GEORGE VAUGHAN, ROBERT MACKEY, AND GEORGE BROWN.
CONVICTED OF A CONSPIRACY.

WHILE the lord mayor was detecting the “men of blood” in the city, the magistrates at Bow-street were not less meritoriously employed in tracing similar crimes to a police-officer, named Vaughan, and several others not immediately employed by the magistrates, but who were well known as loungers about the different offices. Several of these atrocious wretches were apprehended, and many revolting circumstances disclosed.

George Vaughan, Robert Mackey, and George Brown, were tried at the Middlesex sessions, on the 21st of September 1816, on a charge of conspiring to induce William Hurley, Michael Hurley, William Sanderson, William Wood, aged thirteen, and Dennis Hurley, to commit a burglary in the house of Mrs. M‘Donald, at Hoxton; and, by having them convicted of the fact, thereby procure for themselves the rewards given by parliament for the conviction of housebreakers.

The case was clearly proved against the prisoners; and it appeared that through the instrumentality of one Drake, who had been an acting lieutenant in the navy, the dupes were employed to commit the burglary, and that on their proceeding to Mrs. M‘Donald’s house, the three prisoners came up and took them into custody.

The prisoners being found guilty were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the house of correction, and ordered at the conclusion of that time to find security for their future good behaviour. Vaughan was tried on a subsequent day for a robbery in the house of one James Poole, on the 16th of December 1815, and being found guilty was sentenced to be transported.

JOHN CASHMAN
EXECUTED FOR A FELONY COMMITTED AT THE SPAFIELDS’ RIOTS.

ON the cessation of the protracted war which consigned Buonaparte to St. Helena, Great Britain found herself subject to those temporary domestic difficulties which always succeed a sudden return from hostility to peace. The revulsion was felt by nearly every individual in the kingdom; agriculture, trade, and commerce became, for the instant, almost torpid, and thousands of the labouring classes were thrown out of employment.

In this moment of paramount distress, the evil-minded and the designing, taking advantage of the disposition of the people, and urged by personal considerations, continued those attacks upon the ministry of the country which they had hitherto made without that success which they required, and the people, whose attention was now withdrawn from the object which had hitherto served to keep their minds occupied, were easily led away and persuaded that the dangers and difficulties which appeared to exist were the result of bad management only, and were of a nature likely to be permanent, and most injurious to their well-being. The existence of the evil was attributed to some defects which were pointed out in the representative system; and as this was considered to be the root of the evil, the name of radical (from radix, the Latin word for a root) was given to the persons who espoused these new opinions. The party in itself, both as regarded reputation and numbers, was contemptible to a degree, and the names of a few only who were its leaders will be handed to posterity. Thistlewood, Watson, and Hunt, were the most notorious of these agitators, who, as it will hereafter appear, met with very different fates. Thistlewood was hanged; Watson escaped to America; Hunt, by a most extraordinary circumstance, eventually became a member of parliament.