CONSEQUENCES OF THE REJECTION OF THE REFORM BILL.
The rejection of the reform bill produced an extraordinary sensation throughout the country. Meetings were instantly convened in the metropolis. One was held at the Thatched-house Tavern, consisting of all the members who had supported the bill in its passage through the commons. The common-council also promptly assembled; and this was followed by a meeting at the Mansion-house of merchants and bankers, who passed resolutions approving of the conduct of government, and pledging themselves to its support. Petitions were also carried to the king, praying him to continue his ministers, and have recourse to a new creation of peers, sufficient in numbers to carry the bill. The lord-mayor and corporation went to St. James’s with an address to the throne, and the civic procession was joined in its route by such numerous bodies with similar addresses, that, before it reached the palace, it consisted of more than 500,000 persons. Soon after their arrival the parochial deputies waited on Lord Melbourne, who prudently advised them to commit their addresses to the county members for presentation at the levee. This was announced to the multitude by Mr. Hume, who, while he exhorted them to be firm and united, advised them to be peaceable, and to disperse immediately, so that no advantage might be given to the enemies of reform. Mischief, however, was on foot. The mansions of the Duke of Wellington, the Marquis of Bristol, and that of Earl Dudley, were attacked, and were only saved from destruction by the timely interference of the police. The Marquis of Londonderry and the Duke of Cumberland were personally attacked in the park; and the latter would probably have been killed had not the police rescued him. In the country, also, violence and outrage became the order of the day. At first they were confined to the counties of Derby and Nottingham, at the latter of which places the mob set fire to the castle, the seat of the Duke of Newcastle, one of the sternest opposers of the reform bill. The house of Mr. Masters, also, in the vicinity, was sacked and pillaged; and his wife died in consequence of being obliged to seek shelter under the bushes of a shrubbery in a cold and rainy October night. In both houses of parliament ministers loudly expressed their disapprobation of such proceedings; but they were charged by their opponents with having indirectly encouraged the rioters by the language they had used, and the connexion in which they had placed themselves with large bodies of men acting illegally. While the bill was before the lords a meeting of political unions took place at Birmingham; and this assembly voted an address to the king, setting forth their alarm “at the awful consequences” which might arise from the failure of the bill; their pain at imagining the house of lords so infatuated as to reject it; and their earnest desire that his majesty would create as many peers as might be necessary to carry the measure. The most violent and threatening language was uttered by the speakers at this meeting; and one of the resolutions agreed to was a vote of thanks to Lords Althorp and John Russell. This was answered in these courteous terms:—“I beg to acknowledge with heartfelt gratitude the undeserved honour done me by 150,000 of my countrymen. Our prospects are now obscured for a moment, and I trust only for a moment. It is impossible that the whisper of faction should prevail against the voice of a nation.” This courteous reply to a body of demagogues was severely deprecated in the house of commons, especially by Sir H. Hardinge, Sir R. Vyvyan, and Sir Charles Wetherell. In the meantime the spirit of insubordination seemed to increase. At Croydon the Archbishop of Canterbury was grossly insulted while presiding over a meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; and in Somersetshire the bishop of the diocese was attacked when engaged in the solemn ceremony of consecrating a new church. Several other obnoxious prelates were burned in effigy. But these were trifles compared with the devastation committed at Bristol, when its recorder. Sir Charles Wetherell, arrived there late in October, on his official duties. He had no sooner opened his commission than he was attacked with such violence by the mob, that he was compelled to seek for safety by flight and disguise. Even his departure did not stop the mad fury of the populace. The episcopal palace, the mansion-house, the excise-office, with great part of Queen’s Square, fell a sacrifice to the flames. A large number of warehouses, also, many of which were filled with wine and spirits, shared in the conflagration. The soldiers had been sent out of the city, but they were compelled to be recalled; and as parties of them arrived, tranquillity was restored. The total number of killed and wounded amounted nearly to one hundred; and about two hundred were taken prisoners during the outrages, while others were captured afterwards with plundered property in their possessions. About the same time partial disturbances broke out at Bath, Coventry, and Worcester; but these being vigorously opposed by the municipal and military powers, were speedily checked. A proclamation was finally issued by his majesty in council on the 2nd of November, exhorting all classes of his subjects to unite in suppressing tumults. As winter advanced, however, the alarm of the executive government increased, and serious apprehensions were entertained lest the peace of the country should be endangered by the formidable associations which everywhere existed, and especially by those in London, Birmingham, and Manchester. These associations began even to appoint councils and officers, and to assume a regular plan of organization. The rapid increase of unions at length made it necessary that some steps should be taken to lay them under restraint; and the Gazette of the 22nd of