V. 1817. with arms; they were told that similar deputations from CHAP. the manufacturing towns of Yorkshire would meet them on the road; and that the military would be powerless to resist them. The meeting took place accordingly on the day named for it. Some 10,000 or 12,000 persons are supposed to have attended it; and considerable numbers of them actually set out for London. Never did a serious demonstration more completely collapse. On the evening preceding the meeting four of the supposed leaders were arrested on warrants specially sent down by the Secretary of State. A few persons, who harangued a mob on the Sunday, were summarily conveyed by a party of dragoons to the Old Bailey. Sir John Byng, who commanded the forces in the district, assembled a few troops of yeomanry at Salemoor, in the immediate vicinity of Manchester, on the Monday morning. The petitioners, on their march through Stockport, were intercepted by a troop of Life Guards, and some forty of them were arrested and conveyed back to Manchester. Notwithstanding these disasters, 500 stragglers succeeded in penetrating to Macclesfield. Not more than twenty crossed the borders of Staffordshire. Fainting with fatigue, without baggage, without food, these few wretched wanderers excited nothing but pity.8 quent cals. The demonstration had collapsed; and its collapse had Subsenot been due to the special legislation which the Govern- plans of ment had thought necessary. On the 10th of March the Se- the Radi. ditious Meetings Act had not passed. Yet the powers at the disposal of the authorities had proved amply sufficient to deal with every difficulty. In the eyes of the Government, however, the danger had not been averted; it had only been postponed. Lord Sidmouth was in constant communication with a man named Oliver, who supplied 1 Bamford says 4,000 or 5,000. Life of a Radical, vol. i. p. 32. 2 Bamford says 180. 3 Ann. Reg., 1817, Chron., PP. 19-22; and Hist., p. 67. CHAP. him with continuous reports of the progress of the insurrection. Oliver had, in the first instance, become acciden1817. tally acquainted with the designs of the conspirators; he had availed himself of the accident to keep himself informed of the objects of the conspiracy; and he had transmitted all that he learned, and possibly all that he believed, to Lord Sidmouth. Lord Sidmouth, later on, was violently attacked for listening to a spy. It was insinuated that Oliver was employed to foment the proceedings which he had made it his trade to discover. Charges of this character do not deserve much attention. The objects of a conspiracy can only be discovered by the revelations of some of the conspirators; and a minister who takes the high moral line of refusing to listen to a spy may lose the opportunity of averting a serious disaster. If, however, occasions may occur when a minister may legitimately listen to an informer, the evidence of every informer should always be received with considerable suspicion. An informer, from his very nature, must be treasonable to his own friends. The man who, from fear of punishment or love of gain, stoops to betray his friends may be tempted to go one step further and deceive his employers. A good deal of the information which we possess of the designs of the conspirators in 1817 rests on the evidence of men like Oliver. For this reason the account must be accepted with some hesitation.1 The demonstration of the 10th of March had ended in a conspicuous failure. But the leaders of the mob decided on another attempt. A general rising,' to use the expression of the secret committee of the House of Commons, a general insurrection,' to use the phrase employed by the Lords' committee, was arranged for the 30th of March. 2,000 or 3,000 men were to be assembled 1 See (as to Oliver) numerous debates in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons. Hansard, vols. xxxvi. and xxxviii. Oliver, in fact, took up more Parliamentary time and received more attention, both in 1817 and in 1818, than almost any other subject. V. in the dead of the night at Manchester; the magistrates CHAP. were to be seized; the prisoners were to be liberated; the soldiers were to be surprised in their barracks; and 1817, the general discontent was to be increased by the burning of some of the factories which continued to afford employment to the workpeople.1 Expectations were held out that risings would simultaneously take place in Lancaster, York, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Chester, and Stafford. Two days, however, before the date fixed for the insurrection, warrants were issued by the Secretary of State, on the representation of the local magistracy, for the apprehension of the ringleaders. This simple precaution disconcerted the conspirators, and the rising was postponed. But a few delegates, as they called themselves, from some eight manufacturing towns, were still anxious to contrive some general plan of simultaneous and connected