The National Register. — London, England, 1819-09-06 00:00:00

• 1) ,„ No. 21.3—V0L. XII.] VoMira Retrospect. Tile Manchester Tragedy goes on gradually de veloping more and more its absurdities, its cruelties, and its outrege, and proving by its owls course the abominable and atrocious violation of our laws and liberties, of which those have been guilty, whose office and bounden duty ft is to guard and to pro tect them.--Haub ipai - .*usuociates, after having been eleven days ham . li t ein solitary confinement, and treated. as criminals whose offences were of the blackest dye, anti wai.ed only to be atoned fur by the Mood of the offenders, have been, after due consul teams held in London, informed that every graver (itarge is for Me pre.veid deopt, and that a charge only of Misdemeanour is to be proceeded with. His examination, as well as his letter front Bolton, will be read with attention. With interest, be. cause his cause inttolves a question of the very high. est importance •to every Englishman, and with at tention, because it elucidates the misrepresentations, and flatly falsifies the lies and calumnies which has e filled the pages of the Ministerial papers on the sub ject of the late transactions. Yes, we are not attained to state that the canduet pursued by the Manchester Maeistrates and their beteheriog Coad jutors, has made the cause of Mr. Hunt eur own. We have now no option but that of a military des irstistn on one hand, or to rank Mr. Hunt as a Pu triot on the other. We had hitherto valued the arts ct.- effrontery of !wit a Demegogue at a very low , Atki, and as sincerely mourned over the distresses . sviiielt ceuhl drive such multitudes to enlist theca- :sive; itt his train, and be deluded by his nonsense. fiat his Nlajesty's Ministers are determined to raise ~ :lin to fame and honour. From the moment that :%e vilest and most abject individual is the object of eepressien and public tyranny, from that moment I:e becomes an object of cominiserinkm, mid every go d man begins to wish him " God speed.' But .;': he can boldly resist and conquer, he becomes at cies an object of admiration, and claims our grati sl,lo, because the very sante authorities that would today have - injured and oppressed him, may make a ~ i nilar attack upon the rights and liberty of any or every other individual. amongst us to-morrow. We have seen almost innumerable individuvls whe were, srectators of the scene, and they all uriformly ogres: that the account given by the Times newspaper was :t unexceptionubly and minutely correct as to render :11 further doubt and enquiry superfluous. Now that account certainly gives no room to impute. either ;orce, or threats, or violence, tu•the multitude es sembled, and we would wish to know by what law or statute the inagistiates were justified in even reading the Riot Acteu all. The law of Riots, as Laid down by tour Lest writees, has nothing to do with such a meeting. Its first principle is, that " wherever three or more persons use .force and violence in the executiou of any design whatever, wherein diet-law •ddetertet allow the use of such force, all who are concerned therein are rioters." Again further, that ".Sheriffs or Justices, having the execution of theßieg's Writs, mid being resisted in endeueouring osexecute the saute, may raise such a power as way enable them to overpower such re sistance, yet it is not " lawful for them to raise u fOrce for the execution of* civil process, unless they fad a resistance; and it is certain that they are highly punishable for using any needless out. nee' or violence therein." Again, " any enter. atio na lie isittr+ Our ;ling, ZonOtitution anb U abut. ": r o " f riA l J.L MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1819. prize, which is such as to constitute a riot, must be accempanied with some offer of violence, for persons riding together on the road with unusual,wcapons, or otherwise assembling in sizeli a manner as is apt to raise a terror of the people/ are not properly guilty of a riot ; nor can persons Wilk:ll:bled t titer in a peaceful mat . ncr to do a this - cwt.,' libited by statute, and afterwards peacefully lag the thing intended, be said to be rioters; *here is no be reason why un amen* should be tai be riotous barely for doing a thing contrary to to, any more than for doing a thing contrary t o common law." Such are the bighezt • opin im of legal au thority with which we are acquainted, Pit the term, definition„ and law of Riot. They a given from Hawkina's Reports detailed in Wiilia Justice of m i s the Peace, and are; surely, widely et virianca -with the proceedings of the Manchester magistrates and military. %Ve had therefore hoped, thoroughly as we despise the paltry and snivelling policy . of Mi nisters, that they would at least hare keen aviiate of the gross transgression of the low, and have paused Lefore they had recommended to their Royal Master to ident4 himself with such ants of illegality and outrage. Besides-this, what is the dilemma in which the Government is already placed by its own folly and rashness! It has abetted the prosecution of Hunt, and applauded the havoc sad blood-shed made even amongst its own special constables at Manchester, and yet has quietly permitted a meeting avowedly fur the same objects, characterized-by . .the same features, and under the very sante banners, to 'be held in the very heart of the -metropolis, and another in Westminster. Where thi; will end God knows, but we are sure it is a crisis pregnant with danger, and calling upon every subject•of this realm to do his duty. We are neither Democrats,,Level lers, Jacobins, nor disaffected to the laws and consti tution,but we are determined oppoaeraloppression, of tyranny, and of corruption, come they from whatever quarter theymay. We rejoice, therefore, in the spiriz that is now raised upon such a subject, and we trust that the meetings held upon it in Lon don and ‘Vestmitister will not only be followed by every rprilous town and county in the kingdom, bat that still more decisive measlres, if these prove iu- effectual, will be had recourse to. We hope that Remonstrances strong and