The Sun.
London, England, 1831-12-20 00:00:00

MANCHESTER, DEC. 11.

ilium Holton, Esq., of Hutton Park, Holton, a
wstrate of the county of Lancaster, who officiated
Chairman of the Magistrates of Lancashire at the
period:of the memorable proceedings on the 16th of
Augues;lBl9, has, in consequence of some observa-
tions'froM Lord Althorp, in the House of Commons,
3.Treecting on the conduct of the magistracy on that
occasion, tendered his resignation as a Magistrate of
the county. Lord Althorp, hearing of the circum-
stance., wrote to Mr. Holton on the subject, which
led to the following correspondence between them,
which is published with the consent of Mr. Holton,
who does not appear to think that the explanations
of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are satisfactory.
Notwithstanding the persuasions of Mr. Hulton's
brother Magistrates and friends, he is determined to
rY11;71 ri.) longer in the Commission of the Peace,
and on Wednesday last addressed the annexed letter
to the Magistrates of the hundred of Salford. The
following is the previous correspondence between
Lord Althorp and William Holton, Esq.:—
" To THE MAGISTRATES OF THE HUNDRED OF SALFORD.
" Hulton-park, Dec. 14, 1831.
" GENTLEMEN,-At the last quarter sessions you did me
the honour to express your regret at my secession from the
Bench. Your hind sentiments have been most gratifying
to me. I beg leave to lay before you a correspondence
which will fully explain the cause of my resignation.
I remain, Gentlemen, your faithful friend and servant,
" W. HULTON."

c~'.'

" Downing.street, Nov. 11, 1831.

" have this day received a letter from a gentle-
man of the name of Phillips, stating to me, in rather angry
terms, that in consequence of some expressions used by me
in the House of Commons, you had felt yourself so much
aggrieved, that you had ceased to act as a magistrate. I think
he must be misinformed ; but as I certainly never did say
auythine which could by possibility induce you to take this
step, and us I should be extremely sorry if any erroneous
report of what I did say should have induced you to take
it, although I do not believe this to be the case, I think it
safer to write to you at once upon the subject. Till I got
Mr. Phillips's letter, I was not aware that I had even
alluded to the unfortunate transactions at Manchester in
1819. Upon the receipt of his letter, however, I see that
in the debate on Colonel Evans's motion for a Committee
of Inquiry into the oases of Mr. and Mrs. Deacle, he hav-
ing adduced the case of Manchester, in 1819, as a prece-
dent, I did allude to it, and stated the reasons why I did
not think the two cases analogous. I did this, because,
having myself moved for a Committee of Inquiry in 1819,
it was incumbent upon me to show the reasons why I
thought the cases dissimilar.
1:1 the report of what I said in the Mirror of Par-
liament,' there is nothing that could give offence to any
individual. I have no weans of knowing whether that re-
port is correct or not; but I am perfectly sure I could
have said nothing offensive to you, as I had entirely for-
gotten that you had any concern in that transaction, if I
ever knew it.
" 1 did undoubtedly refer to the circumstances of the
case in general terms of disapprobation, but I did not apply
those terms to the Magistrates, still less to any individual
Magistrate; and therefore, unless you have seen a report
of what I said, very different from that which appears in
the ' Mirror of Parliament,' I think it impossible that you
should have retired from the Bench of Magistrates in con-
atquence of what 1 said in the House of Commons.
" I have the honour to be, Sir,
"Your most obedient humble servant,
" - Hulton, Esq." " ALTHORP.

