A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

The depression was not confined to the agricultural interest. The removal of the restrictions caused by the Continental System excited lively hopes among the trading community. During the war our exports had chiefly depended upon an organized contraband trade. Even so, in 1811, shipments had been made to the Continent to the value of £11,000,000. It was supposed that, without restrictions, the sum might be doubled. Everybody wished for a share in the golden harvest, and much money was transferred from legitimate and lucrative trade to the purchase of colonial produce for exportation. But what is called effective demand for any commodity depends not on the desire of the purchaser, but upon his power of purchase. The exhausting wars of late years so limited that power of purchase that the exports of England either lay in the ports unsold or were got rid of at less than the cost price. Nor did our restrictive commercial policy allow a ready interchange of commodities, which might have tended to render the disaster less. Peace with America had produced somewhat the same effects. Thus, both in agriculture and in commerce, widespread suffering and distress existed.

The difficulties were increased at the time by a considerable reduction in the circulating medium. The fall in agricultural profits had ruined many banks in agricultural districts, and induced others to Riots and political meetings. restrict their issue of paper money. A severe winter, a deficient harvest, and the rise of the price of wheat before the close of the year (1815) again to 103s., came to complete the general misery. The effect was a widespread series of riots; rick-burning and machine-breaking were constant, especially in the east of England. At Littleport, in the isle of Ely, the town was for two days in the hands of the mob (May 22), and the tumult was only suppressed after the military had been called out. In the coal and iron districts, though the people on the whole behaved well, great meetings of unemployed operatives took place; while in Nottingham and the neighbourhood the Luddite disturbances broke out with fresh vehemence. The discontent and unhappiness of the people before long assumed the shape of a political movement. The change must be attributed to the writings of Cobbett more than to any other single cause. For some years he had published a Liberal periodical called "The Weekly Political Register," in which, with remarkable clearness of style and simple power of argument, he had constantly attacked the Government. In 1816, he changed the price of his paper from a shilling to twopence, and it at once became the oracle of the working classes. His view was, that all the evils of the time might be cured by reform of Parliament. He indeed went far beyond what the nation was then fit for, demanding universal suffrage and annual Parliaments. But his work was the beginning of the great agitation which continued till the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832.

Against this new sort of opposition without the walls of Parliament the Government set to work with violent measures of repression. The Hampden Clubs, which had sprung up in all directions for purposes of parliamentary reform, no doubt had fallen in many cases into the hands of dangerous demagogues. In London they appear to have become connected with a body of men known as Spencean philanthropists, after Spence, who, at the beginning of the century, had made himself notorious by his socialistic plans. To this society belonged Thistlewood, the two Watsons, and a man of the name of Meeting in Spa Fields. Dec. 2, 1816. Preston. Castle, a spy of the police, crept in among them, and probably urged them to more reckless action than they would otherwise have taken. According to his account, a great plot was on foot for taking the Tower, seizing the Government, and establishing a Committee of Public Safety. A meeting in Spa Fields in connection with this plot was held upon the 2nd of December. It was to be addressed by Mr. Hunt, a vain and empty demagogue, but before he arrived the Spenceans had begun to act upon their own authority. Young Watson had led a number of men to Snow Hill to ransack a gunsmith's shop, and had there shot a gentleman who had remonstrated with him. The crowd then marched to the Royal Exchange, where they were met by the Lord Mayor, who courageously withstanding them, with only seven assistants, easily dispersed them. Preston appears also singlehanded to have climbed the wall of the Tower, and have summoned the guard to surrender. Beyond this nothing formidable was done.

While hunger and misery, the depression of trade, and the influence of a few able demagogues, were driving the poorer classes to acts of violence, and a dangerous union was being established between social and political discontent, the middle classes were gradually arriving at the same conclusion as their inferiors with Petition from the Corporation of London. regard to the necessity of a thorough change in the constitution of Parliament. In December, only a few weeks after the uproar in Spa Fields, the Corporation of London, of late the firm supporters of the policy of Government, addressed a petition to the Prince Regent, which throws a striking light upon the feelings which the conduct of Government since the war had excited. After a rapid summary "of the distress and misery, no longer limited to one portion of the Empire, and under the irresistible pressure of which the commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing interests are equally sinking," the address goes on to say: "Our grievances are the natural effect of rash and ruinous wars, unjustly commenced and pertinaciously persisted in, where no rational object was to be attained; of immense subsidies to foreign powers to defend their own territories or to commit aggressions on those of our neighbours; of a delusive paper currency; of an unconstitutional and unprecedented military force in time of peace; of the unexampled and increasing magnitude of the Civil List; of the enormous sums paid for unmerited pensions and sinecures; and of a long course of the most lavish and improvident expenditure of the public money throughout every branch of the Government, all arising from the corrupt and inadequate state of the representation of the people in Parliament, whereby all constitutional control over the servants of the Crown has been lost, and Parliaments have become subservient to the will of Ministers."

