a time when the country, just recovering from the distresses of previous years, was not in a position to assume new burdens. These objections to Vansittart's policy were increased by the vexatious nature of the taxes he desired to impose. At the very head of them all stood an enormous addition to the duties on foreign wool. The woollen manufacture was one of the most important industries in the country; the manufacturers were notoriously dependent on foreign wool; their trade at the moment was declining, and Vansittart decided on raising the duty from 68. 8d. to 568. a cwt.1 Such an increase would have been sufficiently deplorable if a deficient revenue had made it unavoidable. It seemed utterly unnecessary when, on the author's own showing, there was a clear surplus of 2,000,000l. a year. 'The consternation in the City is very great,' wrote Wynn to Lord Buckingham. Their outcry against Vansittart increases daily, and is quite universal.' 2 CHAP. V. 1819. distress Before the decision of the Ministry had been announced Internal the internal condition of the country was creating anxiety. and miA vast number of labourers were out of employment, gration. and the Government seriously contemplated transplanting the surplus population to one of the British colonies. The unhappy workmen themselves desired to seek their fortune in the United States of America, but the Ministry refused to assist them to emigrate to any country except a British colony. The colony which the Ministry selected, the Cape of Good Hope, had only recently been formally ceded to the United Kingdom. The mildness of its climate and the fertility of its soil were supposed to make it a peculiarly eligible settlement for British workmen. The circumstance that it was situated on the direct route to India probably contributed to recommend it to the 1 McCulloch, ad verb.' Wool.' Ann. Reg., 1819, Hist., p. 91. Regency Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 327. 1819. CHAP. favourable notice of the Government. They accordingly offered to assist any intending emigrants to the Cape, and obtained a vote of 50,000l. for the purpose. The decision was timely, but the emigration of a few hundreds of persons was insufficient to reduce the supply of redundant labourers in an overstocked labour market. The existing distress continued, and the popular agitators, encouraged by it, renewed the designs which they had temporarily suspended. At the very commencement of the year the Borough Reeve of Manchester was invited to summon a public meeting for the purpose of petitioning Parliament against the Corn Laws. The Borough Reeve refused, and an anonymous advertisement appeared announcing the meeting for the 18th of January. The meeting was held. Hunt, who presided at it, ridiculed the idea of petitioning Parliament, and prevailed on the meeting to agree on a remonstrance to the Regent. Nothing, however, came of the suggestion. For the next few months quiet continued to prevail, and the peace of the country was not disturbed. Reform As the summer, however, advanced the depression of movement. trade became more marked, and the agitation of the lower orders more serious. The weavers' in Ayrshire, wrote Lord Cassilis to Lord Buckingham, 'are literally starving; the utmost that an ordinary weaver can make per week is 28. 7 d., working from 14 to 16 hours in the day.' 'The state of Lancashire and its immediate neighbourhood,' wrote the Prime Minister to the Duke of Wellington, 'is very alarming, and deserves serious consideration.'2 At the end of May it was found necessary to move troops to Carlisle, in consequence of the riotous disposition of the weavers. Numbers of colliers in the Black Country were thrown out of employment about the same time. 8 1 Ann. Reg., 1819, Hist., p. 87. i. 76. Ann. Reg. 1812, Chron., pp. 35, 36. CHAP. V. 1819. House of The general want of work led to combinations among the workmen, and these unions were soon used for political purposes. A reform of Parliament was demanded both by the Radical Reformers in the country and by the Whig party in the House of Commons. Lord Tavistock In the was the eldest son of the Duke of Bedford: the vast Commons. possessions to which he was heir gave him a stake in the country which it was impossible to ignore. Long tradition had connected the family to which he belonged with the cause of enlightened advancement. Lord Tavistock desired to correct the abuses which had grown up in the Constitution; he disapproved the theories of the Radicals as wild and impracticable. Lord Tavistock presented a petition from 1,800 respectable householders of Liverpool praying for representation. Liverpool had two members, but its members were elected by so small a body of persons that the bulk of the population were practically unrepresented. The