Laws, holding that any reduction in the price of the necessaries of life would turn to the profit of the masters, by occasioning a proportional or even greater fall in the wages of labour. CHAP. XXXVII. 1839. 65. progress of The Chartist agitation first became formidable in the latter months of 1838, when the high price of provisions, Rise and coupled with the low wages of labour, had rendered suf- the Chartist fering of the severest kind almost universal among the movement. manufacturing classes, and the strict execution of the new poor-law put the relief afforded from the public funds under restrictions to which they were not willing to submit. So extensive did the agitation then become, that Government held Mr Stephens, one of their leaders, to bail on a charge of sedition; but this step, instead of checking the movement, only rendered it more violent and widespread. Meetings were held at the principal manufacturing towns, at which language the most violent was indulged in by the orators, among whom Messrs Oastler and Feargus O'Connor stood forth as conspicuous. Mr Attwood, on the 15th July, moved that the petition should be referred to a select committee, but the motion was negatived by a majority of 281 to 189. The agitation only became the greater on this event; for the orators had now the just and popular topic to dwell upon, that the legislature had refused even to take their grievances into consideration. At a great meeting held on Kersal Moor, near Manchester, 200,000 persons are said 1 Parl. Deb. to have been assembled; and although the numbers were xlix. 274; doubtless very much exaggerated, yet there was certainly 1839, 306; such an array as had not been seen in that vicinity since 410, 411. the famous Peterloo assemblage in 1817, already recounted.1 However much the leaders of a movement of this description may wish to keep it free from popular violence, and thereby shun the risk of alienating the shopkeepers and middle classes, it has never been found practicable to continue for any length of time in this rational and mea Ann. Reg. Mart. ii. XXXVII. 1839. CHAP. sured course. Sooner or later the aroused passions of the multitude impel them into deeds of violence, and the cause itself is brought into general discredit from the atrocities to which it has been found to lead. This truthriot in the of which examples are perpetually recurring and forgotten 66. Chartist Bullring, Birming ham. July 15. April 15. July 4. July 15. -was strikingly exemplified on the present occasion. The Chartist rioting of 1839 was of the most alarming description. In April there was a serious riot in Devizes, in consequence of an intrusion of a thousand Chartists, armed with bludgeons, into the marketplace of that town, to hold a public meeting. This was followed by a still more violent outbreak in Birmingham, on the 4th, and again in the middle of July. A crowd had there assembled on a piece of open ground called Holloway Head, in expectation of hearing Mr Attwood address them; but in this they were disappointed, as he did not make his appearance. Several orators recommended them, upon this, to form in line, and parade the streets in an orderly manner. Instead of doing so, they broke into small parties, which ere long united in the Bullring, the chief open place of the city, from whence they proceeded down Moor Street, and made an attack on the policeoffice there. Though a body of police were in the inner yard of the building, yet as there was no magistrate at hand to head them, and they were forbidden to act without orders, they did not move; and the mob were permitted to break the whole windows of the building without resistance. Emboldened by this impunity, the crowd, now swelled to several thousand persons, proceeded back to the Bullring, where they commenced a violent attack upon houses and property of every description. No sort of weapon came amiss to the infuriated multitude: "Furor arma ministrat.” Broken flag-staves, heavy bludgeons, old scythes, paling-stobs, iron rails torn up, were instantly put into requisition; and with these, amidst loud yells, they commenced an attack upon the wealthiest and most respectable houses in the Square. The whole furniture XXXVII. 1839. and effects they contained were carried into the centre of CHAP. the Square, and there set fire to, in a huge pile, amidst the cries and howlings of demons. Not content with this, they carried back the burning materials to the houses, to commence a general conflagration, and two were soon in flames. Besides those consumed by fire, twenty houses or shops were utterly gutted and destroyed in little more than an hour, when the Chartists were masters of the Square. At length a body of police, followed by a party of three hundred of the Rifles, and a troop of the 4th Dragoons under Colonel Chatterton, made their appearance, and were received with loud cheers by the respectable inhabitants. The Chartists immediately fled; and 1 Ann. Reg. several attempts to reassemble next day were defeated 1839, 307 by the energetic conduct of Colonel Chatterton and the 112, 307; military, as well as the civic authorities, now fully aroused 411, 412. to a sense of their danger.1 Chron. 