Incapacity of the Tory party.

It began to be evident that, as the great common interest of the war disappeared, and the popularity and influence derived from its successful termination wore itself out, the Tory party, with its repressive and reactionary doctrines, would find itself wholly unable to handle with success the domestic questions which inevitably arose. For some years longer it successfully held its position. Circumstances enabled it again to separate the middle and lower classes, and full time was allowed it to exhibit its repressive principles of home government.

The success of the Government was due to the excesses of the mob, and to the exaggerated fear which it was found possible to excite among the propertied classes. The Regent had scarcely opened Parliament, with an assurance that he was well convinced of the Attack on the Regent. June 28, 1817. loyalty of the great body of his Majesty's subjects, but was determined to omit no precautions for preserving public peace, when, as he was returning from the House, he was ill-received by the people, and a missile thrown from the crowd even broke one of the windows of his carriage. This outrage encouraged the Government to take vigorous measures. It was not difficult to represent the whole project of reform as being indissolubly Repressive measures of the Government. March. mixed with the extreme doctrines of Cobbett and the Spenceans. A secret committee of both Houses was appointed to inquire into the public disaffection; that of the Lords reported the existence of a great network of societies and clubs, which, under pretence of parliamentary reform, were attempting to infect the minds of all classes with a spirit of disaffection, and contempt of law, religion, and morality, while no endeavours were omitted to prepare the people to take up arms on the first signal of the accomplishment of their design. The Commons committee declared (Feb. 19) that the Hampden Clubs aimed at nothing short of revolution. Armed with these reports, which were no doubt extraordinarily exaggerated, Government introduced and carried Bills for preventing attempts to seduce soldiers and sailors from their allegiance, to give to the Prince Regent all the safeguards of an actual sovereign, to prevent seditious meetings, and lastly (March 3), for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act till the 1st of the ensuing July.

Secret political meetings.

The effect of these Acts was at once to give a certain reality to the dangers on the false apprehension of which they had been based. Public meetings being impossible, secret meetings, with all the dangers which invariably attend them, sprang into existence. The worse affected and more dangerous leaders of the people began to acquire influence, and desperate designs, fomented and betrayed by spies in the employment of Government, began to be entertained. It is impossible to suspect benevolent gentlemen such as Lord Sidmouth of wilfully entrapping ignorant artisans to their own destruction; but it is certain that use was constantly made of spies who found it to their own advantage to concoct and betray treasonable and atrocious conspiracies. The most notorious of these spies was a man of the name of Oliver, who, giving himself out as a delegate of London reforming societies, succeeded in giving a new impulse to the plots in various parts of the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire. The violent suppression by the military and constables of a peaceable meeting, known as the meeting of blanketeers, at Manchester on the 29th of March, made the people more ready to listen to his suggestions. The meeting was a peaceful one, and acquired its name from the blankets or coats which many of those assembled had strapped upon their backs. A few of them set out upon a foolish march, intending to petition the Prince Regent in person; but their intentions appear to have been quite peaceful, and though many were apprehended, they were all discharged before trial. It seems probable that what is known as the Derby insurrection was one of the consequences of Oliver's representations. A man of the name of Brandreth, known as "the Captain," went from house to house near Pentridge, spreading such assertions as that England, Ireland, and The Derby insurrection. June 10. France were all to rise that night at ten o'clock, and that the "northern clouds," or men from the north, would come down and sweep all before them. A few men collected in arms at his summons. They do not seem ever to have numbered much more than an hundred, and were without difficulty dispersed, and many of them taken prisoners by the military at a short distance from Nottingham. Such disturbances as these were held to justify a second suspension of the Habeas Corpus.

Suppression of seditious writings.