CHAPTER VI.
1831.
Incendiary fires — Captain Swing — The result of Cobbett's lectures — Special Commission — Prosecution of Carlile — Election expenses — List of Close boroughs — Collapse of Reform Bill — The King stoned — Debût of Princess Victoria — The Times and the House of Lords — Bribery at elections — Action for libel — "The King v. Cobbett" — Prince Leopold made King of the Belgians.
"The Red Cock" still crowed, and incendiary fires were still the order of the day, in spite of the commissions to examine the numerous prisoners in several counties. Captain Swing was rampant, and his letters, if not always logical, as in the following instance, were very numerous. The Exeter Gazette, quoted in the Times of January 3rd, says—
"The following 'Swing' letter is the most ingenious commentary which we have met with on the present infatuated attempts to destroy machinery. Here is a fellow threatening the life of a respectable person, because he is the means of reducing the number of water-carriers, and supplies the inhabitants with a quantity of that prime necessary of life, on terms cheaper than they could obtain it from the moveable reservoirs which convey some fifty or sixty gallons at a time round the town, at the rate of a halfpenny a pailfull. The climax of the joke is the threat which it holds out, of burning the Waterworks!
"'Golsworthy.—This is to inform you that you and your waterworks being the pest of the City of Exeter, not only by taking the bread out of the mouths of the poor watermen, but by your overbearance and pride, this is to inform you that if you do not destroy that vile machine of yours, in 9 days, it shall be burnt to the ground; and, further, if you neglect this notice, you shall not only have your property burnt, but a mark shall be made of your body.
"'From your deadly enemy,
"'Swing.
"'Neglect not this, or you will know the weight of lead.'"
Cobbett's lectures and writings undoubtedly influenced the minds of the ignorant agricultural labourer, and one man, under sentence of death for incendiarism at Battle, wrote the following confession:—