November contained a proclamation, declaring their illegality, and warning all subjects of the realm against entering into such combinations. About the same time a special commission was appointed to try the Bristol rioters, and the result was that eighty-five were convicted: five were left for execution, but four only suffered the extremity of the law. A military court of inquiry was also instituted on the conduct of the officers commanding at Bristol, and a court-martial was appointed on Colonel Brereton and Captain Warrington. The former, overcome by his feelings, and the weight of evidence against him, destroyed himself, and the latter rested his defence for his neglect in suppressing the riots, and preserving the buildings, on the want of directions from Colonel Brereton, and of assistance from the city magistrates, the head of whom purposely concealed himself when his presence was needed; whilst all the aldermen excused themselves for not accompanying the soldiers, by their inability to ride on horseback. General Sir Charles Dalbiac, however, the crown-prosecutor, laid it down as a fundamental principle of the common law:—“That if the occasion demands immediate action, and no opportunity is given for procuring the advice or sanction of a magistrate, it is the duty of every subject to act on his own responsibility, in suppressing a riotous and tumultuous assembly; and whatever may be done by him honestly, in the execution of that object, he will be justified and supported by the common law. That law acknowledges no distinction between the private citizen and the soldier, who is still a citizen, lying under the same obligation, and invested with the same authority to preserve the king’s peace as any other subject.” Later in the year commissions were issued to try the rioters at Nottingham and Derby.
During all this time Ireland continued in a most distracted state. Associations were promoted in the country by Mr. O’Connell for the repeal of the union, until at length the magistrates dispersed one of his meetings, and apprehended the great agitator and his accomplices for illegal acts. True bills were found against them by the grand jury, and Mr. O’Connell put in a demurrer; but withdrew it, and pleaded not guilty. After several attempts to delay the trial, he withdrew that plea, also, and pleaded guilty to the first fourteen counts in the indictment respecting the holding of meetings in contempt of proclamations. Mr. Stanley, secretary for Ireland, distinctly stated in the house of commons, in answer to a question put by the Marquis of Chandos, that he and his accomplices would be brought up for judgment; but this promise was never fulfilled, and many discussions took place in parliament, as to whether government had made any compromise with the agitators. Ministers denied that such was the case; and that they were not brought up for judgment is perhaps sufficiently accounted for by the state of both England and Ireland. In the latter country the disturbances toward the close of the year greatly increased. In the counties of Clare, Roscommon, Galway and Tipperary, all law was trampled under foot; murder, robbery, and searching for arms by bodies of men were the ordinary occurrences of every day. The lord-lieutenant made a progress through the disturbed counties in the vain hope that his presence would restore tranquillity; but things remained in the same state on his return to Dublin as before his departure from thence. More vigorous measures were afterwards adopted: proclamations were issued in several counties applying the insurrection act to them, and a special commission was sent down to try all offenders captured. A great number of miserable creatures were convicted, but few individuals suffered the last penalty of the law. But notwithstanding these trials, the outrages in Ireland lost little of their horrors. The refusal to pay tithes became general; and many frightful collisions occurred between the peasantry and the authorities which endeavoured to repress their lawless proceedings, The law was, in fact, powerless; and whenever the officers of the law interfered, open war was declared against them.
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FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.
On the 3rd of October the chancellor of the exchequer laid his view of finance for the year before the house of commons. This was the second statement within the year; for the original budget was a failure, and his lordship had been driven to the necessity of changing his operations. His present statement was that the total amount of receipts for the present year would be £47,250,000, and the expenditure £46,756,221. He had, he said, to allow for £200,000 more received from the account of the last year, so that he would take the surplus of revenue over expenditure at £493,000. He begged to observe that this surplus was larger than he had anticipated in February last, notwithstanding he had not succeeded in carrying several of the taxes he had proposed. In the customs there had been a falling off this quarter; but he had grounds for concluding that it would not continue. In regard to the sinking-fund, he said, that, at the commencement of each quarter, he had taken an average of the four preceding quarters, and that sum he had applied to the reduction of the debt in the succeeding quarter, if the revenue was not clearly falling. The act allowed the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt to apply the surplus to the purchase of exchequer-bills, as well as stock; and since the revenue had been diminished so much by the reduction of taxes, the surplus had been applied in the purchase of such bills. He had done this in order to diminish the number of securities in the hands of the bank; and although the plan was operose, the effect was, that the debt was not reduced, unless there was a real surplus of revenue.