The Sun.
London, England, 1822-04-11 00:00:00

THE MANCHESTER TRANSACTIONS.

LANCASTER, TUESDAY, Arm 9.

FOURTH AND FIFTH DAYS.

UEDFORD V. BILLZ:ir AND OTHERS.

A great mass of evideuce, from the ex.autina.

tio.a of Mr. Hutton, the ;Rev. Mr. Hay, Mr.
Tat.ton, and the Rev. C. W. Ethelstone, Magis.
trues ; 11. Cholmondeley,_ nephew to'. Lord
DelamOre ; several merchants and manufacturers;
Reporters to newspapers ; Colonel L'EsttangA ;
Lieut. F. Buckley, 15 Hussars ; Lieut. C. It.
O'Donnell, ditto ; Lieut. J. i%l'Alpine, ditto;
several other Officers and Privates; Special Con-.
gtables, and other persons ; was -produced to,
:prove the dangerous charr.cter of the Meeting, the
alarm excited, the precautions Wand other measures
adopted by the Magistrates,—the reading of the
Riot A ct,—the issuing of the warrant to apprehend
&c.; the resistance offered to the Yeo-
rnaury—the imminent peril iu which they were
placed, until the 15th Hussars were brought to
their assistance ; the previous clearing off of all

_ .
stones and other missiles from the place of meet-
ing and its nt ighbourhood, though great quanti,
ties were picked up on the same spot after the
Meeting was dispersed ; the martial array of the
tl.visions of people which marched into Man-
chester ; the threatening and • seditious expres-
lions used by many of the people on their
march; the exhortation of Hunt when the military
appeared that the people," if their enemies created
any disturbance," should " get them down, quiet
them, and keep them down,"—&c. Stc. Sze. The

attack upon the yeomanry, by assailing them
with stones, &c., was so clearly established, that
Mr. Justice lloLßoYo thought it unnecessary to
call all the witnesses who were prepared to esta-
blish that fact.

Mr. BLACKBURN commenced his reply at eight minutes
Fist two o'clock. It was once more his duty to address the
.Jury, and a painful duty he could assure them he felt it to be,
since, after the five long days which had been employed in the
examination of witnesses, it would take him some time to sub-
..