" Hulton-park, Nov. 14, 1831.
'4 Ml' Loon, have had the honour to receive a letter
to which your Lordship's name is subscribed. I ought to
have answered it by return of post, hut as it arrived on
Sunday, when I had other duties to perform, I shall make no
ap •logy for one day's delay. Who the gentleman of the
name of Phillips' is, who has written to your Lordship in
rather angry terms,' I know not. I regret extremely
that any one should have addressed your Lordship on so
unimportant a subject ; and still more, if, in voluntary be-
coming my advocate, he has used any terms meriting ti e
epithet your Lordship has applied to him. Before I pro-
ceed further, I must claim exemption from all liability to
which I might be exposed by a breach of parliamentary
privilege, if such should occur in the course of my reply.
It is perfectly true that I have just sewed to act as a
!alagistret a on account of the designation which your
Lordship has been pleased to give of the transaction at
Manchester in 1819. The words attributed to your
Lordship, and which have been circulated by various news.
papers, were uttered, as your Lordship is aware, on Col.
Evaus's notice in Mr. and Mrs. Deacle's case. They were
these—' That the loss of lives on that occasion (alluding
ta Manchester) was frightful, and that all the circumstances
were of an extraordinary and revolting nature.' These
words might have formed part of that general disappria.
Wiwi' which your Lot dship acknowledges that you ex-
pressed.
" First, as to the loss of lives. Two people were killed
;ro St. Peter's-field—one a woman, who, having person-
ated the Goddess of Reason, was trampled to death in the
crowd ; the other, a special constable, who was cut down
unintentionally by a private of a dragoon regiment. This
was the frightful sacrifice of life which saved Manchester
from a worse fate than Bristol has since undergone. Two
other lives were loet on the night of the 16th of August,
when the provision shops were assailed by the mob. On
the succeeding eliy an old pensioner was beaten to death
with portions of his own loom, because be had expressed
loyal attachment to his King ; and, subsequently, a man
died, whose ease formed the celebrated Oldham inquest.
I lament as deeply as any man can do the loss of a fellow-
oonntryinan in a civil strife; but whether the terms un-
tfortunate,' which your Lordship gives in your letter, and
e revolting,' which is attributed to your Lordship, would
nut Lae better bestowed on more recent events, may at
least admit of doubt. Had your Lordship considered the
peculiar difficulties of a Magistrate's situation in this po-
pulous neighbourhood, you would scarcely have pointed
any of them out for execration at this period of irrational
exeiternent. But your Lordship states in your letter, that
though you did refer to the circumstances in general terms
of disapprobation, you did not apply those terms to the
Magistrates,' fo whom, may I venture to ask, did these
expressions refer 1 There were only two parties--on the one
hand, the civil authorities, with the military acting under
their orders; on the other, Messrs. Hunt, Carlile, and their
compatriots, leading on an infuriated mob, who had been
lung trained to the use of arms ? Were the epithets in-
tended for the orators or the assembly ? Could any man
of common sense doubt for whom the terms of ' disappro-
bation' were intended, uttered as they were by a Minister,
with whose permission similar emblems of revolution, caps
of liberty, and tri-coloured flags, have been triumphantly
paraded, if not carried, to the King's Palace? As Lord
4ltherp, the Member for Northamptonshire, you bad an
undoubted right to express in your place in Parliatnent
your abhorrence of the measures we were painfully obliged
to adopt. To balance this disapprobation, we bad the
recorded thanks of the reigning Monarch, the support of
she greatest legal authorities of the day, and the verdict.
uf two juries. But when your Lordship, as Chancellor of
She Exeliequer, and leader in the House of Commons, rose
so censure magistrates whose • onduct, if not acceptable
to your Lordship, was gratefully acknowledged at the
time (and that time 12 years ago) by nearly all the
owners of property in the most crowded hundred in the
then I felt myself called upon, as Chairman
kingdom.
of the Committee of Magistrates, upon whom the re-
sponsibility in 1819 devolved, publicly to declare that I
would not submit to be thus taunted, especially at a cri.is
when, if I acted according to ray deliberate construction
of the law of England, I should repeat the same line of
cJr.i,fuct which I pursued in 1819. If I neglected thus to
act. I should probably have to witness the conflagration of
the great manufacturing estaldishments I was bound by
my oath to guard ; it I conscientiously performed my duty,
I should expose myself to a prosecution by his Majesty's
Attorney-General. Under such circumstances could I
remain on the Bench ? Would your Lordship have ad-
vised any friend of your own, so situated, to retain his
office ? Your Lordship states, that ' you had entirely for-
gotten that 1 bad any concern in that transaction, if you
ever knew it.' This assertion may be intended merely as
a vehicle for contempt. Humble individual as I am, I
should have imagined that to one who took the active
interest which your Lordship did in the affairs of 1819,
my name might have been as familiar as that of Deaele.
Humble individual as I am, honour, the firmest basis of
private life, forbids that I should tamely submit to have the
epithet 'revolting' applied to any transaction in which I
had participated.
" I have only further to add, upon my word as a gentle..
man, a word which would, I believe, obtain credence
among. PCII of all political parties in this neighbourhood,
ghat neitlir at Manchester in 1819, nor at any subsequent
period, leave I allowed my own Tory principles, firm and
old:ending aloud' they are. to interfere with any duties as
a ,3lasistrate. Whai bet eit ;nay result to the Govern-

went from driving the friends of order from the commis-
sion of the peace remains to be proved.
" I have the honour to be, my Lord,
" Yuur Lordship's most obedient bumble servant,
" WILLIAM lIULTON."

