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part of it which is called the" his weak compliance with the dicky. Mr. Clarke and I now "unreasonable mandates of the went out to go to the carriage. "authorities there. At ManchesWe found very little impediment; "ter they never do any thing but but found the passage full of very "in a disgraceful way, any thing ill-looking, well-dressed, rude" of a public and authoritative scoundrels. We got into the car- nature, I mean. Their excesriage without any difficulty. Tosive watchfulness is more busy SEE me was, doubtless, the prim-" and blustering than that of a cipal object of this immense mul-"broody hen; their jealousies titude, and I must have been a are more cruel than the grave; most ungrateful and insensible" their hatred is bitter and unquaman, indeed, not to have a strong "lified as poison, and their meandesire to gratify this wish of so "ness is inexpressible. They many people. While Mr. Clarke "have no idea of a manly or hosat down, therefore, I jumped "nourable hostility. In what upon the seat of the carriage," other town in England could a stood there with my hat off, turn-" genteel rabble be found to elbow ing all about the, and repeating, "and jostle an old man, a stranin a very loud voice, "Gentle-"6 ger, in getting into his carmen, I thank you: God bless you riage.' all: laugh at the Cotton Lords." Now, the mere circumstance of I ordered the carriage to move on age is trifling; but it is worth slowly; and it went at a walk till while to notice, that having been it got quite out of Manchester. beaten in every other way; these The concourse of people that ac- reptile calumniators of mine, companied us was immense. The having been reduced to silence great general desire here, as else- by these astonishing proofs of inwhere, was to shake hands with dustry, perseverance, sagacity, me; and though I had suffered resolution, that I have displayed; so severely from this, the day be- the caitiffs having been absolutely fore, I could not withhold my abashed into silence by the very hands, and had them pulled about look of the public, now begin to comagain till they were both black fort themselves with the thought and sore. Our friends followed that I am a "POOR OLD us till we got quite out of the town MAN;" and that I cannot possibly of Manchester, and then took last long. It is an "old man," their leave amidst loud huzzas and recollect, who can travel five hunthe waving of hats and handker-dred miles, make speeches of half chiefs. an hour long twice a day for a month; put down the saucy, the rich, the tyrannical; make them hang their heads in his presence; an "old man," recollect, that can be jostled out of his majority at an election; and that can return towards his home through forty miles of huzzas from the hips of a hundred and fifty thousand people;

On the subject of this affair at Manchester, the Morning Herald of to-day has the following article, which it pretends to have received from Middleton, near Manchester. "Mr. Cobbett's departure from "Manchester is considered rather inglorious by his friends'; many "of whom are disappointed at

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an "old man," let THWAITES of as it were for the purpose of the Morning Herald recollect, who creating a battle. He, and some could catch him by one of those others along with him, but par things which he calls his legs, and ticularly he, continued to commit toss him over the fence from Pic- these outrageous assaults, without cadilly into the Green Park; an receiving either provocation or "old man," that is not so ungrate-resistance. My sons, who sat ful to God as to ascribe his vigour upon the dicky of the carriage, of body and of mind to his own beheld all this. One of them is merit; but certainly, who happens too young to take an oath; but to know of no young man able to the other can identify the ruffian ; endure more hardship, or per- and swear to him. There was no form more labour than himself. riot; no disturbance of any sort; As to the former part of these re- no quarrelling; all was harmony; marks, however, I must notice, that there was nothing but an anxious those are a curious sort of "friends" desire to see me; and, amidst a who could deem my departure peaceable people like this, this from Manchester inglorious. ruffian came, and dealt his blows, What glory was there to be achiev-as you see the most merciless of ed by exposing a multitude of un- drovers deal their blows amongst armed people to violence of any headstrong cattle. Of this scene sort? I have always said of the I was not aware till my son had 16th of August, that if I had in- time to speak with me after-we vited a hundred thousand people left Manchester; but, (and pray to come together under such cir- mark it well, reader,) we had not cumstances, I never would have gone far from the hotel; perhaps told them to come unarmed. I four or five hundred yards, when would not have got them together, we were met by some horse solunder such circumstances, it is diers, who came bouncing into true, and without rhyme or rea- the crowd at full trot. Ah! they son; but if I had got them toge- were a little too late! I started a ther, under such circumstances, I few minutes before my time; or, never would have told them to these soldiers would have been at throw aside the means of defend-the hotel door just at the time of ing themselves. I never would have brought them together to be chopped or to be trampled to death.

