The National Register.
London, England, 1819-09-12 00:00:00

published nith the very names and description of

injuries received amounting to sinety nine men
and twenty women by sabre and gtm-shot wounds
only, independent of those wounded by the trun-
cheons-of constables and the trampling of horses.--
Though, if but a single life had been lost, or a sin-
gle wound inflicted, the principle for which we
contend would be jug us sound, and our charge
equally well founded ; namely, that the Law of the
Land has been most grosily violated, and the Con•
stitution endangered by those whose office and duty
it was to prove themselves its guardians, and that
they have presumed to do that, upon opinion only,
which even plain and positive acts of Riot and
Treason could not have justified. The Constitution
of England knows nothing of its subjects being
ordered to be cut to pieces for any crime whatever,
nor in any other mode but in honourable and open
warfare. 4 dier may perhaps be lawfully em-
ployed, in ee ases, for the caption of offenders,
and fur the purpose of bringing them to justice, but.
he can never be lawfully employed as an instrument
for the execution of that vengeance which belongs;
to a widely different tribunal. But it is also said
that the Rethrrners struck the horses and men with
dangerous ►uissiles. We had jut before been told
that they were armed with bludgeons, but the
offensive weapons are easily by a fertile fancy con•
vested into stones and brickbats. But granting that
they used with every possible energy both the sticks
they brought with them, and whatever means of
defence accident could supply, y. :t if they were first
and illegally assaulted, any resistance, however
violent, was not only justifiable but becoming the
situation they were placed in. Riot and Rebellion
may be as easily committed by magistrates and sal.
dier► as by the people, and every etthrt to meet and
oppose it, wherever that is the case, bas been esta-
blished as the great law of society, and lie first
principle of civil government. 4' Whoever," says
Locke, " uses force without right, as every one
does in society who dues it without law, puts him-
self into a state of war with those against whom he
uses-it. and in that state all former tics are cancel-
led, all °the• rights cease, and every one has a right
to defend hirnself and resist the oppresnor." Lastly,
that the conduct of the hlanchester magistrates
should have met the taste of the Conner maw
be a oily imagined, but if any other reflecting
man in this, or any other country, can be thong,
who can conacientionsly Nay that he has watched
and appaived the conduct of that venerable Bench,
that he has first watched and approved the mode
adopted f►r securing their wretched victims, their
consignment to chains and solithry confinement,
their examination and re-committifl day utter slay
fi►r ele►•en days successively, nuclei the charge of
Alt.rder and High crimes which could
alone, if tudy pruved,•justity thlft tteatmeut ;
then has watched arid approved also the sneaking'`
abandonment of that charge thr the silly one of
a conspiracy to do God knows what, and the dilem-
ma in which they have invulvetliboth the Executive
Government and themselves, it', we repeat it, there
be such a man, we will not dispute either his taste or
constitutional knowledge, bat we w•iil both sympa-
thize in his stupidity and pity the unreeling pre.;tia
►lice of his heart.

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