CHAP. XVII.] CONDUCT OF THE MAGISTRATES. 255 CHAPTER XVII. THE Manchester Massacre, as it came very generally to be designated, was at once felt on all hands to have made Conduct of the an epoch in the history of the contest with Radicalism. Manchester A new scene of that drama had commenced. Other magistrates. feelings were called up, and a change was to come over the course of action, on both sides. The Manchester magistrates themselves were probably as much astonished as anybody at what they had done. Many other Radical meetings had been held in all parts of the country, but nothing had happened at any of them like what had taken place here. The dispersion of a popular meeting by armed force, on the ground solely of its being formidable from its numbers, might be a legal proceeding, but similar circumstances had again and again occurred of late without its having been adopted. Why should not this meeting have been allowed to be held without being so interfered with, as well as any of those that had preceded it? Could not the public safety have been as effectually preserved now as on so many former occasions, merely by the necessary preparations being made for repressing any outbreak on the part of the people, if such should be attempted? Or, if the arrest of Hunt and his associates was necessary or expedient, could that object not have been effected in another way? If it would have been too hazardous for Nadin, the peace-officer, to have attempted to apprehend them during the meeting, as Harrison had been apprehended a few weeks before without difficulty at Smithfield, might they not have been easily seized at any time either before the meeting or after it? These and other such questions could not fail to suggest themselves. But, above all, they must have been conscious for it is undeniable, and is, indeed, as good as confessed that, after all their two days' deliberation, they had allowed the morning of the day of meeting to come upon them without being prepared with any determined plan of action. Their notion of being guided by circumstances was manifestly nothing more than a vague hope that something might happen to deliver them in some way or other from their indecision and perplexity, and compel them, as it were, to take some particular course. Accordingly, we see them standing aloof and doing nothing as long as they can. They neither attempt to prevent the meeting taking place, nor to arrest the popular leaders on their way to it. Then, one favorable opportunity having thus been let slip after another, they clutch as if in desperation at what seems their last chance of doing anything. It is determined that the forty Manchester yeomen shall attempt to walk their horses up to the hustings through the densely packed and all but impenetrable multitude, whose closing around each, and separating him from his comrades, as soon as he had moved a few yards forward, was inevitable. This was not to be guided by circumstances, but to be driven on by the impulse of trepidation or passion. All that followed was the result of the failure of this attempt, which could not but fail. It is clear that the order to the hussars to clear the ground was the thought of the instant. Up to that moment no such proceeding had been contemplated or dreamt of. The people were not allowed to assemble in order that they might be swept off the ground by a charge of cavalry. The dispersion and bloodshed were not premeditated; they were the convulsive effort of the authorities to extricate themselves from a danger, real or imaginary, into which a previous false step had precipitated them.. Perhaps a sounder judgment might have seen that the yeomanry, after they had entered the crowd, were not in so much peril as they appeared to be in to Mr. Hulton; but, however this may have been, the grand mistake had been committed in placing them in that position. That this was a blunder was demonstrated by what immediately ensued-was acknowledged by the magistrates themselves in the very next order they issued. Nor was the failure one the blame of which was to be laid upon circumstances having turned out otherwise than might have been expected; the experiment was much the same as if the forty yeomen had been ordered to advance through the water upon a vessel lying a quarter of a mile out at sea. It was an experiment which could not succeed in any circumstances. On the other hand, however wanting in discretion they may have shown themselves, however grievous an error in judgment they may have committed, it does not appear that the Manchester magistrates can be made out to have done anything absolutely illegal on this occasion. They were of course justified, on the sworn informations they had received, in issuing their warrant for the arrest of Hunt and his associates; the warrant could be legally executed at the time when the attempt to execute it was made; and any resistance, or supposed resistance, to the officer intrusted with it, might be legally put down by any available force which appeared to be necessary for that purpose. This was, no doubt, the view of the Conduct of the gov ernment. CHAP. XVII.] COURSE OF THE GOVERNMENT. 257 case which determined the government, under the advice of the law-officers, to notify immediately their sanction of what had been done. The statement which Lord Sidmouth afterwards made in parliament1 was, that the account of what had taken place at Manchester reached ministers on Tuesday night; that on Wednesday one of the magistrates, accompanied by another gen tleman, arrived in town to give the government the fullest information on all the circumstances; that a cabinet council was immediately summoned, at which the Attorney and Solicitor General were present; that the two gentlemen from Manchester gave minute details of everything; and that the law-officers then gave it as their opinion that the conduct of the magistrates was_completely justified by the necessity under which they acted. It appears that the first thing the Home Secretary did upon this was to write to the Prince Regent. The reply of his royal highness was despatched by Sir Benjamin Bloomfield on the 19th, from the Royal George yacht, off Christchurch. It conveyed the Regent's "approbation and high commendation of the conduct of the magistrates and civil authorities at Manchester, as well as of the officers and troops, both regular and yeomanry cavalry, whose firmness and effectual support of the civil power preserved the peace of the town on that most critical occasion." Lord Sidmouth then, on the 21st,2 addressed letters to the Earls of Derby and Stamford, the lords lieutenants of Lancashire and Cheshire, intimating that he had been commanded by the Prince Regent to request that their lordships would express to the magistrates of the two counties who were present at Manchester on the 16th, "the great