The National Register. — London, England, 1819-09-05 00:00:00

• - ve. c 4.1 7. 7 11 ibr OA Ho nal 1 is'‘\ Our irtina, eoll6titution anb itata6- No. tt2—VoL. XII.] VoMira lattvoispert. Tug Manchester Tragedy gees on gradually de veloping more and more its absurdities, its cruelties, and its outrage, and proving by its own course the abominable and strecious violation of our laws and liberties, of which those have been guilty, whose office and bounden duty it is to guard and to pro tect them.—Hunt and his associates, after having been eleven days immured in solitary cotiffnetnent, and treated as criminals whose offences were of the blackest dye, and wai.ed only to be atoned fur by the blood of the offender 3, have been, :Oiler due consul tations held in London, informed that every graver charge is for Ilse pi acid dropt, and that a charge bnly of Misdemeanour is to be proceeded with. His examination, as well as his letter from Bolton, will be read with attention. With interest, cause his cause involves a question of the very high est importance to every Englishman, and with at tention, because it elucidates the misrepresentations, sad &Ay falsifies the lies and calumnies wiieh have filled the pages of the Ministerial papers on the sub jecteof the late transactions. Yes, we are not ashamed to state that the COnduct pursued by the Manchester Magistrates and their butchering Coed jutors, has made the cause of Mr. Hunt OW own. We have now no option but that of a military des potism on one hand, or to yank Mr. Hunt as a Pa triot on the other. We had hitherto valued the arts and effrontery of such a Demagogue at a very low rate, and as sincerely mourned over the distresses which could drive such multitudes to enlist them selves in his train, and be deluded by his nonsense. But his Majesty's Ministers are determined to raise liiin to fame and honour. From the moment that the vilest and most abject individual is the object of oppression and public tyranny, from that moment he becomes an object of commiseration, and every good man begins te wish him " God speed." But if he can boldly resist and conquer, he becomes at once an object of admiration, and claims our grati tude, because the very same authorities that would to-day have injuredand oppressed him, may maize a similar cttac): upon the rights and liberty of any or every othor individual amongst us to-morrow. We have seen almost innumerable individuvls who were spectators of the scene, and they all uniformly agree that the account given by the Times newspaper was so unexceptionably and minutely correct us to render all further doubt and enquiry superfluous. Now that account certainly gives no room to impute either furce, or threats, or violence, to the multitude as sembled, and we would wish to know by what law or statute the magistrates were justified in even reading the Riot Act at all. The law of Riots, as laid down by our best writers, has nothing to do with such a meeting. Its first principle is, that " wherever three or more persons use force and violence in the execution of any design whatever, wherein the law does not allow the use of such force, all who are concerned therein are rioters " Again 'further, that " Sheriffs or Justices, having the execution of the King's Writs, and being resisted in endeavouring to execute the some, may raise such a power as may enable them to overpower such re sistance, yet it is not " lawful for them to raise a force for the execution of a civil process, unless they find a resistance ; and it is certain that they are bighly punishable for using any needless out rage or valence therein." Again. any cuter- SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1819. prise, which is such as to constitute a riot, must be accompanied with some offer of violence, forsersons riding together on the road with unttual Weapons, or otherwise assembling in such a manner A is apt to rate s terror of the people, are not, properly guilty of a riot ; nor can pecsons assembled together in a peaceful manner to do a ;thing even prohibited by statute, and afterwards peacefully perfinming the thing intended, be said to be rioters ; for there is no . reason why an assembly should be said to be riotous barely for doing a thing contrary to statute, any more than for doing a thing contrary to common law." Such are the highest opinions of le tY au thority with which we are acquainted, on the term, definition, and law of Riot. They are given from ' Hawkins's Reports detailed in Williams's Justice✓ of the Peace, and are, surely, widely at variance With the proceedings of the Manchester magistrates and military. We had therefore hoped, thoroughly as we despise the paltry and snivelling policy of Mi- I nisters, that they would at least have been aware of the gross trans essi,n of the law, anal have pawed before they had recommended to 04, Royal Mater to identify himself with such acts okillegality and outrage. Besides this, what is the dilemma in whisk the Government is already platted by tea own filly and rashness! it has abetted the prosecution of Hunt, and applauded the havoc and blood-shed made even amongst its own *Alai constables at • Manchester, and yeas' quietit tcyplilto me e kg . avowedly for the same objects, c.,"?tractorised same features, and under the very same banners, to be held in the very heart of the metropolis, and another in Westminster. Where this will end God knows, but we ore sure it is a crisis pregnant with danger, and calling upon every subject of this realm to do his ditty. ‘Ve are neither Democrats, Level lers, Jacobins, nor disaffected to the laws and consti tution, but we arc determined opposers of oppression, of tyranny, and of corruption, come they from whatever ptarter they may. We rejoice, therefore, in the spirit that is now roused upon such a subject, and we trust that the meetings held upon it in Lon dun and Westminster will not only be fellowed by every populous town and county in the kingdom, but that still mom derisive measures, if these prove in effectual, will be bad recourse to. We hope that Remonstrances strong and bold will be