The Sun.
London, England, 1831-11-04 00:00:00

3P/lIT *F THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The utter insignificance, so far as numbers
were concerned, of the military force which over-
threwl
the Bristol rioters, is the sharpest stigma
that has yet been affixed to the corporate autho-
rities of that important city. What will our
readers say to the fact, which has been stated to
us from the best-informed quarter, that after the
14th Dragoons were childishly sent off to Keyn-
sham, the whole garrison of Bristol was reduced
to a weak detachment of the 3d Dragoon
Guards—not amounting to more than four
and twenty men! Yet by this handful of deter-
mined soldiers, and before the return of the 14th
Diaguons, was the charge made which gave the
first decided check to the ruffians then collected
in Queen-square, and engaged in the act of de-
molishing one of the corner houses. The Dra-
genii Guards, at length ordered to charge by
the Magistrates, used their swords only, and in
a few minutes cut down above one hundred and
twenty of the incendiaries ; of whom, however,
but very few, perhaps not more than five or six,
were actually killed, the rest being more or less
severely wounded ; but at all events, for that time,
effectually disabled. When the 14th Dragoons
were recalled, after several hours, on symptoms
of a general re-assembling of the mob which
the Dragoon Guards had dispersed,--this rein-
forcement did not add above 50 men to the
strength of the other detachment,—and the joint
and final attack, which completely quelled the
whole disturbance, though with a more exten-
sive loss of life to the insurgents, proceeded
.from little more than 70 rank and file. What
a lesson this affords to public functionaries who
" pall in resolution," upon the facility with
which they may in most cases put down all
transgressors of the law when most furious,
and seemingly most formidable ! And with
what emphasis do the dreadful and prolonged
calamities incurred in the present instance,
through the incompetence and cowardice of
a set of stupid Magistrates, enjoin an early
chastisement of crime, as a course at once the
most merciful, discreet, and wholesome ! It is
grossly false, as asserted by some of the news-
papers in the boroughmonger interest, that
Bristol was retained in tranquillity after the
troops had established it, by the general as•
ecciation and arming of the Tories. The
Tories of Bristol, with good coats upon their
backs, and with the means of procuring arms,
would not have produced an association capable
of contending for five minutes with the mob, let
it have been ever so weak in conflict with even a
single squadron of dragoons. The Bristol
Tories, supposing it to be, as the Anti-Ile-
formers so impudently and ridiculously asserted,
that the Rffortners of the place had taken any
part in the insurrection,—the Tories, we say,
durst not have shown their noses, not being in
the proportion of one to forty of the household
inhabitants of Bristol. The real fact, however,
is, that the lawless violence, latterly so monstrous
and so desolating, had begun with petty demon-
strations of dislike to Sir Charles Wetherell,—
was inflamed by the offensive petulance and
needless vengeance of the constables,—was fed
by its own successes against particular objects of
attack,—was prolonged and extended by the cri-
minal impunity it experienced from imbecile or
unprincipled men in office,—was at last effectually
scourged and laid prostrate by a few brave sol-
diers, acting as much in self-defence as in that of
the public welfare, and has since been restrained
from re-appearing as much by the active and reso-
lute combination of the inhabitant householders,
friends of Reform, enrolling themselves in a con-
servative union, 5,-; Ley the array of military power
which.the Government, with commendable dili-
gence, directed to the spot, in a manner as ex-
peditious as the means of conveyance by land
and water in this rich country afforded. Some
idea, indeed, of the vigour with which the mili- .
tary movements were undertaken, may be formed
from the circumstance, that when Sir Colin Camp-
bell, Lieutenant-Governor of Portsinouth, was
desired, by telegraph, to send what force could
be spared from the garrison to Bristol, not above
three or four hours elapsed before that veteran
officer, who had shared the Duke of Welling-
ton's campaigns in the Peninsula, returned a
telegraphic answer, importing that he had already
despatched the 52d Light Infantry, then but three
days arrived at Portsmouth from North America,
to Southampton by steam-boats ; and that he
had previously sent orders to Southampton for a •
full supply of horses and carriages to await the
regiment on its disembarkation there. Thus,
in England, when cases of emergency arise, the
abundant means of communication create
rapidity of movement which really amounts to a
multiplication of troops. But Bristol cannot
long remain the head-quarters of a very nume-
rous garrison, which could only be established
there by withdrawing from other important
posts (such as Portsmouth, for example, and
Plymouth) the necessary guardians of their safety.
