The Sun.
London, England, 1839-08-20 00:00:00

CHARTIST TRIALS.

CHESTER ASSIZES.

MR. M•DOUALL'S DEFENCE.
The defendant M'Douall then entered on his defence,
which occupied four hours. In appearing before them
at the present moment to plead his own cause, he eould
not help recollecting the old and trite expression, fre•
quently made use of, and which might, perhaps, be ap-
plicable to himself, that he who pleaded his own cause
had a fool for his client. He might certainly haveemployed
counsel, and by so doing have given more dignity andim-
portance to his cause, but when be considered the splen-
did legal talent which would be arrayed against him, and
felt that as far as legal talent were concerned, that
humble as his own abilities were he should be compelled
to rely upon them and upon the justice of his cause, aided
by that wise and humane provision of the law which
made it a duty of the Judge on. the Bench to act as
Counsel, not for the prosecution but for the prisoner.
in the justice of the laws of this country he placed his
confidence ; to the authority and decisions of the Judges
who bad presided on the judgment-seat ; and to the well
known and established impartiality of British Juries;
to these, and to these alone he trusted for the success of
his cause, and for his honourable dismissal from that
bar. It was needless, he hoped, to ask the Jury to lay
aside any prejudice that might have pre-occupied their
minds, but he did entreat them to cast aside all preju
(lice which even unconsciously arose in the mindsof many
from the extraordinary alarm and general agitation which
prevailed in this country, and in that district at the present
moment. He did not stand before them to deny any one
principle which he had advocated, but he did protest
against the manner in which the Attorney-General had
alluded to meetings, circumstances, and events, which
had no connexion with the case the Jury had to try—
meetings that had formerly taken place, and which the
Attorney-General had no right to allude to, because he
did not, and could not, give them in evidence. He pro-
tested against the unfairness of imputing to him motives
of the worst description, and language, the atrocity of
which the Learned Gentleman said he had not language
to describe. What language had been proved to
the Jury which could justify such an epithet ? What
conduct that could justify the imputation of such motives?
He then proceeded to defend the grounds on which he
had supported the present agitation. He had not en-
tered on it from any visionary notion, derived from mere
theoretical principles, but he had founded the doctrines
which he had advocated upon the Constitution and
statute book of England, and upon the ancient and
most authentic records connected with that Constitution.
He then proceeded to quote a considerable number of
authorities in support of those views. From Tacitus
and Caesar to prove that the British tribes were in the
habit of meeting in bodies in council ; that the same
plan was followed by the Saxons, and that all their
laws were passed by edicts of general assemblies of the
the whole body of the people, and referred, in proof of
this, to a decree of Sigeric, thus headed, " This is the
decree of Sigeric, in the Court held before King
Ethelred, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop, Abbots,
and Senators, the chiefs, and people of the whole
country," and then proceeded to enumerate various
other Charters headed in a similar manner.
It was Alfred the Great who introduced the princi-
ple of representation, in consequence of finding the
assemblage of the whole people too cumbrous and in-
convenient. Thus it went on till the Norman dy-
nasty became supreme in England, and soon they re-
spected and adopted the ancient Saxon customs. By
the 4th Edward 111. c. 1.5., it was enacted that Par-
liament should be held once or oftener in every year,
if need be. Thus the principle of annual parliaments
was sanctioned by statute as well as by custom. Nor
was there by the ancient laws and Constitution any pro
perty limit of suffrage until the reign of Henry VI., and
what was the reason alleged for passing that Act ? Not
that any inconvenience had actually arisen, but because
by reason •f men of smaller substance and no value
voting at elections riots might arise and be Annual
parliaments were held up to and in the reign of Henry
VIII., and it was wellknown that the attempt to in-
terfere with the duration of Parliament had material
influence in bringing Charles to the block. It was
a remarkable feature in English history that it was not
to English but to foreign Monarchs that we were in-
debted for those invasions of the English Constitution
which formed the subject of such general complaint at
the present moment. Willliam 111., a stranger, abro-
gated annual parliaments and introduced triennial par-
liaments, and George 1., another stranger, passed the
Septennial Act. The jury would remember probably
the celebrated protest of the Peers on that occa-
sion, and the reason they alleged, viz.—" Because
they conceived that frequent and new Parliaments
were required by the fundamental Constitution of the
Kingdom, and the practice thereof for many ages."
It was therefore for nothing new that the Chartists
contended ; all that they ask was the restoration of
those ancient laws and customs which were fundamen-
tal to the Constitution, and which the necessity
of the present times demanded should be re-
stored. All that the Chartists claimed was the
integrity and the reality of that Constitution which
had grown with our growth, and strengthened with our
strength, which had been the boast of this land, and the

