The greatest precautions were adopted to prevent accidents among the crowd.—A large bill was placarded at all the avenues to the Old Bailey, and carried about on a pole, to this effect:—“Beware of entering the crowd!—Remember thirty poor creatures were pressed to death by the crowd when Haggerty and Holloway were executed,” and no accident of any moment occurred.
To prevent any disposition to tumult, a military force was stationed near Islington, and to the south of Blackfriars Bridge; and all the volunteer corps of the metropolis received instructions to be under arms during the whole of the day.
THE LUDDITES.
THE name of this deluded faction was taken from the person by whom they represented that they were led on to commit the irregularities of which they were guilty—General Ludd. It appears that the cotton manufacturers of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and some parts of Yorkshire, having suffered under a considerable reduction of wages and scarcity of work, which they attributed to the very extensive introduction of machinery, associated in such numbers for the destruction of frames and looms, and the annoyance of those manufacturers who had been most forward in introducing the machines, that those counties became the seat of the most serious tumults.
The crimes of which they were generally guilty were those of administering unlawful oaths, riotously assembling, and breaking the frames and looms of the manufacturers of cloth, breaking into houses, and in some instances those persons who had had sufficient hardihood to oppose their proceedings were selected by them as victims to their passions, and were barbarously murdered. The riotous proceedings of the party continued during a considerable period, but at length the active measures, which were taken by the government against them, effectually put a stop to their depredations.
Many of them having been taken into custody a special commission was issued for their trial, and was opened by Baron Thompson, at the city of York, on Monday the 4th of January 1813, in a most impressive charge to the grand jury.
On Tuesday, the 5th, the business of the court commenced with the trial of John Swallow, John Batley, Joseph Fletcher, and John Lamb, for a burglary and felony in the house of Mr. Samuel Moxon, at Whitley Upper: the jury pronounced them all guilty.
It would be useless to go into a detail of all the cases tried before the learned judges, all of which partook strongly of the same character, and we shall therefore confine ourselves to the recital of those instances which were marked by the spilling of blood.
On the Wednesday, George Mellor, of Longroyd Bridge, and William Thorp and Thomas Smith, of Huddersfield, were indicted for the wilful murder of William Horsfall, of Marsden, merchant and manufacturer, at Lockwood, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.