Throughout the whole week, great alarm prevailed among the well-disposed inhabitants of the town; and the military continued in possession of the principal places of strength to prevent any new effort against the public peace.
The exhibition of violence on the part of the Chartists, however, was not confined to Sheffield; but at Dewsbury a simultaneous rising took place. On the Saturday night the town was seized by a number of armed men; and the private watchmen, six in number, were compelled to fly. Mr. Hale, an inhabitant of the town, who was acting as inspector of the watch, was fired at, although without effect, and the mob kept the neighbourhood in a state of terror during the whole night by the constant discharge of fire-arms. In Heckmondwicke, and other villages, similar scenes were enacted; and it was afterwards learned that the men who thus disturbed the public peace, were proceeding to join the Sheffield Chartists, but before morning all of them had dispersed.
While these disturbances, however, had occupied the attention of the authorities in the North, in London the government and the law officers of the crown had been occupied in determining the fate of the prisoners under sentence at Monmouth. The questions for the consideration of the judges, reserved at the time of the trials of Frost, Williams, and Jones, for in each the same points arose, were argued before the fifteen judges in the Exchequer Chamber; and after a most lengthy and learned discussion, extending through three days, the case terminated on the afternoon of the 28th of January.
The conclusion arrived at by the judges was communicated by the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas to the Home Secretary, in the following letter:—
“Westminster-hall, 28th January, 1840.
“My Lord—I have the honour to inform your lordship that the argument upon the three cases of The Queen v. Frost, The Queen v. Williams, and The Queen v. Jones closed this afternoon, and that the judges, after considering the subject, have come to the following determination upon the two questions which have been argued before them, viz:—First—A majority of the judges, in the proportion of nine to six, are of opinion that the delivery of the list of witnesses was not a good delivery in point of law.
“But secondly—A majority of the judges, in the proportion of nine to six, are of opinion that the objection to the delivery of the list of witnesses was not taken in due time. All the judges agreed that if the objection had been made in due time, the effect of it would have been a postponement of the trial in order to give time for a proper delivery of the list. The result, therefore, of the determination of the judges is, that the conviction is right.
“I have the honour to remain, my lord, your lordship’s faithful and obedient servant,
“N. C. Tindal.
“The Lord Marquess of Normanby, &c. &c. &c.”