worn by anxiety through the day, gave up their nightly rest, and formed themselves into a patrol, to save their families. Yet Mr. Perceval's spirits did not sink in the least. At a dinner party at his own house, in April, his guests never saw him in a more bantering humour;" and his daughter told how he had promised his children to give a ball when he had made a general peace which the whole nation should approve."

While these merry doings were going forward, there was a man dining, two or three times a week, at the coffeeroom of the House of Commons, and hanging about the lobbies and galleries, till his face became familiar to persons who had business there. The face was an interesting one; "strikingly composed and mild, though haggard," Wilberforce tells us. The man's appearance was that of a gentleman; and the people at whose house he lodged found him kind-hearted and considerate. On one of these days, a little child of his landlady's had strayed away; and the lodger exerted himself to recover it. On the morning of the 11th of May, he took the family to the European Museum, and pointed out to them what they ought to observe. He had a wife and children himself, he told them, and they lived at Liverpool. He had been four months away from them, trying to get justice for some cruel wrongs. Those wrongs were inflicted in Russia, where he, a merchant connected with Archangel, had been calumniated and imprisoned. His hostess, while listening to his quiet narrative, with his pathetic countenance before her, never dreamed of his being insane, and of the Russian prison having been, in fact, a lunatic division of the establishment. But so it came out to be, after his death. He said that his own government ought to have righted him; but that it had offensively refused to aid him. After the visit to the European Museum, he went into the Court of Chancery for some time, and then, as usual, to the House; and there he placed himself in the recess of the doorway of the lobby, standing with his right hand in his breeches pocket. Lord Eldon was wont to say that he was the person watched for-the stranger having hung about his Court just before: but the man himself said that he most

wished to encounter Lord George Leveson Gower, our late Ambassador to Russia. It was Mr. Perceval, however, who first, of all his supposed enemies, appeared at the door. The hand, with a small pistol in it, was drawn from the pocket, and Perceval was shot through the heart. He staggered forward, muttered the word "murder" or "murdered," and died in ten minutes. While some of the members present raised him, and carried him into an adjoining room, others looked round for the murderer, who had been unmarked, and, in the confusion, might easily have escaped. He walked to the fire, laid his pistol on a bench, and, on being asked whether he was the villain, replied, "I am the unhappy man." As soon as it was known that he was Mr. Bellingham, an unfortunate merchant and ship-broker of Liverpool, there were offers of evidence, to be brought from Liverpool, of his long-existing insanity. It is scarcely credible now that this should have been refused: and it appears sad that communication with Liverpool should have been too slow to save the poor man's life. If railroads and electric telegraphs had existed then, not all the indecent haste of the authorities could have taken away his life; for the evidences of his insanity were unquestionable. He knew, as he said, from the first what his fate would be. He assigned nothing like a reason for shooting Mr. Perceval: there was no connexion pointed out by him between his wrongs and the act of murder; yet he spoke and felt as if the connexion had been obviously close and logical. He was not proud or vain of what he had done; but calmly satisfied that it was not wrong. He shed tears when his victim's last moments were described, but still felt that all was as it should be. The authorities wondered extremely; but they did not pause. It seems as if their precipitation was caused by alarm at the reception of the news by a portion of the mob, whom they supposed to be a representation of the people at large. The first crowd in Palace Yard was composed of respectable people whose feelings were evidently human, and not political. Horror and concern were in every countenance. But presently the pick-pockets began to arrive, and to try to make confusion, for the sake of their own harvest. Then came

flocking (on the news reaching the remoter parts of London) all who most intensely hated the government, and supposed that it must now be overthrown. Romilly relates that savage cries of exultation were heard, with lamentations that other members of the government had not been murdered also. Some of the ferocious rabble mounted the hackney-coach which was brought to convey Bellingham to Newgate, and others kept possession of the opposite door, as if for the purpose of rescue; so that he was sent away through another entrance. Romilly, sick at heart, said that the most lively alarms must be excited by such demonstrations in the minds of all thinking men: and that the English character seemed to have undergone some unaccountable and portentous change. If Romilly was so impressed, it is no wonder that the authorities were wholly dismayed, and full of the vindictiveness which. attends dismay, and in this spirit they hurried on the trial.