The permanent tranquillity ofßristol against ruffian
mobs,with nothing to lose but every thing to gain by
commotion, must be in the union of respectable
men, whose families and properties are pledges to
the kingdom for their good faith towards the laws,
and for the co-operation with, and obedience to,
an upright Government. Nor must this con-
servative league be confined to Bristol or other
provincial cities,—London ought to be, even at
this moment, the centre of such peace-preserving
institutions. We said so before the meeting in
Lincoln's-inn-fields, where Sir Francis Burdett
presided, from motives, and in a spirit, which
the King and his Ministers cannot appreciate
too highly. We were the more convinced of
the urgent necessity for those associations of the
upper, middle, and all industrious classes, from
observing—what was indeed sufficiently clear—
that the Hon. Baronet had no easy task to exe-
cute, but that there were evil agents abroad, who,
like Hunt in the .House of Coma-ions, at Man-
chester, and every where else, arc indefatigable
in their practices against the peace and well-be-
ing of the realm, and never speak nor act but
to embroil their countrymen, and fo confound
the best intentioeed efforts for the attainment of
rational liberty. What, for instance, can be
the purpose of those individuals who have sum-
moned the meeting at White Conduit-house
next Monday ? Are they not the same gang of
plotters who strove so hard in Lincoln's-inn- •
fields to draw lines of separation where truth,
nor nature, nor even fortune, have made any
but such as arc transient and evanescent, be-
tween citizens who happen to gain a guinea, aril
those who happen to gain five shillings by the
daily exercise of their skill and industry in some
laborious calling ? Can there be any thing in
profligacy more diabolical, than the attempt to
persuade the wan who makes articles of con-
sumption for hourly use, that he would profit by
plundering the master from whose purse he re-
ceives his wages, or the customer who replenishes
that master's purse ? Can there be a mixture
of wickedness and folly more disgusting than
that which pretends that there is a distinct and

lasting gulf between the interests of the journey-
man who may be a master next year, and of the
master who may next year recede into the condi-
tion of a journeyman ? Yet such paradoxes are
' put forth in every form by your mob-orators, who
sell their political garbage to the poor ; and who,
because they are rejected by all educated and libe-
ral men, some of them on the score of taste, others
ofgood morals, others of suspected or all but con-
victed crimes, every one of them without exception
for some cause or other reflecting unfavourably on
their pretensions to an intercourse on equal terms
with instructed men esteemed among their fellows,
would be revenged by throwing the whole world
into anarchy, and out of the chaos would, like
Satan, erect a hell for themselves to reign in.
With what design the meeting of the " working
classes" is summoned on Monday next, we
know not. That the design is not a good one,
seems but too probable, because the implied ex-
clusion of all but those who live by daily and
manual labour, is a malignant one. As we
have said before, there is in this country no dis-
tinction of classes. lie who asserts the distinc-
tion knows nought of English rights or English
honour. Difference of pecuniary means is an
accident,—it does not constitute a class. The
Means are varying from ;week to week, and
what the mischievous demagogues describe as
" classes," are fused and incorporated by a per-
petual fluctuation of their parts. There is ano-
ther reason for more than suspecting the design
of White Conduit-house to be an evil one. We
• have heard that there are extensive manufactures
of staves and bludgeons carrying on for the per-
formers of that day's intended tragedy,—that
fire-arms are to be carried under their clothes,—
that the example of Bristol is to be appealed
to,—but that more efeet is meditated, and, for
that end, that a more elaborate concert and more
studied machination will be resorted to. We
affirm that such intelligence has reached us, and
from more quarters than one. Do we publish
it to excite fear among the innocent and timid ?
No; but to unmask the villains, whoever they
may be, and either to deter them, or ensure their
signal defeat and punishment. " Forewarned is
Forearmed," saith the proverb. We are con-
vinced that Government is awake, and will not
he surprised. We are aware that wholesale and
Bristolian ruin will be averted ; but unless pro-
perty and intelligence and neighbourly feeling
unite, and keep watch over local and private
safety, much individual mischief may be accom-
plished before the power of co-operation among
honest men can be ea:led forth to prevent it.
We repeat, therefore, our bathe “y. Enrol
your names, fellow-citizens of London and
Westminster, in your respective parishes and dis-
tricts,—name Committees of independent gen-
tlemen, in whom yoe: can place trust,—arm your-
selves against incendiaries and thieves and ruf-
fians, who will all be ready for whatever enrolee
may interrupt the public tranquillity. Do these
things without losing twenty-four hours, and the
conspirators of fresh Bpa-fields or Conduit-house
riots may give up their trade--,they will never
, make a livelihood of it.--Times.

We lay before our readers such further infor-
mation as we have obtained respecting the la-
mentable proceedings at Drivail. Tranquillity
seems fUlly restored ; but all business ;$ at a
stand., end the town presents the appearance of a
place which had been sacked by an enemy. Dig-
ging out dead bodies, watching for incendiaries
and plunder, and judicial investigations? are the
occupations which have taken the place of the
regular porspits of industry. The conduct of
the authorities of l3ristol is a disgrace to the age
and the country. A stria ,account must be ex-
acted of them for the manner in which they dis-
charge the duties of their situation. But the
magistrates ai-a, not the only parties who have
acted scandalously, The magistrates (says
the Bristol Gazette of yesterday)), when they
foi.nal that the armed force of the city was too
weak to quell the disturbance, called upon their
fellow-citizens to meet them at the Guilt:hall,
and consult the best means of restoring the peace
of the city ; but their fellow-citizens kept aloof.