insurrection, to march upon London, to overturn the existing Government, and to establish a republic.' The 9th of June was fixed for this new demonstration. The arrest of some of the ringleaders on the 6th of June, at Huddersfield, again disconcerted the plans of the conspirators. The rising resulted in a riot at Huddersfield, and a rather more serious riot in the Midland Counties. The mass of the population through which the insurgents passed evinced,' so the House of Commons' committee admitted, the utmost abhorrence of their designs and projects.'" commit The progress of the insurrection suggested new pre- Revival of cautions to the Government. At the commencement of the secret June the Regent communicated fresh information to both tees. Houses of Parliament; and, on the motion of the ministers, the secret committees of February were revived for 1 Bamford heard of this through a friend. The friend had been told by a stranger that they were going to make a Moscow of Manchester. Bamford told the fellow he would have nothing to do with it, and evi- 81. 2 Annual Register, 1817, Hist., p. V. 1817. 6 CHAP. the purpose of considering the information thus obtained. Both committees agreed that these papers afforded but too many proofs of the continued existence of a traitorous conspiracy for the overthrow of our established Government and Constitution, and for the subversion of the existing order of society.' Both of them expressed their conviction that it is not yet safe to rely entirely, for the preservation of the public tranquillity, upon the ordinary powers of the law.'1 Both of them, therefore, pointed to the continued suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Act had only been suspended, in the first instance, till the close of the session; and fresh legislation was, therefore, necessary, if its suspension were to be renewed. A section of the Opposition, in both Houses, actively resisted the Government. They denied, in the first place, the necessity for any extraordinary powers whatever; they endeavoured, in the next place, to limit their duration; and they desired, in the third place, to except Scotland from the operation of the bill. But the terror which animated the country paralysed their efforts. Lord Grenville and all his following supported the ministry. The abortive risings at Manchester, Huddersfield, and Derby, occurring at the very moment at which the secret committees were deliberating, strengthened the hands of the administration. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended till the 1st of March, 1818.2 Since that date the Habeas Corpus Act has never been suspended in Great Britain. Abortive prosecutions. The ministry had been singularly successful in forcing their repressive measures through Parliament; but they did not enjoy a similar success in punishing the persons whom they had succeeded in apprehending. They could only 1 Ann. Reg., 1817, Hist., pp. 65,81. 1109-1155, 1198-1254. Ann. Reg., 1817, Hist., p. 83. Romilly, vol. iii. p. 305. treason. 6 CHAP. V. justify their conduct in Parliament by indicting the rioters for high treason; and the evidence of treason rested on the testimony of informers, who were not likely to gain 1817. credence from juries. The grand jury of Middlesex, indeed, found a true bill against Watson, Thistlewood, and the other leaders of the Spa Fields riots. But the common jury declined to convict Watson; and after his acquittal the Attorney-General abstained from proceeding against the other prisoners. A formidable riot, meriting severe punishment, had been left unpunished, from the folly of the ministry in dignifying some obscure men by charging them with high treason. A similar failure awaited the ministry in York. Twenty-four persons arrested on the eve of the riot at Huddersfield were charged with high The ability and the wealth at the disposal of the Government were freely applied for the purposes of ensuring their conviction. A large portion of the weight and talent of the Bar on the Northern circuit was ranged on the side of the prosecution; and, that nothing might be wanting to give importance to these proceedings, Mr. Gurney was sent down from London at the expense of the Government to take reports of the trials. Against all this weight of power and influence, seconded by the public purse, a few obscure men and boys, principally in the very lowest ranks in society, had to defend themselves. The odds were terrific.' But the obscure men and boys defeated all the efforts of the ministry and their professional assistants. No bills were found against eleven of the prisoners; ten were pronounced not guilty; one was liberated on bail; and the remaining two were detained in prison without trial, by a Secretary of State's warrant, under the authority of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act. The trials at York and the trials in London formed a strange commentary on the arbitrary proceedings which ministers had adopted. |