bold will be made to the Throne itself. That nu endeavour will be wanting to enlighten its eyes, and to 'break through • the !roan:cis by which it is now fettered and- enslay.:d • Not only the right of public meetings is to be now tried, but the very right of-petition also will 4te gene ifthe expression of public fuel ing,arel even the groans of misery are to be subject to the sperms, or caprice, or spurious and tnis-culled loyalty of a Set of country magistrates, and the swords of a lawless 1.121114itti.. This we do not yet quite believe to be- our situation,' but our maxim is " Principiir data." kis for this purpose of mutual vigilance that the seepsl estates of the realm were instituted and established ; it is, and will Le, in proportion us choir duties in this respe-A are discharged, that Old -tngland will stand or full. It has been -observed :het Hunt was secretly in the pay of 'Government; we never believed this, but certain we are, that had Government been in his pay, and resolved to procure his popularity at the espence of . violating the lanes of thu country, and•racrificing the .lives of the innocent multitude, tltcy would have acted most wisely to have dint! es they have done. The contempt with which he was generally treated io transformed to rapture, and those who emeerated his mjachieraus iistlessness non admire his . firmness, and feel indignant at his per. .... ~. LPRICE 90. sedition. He has been drawn in triumph through Preston since he left the castle of Lancaster on bail. He was on the morning of the lfith only a chair man and a demagogue ; now be is a hero and a martyr. He was then reprobated by the whole enlightened and virtuous portion of society as a convener and seducer of a half starved populace to any scenes and any deeds of mischief, immediate or remote; now, the sentiment of disapprobation is transferred, at least iu part, from him who, for the public weblire, ought to have been its sole o bject, to those constituted authorities, who can never expose themselves to censure without inflicting a dangerous wound un the body of the state itself. This it is to spoil a good cruse, and raise *lad one on its ruins. We do nut hesitate to saw, &at it will be doubly difficult to put down the Radical llethriners, and to separate the tools and fanatics amongst them from their most vicious leadoff, in consequence of this open contempt for the les exhibited by the dep.. sitories of legal poWcr. • •Yet must radical reform be finally subdued, or the. apprmichez a certain disso lutiun not only of the Ms% of Englund, but those of society. LIVARPOOL REFORM METING. The fitllowing is an extract from an excellent speech delivered at the above Meeting by the Rev. Mr. Shephera:— ~ Our views are snpported by the sentiments of many of the b enerahle dead and die illustrious living. Where was theta ever a greater statesman than the first Lord Chatham? While lie was Minister, the must brilliant sue. eras crowned our arms abroad, and peace and tranquillity prevailed at home. He well model - Mood the mechanism of the House of Commons; and whet AVMS his opinion of it? On this subject he expressed himself in words which, were I to use then; in say own person, 1 should, is these that a, be in danger of imprisonment for expressing them. The great Lord Chatham said, that if the Hesse of Cons. mouxolisi net reform itresi front within, it would be re. corniest with a vengoance• from withoot. What did his son, the late Mr. Pitt, any of it,before his youthful virtues were cosrupted by his accession ,to potter ? He said, that 1111111 it was 111'w - turd, no honest lien could be Mini,. ter of England. Bust, gesolemen,l should detain you too Iona; acre i it, emaciate the statues of all who have en tertained tillsildt Upilliiills. (140111.1 erirs of No, no, lis4 Go on.) I will, then, ask you, where was there este i k... more viltssons mat than the late Sir William Josses, Justice of Bengal? lie W 144 a Refotiner. But,gentle it has bests said of late, that suite are Rolm iners hte Ihnik poor and needy ; and many hare made that obse . who, did ti n y not, as State paupers, fatten on th money, wutsld be eleciffill to their own pariah. Omen, what is Sir Francit Dardett—is he 1 ' needy? ( No, no.) AV hat is Mt .'t.:•.k r, of Nett most thriving landlord of a thriving ten an t ' i • limiting landloid•of a thriving t e na n try, Itecat. .P 4 on the itsinciple /of live and let lire. 14 1 iten . needy? No: env( yet he is a Ilefut slier! wha * • . , he timentrot the Duke of •Iledfartl? In a lett o uict , . le t lately add:reset' so me, as Chairman of thesAecol. ate Society, he says, that nothing but a reform in 4.4.,....0nx • wilisave•ns freer the 'danger of anarchy on the lie hand, or of military despotism CM the other. Centiesren, be cause we 'Otiose up the sentiment of this Wooden,. cha racter, it appears we are accuses; of high clinics and Ibis. denocanonrs s and on this indictment or Ile to be to ied, not by nor artilms, but by et r secret Um tights. " 6t sitlemen, Wronger* are divided. into various classes, aceording to the extent of their wishes far Re-' form. As for myself, I mos what is called &moderate Re former. With Lord Salton. I look PO farther than to an extension of the ft:mei:Me to householders, and the :isti , ,tt of the duration Cif Parliament to three 'ears. Mt :omit!, men. I i prUMlliglllillg these opinions I aim protree. I,y the 14w, and, walk III!. the same 14w protects those t. 110• r nioas:a go a wrest dial fitether—e.en to animal Pa•- li4eii•etm end ittiivet.al stainer. They are all etittelir protected by the In w. provided they proinaliple thew oi•ttea ervieeably and constiststlutossly ; and if blot sl lionssda are let loose on the latter, tin y n 111 seen I , t let loose eis the former 41. u. it is will, polities' as nigh IE _ gious serfs ; lf once the privilege of the free expre.isson of opinion is broken its tnerso,tlaere is no saying where the ide ation will end. If the Raormeta he pot down, the WM will be pot down; rid a tlespoiisin will he est:ol44rd so this country, as secdte as -that which veal raercio t d Floucc by 'bat vet. trent Nevolesse." , I► • -