envy of surrounding nations. One of the most impor-
tant elements of that Constitution was the right to per-
fect freedom of discussion, and it appeared to him a
monstrous violation of the Constitution to prosecute per-
sons attending such meetings, and to treat them as tu-
multuous and unlawful. Was it unlawful to call or to
attend meetings for the purpose of petitioning Parlia-
ment, to return to those ancient laws and institutions
under which the grandeur and greatness of this country
had been developed and matured ? There could be no
greater mistake than to suppose that the Chartists and
the people generally were reckless advocates of change.
It was contrary to the very nature of man to suppose
this ; for national habits, customs, and laws were the
things to which the majority of mankind were especially
attached. It was from the violation of those ancient
laws and customs, which he sincerely believed were
framed in the spirit of the profoundest wisdom, that dis-
tress pervaded our land, and agitation stalked in its train.
Another of those erroneous notions regarding Chartism
which had been extensively and authoritatively propa-
gated, and which had excited a most unjust prejudice
against them, was that it was their object and intention
to appropriate and divide property. It was not to be
wondered at that any new political sect arising in the
State, should meet with obloquy which they did not
deserve. The early Christians themselves were a proof
of this, and were accused of crimes and motives of a
most atrocious character. To say that the Chartists
advocated a division of property was a most atrocious
libel upon them. Let them take the Charter with its
five points ; let them read them from beginning to end,
and they would not find the slightest ground for such a
charge. The only division of property which the Char-
tists aimed at was a division of political property, an
equal participation with others in political rights and
privileges, and by which no one would be robbed or
injured. He could say, not only for himself, but for
all with whom he had associated in this cause, that
he never heard, either in public or in private,
the slightest whisper of such a proposal. What ra-
tional man could for a single instant entertain such an
idea? For were property equally divided one week the
next would find it merged in the hands of the strong,
the designing, and the industrious, by whom it would
be wrested from the weak, the foolish, and the idle.
Another atrocious libel on the professors of Chartism
was the attributing to them the advocacy of the
dagger and the torch. In all times the patriotic, those
who sought the improvement of the institutions of their
country, had to encounter unmerited abuse. The
great Washington himself had not escaped, and, unfor-
tunately for the Chartiits, unfortunately for those
who, out of pure love of country, advocated the rege-
neration of our ancient Constitution, there were a large
number of bad and vicious men, to whom it might be
exceeding convenient to assume the mask of Chartism,
but whose vices and crimes, which existed prior to and
independent of Chartism, it was most unfair to charge
them with. Thus, in London, it was said there was a
predatory population of 100,000 persons, or at
least, that 100,000 persons rose every morning in
London, without knowing where to get a breakfast.
Were the crimes of all the lawless of society to b
charged upon the Chartists ? No ; though the five
points of the Charter 'were insisted upon, and insisted
upon mainly because of the misery in which the poorer
classes were at present plunged—though he felt deeply
for those miseries, he could still feel for those who had
been born in affluence and nurtured in luxury, and
should the torch of the incendiary ever, unhappily, be
applied to their dwellings, none would be more deserving
of commiseration than those who should thus be ren-
dered homeless. The Chartists, the true Chartists—
those who entered upon or joined the present agitation
on pure and philosophic and constitutional motives—
were just as anxious to put down the use of the dagger
nd torch as the rich and the powerful themselves. He
then entered into a description of the miseries and suf-
ferings of the working classes, to which he attri-
buted the agitation commenced by them for
the increase of their political power. It had
been the early habit of his life to observe closely the
condition of the people and the operation of the laws,
and the misery which hi had seen prevail around
investigate
the induced him closely to examine into and
the causes. Of late years he: regretted to say there
had taken place a striking and lamentable change in the
condition of the working daises of this empire. He
could well (though young) remember the time when
there existed in his native country (Scotland) a high.
minded, educated, noble, and industrious race of men,
the hand-loom weavers. The men were intelligent and
prosperous, their wives well clothed and happy, their
houses smiling, and their hearth-stones glad. He could
remember when the song of joy mingled is ith the rattle of
their looms, when the people worked with happiness and.
pleasure instead of as now with curses muttering on
whimchent2heyTwheerenot
their lips ag•‘avinhsetrethwoseerelanw byows
those
America, the watch-fire of the soldier, the
iro•debtor'sback-
woodseof
te d
gaol, and the culprit's cell, had completed the
work of misery ; their cottages were roofless`;