petition was received; and, immediately after its receipt, a very different man from Lord Tavistock rose to propose a scheme of Reform. Sir Francis Burdett lived to change the principles which he professed during the earlier period of his political career. But, in 1819, he was the object of a political animosity which is almost incredible. His opinions were identified with those of Cobbett, Hunt, and others of the advanced Radical Reformers. His conduct in 1810, in defying the authority of the House of Commons, and in resisting the Speaker's warrant, had made him the darling of the mob, but had won for him the detestation of both the great political parties in the State. His popularity among the lower orders made him member for Westminster; but his victory at Westminster gained him no support in the House. Even Brougham loathed the prospect of supporting the Burdettites.1 1 Brougham, vol. ii. p. 341. CHAP. V. 1819. In the country. Sir F. Burdett, in 1819, rested his motion for Reform on the solid hypothesis that representation and taxation should go together. The country, he urged, was overburdened with taxation. The manufacturers were indigent; the farmers on the verge of ruin; the labouring poor unable to subsist on their miserable wages. The agricultural classes maintained that they could not go on unless they were protected by heavy duties on foreign wool. The clothiers replied that their bankruptcy could only be arrested by the free admission of foreign wool and a heavy duty on foreign goods. Parliament could not move without incurring the risk of destroying some interest, and the only practicable course was to reduce the taxation under which all classes groaned. In the present corrupt state of the Government, however, neither Tories nor Whigs could succeed in effecting the economies without which remissions of taxation were impossible. A Reform of Parliament was therefore the necessary preliminary to a more economical administration; and Sir Francis Burdett asked the House to pledge itself to take the subject of the representation into its most serious consideration at the commencement of the next Session. The motion had the effect of eliciting from the Opposition Benches some warm declarations in favour of a limited measure of Reform. But the voting power of the Reformers proved on a division lamentably small. They only mustered 58 votes to their opponents' 153. Not onethird of the House of Commons thought it even necessary to mark their interest in the question of Reform by their attendance at the division.1 Yet events were rapidly occurring outside the House which were forcing the question of Reform on the attention of the country. The rejection of Burdett's motion in the House of Commons was the signal for some very 1 Ann. Reg., 1819, Hist., pp. 79–84. V 1819. singular proceedings. Huge Reform meetings were held СНАР. at Smithfield, at Birmingham, at Leeds, at Stockport, and at other places; and at Birmingham the meeting was advised to take a novel course. Sir Charles Wolseley, a Staffordshire baronet imbued with the principles of Burdett, was elected Legislatorial Attorney for the town. Some of the more ignorant of the populace, who cheered Sir Charles Wolseley's election, may have imagined that they had really succeeded in securing for themselves a representation in Parliament. Better-informed persons might have been satisfied with treating the whole proceedings with contempt. The Ministry, however, were not likely to regard acts of this character with indifferMore than a year afterwards some of the principal people concerned in Sir C. Wolseley's election were prosecuted and convicted. Sir Charles Wolseley, full of his new dignity as member for Birmingham, attended a meeting at Stockport. He used on that occasion very foolish and very weak but bombastic language, and, in company with a dissenting parson, Mr. Harrison, was arrested by a constable named Birch. Poor Birch, who, at any rate, had only done his duty, was shot by some sympathising Radical. Wolseley and Harrison were tried for sedition, in the following April, at the Cheshire Assizes, and were severely punished.2 ence. Peterloo These meetings had necessarily created great anxiety The in the public mind. The only people who seemed to feel meeting. no anxiety were the Ministers of the Crown. The country was in a critical condition, yet the majority of the Cabinet were scattered through Europe. With the exception 1 This was done on the advice of old Major Cartwright, who was one of the persons prosecuted for the Birmingham election. Cartwright seems to have seen the absurdity of a town conferring a representative upon itself, and to have persuaded his friends to elect, not a member, but an attorney, who was to present Не their claim to the Speaker. 958-961. |