The National Register.
London, England, 1819-09-20 00:00:00

MONDAY, SEPTEMBEH siO, 1819.

ti„qation on that subject. ~;Can such conduct un
the part of those who are pail to do their duty,
fail to make a proper itupressiun upon the public
mind ! Can any Englishman calmly contemplate
his fellow-subjects butcherci by a wanton soldiery,
with or without, but we believe in this instance,
certainly with the sanction of these very Magistrates,
the la ks of his country nullified, and enquiry stifled,
and not feu: that cause to he his own ! But we have
not yet done with this long series of crying sins
We have st ill to refer our Readers to an account which
we have faithfully giyeo of the coroner's inquest
held at Oidham upon the body of John Lees, who
had died of the cuts and wounds received at the me-
morable meeting. We implore every man who reads
that account, and wa hope and pray that every man in
the United Kingdom may carefully read it, to lay his
hand upon his heart, and say whether the spirit of
them times be not truly awful, whether the steps
which these rash and thoughtless auti.:.rities are now
treading, be not the direct road to anarchy and re-
volution. Society cannot exist without laws, and
law ceases to have its proper character the moment
its powers are either withheld or perverted. Will

nut the Ministers of the Crown yet interfere to save
us? They have, it is true, already most fatally
committed both the Crown and themselves by a most
uncalled and unconstitutional letter of approval of
heir doings. But would there not he honour in a
recantation. The people of Etntlaed are naturally
a loyal people, but they are jgalois of en-
croachment. and will either live free, or lay down
their lives in the contest. The last Revolution is
not so distant as to be forgotten; we can both
remember the causes which led to it ; the evils from
which it rescued us, and th,; blessings it brought
with it. Surely, the sacrifice of the whole corps of
Manchester Yeomanry and the whole Bench of
Manchester Magistrates had better be made, than
the consequences, the inevitab'e consevences, of
the course now steering, be encountered. jut it not
enough, (says the Editor of the Times, with equal
beauty of language, and correctness of thought,)
that an unjust aggression should be committed, and
dreadful cruelties perpetrated upon a number of de-
fenceless people, but that unjust means should be
resorted to, fir the preventing the attainment of
redress! A legal remedy for wrongs inflicted,
was the pride of Englishmen in their prosperous
days, and their sanctuary and consolation in the
worst of times. What can be meant by these
measures, even more stupid than reprehensible,
but to make the King's Government an object
~f dislike and fear, and to shew the bleeding
nation that " the lot of the vanquished is to suffer."
Yes, the fruits of such a policy ate fast ripening, the
time of harvest cannot be remote. Already has
society in all the manufacturing districts, and it will
soon spread itself to others also, assumed a tone
much and fearfully altered tbr the worse. The
most thorough and implacable alienation of the
upper and lower classes generally prevails. The
natural ties of protection on one hand, and gratitude
on the other, exist no more. " Every man," says a
respectable correspondent, " now appears to sit like
a malignant spy upon his neighbour. Trade has
become a perfect conspiracy in favour of particular
persons, and ei the prejudice of others." Till lately
all was fair and open, even in the most extravagant
of their absurdities there was nothing to fear.
There was nothing dark, nothing resolute, no mani-
fest intention of violence from any quarter. But
the spirit of violence is now roused, and it will

LPIICZ Vid.

require all the care of a wise Government to deal
with it. Hunt has every where, on his return from
Lancaster, been greeted with undiminished wel-
come, and his cause is becoming triumphant by the
indiscrctiuu of his opponents. What was before the
ebullition of a crew of thoughtless and misguided
wretches, whom the stagnation of trade bad left
without employment, and want of employment had
left without bread, has now assumed the charmer of
a solid, firm, and fixed determination of public feel-
ing which demands, and can only be satisfied by a
strict and severe scrutiny into what they insist to be
their wrongs, and by a conduct of unquestionable
impartiality in prosecuting it. We would willingly
rally round the throne, and the Constitution, as now
established, will never find us its enemies; but if it
become an option only of law or no law, those wit.
love either their King, their country, or the este-
blislitnents under which they have been born and
live, can only shew their attachment by siding resa-
lutely with the first, in opposition to those who have
in fact cast the first stone by their violence, and thus
made war upon the whole. Faction, and even rebel-
lion, may just as easily begin with bad Jlagistrates
as with the madness of the people. What is the
general feeling of the kingdom to ty be judged by
the numerous meetings. ‘Ve elo not despair of
seeing an equal zeal 1. or public good, manifested on
a more extended scale on the part of the whole
kingdom. and we do conscieatious.y believe that if
ever there was a cause, Weyer there was a period in
which party should be fiirgotten, and ail, in remem-
bering justice should forget jealousies, it is this
cause, it is this moment in which we are now writ-
ing Lo.tdon, Saithwark, Liverpool, and liming.
ham, are all setting e•:amples which it becomes every
11 corner attic United Kingdom to foLow. The torch
, not of discord and contusion, but of sound and zee.
tioual patriotism, should be handed from town to
town, from city to city, from comity to county, till
it has informed. enlightened, and roused every inch
of Britain to a firm, theue;h peaceable, a manly,
though respectful, assertion of our rights, and of the
blessings of equal law, tir which oar furefathers bled
So often, and whose example will, if necessity should
compel it, never fail to be honourably fidlowed by
their children.

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