109, Mart. ii. of the Duke ton on the effect of the When this alarming outbreak came to be discussed in 67. ́Parliament, the Duke of Wellington said in the House of Declaration Lords, that "he had seen as much of war as most men; of Wellingbut he had never seen a town carried by assault, subjected subject, and to such violence, as Birmingham had been during an hour great moral by its own inhabitants." This statement, coming from outbreak. the general who had seen what followed the assault of Badajos and St Sebastian, made a very great impression; and the middle classes everywhere saw the necessity of rallying round the magistrates and civic authorities, if they would avoid the fate of the Bullring. Chartist assemblages, accordingly, held at Clerkenwell near London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Manchester, Stockport, and other places, were vigorously met by the now thoroughly alarmed authorities, and dispersed with more or less violence. There is seldom any great difficulty in preserving Parl. Deb. the public peace when the magistrates are sure of being July 18, supported by the Government.2 It is timidity in high Reg. 1839, places which leads to audacity in low. So general was the ii. 412, 413. impression produced by this outbreak, and the reaction 2 1839; Ann. 307; Mart. XXXVII. CHAP. against Chartist violence by which it was followed, that the Attorney-general did not hesitate to say publicly that "Chartism was extinct, and would never again be revived." 1839. 68. Mr John the New Frost and port riot. The event soon proved, however, that this exalted functionary was mistaken in his expectation, and that political maladies, arising, like Chartism, out of long-continued and widespread suffering, are not to be extirpated by the mere failure of the external eruptions to which they have given rise. Among the many improper persons whom the zeal of their Liberal supporters had in many places forced upon the Government, one of the most improper was Mr John Frost, a linendraper at Newport, who had been made a justice of peace for the borough of Newport in entire ignorance of his real character. When the Chartist agitation began, in the autumn of 1838, he had made a very violent and dangerous speech in that town, for which he was immediately called to account, with great propriety, by Lord John Russell, as Home Secretary, and narrowly escaped being at once removed from the magistracy. This lenity afterwards proved to have been entirely thrown away: so far from being induced to halt in his career by the indulgence shown to his first transgression, Frost seems to have only regarded it as a symptom of fear on the part of Government, which rendered it safe for him to advance in it. A plan was laid in profound secresy between Frost himself, Williams, who kept a beer-shop at Coalbrookdale, and Jones, a watchmaker in Pontypool. Each of these persons was to command a division of insurgents, who were to unite at Risca, at dead of night on 3d November, and march into Newport, when the military were to be surrounded and made prisoners, the bridge over the Usk broken down, and rockets sent up from the adjoining hills to rouse the 1839, 314, country. It was agreed with their confederates at Birmingham, that the non-arrival of the mail within an hour and a half of its customary time should be considered as 1 Ann. Reg. 315; Mart. ii. 413. XXXVII. a signal that the insurrection had succeeded at Newport, CHAP. which was to be immediately followed by a general rising at Birmingham and in all the northern counties, and proclamation of the Charter as the law of the land. 1839. 69. Newport, With whatever caution the secret of these arrangements had been preserved, it was impossible that the requisite Attack on orders could be given to ten or twelve thousand men to and its failassemble in hostile array, without some intelligence on the ure. subject reaching the magistrates of the district. Those of Newport did their duty on this occasion with a prudence and courage which may serve as a model to civic authorities on all similar occasions. They did the one thing needful on such occasions-they looked the danger boldly in the face, and made preparations against it before it came. The mayor, Mr Phillips, with the chief magistrates, took post in the principal inn, called the Westgate Hotel; and as soon as it was ascertained that the Chartists were marching on the town, an application was made to a body of military in the neighbourhood, and thirty men under Lieut. Grey were obtained, and posted in the hotel. Meanwhile Frost arrived at the point of junction, and finding that the other divisions had not yet arrived, he set out with his own, 5000 strong, partially armed with muskets, and arrived in Newport. He then made straight for the Westgate Hotel, and summoned the special constables at its door to surrender. This being refused, an attack was made upon them. The door was quickly forced open with crowbars and hatchets, and the tumultuous crowd burst, with loud cheers, into the lobby. But meanwhile the magistrates and military in the floor above were not idle. Mr Phillips and Lieut. Grey each opened a shutter of the low window which looked upon the street, which was immediately followed by a shower of balls from the Chartists below, by which the former and several other persons were wounded. But never did the superiority of courage and discipline appear more clearly than on this occasion. The soldiers, admirably |