they have been permitted. Some of the elderly men, the old soldiers, or those who came to watch, might bring a walking-staff; or a young fellow might pull a stake from a hedge in going to drill, or in returning home; but, assuredly, we had nothing like arms about us. There were no armed meetings; there were no midnight drillings. Why should we seek to conceal what we had no hesitation in performing in broad day? There was not anything of the sort." We believe this to be the true account of the matter; and that the government, the magistrates, probably many of the informants of the latter themselves, and the public in general, were frightened by an imagination of what had no existence. The drilling, whatever it might have led to, or have become if allowed to go on, had not, as far as it had yet gone, anything of the character ascribed to it. It was neither a clandestine nor an armed drilling. Whether or no it was a thing which the law should have allowed, is another question. It was perhaps liable to be abused, or carried out to purposes very different from its original one. Bamford himself admits that it had its seductions and dangers, or at least its liabilities to misconstruction, both by lookers-on, and, in some degree, even by those engaged in it. "Some extravagances," he observes," some acts, and some speeches, better let alone, certainly did take place. When the men clapped their hands in "standing at ease," some would jokingly say it was "firing," whilst those who were sent to observe us and probably we were seldom unattended by such and who knew little about military motions, would take the joke as a reality, and report accordingly; whence probably it would be surmised that we had arms, and that our drillings were only preparatory to their more effective use."

Manchester meeting.

We are now come to the great event of the year, and the most memorable incident in the history of these popular movements. The election of Sir. Charles Wolseley at Birmingham appears to have suggested a similar proceeding to the reformers of Manchester. Mr. Hunt, we suppose, must have been the person who was to have had the honor of being elected legislatorial attorney for that town. On Saturday, the 31st of July, an advertisement was published in the " Manchester Observer,” inviting the inhabitants to meet on Monday, the 9th of August, in "the area near St. Peter's Church," for the purposes of choosing a representative, and of adopting Major Cartwright's plan of parliamentary reform. The magistrates immediately

CHAP. XVI.] THE MANCHESTER MEETING.

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put forth placards, declaring the intended meeting to be illegal, and warning the people to abstain from attending it at their peril. Upon this, on Wednesday, the 4th of August, the parties who had called the meeting announced in a handbill that it would not take place, but that a requisition would be addressed to the borough - reeve and constables, requesting them to convene a meeting at as early a day as possible, "to consider the propriety of adopting the most legal and effectual means of adopting reform in the Commons House of Parliament." This requisition was

numerously signed in the course of the day. On its prayer being refused by the magistrates, the parties who had originally moved in the matter gave notice that the meeting would take place in St. Peter's Field on Monday the 16th. It was intimated that Mr. Hunt would take the chair.

All was now busier preparation than ever in every town and village around Manchester. It is remarkable that the great manufacturing metropolis itself seems to have remained comparatively unaroused, and not to have contributed anything like its due proportion of numbers to the mighty reform gathering. Indeed, while bodies of three, four, or five thousand persons are spoken of as pouring in from almost every one of the two-andthirty points of the compass, and every separate neighboring district was represented on the ground by its dense and extended array, we do not recollect that any distinct body of Manchester reformers is mentioned at all. Some of the accounts, indeed, expressly state that the Manchester working people generally took little part in the demonstration, and that such of them as joined the crowd seemed to have come for the most part only as lookers-on.

We believe that Bamford's animated description of the procession of his fellow-townsmen, the reformers of Middleton, who put themselves under his guidance, conveys a fair impression of the spirit in which the affair was entered upon by the generality of those engaged in it. By eight o'clock on that Monday morning, he tells us,1 the whole town of Middleton was on the alert. Those who did not intend to go to the meeting came out at least to see the procession. The marshalled array was headed by twelve youths in two rows, each holding in his hand a branch of laurel, "as a token," says Bamford, "of amity and peace," and therefore, we must suppose, representing the olive on this occasion. There were two silk flags, the one blue, the other green, with "Unity and Strength," "Liberty and Fraternity," "Parliaments Annual," and "Suffrage Universal," inscribed on them in letters of gold; and a cap of liberty, of crimson velvet, with a tuft of laurel, was borne aloft between them. The men

