Nothing is known yet; papers have been received down to the 4th of November, but they are not up to anything.
Further further Particulars (Private Letter).
It is scarcely possible for you, my dear Charles, to conceive the difficulties and anarchical manifestations of turbulence, which threaten and disturb your old birth-place, poor Stoke Pogis. To the reflecting mind, the circumstances which hourly transpire afford ample food for speculation and moral reasoning. To see the constituted authorities of a place, however mistaken or misguided by erring benevolence, plunging into a fearful struggle with an irritated, infuriated, and I may say, armed populace, is a sight which opens a field for terrified conjecture. I look around me with doubt, agitation, and dismay; because, whilst I venerate those to whom the sway of a part of a state may be said to be intrusted, I cannot but yield to the conviction that the abuse of power must be felt to be an overstep of authority in the best intentioned of the Magistracy. This even you will allow. Being on the spot, my dear Charles, an eye-witness of these fearful scenes, I feel how impossible it is for me to give you any idea of the prospects which surround me. To say that I think all will end well, is to trespass beyond the confines of hope; but whilst I admit that there is strong ground for apprehending the worst, I cannot shut my eyes to the conviction, that if firm measures, tempered with concession, be resorted to, it is far from being out of the pale of probability that serenity may be re-established. In hazarding this conclusion, however, you must not consider me as at all forgetting the responsibilities which attach to a decidedly formed opinion. Oh, Charles! you who are in the quiet of London, can little dream of the conflicting elements which form the storm of this devoted village. I fear you will be wearied with all these details; but I thought at this distance, at which you are from me, you would wish me to run the risk of wearying you rather than omit any of the interesting circumstances. Let Edward read this; his heart, which I know beats for the Parish, will bleed for us.
I am, &c.
H. J. P.
P.S.—Nothing further has yet occurred, but you shall hear from me again to-morrow.
Another Account.
Symptoms of disunion have for some time past prevailed between the authorities of Stoke Pogis, and a part of the inhabitants. The primum mobile or first mobbing, originated in an order of the Mayor’s, that all tavern doors should shut at eleven. Many complied, and shut, but the door of the Rampant Lion openly resisted the order. A more recent notice has produced a new and more dangerous irritation on our too combustible population. A proclamation against Guy Fauxes and Fireworks was understood to be in preparation, by command of the chief Magistrate. If his Worship had listened to the earnest and prudential advice of the rest of the bench, the obnoxious placard would not have been issued till the 6th, but he had it posted up on the 4th, and by his precipitation has plunged Stoke Pogis into a convulsion, that nothing but Time’s soothing syrup can alleviate.
From another quarter.
We are all here in the greatest alarm! a general rising of the inhabitants took place this morning, and they have continued in a disturbed state ever since. Everybody is in a bustle and indicating some popular movement. Seditious cries are heard! the bell-man is going his rounds, and on repeating “God save the King!” is saluted with “Hang the crier!” Organised bands of boys are going about collecting sticks, &c., whether for barricades or bonfires is not known; many of them singing the famous Gunpowder Hymn, “Pray remember,” &c. These are features that remind us of the most inflammable times. Several strangers of suspicious gentility arrived here last night, and privately engaged a barn; they are now busily distributing hand-bills amongst the crowd: surely some horrible tragedy is in preparation!
A later account.