On the 16th of AUGUST. 1819.
London, August 18th, 1819.
My Lord,
As a spectator of the horrid proceedings of Monday last at Manchester, I feel it my duty to give the public a narrative of those proceedings, through the medium of a letter addressed to you, who ought to be the conservator of the public peace. My motives for doing this are twofold; the first is to call on you, as Secretary of State for the Home Department, to cause the Magistrates of Manchester, and Yeomanry Cavalry acting under their direction, to be brought to the bar of public justice, for the unprovoked slaughter of the peaceable and distressed inhabitants of that place and neighborhood, whilst legally exercising their rights in public meeting assembled. For, unless the administrators of affairs in the governmental department of the country feel it their duty immediately to take this step, the people have no alternative but to identify the Ministers in the metropolis, with the magistrates of Manchester, as having conjointly violated and subverted that known and admitted law of the country, which countenances the meeting of popular assemblies for a discussion of the best means to obtain a redress of their grievances.
And secondly, in case of the default of the existing government to give satisfaction to the full extent of their means and power, to the mangled and suffering, and to the friends of the Murdered Inhabitants of
Manchester, the people, not only of Manchester, but of the whole country are in duty bound and by the laws of nature imperatively called upon to provide themselves with arms and hold their public meetings with arms in their hands, to defend themselves against the attacks of similar assassins, acting in the true Castlereaghan character.
The safety of the people is not now the supreme law; the security of the corrupt borough-mongers and their dependent can only be perceived to be the object of the existing administration. Where, my Lord Sidmouth, where are now to be found the assassins with their daggers? Let us hear no more of the assassinal intentions of the advocates for reforming your corrupt system of government; you have used every means within your reach to urge the Reformers to the use of the dagger; they have been too prudent, and you, no longer able to resist their reasonable demands by reasonable argument, have thrown off your mask and set the first example of shedding blood. The people have no alternative but immediately to prepare for a retaliation. The noble spirit and attitude displayed by the Reformers of Manchester on Monday, can never be annihilated, and it is within probability, that before this letter goes to the press, it will return to the attack. Whatever means they resort to at such a moment as the present, they will be justified in. The laws having been violated by those who profess to support them, in an unprovoked attack on a peaceable and unoffending people, in public meeting assembled, that people are no longer bound to deny themselves a mode of defence by respecting and adhering to those laws; but if they value liberty or independence they will immediately rid themselves of those who not only have driven them to starvation and desperation, but now goad them to destruction.
I shall now proceed to give your Lordship a narrative of the proceedings of the meeting, which as far as I could collect from my situation I will vouch for its authenticity. About 11 o'clock the people began to assemble around the house of Mr. Johnson, at Smedley Cottage, where Mr. Hunt had taken up his residence; about 12. Mr. Hunt and his friends entered the barouche.
They had not proceeded far when they were met by the Committee of the Female Reform Society, one of whom, an interesting looking woman, bore a standard on which was painted a female holding in her hand a flag surmounted with the cap of liberty, whilst she trod under foot an emblem of corruption, on which was inscribed that word. She was requested to take a seat on the box of the carriage (a most appropriate one), which she boldly and immediately acquiesced in, and continued waving her flag and handkerchief until she reached the hustings, where she took her stand on the right corner in front. The remainder of the committee followed the carriage in procession and mounted the hustings when they reached them. On leaving Smedley Cottage, bodies of men were seen at a distance, marching in regular military order, with music and colors. Different flags were fallen in with on the road, with various mottoes, such as "No Corn Laws," "Liberty or Death," "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny," "We will have Liberty"; the flag used by the friends of Mr. Hunt at the general election for Westminster, and various others, many of which were surmounted with "caps of Liberty". The scene of cheering was never before equalled. Females from the age of twelve to eighty were seen cheering with their caps in their hand, and their hair in consequence dishevelled; the whole scene exceeds the power of description. In passing through the streets to the place of meeting, the crowd became so great, that it was with difficulty the carriage could be moved along. Information was brought to Mr. Hunt that St. Peter's field was already filled, and that no less than 300,000 people were assembled in and about the intended spot of meeting. As the carriage moved along and reached