satisfaction derived by his royal highness from their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures for the preservation of the public tranquillity." Lord Sidmouth's defence of the course he thus took is stated as follows by his biographer: 3 "Lord Sidmouth was aware that this proceeding would subject him to the charge of precipitation; but he was acting upon what he considered an essential principle of government - namely, to acquire the confidence of the magistracy, especially in critical times, by showing a readiness to support them in all honest, reasonable, and well-intended acts, without inquiring too minutely whether they might have performed their duty a little better or a little worse. So impressed was his lordship with the importance of this principle, that he constantly declared in after-life, that, had the question recurred, he should again have pursued a course the policy of which was not less obvious than its justice. If, indeed, the government had left those magistrates exposed to the storm of popular indignation, until the verdict against Hunt and his as1 Debate of 23d Nov. 1819; Hansard, xli. p. 24. 3 Ibid. sociates in the succeeding year had demonstrated the legality of their conduct,1 the magistracy at large must, from the dread of abandonment, have failed in duty towards that royal authority, which either could not, or would not stand by them in the hour of peril; and thus, in all probability, the most calamitous consequences would have ensued." It would appear, however, that, although the Home Secretary had the concurrence of his colleagues in the step which he took, they were not unanimous in adopting the view upon which he acted. Mr. Twiss has published a remarkable letter of Lord Eldon's to his brother, Sir William Scott, without date, but evidently written about this time, in which his lordship says: 2 "Without all doubt the Manchester magistrates must be supported; but they are very generally blamed here. For my part, I think if the assembly was only an unlawful assembly, that task will be difficult enough in sound reasoning. If the meeting was an overt act of treason, their justification is complete." Eldon, who goes on to say that he was clearly of opinion that the meeting was an overt act of treason, and that the previous Birmingham meeting was the same his argument being, as he afterwards stated it in the House of Lords, "that numbers constituted force, and force terror, and terror illegality"-pressed for having the prisoners indicted for treason, but was, as we have seen, overruled. It was, it seems, on the 25th that Lord Sidmouth informed the Regent that the evidence against Hunt and his associates "did not afford sufficient ground3 for proceeding against them for high treason; but that it fully warranted a prosecution for a treasonable conspiracy, which would be instituted immediately, in order that the bill of indictment might be presented to the grand jury at the ensuing summer assizes for the county of Lancaster." This was done accordingly, and true bills were found against Hunt and nine others. Meanwhile the utmost excitement had been produced by the General proceedings at Manchester all over the country. On excitement. the 22d, immediately on reading the newspaper account, Sir Francis Burdett addressed a public letter to the electors of Westminster, denouncing the conduct of the magistrates in the most unmeasured terms. For this the Attorney-General immediately proceeded against him by an ex officio information for libel. Meetings, at which strong resolutions against both the magistrates and the government were passed, were held in all parts of the kingdom. An address in this spirit, presented to 1 The legality of the conduct of the whatever in the verdict on that occaManchester magistrates was not one sion. of the questions at issue on Hunt's trial, nor of course was it either demonstrated or noticed in any way 2 Life of Lord Eldon, ii. p. 338. CHAP. XVII.] GENERAL EXCITEMENT. 259 the Regent in the beginning of September, from the common council of the city of London, drew from his royal highness a reply, in which he told its authors that he received their address with deep regret, and that they appeared to know little or nothing either of the circumstances which preceded the late meeting at Manchester or of those which attended it. This, however, did not prevent addresses to the same effect, some more, some less strongly expressed, being sent in from Westminster, Norwich, York, Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham, and many other towns. Of the county meetings the most remarkable was that of the county of York, which was held on the 14th of October, and at which 20,000 persons were supposed to have been present. Among those who signed the requisition to the high sheriff was Earl Fitzwilliam, and his lordship was also present at the meeting; for which acts, as they were considered, of open opposition to the government, he was immediately dismissed from his office of lord lieutenant of the West Riding. Before this the Duke of Hamilton, lord lieutenant of the county of Lanark, had sent a subscription of 50%. to the committee for the relief of the Manchester sufferers, accompanied by a letter, in which he expressed the alarm that had been excited in his mind by the manner in which the meeting of the 16th of August had been interrupted. There were not, however, wanting some addresses and declarations on the other side from the smaller towns and counties; and a few associations for raising troops of yeomanry in aid of the civil powers were formed in Scotland and in the north of England. The grand jury of the county of Lancaster also threw out a number of bills presented to them against individuals belonging to the Manchester Yeomanry, for cutting and maiming with intent to kill in St. Peter's Field; and the proceedings of an inquest which sat for nine days at Oldham, on the body of one of the persons killed at the meeting, after having been characterized by every species of irregularity and confusion, were at last quashed by the Court of King's Bench. On the whole, the disposition of the classes possessed of property still was generally to rally round and support the government, even although the more reflecting among them might not see reason to approve of everything that had been done in the contest with the democratical party. The opinion of one class of the ministerial adherents may be considered to be expressed in a passage of one of Mr. Ward's letters, written from Paris in the beginning of October : “What do reasonable people think of the Manchester business? I am inclined to suspect that the magistrates were in too great a hurry, and that their loyal zeal, and the nova gloria in armis, tempted the yeomanry to too liberal a use of the sabre; in short, 1 Letters of the Earl of Dudley, p. 230. 1 |