Precisely what would have happened, if I had done any thing to keep this multitude assembled for any length of time at Manchester, I cannot tell; but, take these facts. Just before Mr. Clarke and I came out of the hotel to get into the carriage, a stout fellow, with a big ash stick in his hand, began beating the people on the head near the door-way,

my coming out of the house. As it was, they must have got to the hotel door when there was not a single soul remaining near it, when it was just the same big, naked, cheerless, dull, stupid, unmannerly hole, as when I entered it. That hotel is Manchester in. epitome. Nothing, therefore, was there " inglorious in my conduct at Manchester; nothing of that "weak compliance," of which Thwaites says my "friends" at Manchester complain. I have never yet led men to be hacked

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to pieces or to be trampled to death. I dare say I never shall; and I am ready to take my oath, that I never will get together an unarmed people, and expose them to be thus treated, and that, too, merely for the sake of indulging my own vanity.

reasons for admiring them is, that they pledge the land for the maintenance of those who cannot find other means of living. I shall explain this matter more fully in my little book which I shall send to the people of Preston, and which I shall cause to be distributed, somehow or other, throughout the whole of Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire.

From the hell-hole Manchester on we came to the public-spirited and good-humoured town of Stockport. Here there had been no time After Stockport, we got along to get bands of music; but here as fast as we could towards Lonthe people met us in great multi-don, just stopping a little while at tudes; and amidst shouting, exult- Coventry to taste Mr. Fyler's buting, blessing,and shaking of hands, tered ale, which appears to have we went all across this town, been so efficacious in the discomwhich was upon this occasion a fiting of my old friends, "Peter scene scarcely less gay than that Moore," and "Edward Ellice," a of Bolton itself. I shall remem-couple of senators who appear to ber, with great pleasure and great have taken their leave of the gratitude, the kindness with which boards. I saw some of my old we were received at Stockport. The people, the main body of the people, at the hell-hole Manchester, are, perhaps, full as much my creditors in the account of gratitude as those in any other parts of Lancashire. I shall not presently forget the indignation which they expressed against their and my base and bloodthirsty enemies. They may be assured, that the day is not far distant, when we shall have to laugh those enemies to scorn. Indeed the harpoon of vengeance is already stuck into them, and every day will add to their torments. Let it not be posed that they cannot suffer, of all the receipts and expendiwithout the main mass of the peo-ture, relative to this great effort of ple suffering. Why should the

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friends at Coventry; I heard their account of the manner in which they had served out my enemies; and most heartily did we laugh at the recital. The newspapers tell us, that Mr. Ellice talks of a petition against the return. What will he get by that? I can always go, and turn the scale against him. Let him be quiet, then, or let him confess his past sins committed against me, and make atonement for them with all imaginable despatch.

In my next Register, I shall, if possible, insert an exact account

Gentlemen,

people suffer? There is the mine; and, in the meanwhile, I LAND; and there is the LAW, am, which bids the people go to the land for relief. As I told the people at Bolton, no man admires the King and Constitution more than I do; but one of my greatest

Your most obedient

Humble Servant,
WM. COBBETT.

YORKSHIRE MEETING

OF THE

WORKING CLASSES.

3. That this Meeting views, with mingled feelings of disgust and indig nation, the atrocious and devouring selfishness of a of about a hungang

dred and eighty families, converting all the functions of Government into means of a provision for themselves and their dependants, and for this purpose steadily upholding and pro-' moting every species of abuse, and steadily opposing every attempt at political improvement.

only be destroyed by a corrupt House of Commons, has been fully verified, and we now behold, in the calamitous state of the country, in the ruin of industry, in the extreme poverty of one class, and the boasted opu A MEETING was held at Huns-lence of another; in weak men, let Moor, on Monday, the 26th of recommended only by their servility and wickedness, directing the affairs June, for the purpose of inquiring of a great nation, all the evils resultinto the causes of the present dis-ing from a Government founded tress, and into the most speedy neither on the virtue, the talents, and effectual means of removing the opinions, or the property of the the same. Mr. JAMES MANN, of community. Leeds, was in the Chair. Mr. BUTTON proposed certain resolutions, which resolutions were seconded by Mr. TESTER. At very few meetings have I observed more ability than was displayed upon this occasion. If half a dozen high-flying aristocrats had been assembled and had been the speech-makers, there would not have appeared a thousandth part so much of talent or of wisdom. Mr. TESTER made some statements concerning the situation of the people which are well worthy of being repeated; but I have room at present for nothing, or for very little, beyond the resolutions. It is impossible, absolutely impossible, that this thing should go on in this way. The following were the resolutions agreed to unanimously at this meeting of three or four thousand persons. ...I recommend them to the attention of my readers, and to the imitation cf those who pretend to scoff at the "lower orders."