It actually took place before an answer could be received by return of post to the earliest intimation to the family of what had happened. Mr. Perceval was shot soon after five in the afternoon of Monday; and the trial came on on the Friday, at the Old Bailey. Bellingham was hanged on the following Monday. His body was in the hands of the surgeons for dissection, "the heart still faintly beating," before a week was over from the moment in which he took his stand in the recess of the doorway. He was 42 years of age. Insanity had existed in his family before and a son of his who, with the rest of the family, had changed his name, and who had successfully studied for the medical profession, became deranged as he approached his father's time of life, and was restrained as a lunatic. It is strange that the government did not see that their best policy was to receive every possible evidence that the act was that of a madman, instead of a political foe. But the madness was dangerous, and the man was extinguished.

:

The morning after the murder, measures were taken to secure from the nation a provision for Mr. Perceval's family. The family was a large one; but the provision made was out of all proportion to their needs, and fear

fully vexatious to a suffering people, ill able now to brook such selfish profusion at their expense. One item after another was added by comrade or friend, in the course of the debate, till the grant mounted up to this:- -50,000l. for the children; 2,000l. a year to their mother :—this 2,000l. per annum to revert to the heir on the death of the widow, to be enjoyed by him for life; and 1000l. a year for life to the eldest son, on his coming of age. When this grant was made no one dreamed of the destination which awaited a part of this monstrous provision. In the shortest possible time that decency would permit, Mr. Perceval's widow married again, leaving regret in many minds that no stipulation had been made for the return to the treasury, in such an event, of the income which had been intended as an endowment of her widowhood.

The great question of the formation of a Ministry was thus brought up again. Before proceeding to detail the negotiations, we must see what those had to do who undertook to govern the country in 1812.

CHAPTER V.

State of the Nation-Commercial Pressure-Crimes-Wages-Machinery-Frame Breaking-Luddite Acts-Progress of LuddismLord Sidmouth, Home Secretary-Punishment of the Luddites. [1811-14].

NOTHING had been seen, since the beginning of the century, to compare with the distress of 1811 and 1812. The foreign commerce of the country was in a lower condition in 1811 than ever before in the memory of those living. Statesmen talked, and not unreasonably, of the renewal of our commerce with Portugal, in consequence of the expulsion of the French; and of the improvement of our trade with Brazil, from the establishment of the Braganza family there. They pointed to Russia, now rousing herself to resist Napoleon, and promised that the ports of the Baltic would soon be re-opened to British manufactures.

All this was true; yet never had our commerce been so depressed. Our manufacturers were set fast, and could not pay wages on which their workmen could live; and workmen could not live on low wages when the average price of wheat was 1128. and that of meat 8d. and 9d. per lb. The ordinary course of manufacture-particularly of the hardware manufacture—was broken up. The factor stepped in between the employer and the operative, and made his market of the necessities of both, leaving them discontented with each other. The employer sold off his stock at a loss; and the workmen made inferior wares, by means of advances from the factor for materials. The wares were smuggled abroad, or sent wherever a new commercial opening appeared; and the reputation of some of our manufactures was fatally damaged by these reckless and ruinous proceedings.

In April, 1811, the necessity for parliamentary relief to the merchants had become urgent. It was not money that was deficient now, as in former seasons of distress, but security on which money could be obtained. It was not so much banking credit that had collapsed as mercantile credit. It was believed by the best economists of the time that a large immediate advance to the merchants and manufacturers, which should enable them to await the approaching opening of some foreign ports, would be a safe and a wise measure, however deplorable the necessity in itself. Parliament authorized an advance of not more than 6,000,000l. on adequate security. As usually happens in such cases, only a small part of the sum was called for—in this case, not above 2,000,0001. The knowing that it could be had was the thing wanted. At the same time, there were symptoms of revival of business from foreign demand; but, on the other hand, there were fears about the harvest. The preceding winter had been intensely cold: snow had choked up the mail roads, and buried thousands of sheep among the hills, and lain heavy on the hearts of thousands of weary families who were already chilled with hunger, and could no more buy fuel than they could clothe themselves in furs. The Thames was very nearly frozen over, that winter. The Spring was backward; and then the heats came rushing