OF CHARLES PINNEY, Esq. IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, ON AN INFORMATION, FILED BY HIS MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL, CHARGING HIM WITH NEGLECT OF DUTY, IN HIS OFFICE AS MAYOR OF BRISTOL, DURING THE RIOTS. Accurately transcribed from the Short-Hand Report of Mr. GURNEY. BRISTOL: PRINTED BY GUTCH AND MARTIN, SMALL-STREET; AND PUBLISHED BY CADEL, STRAND, LONDON; BLACKWOOD AND CO. EDINBURGH; AND MAY BE MDCCCXXXIII. The following Article appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, for December last, under the title of "TRIAL OF THE BRISTOL MAGISTRATES-REACTION AMONG THE OPERATIVES." Messrs. Gutch and Martin having obtained permission from the Writer of the Article, and the Publisher of the Magazine, to make what use they please of it, in elucidation of the Volume they have already published, under the title of " THE BRISTOL RIOTS, THEIR CAUSES, PROGRESS, AND CONSEQUENCES," cannot more appropriately avail themselves of this act of kindness and liberality, than by inserting it entire, as a PREFACE to the present Volume, containing the Trial of the late Mayor, upon which trial, the events that preceded it, and those which have since occurred in Bristol during the progress of the late Election, it forms so valuable and judicious a commentary. FELIX FARLEY'S JOURNAL OFFICE, Bristol, Feb. 1833. BRISTOL. THE TRIAL OF THE MAGISTRATES, AND REACTION AMONG THE OPERATIVES. [From Blackwood's Magazine.] In the view we took last March of the causes of the Bristol Riots, we were quite certain that our statements could not be set aside. The radical press of the devoted city did indeed send forth, with virulent malignity, their anathemas against the light of truth which was pouring into the dens of conspiracy; but venom and anathema were innocuous to our arguments, and the facts we brought forward remained undisputed. We have the satisfaction to believe, our efforts were not lost upon the better-disposed, though deluded citizens. The mists have gradually dispersed from their eyes, and the fantastic images they had assumed to their heated imaginations, vanished. The experience of every subsequent day has proved to them that they have not been enriched, nor enjoyed more peace and security, nor more exercise of the dearer charities of social life, from the ruinous distraction which the political fanaticism of revolutionary demagogues has fatally effected. They have thus from suffering been taught to reflect and examine,-to take less upon the trust of those who have every thing to gain in a general scramble and confusion, and to place more confidence in those, to whom, in safer and happier times, they had been wont to look up with deserved respect. And what is the consequence? They loathe, to detestation, the arts which they now discover were too successfully practised against them. We repeat, we were quite sure that our statements were true. They have received the confirmation of a Court of Law; the unimpeachable testimony on oath of numerous and most respectable witnesses-and the decision of a jury, given too with unusual emphasis and energy-establish our whole view. The Causes of the Bristol Riots will be henceforth conspicuously manifest for the future historian of the disastrous Reign of Terror, the first days of England's peril. |