It is true that some came, and about 30 or 40
remained ; anti it is true that several magistrates
placed themselves at the head of these 30 or
40, and went into the Commereial-rooms and
on the Exchange, and requested the gentlemen
they met in the streets to join them—and it is true,
that before they reaahed Prince's-street Bridge,l
more than halfof those who had; oined deserted the
body; some, because their dinners were ready, and
some because they had no wish to encounter
desperate mob unarmed." But it seems Ma-
gistrates and citizens thona-ht that the mob only
•
wished to destroy public property, and that as
private property would be safe, it would be 'on-
prudent to hazard their own safety. " Another'
error (says the same Journal) which was shared
alike by Magistrates and citizens, I,74s—that the
mob intended only to attack public buiidiugs,
and to spare private property—but who could
place limits to the actions of a dranikeu and infu-
riated banditti ? 7 he wretches themselves never
contemplated the extent to which their passions •
would carry theta. mob, like a fire, may be
controlled in the cornmaacannent with little
trouble; but it requites great powea to extin-
guish the ;aimed mass." But what an acconnt
does this paper give ,of the contemptible nature
of the mob which overaweLl the Magistrates,
and from which the citizens shronL. " We
are prepared to show that those who were the
practical rioters anti incendiaries, were not what
are Eenerally called the People,' but
thirty or forty Irishmen, with about aty boys,l
a class of iniseyeants who neither knew nor
cared any thing about ,Reform ; but then there
was this fatal fact, that the unpopularity of Sir
Charles, and the impolicy of refusing the late
measure, paralyzed the public, and rendered
inert the arms that should have defended the
Recorder in the exercise of his c4,cial duties ;
which eircuwtances the demons of misehief
took advantage of, snd inflicted the dreadful,
scourge which the city has sabred. We have
given this as preliminary—because we wjab the
business to be fairly stated." This corresponds'.
with the statement of fir Charles Wetherell on
his reWrn to town on Monday last, Sir Charles
said, the rnob on the Saturday was quite g.Qn-
temptible. We will no charge the Magistrates
with connivance at these exceoaes from the base
motive cf bringing odium on Reform ; but they
can only escape from the charge of being the
most guilty of
,men, by t;":owing that they are
the moat stupid and imbecile. The eame Jour-
nal records the astounding fact, that soldiers;
were coolly walking backwards and forwards
while the incendiaries were proceeding with the
work of destruction, and that the firemen of the •
ruff rent Companies alone, armed with their
,lire hatchets, would have been more than suffi-
cient to have routed the mob at any time during.
the Sunday evening. What a contrast between
the conduct of the authorities and citizens of •
Bristol on this occasion, and that of the Ma-
gistrates of Glasgow and the respectable in,

habitants of that and the neighbouring towns in
1820. In that year the whole labouring popula-
tion of the west of Scotland, in obedience to a Pro-
clamation of an alleged Committee for the orga-
nization of a Provisional Government, calling
on the people of England, Scotland, and Ireland
to effect a revolution by force,ceased in one day
to go to their usual work. But the Magistrates
did not look on with supineness to see what
would turn up. A single day's delay would
have produced incalculable mischief. There
were comparatively few regular troops in that
part of the country ; but the middle classes from
Edinburgh and the principal towns proceeded in
arms to the number of many thousands on the
receipt of the intelligence from Glasgow. The
attempt at revolution was instantly crushed, and
the ill-disposed were deterred from adhering to
their engagements, and in a few days the la-
bouring classes returned to their ordinary course
of life. The idea of charging these riots on the
Reformers is absurd beyond conception. The
Anti-Reformers " might as well (as the Bristol
Gazette observes) have charged the Ex-Dey of
Algiers" with the riots. There ts, unfortu-
nately, in all our great towns a mob or rabble,
uneducated, the victims of neglect, without
principle, and if not absolutely criminal, ad-
dicted to low and debasing vice. Bristol, ac-
cording to all accounts, has always had more
than a due share of this description of popula-
tion, The rabble, though they can have
no opinion of their own upon any subject,
are never indifferent during times of politi-
cal agitation. They become partisans in their
way, and have their own way of demonstrating
their partiality for whatever opinion happens
to be prevalent. At present all classes of Bristol
are Reformers, and the rabble also call them-
selves Reformers. They avail themselves of the
unpopularity of Sir Charles Wetherell to at.
