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

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-