4. That we are of opinion that our unhappy country owes all its calamities to the predominance of those families who, since the passing of the Septennial Act, have, by degrees, appropriated to themselves a large part of the property and revenue of the whole nation, and who have at last, by taxes, debts, and changes in the currency, involved themselves, as well as the whole of this industrious community, in difficulties too great to be removed by the hand of time, or by any but the most vigorous measures of legislation.

5. That, whether we look at the Church, the Army, the Courts of Law, the Customs, the Excise, the Colonies, or the Crown Lands, we see in each a channel of enormous 1. That this meeting is of opi- emoluments to these particular fanion that the present distress does milies, for whose benefit and ag-> not arise from overtrading, but in grandizement, more than for any the folly and wickedness of an inca-thing else, the whole of these sources pable and corrupt Government tam- of riches would appear to exist. And pering with the national currency. that, therefore, though justice and 2.-That the fatal prediction, that necessity demand a reduction of the the liberty, prosperity, and happi-interest of the debt, and an equitable ness of the people of England, could adjustment of all other contracts,

this meeting would deem such re-sixty, seventy, or eighty pounds: so duction an act of deep iniquity, and that Loans, for which it was stipudo deem such adjustment wholly in-lated to pay an interest of four or practicable as long as these particu-five per cent., we are now paying at lar families enjoy those emoluments, the rate of seven or eight per cent. and as long as they retain in the le- We, therefore, propose an equitable gislature that absolute sway which adjustment with regard to the public they have acquired through the Debt. means of the Septennial Act, in conjunction with the notorious and scandalous abuses connected with the representation.

10. That it is an incontrovertible fact that the Clergy of the established church of England and Ireland alone, are receiving more by forty6.-That it is a universally noto-than the whole of the Christian Mifour thousand pounds per annum, rious fact, that of these families there nistry of America, France, Spain, are some receiving twenty, some Portugal, Hungary, Italy, Austria, thirty, some forty, fifty, and even Switzerland, Prussia, Germany, Holsixty thousand pounds per an-land, Denmark, Sweden, Russia: in num out of the sweat and blood of an industrious people, though Christian Ministers of the whole a word, more than all the other their services to the state are not of world put together. And it is so great importance as those of any equally incontrovertible, that the mechanic in the kingdom. We therefore propose to alleviate the na-ers, the pillars of religion, and the grossly abused and vilified Dissenttional burdens by a total abolition of all sinecures, pensions, grants, and glory of their country, support their own Ministers, whilst they are comemoluments, not merited by public pelled to assist in swelling out the

services.

enormous revenue of the Established 7. That the keeping up of a Church. We therefore propose, that standing army in a period of pro-after a decent provision shall have found peace, is contrary to every been made for the Ministers of the sterling principle of British Law. National Establishment, the surplus We therefore propose a reduction of revenues of the Church, to the the army, including staff, barracks, and military colleges, to a scale of expense as low as that of the army before the last war.

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amount of at least seven millions per annum, shall be appropriated to the liquidation of the National Debt.

11. That as all the evils with which we are cursed, have been proved to have originated in the cor rupt state of the representation, the form of the Commons' House of only effectual remedy is a radical reParliament. We therefore call upon our fellow countrymen in every city, town, and village, to come forth, and

with unanimous voice demand that

which alone can save the nation from utter destruction.

9. That it is a notorious fact that 12. That the thanks of this meetnearly two-thirds of the national ing are due, and are heartily given to debt have been created in a depre- Mr. William Cobbett, Mr. Joseph ciated currency; that individuals Hume, the Westminster Reviewers,.. who advanced money to the Govern- and the other numerous, disinterestment, instead of lending a hundred ed, and eloquent advocates of the pounds lent only in real value, Rights of the People.

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