United States or Malaysia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Such affairs as the Luddites do not occur twice in a century, and as for Spafields riots, they are impossible now with Peel's new police. The country is employed and prosperous, and were it not so, the landed interest would always keep things straight." "It is powerful, and has been powerful for a long time; but there are other interests besides the landed interest now."
House, the said meeting separated in the most peaceable and orderly manner, which your petitioner trusts is quite sufficient to convince your Honourable House that if, as your Secret Committee reported, designs of riot do still continue to be prosecuted with sanguine hopes of success, these designs can have no connection whatever with the meetings for retrenchment, relief, and Reform, held in Spafields.
I had first to walk into Fleet-street on business, and when I got there, I saw nine pieces of artillery drawn over Blackfriars-bridge, which proceeded up Fleet-market towards Spafields, attended by a regular company of artillery men from Woolwich.
John Castles, the worthy gentleman who feigned asleep in my room at the Black Lion, Waterlane, on the evening after the first Spafields meeting, and the same worthy who met me in Cheapside, as I was driving to the second meeting on the second of December, and who kindly invited me to go to the Tower with him, which he assured me was in the possession of young Watson.
This offer I cheerfully accepted, and I thought no more of the business till I saw it publicly announced that a meeting would be held on Portsdown-Hill, on the 10th day of February, the very day that was fixed for holding the third Spafields meeting; and that was done without consulting or saying a word to me upon the subject, although I was the only person written to by the people of Portsmouth.
All that under such circumstances I ever considered was, how best to perform my duty, when I was before the public, either at a meeting of the people in Spafields, or in Palace-yard, or at a meeting of my fellow Liverymen in the Guildhall. I never personally cared whether my motions were carried, or whether they were rejected, my main object, being to perform my duty boldly and conscientiously.
Here I have shown that, within three months of the great meeting first held in Spafields, and between the second and third meeting which was advertised, no less a sum than NINETY THOUSAND POUNDS A YEAR was surrendered for the public exigencies; and was this doing nothing?
In the beginning of November some persons in London advertised and called a public meeting of the distressed inhabitants of the metropolis, to be held in Spafields, on the 15th; this originated with Dr. Watson and some of those who called themselves Spenceans. As I have learned since, they sent invitations to Sir Francis Burdett, Major Cartwright, myself, and Lord Cochrane, and even to Mr.
When, however, I saw the artillery pass up Fleet-market, in a direction for Spafields, the place of meeting, I began to think more seriously of the matter; but, as I was about to do that which my conscience approved of, and as I knew that I should not violate any law, I returned towards my inn, certainly in a serious mood, yet determined to do my duty.
To be sure, five persons had been found guilty of rioting on the day of the second Spafields meeting, and Cashman was sentenced to death; but this had nothing to do with the meeting itself, which met only for the purpose of petitioning Parliament, and peaceably separated, after agreeing to a petition, which was signed by twenty-four thousand persons, praying for Reform, and the abolition of all sinecures, and a reduction of the public expenditure; which petition had been presented, and received by the House of Commons, before these surrenders and resignations of these large sums were made.
Word Of The Day