This little pope, within his little circle of the "great unwashed," is very oracular, and his infallibility a dogma with his followers and readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash of prose run mad, stand in need of that wholesome reform which some of his English brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields and Newgate, let my reader judge from the following extract. The Times newspaper did good service in gibbeting this precious morceau, supplied by its indefatigable reporter, in its broad sheet. How great was the neglect of Welsh society, and every thing Welsh, when this sort of war-cry of treason could be raised, this trump of rebellion sounded, and, as it were, from the pulpit "Evangelical," with perfect impunity to the demagogue, thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of anarchical crime!—
"We cannot regard these tumults, with their like in other parts, but as the effects of Tory oppression. Our wish is to see Rebecca and her children arrayed by thousands, for the suppression of Toryism. These are the only means to remove the burden from the back of the country.... Resolve to see the sword of reason plunged in oppression's heart." He goes on to say, "there must be a hard-blowing storm before the high places in State and Church can be levelled," &c. &c. There is the usual twaddle about "moral force," forsooth, under which saving periphrasis, now-a-days, every rebel ranter in field, or tub, or conventicle, insinuates lawless violence without naming it. Jack Cade would have made it the rallying cry of his raggamuffins, so would Wat Tyler, had it been hit upon in his day. The array of thousands is intelligible "to the meanest capacity." The dullest Welsh "copper-man," or collier, or wild farm cultivator, could not miss the meaning. But as to this magical weapon, "moral force," which they are to handle when so arrayed—the brightest capacity must be at a loss to know what it means. How absurd (if he pretends such a thing) to expect that enlightened statesmen will stand reformed, restrained, stricken through, with a new light in politics by the exhibition of these smutty patriots' minds alone!—by the force of conviction, wrought by ascertaining their convictions, (the illuminati of Llanelly coal-works, of Swansea copper-works, of Carmarthen farm-yards,) will instantly tack—put the vessel of State right about, and bring her triumphant into the placid haven of Radicalism! And why physical "array" to wield such shadowy arms as "moral" force? This favourite stalking-horse of incendiary politics is but the secret hiding-place of retreat from the "force of government." The peace, the forbearance it breathes, is like the brief silence maintained—the holding of the breath—by those snugly ensconced within that other horse of famous memory, the Trojan, which served admirably to lay vigilance asleep, and evade the defensive force of the garrison, till the hour came to leap from its protection, and fire the citadel. This "moral force" covert of revolt, is every whit as hollow, as treacherous, as fatal, if trusted to. Inflame, enrage, and then gather together "thousands" of the most ignorant of mankind, pointing to a body, or a class, or a government, as the sole cause of whatever they suffer or dislike, and then—tell them to be moral! peaceable! not to use those tens of thousands of brawny arms, inured to the sledge-hammer; oh, no! tell them that force means to stand still—or disperse—or gabble—any thing but to—fight! And such vile "juggling with us in a double sense" as this, is evangelical morality!
In justice to the Liberal party, I shall add that it does not sanction the ravings of this hypocrite, but laughs at his illiterate pretensions to the character of a public writer. As evidence of this, the editor of the Welshman, a Liberal journal, published at Carmarthen, has ably castigated this sedition-monger, who has exposed his own ignorance in venting his wrath at the infliction.
Pontardulais. Monday Evening.
It was pleasant to emerge from that dingy seat of fanaticism and fury, pseudo religion and moral violation of religion's broad principles. Its aspect almost recalled the description of one of Rome's imperial monsters, equally in physionomy and nature—"a mixture of dirt and blood." The day was superb, and the adjacent country, though rather tame for Wales, improved in rural beauty as we approached a crossway very near to this village, Pontardulais. Two cottages appeared in a green, quiet, dingle we were descending to, watered by a small river, and surrounded by sloping meadows, now yellowed by the evening sun, and well inhabited by their proper population, sheep and cows, now beginning their homeward course at the call of the milkmaid; the only other motion in this simply beautiful landscape, being a scattered gleaner or two, with her load, and the rather thick volume of blue smoke curling up from one of those cots, which, standing so close, without any other near, prompted the idea of some rustic old couple in conjugal quietude, smiling out life's evening, by themselves, apart from all the world. Such was the perfect calm of scene, and the day in which summer heat was joined to the golden serenity of autumn.
