་ comfort, all men's comfort? That policy, which, originating with great statesmen now no more,' has survived the dead to become a curse on the living, unto the third and fourth generation! These men never destroyed their frames till they become useless-worse than useless, till they were become actual impediments to their exertions in obtaining their daily bread. Can you, then, wonder that in times like these, when bankruptcy, convicted fraud, and imputed felony, are found in a station not far beneath your lordships', the lowest, though once most useful portion of the people, should forget their duty in their distresses, and become only less guilty than one of their representatives? But while the exalted offender can find means to baffle the law, new capital punishments must be devised, new snares of death must be spread for the wretched mechanic, who is famished into guilt. These men were willing to dig, but the spade was in other hands: they were not ashamed to beg, but there was none to relieve them: there own means of subsistence were cut off; all other employments preoccupied; and their excesses, however to be deplored and condemned, can hardly be a subject of surprise. It has been stated that the persons in the temporary possessions of the frames connive at their destruction; if this be proved upon enquiry, it were necessary that such material accessories to the crime should be principals in the punishment. But I did hope that any measure proposed by his Majesty's government, for your lordships' decision, would have had conciliation for its basis; or, if that were hopeless, that some previous inquiry, some deliberation would have been deemed requisite; not that we should have been called at once without examination, and without cause, to pass sentences by wholesale, and sign death warrants blindfold. But, admitting that these men had no cause of complaint; that the grievances of them and their employers were alike groundless; that they deserved the worst; what inefficiency, what imbecility has been evinced in the method chosen to reduce them! Why were the military called out to be made a mockery of, if they were to be called out at all? As far as the difference of the seasons would permit, they merely parodied the summer campaign of Major Sturgeon; and, indeed, the whole proceedings, civil and military, seem to be of the model of those of the mayor and corporation of Garratt. Such marchings and countermarchings! from Nottingham to Bullwell, from Bullwell to Banford, from Banford to Mansfield and when at length detachments arrived at their destination, in all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war,' they came just in time to witness what had been done, and ascertain the escape of perpetrators, to collect the fragments of broken frames, and return to their quarters amidst the derision of old women and the hootings of children. Now, though in a free country it were to be wished that our military should not be formidable, at least to ourselves, I cannot see the policy of placing them in situations where they can only be made ridiculous. As the sword is the worst argument that can be used, so it should be the last. In this instance it has been the worst, The present but providentially has rested yet in the scabbard. measure will indeed pluck it from the sheath; yet, had proper meetings been held in the earlier stages of the riots: had the grievances of the men and their masters (for they also had their grievances) been fairly weighed and justly examined, I do think that means might have been devised to restore these workmen to their avocations, and tranquility to the county. At present the county suffers from a double infliction of an idle military and a starving population. In what state of apathy have we been plunged so long that now for the first time the House has been officially apprised of the disturbances? All this has been transacting within 130 miles of London; and yet we, 'good, easy men, have deemed our greatness was a-ripening,' and have sat down to enjoy our triumphs in the midst of domestic calamity. But all the cities you have taken, all the armies that have retreated before your leaders, are but paltry subjects of self-congratulation if your land divides against itself, and your dragoons and executioners must be let loose against your fellow citizens. You call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous, and ignorant; and seem to think that the only way to quiet the Bellua Multurum Capitum' is to lop off a few of their superfluous heads. But even a mob may be better reduced to reason by a mixture of conciliation and firmness than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligation to a mob? It is the mob that labour in our fields, serve in our houses that man your navy and recruit your army-that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob, but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. And here I must remark, with what alacrity you are accustomed to fly to the succour of your distressed allies, leaving the distressed of your own country to the care of Providence or the parish. When the Portuguese suffered under the retreat of the French, every arm was stretched out, every hand was opened; from the rich man's largess to the widow's mite, all was bestowed, to enable them to rebuild their villages and replenish their granaries. And at this moment, when thousands of misguided but most unfortunate fellow-countrymen are struggling with the extremes of hardships and hunger, as your charity began abroad it should end at home. A much less sum, a tithe of the bounty bestowed on Portugal, even if these men (which I cannot admit without enquiry) could not have been restored to their employment, would have rendered unnecessary the tender mercies of the bayonet and the gibbet. But doubtless our friends have too many foreign claims to admit a prospect of domestic relief; though never did such objects demand it. I have traversed the seat of war in the Peninsula; I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey; but never, under the most despotic of infidel governments, did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return into the very heart of a christian country. And what are your remedies? After months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the neverfailing nostrum of all state physicians, from the days of Draco to the present time. After feeling the pulse and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding the warm water of your mawkish police, and lances of military-these convulsions must end in death, the sure consummation of these prescriptions of all political Sangradoes. Setting aside the palpable injustice and the certain inefficiency of the bill, are there not capital punishments sufficient in your statutes? Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to Heaven, and testify against you? How will you carry the bill into effect? Can you commit a whole county to their own prisons? Will you erect a gibbet in every field and hang up men like scarecrows? Or, will you proceed (as you must to bring this measure into effect) by decimation? Place the county under martial law? Depopulate and lay waste all around you And restore Sherwood Forest as an acceptable gift to the crown, in the former condition of a royal chase and an asylum for outlaws? Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace? Will the famished wretch who has braved your bayonets be appalled by your gibbets ? When death is a relief, and the only relief it appears you will afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquility? Will that which could not be effected by your grenadiers, be accomplished by your executioners? If you proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? Those who have refused to impeach their accomplices, when transportation only was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. When a proposal is made to emancipate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you temporise and tamper with the minds of men; but a death bill must be passed off hand, without a thought of the consequences! I am, from what I have heard, and from what I have seen, that to pass the bill under all the existing circumstances, without enquiry, without deliberation, would only be to add injustice to irritation, and barbarity to neglect. The framers of such a bill must be content to inherit the honours of that Athenian lawgiver whose edicts were said to be written, not in ink, but in blood. But suppose it passed: suppose one of the men, as I have seen themmeagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking frame-suppose this man, surrounded by the children for whom he is unable to procure bread, at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn from a family which he has lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault that he can no longer so support-suppose this man, and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victim, dragged into court, to be tried for this new offence, by this new law; and there are two things wanted to convict and condemn him; and these are, in my opinion-twelve butchers for a jury, and Jefferies for a judge." Sure CHAPTER VIII. PREPARING FOR ACTION. "They stand erect; their slouch becomes a walk; "Put on The dauntless spirit of resolution."-SHAKESPEARE. Saturday, the eleventh of April, the day fixed upon for the attack on Mr. Cartwright's mill, arrived, and some of the restless spirits at John Wood's workshop waited impatiently for the shades of evening to close in. Dickenson, the mysterious messenger of the fraternity, had visited all the centres of disaffection to warn them to be in readiness, and to convey powder and ammunition to such as required them. He had visited John Wood's workshop early in the morning of that day, and having supplied their wants, had passed on to other places. As the hour fixed upon drew near the various bands began to make their way towards the meeting place, which, as we have already stated, was a field belonging to Sir George Armitage, at Cooper Bridge, near the "Dumb Steeple." The officers of the Luddites had been very busy all the previous week looking up their men and conveying to them arms of various kinds. Notwithstanding the vigilance of the searching parties they were not however able to supply the whole of their members, they were all warned nevertheless to attend the general rendezvous. It was arranged that the party should start on their destructive mission before midnight, and the men left their homes singly or in little groups at various times, so as not to arouse suspicion. Soon after ten o'clock some of the more eager spirits were on the ground, and before the hour expired the number had increased to about fifty. They were armed in very motley fashion: some bore guns, others pistols, while many carried only hedge stakes or stout bludgeons of various kinds, and not a few held on their shoulders huge hammers, mauls, and murderous looking hatchets of various sizes. They were nearly all disguised, some having their faces than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, the neverfailing nostrum of all state physicians, from the days of Draco to the present time. After feeling the pulse and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding the warm water of your mawkish police, and lances of military-these convulsions must end in death, the sure consummation of these prescriptions of all political Sangradoes. Setting aside the palpable injustice and the certain inefficiency of the bill, are there not capital punishments sufficient in your statutes? Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to Heaven, and testify against you? How will you carry the bill into effect? Can you commit a whole county to their own prisons? Will you erect a gibbet in every field and hang up men like scarecrows? Or, will you proceed (as you must to bring this measure into effect) by decimation? Place the county under martial law? Depopulate and lay waste all around you? And restore Sherwood Forest as an acceptable gift to the crown, in the former condition of a royal chase and an asylum for outlaws? Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace? Will the famished wretch who has braved your bayonets be appalled by your gibbets? When death is a relief, and the only relief it appears you will afford him, will he be dragooned into tranquility? Will that which could not be effected by your grenadiers, be accomplished by your executioners? If you proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? Those who have refused to impeach their accomplices, when transportation only was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. When a proposal is made to emancipate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you temporise and tamper with the minds of men; but a death bill must be passed off hand, without a thought of the consequences! Sure I am, from what I have heard, and from what I have seen, that to pass the bill under all the existing circumstances, without enquiry, without deliberation, would only be to add injustice to irritation, and barbarity to neglect. The framers of such a bill must be content to inherit the honours of that Athenian lawgiver whose edicts were said to be written, not in ink, but in blood. But suppose it passed: suppose one of the men, as I have seen themmeagre with famine, sullen with despair, careless of a life which your lordships are perhaps about to value at something less than the price of a stocking frame-suppose this man, surrounded by the children for whom he is unable to procure bread, at the hazard of his existence, about to be torn from a family which he has lately supported in peaceful industry, and which it is not his fault that he can no longer so support-suppose this man, and there are ten thousand such from whom you may select your victim, dragged into court, to be tried for this new offence, by this new law; and there are two things wanted to convict and condemn him; and these are, in my opinion-twelve butchers for a jury, and Jefferies for a judge." |