6

hardly be so the calamity was so fearful, the folly so humbling, and the guilt now so clear. There is a certain Scripture text about the temptations and destruction of those that would be rich,' which must have haunted many a man's mind, and rung in his ears like a judicial sentence, after the season of passionate cupidity was past. To the more disengaged mind of the guiltless observer, the whole crisis must have been a significant text, from which he could preach eloquently the great truth, how little governments can do for the welfare of nations, in the absence or abeyance of individual virtue and intelligence; how necessary it is that men should rule their own spirits, before they can enjoy that social welfare which a wise government may help to secure, but can never confer.

CHAPTER IX.

Riots-Release of Bonded Corn-Opening the Ports-EmigrationColonial Office-Emigration Committee.

THE history of 1825 and 1826 has shown us the state of English capitalists; the rapacity and ignorance of some, and the consequent sufferings of all. How was it with the labourers, among whom it is natural to look for a worse cupidity, a deeper ignorance, and a fiercer suffering?

From the time when the false prosperity of the country began to decline, there was much rioting. The first impulse of sufferers too ignorant to know the causes of their suffering, is to rebel against the order of things under which their misery takes place. The first serious rioting. was at Sunderland, in August 1825, just after the tide of prosperity was seen to have turned. The association of seamen, who were not on good terms with the shipowners, saw a collier quietly leaving the port, manned by strangers, and went out to attack the vessel. The principal shipowners, who had been sworn in as special constables, put off after them, but could make little resistance against overwhelming numbers; the rioters being at least four hundred.

The shipowners, and all the obnoxious crew, except the master and the mate, were thrown into the sea, whence they were picked up in no condition for further fight. A party of dragoons was brought up; the Riot Act was read but on the opposite side of the river from that where the proceedings of the rioters had collected a mob of men, women, and children. Some stones were thrown from the midst of this mob, who had not heard the reading of the Riot Act. The soldiers fired, and five persons were killed; one of whom was a carpenter, at work on his stage, and another a labourer, returning from the field. The funeral of the victims was solemn, with banners and flags, and a band of singers; and for mourners, twelve hundred seamen, with each a crape round the left arm, walking hand in hand, two and two. The circumstances had, however, been too fatal for the courage of the men; and they yielded the points for which they had struck.

A more successful stand against authority and law was made in the Isle of Man the next November, when the island was kept in a state of uproar for a week, by the resistance of the poor to the collection of the tithe of potatoes by the proctors of the bishop. The people overturned the laden carts, stood guard over the potatoes, pursued the bishop's proctors, rescued such of their own body as were apprehended, defied the constables, evaded the magistrates and military, and obtained from the bishop, at the end of a week, the following written declaration, which was delivered by his lordship himself into the hands of a deputation from the malcontents: Whereas it has been reported by evil-minded persons, that a tithe of potatoes will be taken from the poor tenants of this island, and from persons little able to pay the same--they are hereby assured that such tithe will not be demanded from them, either this year or at any future time.' These poor people needed only the assurance that their potatoes should not be taken from their children to be given to the church; and the bishop saw that it would be little for the advantage of religion to give the food of the poor to the church. So there was grace on the one side, and cheering on the other; and the affair was over for the time.

By the spring of the next year, 1826, there was such

fearful suffering among the poor of the manufacturing districts, that no one could wonder much at the spirit of violence which broke out in Lancashire. The people rose up against the power-looms, which they believed to be the cause of their distress; and in one day, every power-loom in Blackburn, and within six miles of it, was destroyed. It is worthy of note, that the rioters took the utmost care not to injure any spinning-machinery. Time was when the hand-spinners were as much exasperated against spinning-jennies as the hand-loom weavers now were against power-looms. They had discovered the value of the spinning-machinery by this time, but could not be persuaded that they should ever derive any benefit from weavingmachinery. It was a mournful spectacle in Lancashire, that week in April'; the mob going from town to town, from factory to factory; snatching their food from bakers' shops and public-houses; throwing stones at the soldiers, and being shot down, rather than give up their object, believing sincerely that their very lives depended on the destruction of these looms; leaping from two-story windows to escape the soldiery, after having cut up every web, and hewn down every beam and stick within; striking at their pursuers with table-knives made into pikes; with scythes and fledge-hammers; swimming canals, hiding in woods, parading the streets of towns, to the number of 10,000 at a time, frightening the night with cries of hunger and yells of rage-all this was terrible; but it came at the end of many months of such sore distress as rouses the fiercest passions of men. On the first day, three persons were killed by the soldiers; on another day, nine: here, it might be seen that wounded men were carried away across the fields; there, the street was found, when emptied, to be much stained with blood.' Here, a poor creature was loading his rusty gun with marbles, while the manufacturers were bringing up cannon to plant round their factories; there, haggard men were setting buildings on fire, and snatching buckets from the hands of those who would have supplied water to the engines. Between Monday morning and Saturday night, a thousand powerlooms were destroyed. The immediate money-value of this machinery was £30,000; but it had a greater value as