their hearth-stones cold, and in the beautiful lan-
guage of Scripture, the place that once II
knew them, knows them no longer. When he came to
this country he beheld the same decline of a once noble
race. The handicraftsman was passing away, and carry-
ing his talent and his ingenuity to other lands, whilst
the mighty genius of machinery was calling factories
into existence in every direction. He once entertained
the hope that machinery with its vast powers, was
doomed to mitigate the toil of man ; to enable him with
less expenditure of labour to gain more of the comforts of
fife, and to improve the happiness of our social condition.
In consequence of the stimulus given to trade machinery
was invented, and it had produced the effects to which
he.bad just alluded. He had examined minutely into
the condtion of the:factory labourers, holding, on the only
rational conclusion any one could come to, that by the
introduction of machinery manual labour would be
lessened, but he found on the other hand, that instead
of the eight hours labour being reduced to four by the
application of machinery, which would produce so much
quicker and cheaper, that it had doubled the manual
labour and increased it to sixteen hours. In his exami-
nation he was not disposed to take the complaints of the
people themselves or to believe all they stated, but he
made it his business to examine and inquire from house
to house, and from door to door, and ascertain what
the real condition of the people was, and from the si-
tuation he occupied as a medical man, he was the bet-
ter enabled to judge not only of their social but their
domestic condition. Of so much importance were his
investigations and researches deemed that one of the
Secretaries of State of the present Government had
written to him for a copy, and it also found a place
on the books of the British Association held at
Newcastle-on-Tyne, which was, perhaps, the best
evidence he could give of its correctness and truth.
He had examined the houses, which, he would observe,
were built by the factory masters for the workmen, for
the purpose of realizing 20 per cent. by the speculation.
Instead of the boasted comfort and convenience of the
factory labourers, about which so much had been said,
he found that in 137 families, consisting of 777 indivi-
duals, there were only 137 bed-rooms, or one for each
family. In 24 families he had found as many as five
sleeping in one bed-room ; in 24 families there were as
many as 7 persons sleeping in one bed-room ; in 5 fami.
lies there were 9 in one bed-room ; in 3 families there
were 11 in one bed-room ; in 2 families there were 12,
and in one family there were 13 sleeping in one bed-
room. There were only 172 families out of 309 who
had two bed-rooms- In 11 of these families there were
10 persons in two bed-rooms ; in 4 families there were
12 ;in 7 families there were 14, and so on. He had
then inquired upon the subject of wages, and he had
taken the data laid down by the best and leading
manufacturers of Lancashire, namely 10s. per head per
week ; but on examination he had found that on the
average of a number of families the wages ranged only
from 2s. 6d. to ss. 6d. per bead per week. At the date
of his investigations (August 1838), there was a law in
existence by which the factory masters were com-
pelled to find teachers for the persons employed
under them, and on the subjeet of education the
result was that out of 309 families in 11 families, con-
sisting of 50 persons, there was not one person able to
read. In 26 families there was only one in each family
able to read—in
elb,nndin 54 families32ferniliesonl thereyweret were
beret only
breetwo in
persons
in
each able to read. In 86 families, consisting of 525
persons, there was not one able to write. In 62 families
there were only two able to write in each ; in 29 fami-
lies there were three in each. He would now direct
them to another point for the purpose of showing the
connection between his former persecutors and the pre-
seyi
Inl
et g
ep rwobs eecr
eu t
bi oen.
had Tbhe
been
n arrested, circumstanceand owcbceurrer ed
the
nt
etehte.
ing had been held, to answer which he now appeared at
their bar. He had stated already that he had gone into
an examination of the factory system, in consequence of
a
challenge
Thomas
which
As
beenhabdtonat
t thrown
n out
was
thethatbest n
the mill
of
England, and of which a report had been drawn up and
submitted to the British Association, by Mr. Falkin.
That report was calculated to spread an erroneous notion
throughout the world concerning the boasted comfort of
the factory people of England, because at the meeting of
that association the most distinguished men from America,
France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and almost
all the important towns and districts in Europe
and America, were present. And in order to
show the connection between the present prose-
cution and that investigation which he had made
into the factory system, he would remind the
jury that the principal witness against him, was the bro-
ther-in-law of Mr. Thomas Ashton of Hyde. In the
first house he had visited he had found six males and
three females—two out of the nine were workers and
received 17s. per week, out of which they paid Mr.
Thomas Ashton ss. 51d. for coals, rent, and water, not
forgetting 2d. a week for the Sunday school, leaving a
sum of I Is. 7d for 9 persons to live on during the week.
In another house there were two females, one of whom
was a worker who received 193. a fortnight. Out of
that sum she paid 10s. Id. per fortnight to Mr. Thomas
Ashton, which left Bs. 11d. to live upon and support
another female for a fortnight. He might quote to
theta innumerable instances of this of the same descrip-
tion, but he had collected together in the report he had
prepared some facts of the foregoing description to show
the world the condition of the workers in what was
boasted to be the best and most comfortable of the
factory districts in Lancashire —and in fact
throughout the whole of his investigation there
was only one woman whose husband re-
ceived 255. a week, who said that her condition was
moderately comfortable. In consequence of that inves-
tigation he had been made the subject of the present
prosecution ; and she was now accused by the Attorney-
General of having only money in view, and refusing to
work without being paid. Seeing no means of one in-
dividual contending against a class of men possessing
not only combination and numbers, but capital, and
perceiving that some of the noblest and most philan-
thropic, and richest of men had fallen into poverty of
the worst description by a similar course of endeavour-
ing to procure justice for the poor and the industrious
classes, he began to dispair of being able to improve their
condition by any individual efforts of his own. Believ-
ing that, and entertaining still the hope of bettering
their condition, he saw no probability of effecting the
object without, at the same time, giving the people the
means of combatting the powerful opposition raised
against any man who would dare to come forward and
advocate the rights of the people. He had at length
become convinced that there was no means of
improving their condition without, at the same
time, giving them the political power by which
to effect it ; and even if the effect might be
calculated to produce some agitation and some
evil to society, still there was infinitely greater evil in
leaving these men exposed to the tyrannical influence
under which they were suffering at the present moment.
It was; impossible, if the reports made by the masters
of the condition of their workmen were true, that the
statement of the Attorney-General could be correct,
when he had accused him (Mr. M'Douall) of exciting
and raising up the workmen against their masters. No
man, whatever might be his eloquence or popularity,
could rouse and excite the people to complain of the
tyranny of their masters, and to put forth the many
grievances under which they laboured, unless some of
these grievances really existed. If the people were
really comfortable, no power on earth could induce the
people to become agitators, and subject them to the
absurd charge of attempting to subvert the laws and