tempt an outrage against him in the name of
Reform, and feeling their power, they proceeded
to violence and plunder. They burned the
palace of the Bishop of Bristol. In 1829, the
same rabble were hallooed on by the Bishop of
Bristol and the Clergy, and the Corporation,
and evinced their attachment to patriotism, by
mobbing all who subscribed a petition in favour
of the Catholic claims. Sir Charles Wetherell
was then the idol of the rabble ; and he may be
so again when the Reform question is disposed
of. These are not Reformers, more than the
boys who hiss the Duke of Wellington are
Reformers. So long as there are mobs, what-
ever opinion has the advantage of the suffrages
of the people in general, will also have their
suffrage. The Reformers cannot prevent those
who disgrace any pose from calling themselves
Reformers. But the Magistrato of Bristol
had fell warning of the meditated outrage—
they knew, or ought to have known, the cha-
racter of that part of the population which com-
mitted the outrage, and they ought never to have
allowed violence and rapine Co proceed to the
audacious lengths which have desolated the
capital of the Vest. The only justification that
ez,P be offered for them is their cowardice and
incapacity. Whoever goes about to prove them
men of capacity is their greatest 6netny, for we
must then suspect their conduct the result of
diabolical wickedness. The Corporation system
of this country throws the Magistracy too often
into the bande of peksoua c; all others the least
fitted for it. The disposition to fatten by cor7
ruption may be possessed by many a person who
ought not to be entrusted with the care of the
live; and properties of his fellow-citizens. A
knot of creatureii cif this description having mice
quartered themselves in the strong holds of a
rich Corporation, think only of the means of
retaining the good things they enjoy. Hence
the Magistracy in many places are the contempt
of the Yespz c;,411? inhabitants. Worse than the
Magistrates of Bristol cannot well be ; bot
fear there are many other Corporation Magis-
trates on whom, in case of emergency, little re-
liance could be laced.—Morning Chronicle.

We were the first, we believe, who endea-
voured to call the attention of our fellow-citizens
0 the threatened meeting at White Conduit-
house on 74onday next, and to warn them of
the peculiar danger of such meetings of the
working classes, from the nature of the ,doc,-
trines which, for some time, have been, we fear,
but too successfully disseminated among a por-
tion of Otero. Meetings? of the nature of that
alluded to, are unquestionably a great evil at tips
time, tending as they necessarily do to bring
Reform into bad odour. There is no connec-
tion, tuot;:t assuredly, between the question of
Parliamentary Reform end the declaration issued
by those who called the meeting—a itieclaration
in which doctrines of the most dangerous nature,
with regard to property, are inculcated. The
men who promuletp those notions with regard
to property may sincerely ei-itegta.i; them ; but
this does not make the notions themselyeS the
less mischievous. But though there is no ne-
cessary connectlon I;etween these men and Par-
liamentary
Reformers, Reform ;s the watch-
von.' with both, and Reform will gain nothing
by the circtur,tstance. We have said that some
of those who entertain qta dangerous notions
respecting property, above alluded to, ipliy be
only misguided men. There are, however,
others whQ, we learn from good authority, have
been uttering sentiniellts n public which amount
to a downright justification of spoliaLiot:. We
have also seen one of the staves, with which we
undzrstand it has been proposed that those who
attend the trbeting £hould arm themselves. An
Evening contemporary (the taioe), alluding to
this meeting, says—
" god purpose can, however, be answered by pre•
pared blarigeno,;, e, d ,d:3clareti intentions of breaking the
peace or resisting the legal aut;..or:;.;ee. The leaders of the
meeting to which we allude arc striving'to ther
p;,rtisuns to provide themselves with such articles for the
occasion, or4er, as their orator Benbow states, to keep
the police civi!.' This individual announced that
a pattern bludgeon should bi exhibited in I.:s s;;,v, with a
pattern cockade, which is of course a tri-eelour. There
can l, fear, however, of the effects which a band of
fanatics and vaga4opi! can produce on the multitude, even
at this moment of excitero,ni, as :ong as the respectable
portion of the community, the sober-minded plan,
k.rult or honest Reformer in higher walk becoMe asso-
ciates for ti.e .:,41..1m0n weal."
We warn all iespeciaLle mechanics, and all
those who might be disposed to aitenti such a
trice:„;itT front mere curiosity, that they may be
drawninto a t.le:;ger of which they are not aware.
After what has taken piac.,; at Bristol, the Go-
vernment and local authorities would he criminal
in the extun're if they did not provide against
any possible danger, We do not believe that
any great number of men entertain, the idea of
spoliation ; but we have the example of Bristol
to teach us that a very small number of men, if
not checked in the outset, may do incalculable
mischief. We do not like armed meetings at all ;
and if a great multitude be once assembled, a
very small number of evil-disposed individuals
may produce a confusion which would in-
volve the whole in danger. We warn therefore all
well-disposed persons to be on their guard. No
can pow succeed in Lon-
attempt at spoliation