the only means of bread of a large number of people wh were now left idle and destitute.

In the first week in May, the Manchester operatives ros again; and then the Bradford wool-combers and weaver met to consider the present unparalleled distress an famishing condition of the operatives,' and could think c no way of mending it but by breaking windows. Ther were inquests first, and trials afterwards; but no relie In Lanarkshire, the noblemen, magistracy, and gentry o the county, assembled to consult upon the wretched and helpless state of the Glasgow operatives, knew no bette than to throw the blame on the invention of machinery In Dublin, the starving silk-weavers formed in procession to exhibit their hunger in the streets. Their idea of remedy was, that the public subscription raised for then should be applied in the purchase of the manufacturers stocks; and thus, when the shelves were cleared, they thought a new demand must at once ensue. At Trow bridge, the people were dismayed at a rise in the price of potatoes in May, and would have it that the gardeners and greengrocers were hoarding the potatoes. On market-day they attacked the gardeners' stalls so vigorously, that by eleven o'clock not a vegetable was left in the place. frightened butchers removed the soldiers came-windowbreaking went on all night-a prisoner was released by unroofing the prison, and two more were sent off to Salisbury for trial at the assizes. At Carlisle, the starving weavers mobbed one of the candidates for the city, clamouring for a repeal of the corn-laws and radical reform; and a riot ensued, in which a woman standing at her own door, with a key in her hand, and a little girl in the street, were shot through the head. The inquests in these cases were not ceremonies tending to tranquillise the exasperated. In the iron districts there were strikes and readings of the Riot Act, and a scouring of the country by soldiery. In Bethnal Green, the thieves of the metropolis congregated, and robbed everybody in the name of the distressed weavers. In Norwich, the unemployed weavers, who would not take work at the wages which the manufacturers could afford, kept watch at the city-gates for goods brought in from the country. They destroyed one cart-load in the street, and

The

ر

threw the cart into the river; broke the manufacturers' windows; cooped in a public-house three men from the country who had silk canes about them; and kept the magistracy busy and alarmed for some weeks. About 12,000 weavers in Norwich were then unemployed, and the whole city in a state of depression, the more harassing from its contrast with the activity and high hope of the preceding year.

While these scenes of disorder and wretchedness were witnessed from end to end of the kingdom, the ministers adhered to the principle on which they had refused to issue exchequer bills, and declined to purchase popularity by the offer of any apparent assistance, while convinced that they could afford none that was real and effectual. They were confident that the mischief must work its own cure, and could not be cured in any other way. Yet, something might be done to relieve the despair of the hungering, who saw large stores of wheat laid up in bond in Liverpool, Hull, and other ports, while the prospects of the harvest were very doubtful, and parliament was about to be dissolved; leaving the people without advocacy to the care of the government for an interval of months before the new parliament could assemble. The ministers and parliament had agreed, early in the session, that it would. be improper to bring forward the whole question of the corn-laws while the country was in a state of high excitement and on the eve of a general election. But it was thought by ministers that the 300,000 quarters of corn in bond in the ports might be let out without tampering with the great question, and without doing any appreciable injury to the agricultural interest; while the manufacturers declared that even the small imports of foreign corn which would follow upon such a measure would afford just the stimulus to their business that was wanted. They were ready to resume business if they could obtain any returns from abroad of the only commodity which their foreign customers could at present send with advantage. It was decided, after eager and protracted discussions, that the people should have the prospect of a supply of food, under arrangements which met the objections of both the parties who were constantly