• mit to their consideration the impressions he had received from
the testimony which had been given. He Would at the outset
promise them that he would occupy as little of their time as he
possibly could, consistently with the great importance of the
' case, and with the duty which he owed to his ill-treated client.
It hed been said by his Learned Frie4l With an air of triumph,
that he was glad that the time was at length come in which he
should have an opportunity of repelling with scorn and indig-
elution all the calumnies and misrepresentations under which
the Magistracy of Lancashire had too long been labouring.
For his own part, he knew not of any calumnies, and was not
a party to any misrepresentations ; but if calumny had been
cast upon, and misrepresentations -published regarding, them,
--who had been called to rebut and to destroy them ? who but
the Magistrates and those immediately connected with them ?
Had the Jury had any witnesses brought before them in the
last three days but Magistrates and special constables, to make
out a justification, if any was wanted, for the measures that the
former had adopted. If the Magistrates had been of opinion,
as one of them, the Vicar of Rochdale, had sworn that he had
been of opinion, that it was an act of riot and tumult to march
with such ensigns as had been described to them, then it was
their duty, on the appearance of the first party with them, to
have warned them of the illegality they were committing—to
have interrupted the meeting in its very formation, and to-have
prevented its increasing to that extent which it afterwards
reached. All this they had had an opportunity of doing : they
had met at an early hour in the morning of the day of the „
meet-
ing • they were acquainted, as they said, with the state of the
,
country about Manchester, and with the feelings of its inhabi-
tants ; they knew that drillings and trainings were going on
' amongst them almost as notoriously as the sun at noon-clay ;
they knew that at the Whitemoss there had been spectators of
those drillings ten times as nunterousas the drillers themselves ;
they knew the consequences that were to be anticipated from a
numerous assemblage of these persons ; they knew that before
the close of the day this assemblage would be poisoned with the
religious doctrines of Catlile, the political sentiments of Hunt,
and the deleterious liquor of the ale-houses ; and therefore they
were, afraid that when their minds became inflamed with the
sentiments of the first, and their bodies with the ale of the last,
they would sally forth to lay the town of Manchester in ashes.
It was impossible that the Magistrates, knowing all this,
should not also know of the manner in which the meeting of
the 16th August was to be got together; and if they did know
of that manner, and really expected such dangers to result
from it to the town of Manchester, as they had stated on their
oaths that they did, then he persisted in saying thet they ought
to have prevented it altogether. Did they, hetvever, take any i
rneaseres to prevent it ? No ; not one. One of the M.,istrates
even thought that the meeting was legal. Undoubtedly it was
so ; -for what was to render it otherwise ? Clearly, not the in-
tentions of those who had convened ite because, when they
were told that the meeting which they had called for the 9th
was illegal, on account of its object being to elect a representa-
tive for the unrepresented inhabitants of Manchester, they per-
sisted in it no longer. Why, he would ask, if their intentions
were as dangerous and as criminal as they were stated to be—
why did they not persist in it ? What mattered it to them
whether their meeting was legal or not, if their intention was
to sack the town of Manchester ? They might have met on
the
,2th, but they did not meet ; and why ? Because they
-were resolved to do nothing but what was legal and right ; and
accordingly, when they were told that the object of their first
meeting Was improper, they changed their requisition into
one that was perfectly proper and legal : they called a meet-
ing to take into consideration the best means of obtaining
a Yell, fair, and equal representation of the people in the
Coannons' House el Parliament—a meeting which they
had a right to 'attend, yea, though it had been for
the purpose of discussing what his Learned Friend had been
pleased to call the insane doctrines of annual parliaments and
universal suffrage. He might here be allowed to tell his
Learned 'Friend, that, insane as he might think that doctrine,
it had been supported by men of as high rank, and of as dis-
tinguished talents, as had ever appeared in this or in any other
country ; and that though it had failed in the practice, it
was still the ancient and genuine principle of the constitu-
tion. Surely, surely those who only wanted to have what
they considered their rights, were not to be deemed mad,
if they peaceably' demanded theM ; or, if they were mad,
were not, therefore, to be sabred and cut down. But, said
his Learned Friend, if their intention was to demand their
rights in a quiet and peaceable manner, why had they met
in such immense numbers ? Why had they not met at their
private houses, as Mr. Earnshaw and his friends had done,
and there drawn up their petitions for reform ? Why, be..
canes their petitions, if they, had done so, would, as his Learned
Friend had. well remarked, have been read, laid on the
table, and never heard of more. They wished to have their
petitions treated in a different manner ; they thought that when
80,000 0rn,100,000 persons a:nernbled peaceably together—
for the Jury would recollect that the number of persons on
' St. Peter's-field had been computed by respectable persons at
both those sunis—the attention of the House of Commons would
' be called to the fact, that within one narrow district there were
so many individuals without any representative to protect their
interests. They knew that their individual petitionssfer reform
-week' be laid on the table and disregarded; they trusted, how-
- ever, that the collected- wishes of such a multitude would de-
mend and obtain some consideration from the Legislature.—
He trusted that he had now convinced the Jury that the object
•of the requisition was perfectly legal, and that it was not ren-
dered otherwise by the number of persons who had afterwards
atesialed the meeting. How, then, had these persons come into
:Manchester as stragglers ? No—lf they had entered Manches-
ter in detached:find straggling parties, doubtless we should then
have Lei-trill* the peace of the town had been endangered
by the number of disorderly persons who were straggling
through and blocking up the streets. To prevent the possibi-
lity of such an ontearrence, they came under banners, which were
intended- for no other purpose, and which it had not been proved.
had Leen used for any other purpose than to keep the inhabi-
tants of the different townships together, or tore-assemble them
in case they shotild.streggle the one from the other. Though
some of those banners bore foolish inscriptions on them, that
exaggeration of sentiment did not belong to them all. " Equal
' Representation or Death" was inscribed on one of the banners ;
:but it did not therefore follow that those who accompanied it
meant they would have instant eetial representation or instant
death. Absurd and foolish as such an inscription might be,
still he must remind the Jury that it was -riot its folly or its
absurdity that they had to try, but the legality of the con-
duct of the people. Now-he asserted that out of the 51 witnesses
'which his Learned Friend had called, and out of the 39 which
he himself had produced, the Jury had not heard one speak to
-any 'act of riot committed by the people; in or Out of Manches-
=ter, before the irruption of, the Yeomanry, except, indeed, it