1 Life of a Radical, ii. pp. 197-204.

marched five abreast, every hundred having a leader distinguished by a sprig of laurel in his hat; over these centurions were superior officers similarly decorated. Bamford himself, as conductor of the whole, walked at the head of the column, with a bugleman by his side to sound his orders. Before setting out, the entire number, of not less than three thousand men, having formed a hollow square, while probably as many more people stood around them, and silence having been obtained, Bamford shortly addressed them. After expressing his hope that their conduct would be marked by a steadiness and seriousness befitting the important occasion, he requested them "not to offer any insult or provocation by word or deed, not to notice any persons who might do the same by them, but to keep such persons as quiet as possible; for, if they began to retaliate, the least disturbance might serve as a pretext for dispersing the meeting." If the peace-officers, he added, should come to arrest himself or any other person, they were not to offer any resistance, but to suffer them to execute their office peaceably. He also told them that, in conformity with a rule laid down by the committee, no sticks or weapons of any description would be allowed to be carried in the ranks; and those who had such were requested to put them aside. Many sticks, he states, were in consequence left behind, and only a few walking-staves were retained by the oldest and most infirm. There is reason, however, to believe that sticks were carried to the meeting in greater numbers by some of the other parties. "I may say with truth," continues Bamford, speaking of the body under his own command, “that we presented a most respectable assemblage of laboring men; all were decently though humbly attired; and I noticed not even one who did not exhibit a white Sunday's shirt, a neck-cloth, and other apparel, in the same clean, though homely, condition.” After their leader's speech, which was received with cheers, they resumed their marching order, and, the music having struck up, set out at a slow pace. They were soon joined by the Rochdale people, the united numbers making probably six thousand men. A hundred or two of women, mostly young wives, preceded the column; about as many girls, sweethearts of the unmarried lads, danced to the music, or sung snatches of popular songs; even some children went forward with them, although a score or two of others were sent back; while some hundreds of stragglers walked along-side. As they proceeded they received various accessions to their ranks. At Newton, not far from Manchester, Bamford was beckoned to by a gentleman to whom he was known, one of the partners in a firm in whose employment the reform leader had lately been. Taking Bamford's hand, he said kindly, though in a tone expressing some anxiety, that he hoped

CHAP. XVI.] FROM MIDDLETON TO MANCHESTER.

6

249

no harm was intended by all those people that were coming in. Bamford replied that he would pledge his life for their entire peaceableness. "I asked him," he continues, "to notice them; did they look like persons wishing to outrage the law? Were they not, on the contrary, evidently heads of decent working. families, or members of such families? No, no,' I said, 'my dear sir, and old respected master, if any wrong or violence take place, they will be committed by men of a different stamp from these.' He said he was very glad to hear me say so; he was happy he had seen me, and gratified by the manner in which I had expressed myself. I asked, did he think we should be interrupted at the meeting? He said he did not believe we should. Then,' I replied, all will be well;' and, shaking hands, with mutual good wishes, I left him, and took my station as before." After they had entered Manchester, they heard that, among other parties which had preceded them, the Lees and Saddleworth Union had been led by Dr. Healey, walking before a pitchblack flag, with staring white letters, forming the words, “Equal Representation or Death," "Love two hands joined, and a heart; all in white paint, and presenting one of the most sepulchral-looking objects that could be contrived. "The idea," observes Bamford," of my diminutive friend leading a funeral procession of his own patients such it appeared to me was calculated to force a smile even at that thoughtful moment.” They seem to have reached the place of meeting, where they found an immense multitude already collected, about half an hour before noon. As other parties successively arrived, they became more and more enclosed, till they finally stood about the centre of the vast multitude. About half an hour after their arrival, reiterated shouts proclaimed the near approach of the great man of the day; Hunt came, preceded by a band of music, and flags flying, standing up in an open barouche, on the box of which sat a woman, who, it afterwards appeared, had made no proper or original part of the show, but had only been hoisted into the carriage as it passed through the crowd, while a number of his male friends were seated around him. "Their approach," says Bamford, “was hailed by one universal shout from probably eighty thousand persons. They threaded their way slowly past us, and through the crowd, which Hunt eyed, I thought, with almost as much of astonishment as satisfaction." The hustings, erected upon two wagons, stood close to the place where Bamford and his party were posted.

The arrangements made by the authorities for the part they were to act, on the other hand, are to be found authentically detailed in the communications addressed by themselves at the time to the government, which were afterwards laid before par

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