the shops and warehouse of Mr. Johnson of Smedley, three times three were given, also, at the Police Office and at the Exchange. The procession arrived at the place of destination about one o'clock. Mr. Hunt expressed his disapprobation of the hustings, and was fearful that some accident would arise from them. After some hesitation he ascended, and the proposition for his being chairman being moved by Mr. Johnson, it was carried by acclamation. Mr. Hunt began his discourse by thanking them for the favor conferred on him, and made some ironical observations on the conduct of the Magistrates, when a cart, which evidently took its direction from that part of the field where the police and magistrates were assembled in a house, was moved through the middle of the field to the great annoyance and danger of the assembled people, who quietly endeavored to make way for its proceedure. The cart had no sooner made its way through, when the Yeomanry Cavalry made their appearance from the same quarter as the cart had gone out. They galloped furiously round the field, going over every person who could not get out of their way, to the spot where the police were fixed, and after a moment's pause, they received the cheers of the police as a signal for attack. The meeting at the entrance of the cavalry, and from the commencement of business was one of the most calm and orderly that I ever witnessed. Hilarity was seen on the countenances of all, whilst the Female Reformers crowned the assemblage with a grace, and excited a feeling particularly interesting. The Yeomanry Cavalry made their charge with the most infuriate frenzy; they cut down men, women, and children, indiscriminately, and appeared to have commenced a premeditated attack with the most insatiable thirst for blood and destruction. They merit a medallion on one side of which should be inscribed "The Slaughtermen of Manchester", and a reverse, bearing a description of their slaughter of defenceless men, women, and children, unprovoked and unnecessary. As a proof of premeditated murder on the part of the magistrates, every stone was gathered from the ground, on the Friday and Saturday previous to the meeting, by scavengers sent there by the express command of the magistrates, that the populace might be rendered more defenceless.
This is the social order system which we are exhorted, by Royal Proclamations, to rally round and support. These are the modes of reasoning adopted by villainy in power. I can assure you, my Lord, that the only painful feeling I felt was to see so many thousands of resolute and determined friends of freedom, without the means of self-defence. The Courier has this evening claimed the gratitude of the Reformers towards the amiable Mr. Nadin, who, it asserts, saved the life of Mr. Hunt from the fury and vengeance of the Yeomanry Butchers. That these Butchers were ready and willing to cut him in pieces, there is no doubt; but in return, let me remind the Editor of the Courier, that nothing but the uniform and steady determination of Mr. Hunt to use no other weapons than our oppressive legislators themselves have sanctioned, nor to encourage the use of any other weapons where he has had any influence, could have saved the lives of these Yeomanry and Police, from a people goaded to desperation by a violent and outrageous attack on their lives. The people of Lancashire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire are fully prepared to assert their rights, either by argumentative reasoning or open combat; neither will the desperate schemes of a Castlereagh repeated, foil them. Mr. Hunt, and the people about him, stood firm, and began to cheer the military on their approach to the ground, until they were within arms length, and cutting their way with their sabres. I appealed to the females on their fear of the approach of the military, and found them the last to display an alarm. The police were as expert in applying their clubs to the heads and shoulders of the people as the cavalry their sabres, and there was no alternative but to run the gauntlet through the one or the other. The brutality of the police, equalled in ferociousness the massacre of the Yeomanry Cavalry. A better character has been given to the regular troops for their endeavors to disperse the people without wounding or otherwise injuring them. The women appear to have been the particular objects of the fury of the Cavalry Assassins. One woman, who was near the spot where I stood, and who held an infant in her arms, was sabred over the head, and her tender offspring drenched in its mother's blood. Another was actually stabbed in the neck with the point of the sabre, which must have been a deliberate attempt on the part of the military assassin. Some were sabred in the breast; so inhuman, indiscriminate, and fiend-like, was the conduct of the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry. This, my Lord, is but a faint picture of what really occurred. They are facts and particulars that came under my own sight and cognizance; and I have no hesitation in saying, that if the inhabitants of Manchester cannot resent this massacre of their peaceable inhabitants, by retaliating on the Yeomanry Cavalry and police, collectively, they are called on by the laws of nature, by the love of their country, their fire-sides, and families, to retaliate on them individually.