made to the Throne itself. That no endeavour will be wanting to enl;ghten its eyes, and to break through the trammels by which it is new fettered and enslaved Not only the right of public, meetings is to be now tried, but the very right of petition also will be gone if the expression of public feel ing,and even the groans of misery are to be subject to the ularuis, or caprice, or spurious and mis-called loyalty of a ect of country magistrates, and the swords of u hiviess banditti. This we do not yet quite believe to be our situation, but our maxim is " Poncipiis ogee/,,." It is for this purpose of mutual vigilance that the several estates of the reuhu were instituted and established ; it is, and will be, in proportion as their duties in this respect are discharged, that Old Ltiglatid will stand or fall. It has been oinerved that Hunt liar. secretly in the pay of Government ; we never believed this, but certain we are, that No Government been in hi: pay, and resolved to procure .his popularity at the expence of violating the laws of the country, and sacrificing the lives of the innocent multitude, they would have acted most wisely to have done as they have done The contempt with which he was renerully treated is transformed to rapture, and those who execrated his mischievous restlessness now admire his fit - taness, end fo] indignant at his per- LP111( E secution. He has ken drawn in triumph through Preston since Inc left the castle of Lancaster en bail. He was on the morning of the 16th only a chair man and a demagogue ; now he is a Lem and a martyr. He was then reprobated by the whole enLghtencd and virtuous porthm of society as a convener and seducer of a half starved populace to any scenes and any daecis of mischief, immediate or remote; now, the sentiment of disapprobation is transferred, at least in part, from him who, for the public weltine, ought to have been its sole object, to those constituted authorities, who can never expose themselves to censure without inflicting a dant:rens wound on the body of the state itself. This it is to spoil a geed cause, and raise a bad one on its ruins. We do not hesitate to Lay, that it will be doubly difficult to put down the Radical .11 - .. formers, and to separate the thols and fanatics amongst thc:n from their most vicious leaders, in consequence of this open contempt for the Laws exhibited by the dew sisories of legal power. Yet must radical reform be finally sulalucd, or there approaches n certain disso lution not only of the laws of England, but those.of society. LIVERPOOL REPORN MEETING. The following is an emost from an excellent speech delivered at the above Mdeting by the Rev. Mr. Shepherd:— " Our views are supported by the acutiments of many of the stumble dead and the itlustrions livint. AVhere was there ever a greater stateamau time the fii , t Lot d Chatham? %Vitae he eras Minister, the must brilhdtit 'loc us' crowned mu arms abroad, and peace nil prevailed at home, lie well tindenitond ti.c mechanism of the !loose of Commons, and what uas his opinion of it? On this subject he viapicssed Worm. 110144 ti trete I to use tht.n in my own per,un, I in these times, be in danger of talptisuntalmit fur expressing them. Tile great Lund Chadian) said, that if the House of Coin inuns did not reform itself (tutu wiihin, it would be rt. funned with a vengeance from without. What did his suit, the late Mr. Pitt, say of :t,lieforc his yeratliful vi.tnes were cotrnpted by his accession to power? He said, that until it was informed, no lit , nest man coa/41 be Minis- ter of England. llitt, gentlemen, I vito:thi detain you too long were 1 to enumerate the names of all yak° hare en tertained ziu,ilar opinions. (Loud cries of No, no, awl Go on.) I Hill, then, ask )on, where oda there ever a more sirthons man than the late Sir 'William Jones, Chief Justice of Ileogal? lie was a Reformer. But, gentlemen, it has been said of late, that nune are Reformers but the pour and needy ; and many have made that observetiot a au, did they net, as Mate paupers, fatten tot the publi.: money, would be or.erlfal to their own palish. Hut, gen tlemen, u hat is Sir Francis Burdett—is lie poor and needy? (No, tin.) What is Ur. Croke, of Norfolk ? Tire mast ttriviest landlord of a thriving tenantry; and the thriving laudlot d of a thriving tenantry, lit c.snse lie acre on the principle of live and let live. Is lie poor an I needy? No: and yet lie is a Reformer! What is the sen timent of Me Duke of Bedford lit a letter %%Melt he lately addresser, to use, as Chairman of the Concentric Society. be says, that nothing his a is-roam in I'm lianient will save us from the danger of anarchy on the one hand, or of military despotism on the other. Gentlemen, cause we follow tip the seatimeet of this Wean ions ci,.l - it appears we are eJ of high crimes ao.l mi.- dcmeanions ; and on this. indictment we are to be tried, 110 i by non actions, lint by one set.rtt " Gentlemen, Ileformers are divide., into various classes, according to the extent of their is ishes far fir - re, in. As fur urpell, I 4111 what is called a moderate Re former. With !mid Sefton, I look no fat ther thin to as' pNterigion of the franehise to honsebolders, and the lite, ration of the dnitettou of Parliament In three year.. My :nit mu y men, in pro iiiii 'gating these opinion, I Ebel pi nh rt. ad by the law, sled, stork me, the same kW protects tho . .e whose wishes go a xretetlh el farther- t yen to annmet P. _ Illementa and suttee's/el so& age. They arc all • erin'ty motet - teal by the ,I•see. pluvided they pi ontilla ate their klieg peaceably and conatitottoi,elly ; and if blood. hounds are let 'owe on the Laitt r, tin y urn soon be lee moss on the former at.,. It is with political as *lib reli gions spot/ ; if once the privilege of the free expression of °rising' is broke , in hpon,there in ISO 11:1 lilt it ht st Fie Yin. anion will end, tattle Reformers lie put thiveo, the Whips will he put doss g and a tiewogiatip will he established is this country, as severe fl• that which *Sy) LAVICiSCti ij that al tir I) a Jut :eon." -f._' 4 4 ~, i .-.. * 1 2'