institutions of the country, when their only object was
to resist changes in their social condition and obtain the
restoration of those political rights which their ancestors
had enjoyed. If the people were comfortable there
would be no agitation ; but if real misery and distress
existed, then agitation was merely an effect, and the
misery they suffered the cause of that agitation. The
Attorney-General had therefore entirely mistaken
the matter, and had imputed to the effect what he
ought in justice only to have ascribed to the cause.
Whatever obloquy or misrepresentation might attach
to his actions or proceedings, he would never relinquish
his proud position of advocating the establishment of
. .

:hose principles which were founded on the ancient sta-
tutes, and customs and rights of their forefathers,

forming the brightest page in the history of England,
' and which were never more imperatively necessary than
at the present time, in consequence of the miseries
which the people endured—he would never relinquish
that great purpose for any visionary scheme of a divi-
sion of property, or the atrocious system of the dagger
and the torch. What he had demanded was to esta-
blish those principles which would extend to the labour-
ers of that country, the same political powers which the
Reform Bill had conferred upon the middle classes.
He demanded that as a right, which they ought to pos-
sess from their position, as producers of the wealth of
that country, and as being superior and more
important, as
a class, than those in whose hands
only that power was at present vested, and
who were merely the distributors of the wealth and
sustenance which the industrious classes produced, and
created. He demanded it in right of their intelligence,
those lenses by which distant spheres were brought for what class of men, he would ask, possessed a greater
right to it on the ground of intelligence and mental capa-
city than the mechanist, who by his ingenuity could form
ap-
parently closer to the inhabitants of the earth, by which
they were enabled to examine into the beauty and har-
mony of their construction, and thus teach them to wor-
ship the Creator in the contemplation of the wonders
and magnitude of his works ? What men were better
entitled to those rights than the labourers who toiled in
their fields, and made the vallies and the hill sides of the
country green and in the proper season waving with
luxuriant crops
of grain and teeming with fertility and
abundance? From that class of men they derived all by
which lite was sustained ; and'for every thing, from com-
forts the meanest to luxury the highest, they were de-
pendant
upon that vast mechanical arm, the labouring,.
population. Without the labours of that class all their
efforts in commercial enterprise and mechanical im-
provement, and social advancement were as nothing,
and, as good architects, they should certainly be anxious
to see the basis of the noble edifice of which they were
so proud, established upon a foundation of security, and
permanence,
iti(l happiness. He sought for no wild