We were beginning to dismiss ugly Rebeccaism from our thoughts, meditating where we should find one of those Isaac Waltonian hostelries, with a sign swinging from an old tree, which we delight to make our evening quarters; for Pontardulais, we knew, was too lately a little battle-field to afford hope of this tranquil bliss, for here had occurred the first conflict, in which men had been wounded and prisoners made. The advance of evening, with its halcyon attributes of all kinds, had the effect of a lullaby on the mind, disturbed at every stage by some hurrying dragoon, some eager gossiping group, or fresh "news" of some farm "burned last night," or rumours of "martial law" being actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales.
Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway, we were startled by the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having remained to present to us, on the higher ground, the semblance of a white cottage. The old thatch, fallen in, and timber, were still smouldering visibly, though the house was fired about one A.M. yesterday morning.
Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty persons appeared, and a few rustic articles of furniture on the roadside. Where was their owner? Dismounting, we entered this cottage, that had looked all peaceful security so lately to our eyes. It had not been injured, but was all dismantled and in confusion; and stretched on some low sort of bench or seat, lay the murdered owner of that smoking ruin—the Hendy toll-house. Her coffin had been already made, (the coffin-plate giving her age, 75,) and stood leaning against the wall, but the body was preserved just as it fell, for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a British jury! Is there a British man, incapable of perjury, of parricide, of bloody and blackest felony, himself, who will ever forget, who will ever cease to spurn, spit upon in thought, execrate in words, that degraded, wretched, most wicked knot of murder-screeners—the Hendy Gate jury?)
There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find there food for fancy. All was naked, ugly horror. An old rug just veiled the corpse, which, being turned down, revealed the orifice, just by the nipple, of a shot or slug wound, and her linen was stiff and saturated with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the temple had caused a torrent of blood, which remained glued over the whole cheek. The retracted lips of this poor suffering creature, gave a dreadful grin to the aged countenance, expressing the strong agony she must have endured, no doubt from the filling up of the breast with those three pints of blood found there by the surgeons. The details of this savage murder have been too fully given in all the papers to need repetition here. Suffice it to say, that to any one viewing the body as we thus happened to do, the atrocity of this heartless treason against society and the injured dead becomes yet more striking; it seeming wonderful that the piteousness of the sight—the mute pleading of that mouth full of cloated blood—the arousing ocular evidence of the unprovoked assassin's cruelty—the helplessness of the aged woman—her innocence—all should not have kindled humanity in their hearts, (if all principle was dead in their dark minds,) just enough to dare to call a foul murder "murder"—to turn those twelve Rebecca-ridden, crouching slaves into men! Some of them, probably, had old helpless mothers at home; did no flying vision of her white hairs all blooded, and the breast, where they had lain and fed, full of blood also, cross the conscience of one of them, when, by their conspiracy, protection for life was to be denied to her, to all, by their unheard-of abuse of the only known British protective power—trial by jury? It is almost an apology for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part of the gang. Self-preservation, under instant danger, (involved in a just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those impugned by a righteous verdict.
The verdict, it will be remembered, was, that Sarah Williams died from effusion of blood, but from what cause is to this jury unknown!!! The designed trick—the sly juggle concocted by these men, sworn before Almighty God to tell truth respecting the cry of blood then rising to his throne, evidently was to leave a loop-hole for a doubt whereby justice might be defeated—a possibility, so they flattered themselves, that, just in the nick of time, a bloodvessel burst, or fright destroyed her, or any thing but the bloody hand of "Rebecca." Though, as the slugs were actually found in the lungs, the hope they "dressed themselves in" was as "drunk," as swinishly stupid, as their design was unmanly, inhuman, and devilish—to wink at this horror! to huddle up this murder, and hurry into the earth a murdered woman, as if she had lived out her term!