" have had the honour to receive your answer
to my note. I mutt, in the first place, enter my protest
against being made answerable for reports of what I say in
Parliament. I told you I collid not be at all sure that
the report in the ' Mirror of Parliament' was a correct
one, nor can I be sure that the reports which you have
referred to are incorrect ; but I think they must be, be-
cause Ido not believe I ever used the words revolting'
and ' frightful' in public speaking in my life. Eloquent
people use these sort of exaggerated expressions ; speakers
like me do not. The words imputed to me in the 'Mirror
of Parliament' are ' most unjustifiable.' The sentence is
Thinking, as I did, the acts which were committed
there were most unjustifiable. I considered it my duty to
move for a Committee of Inquiry.' I think it probable
that this is the correct report of what I said. You seem
to think that when I told you that I did not recollect that
you had been concerned in the transactions at Manchester
in 1819, that I meant to convey a feeling of contempt by
so saying ; I beg to say I had no such intention
whatever. I hope it is not my habit to say what is
offensive to any man ; and if I were to express any
such feeling towards a gentleman of my own rank in
society, as you are, I should be guilty not only of gross
impropriety, but of great folly. As to the question
of your retirement from the bench of Magistrates, you are
the beet and only judge of what you ought to do. You
differ in political opinions from the present Administration
most decidedly, as lam aware. You have no right to ex-
p ct that in coming into office, they should abandon the
opinions which they have always professed ; and if you
do not like to act as a magistrate while the Administration
of the country is in the hands of men professing and acting
upon those opinions, they cannot be blamed on that ac-
count. In my former letter, having made some correc-
tions, I employed my private secretary to copy it, which
is the reason, and my apology, for not writing it with my
own hand. I have the honour to Sir, your most obe-
dient and humble servant, " ALTHORP.
" Downing-street, Nov. 16, 1 831 ."

" MY LORD,—My absence from home delayed the re-
ceipt of your letter. I must venture upon one or two
brief remark,,. . . .

" Your Lordship will neither deny nor admit the use
of the word ' revolting,' as stated in several journals, or
most unjustifiable,' as quoted from the Mirror of Par-
liament.' But as your Lordship seems to think the last super-
Istive epithet so much the more gentle of the two, I will as-
sume that it was the one applied by your Lordship to some
parties engaged in the transations at Manchester in 1819.
As your letter a are not marked private,' I have shown them
to several of my friends bolding different political sentiments.
They, and the public, had come to the same conclusion as
myself; and fancied (erroneously as it now appears, that
your observations applied to the Magistrates. It may be
very presumptuous to snake the inquiry ; but it would be
extremely consolatory to me to hear from your Lordship,
for whom the remark was intended. I would not take
the liberty of asking the question, if your Lordship had
not volunteered the denial of its application to myself. I
_ .

I have only further to observe, that your Lordship ' has
no right' to assume, for a moment, that I retired Irom the
Bench because ' I did not like to act as a Magistrate while
the administration of the country is in the hands of men
professing and acting upon political opinions from which I
decidedly differ.' I should be as proud to hold my com-
mission under Lord Holland, the present Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, as under the most revered Tory. It
was your violent animadversion, made under circumstances
to which I have before referred, that drove me front a
public station. I have the honour to be, &e.,
" W. HULTON."

" have had the honour of receiving your letter.
I may have been wrong in volunteering a letter to you.
My reason for doing it was, that I never wish, if I can
avoid it, to give offence to any one. I was informed I
had given offence to you. I had not intended to do so,
and I wrote to you with the intention of removing any
such impression from your mind, if it existed there. In
this I have failed ; and therefore I do not feel myself called
upon to say any thing more. I have the honour to be,
S r, your most obedient humble servant,
" Downing-street, Nov. 26, 1831." " ALTHORP.

" M LORD,-As your Lordship will not be pleased to
' say any thing more,' I shall feel myself perfectly justified
in giving any degree of publicity to the letters whie.4ve
passed between us. I beg to account for some expressions
in my first letter, by stating that it was written after your
Lordship and Lord John Russell had been in correspon-
dence with the Birmingham Political Union, and belore
his Majesty's proclamation had declared that and similar
societies illegal. I have the honour to be, &c.
" W. HULTON."

DON PEDRO'S EXPEDITION AGAINST POR-
GAL.--The War office steam-packet Lord Bloyney,
sailed from Liverpool on Friday last, for Belleisle, on the
French coast, having on board about 300 half-pay officers
and volunteers, principally sailors, all brave, thoughtless,
and courageous young men, to juin the expedition about
to sail from that place under Don PEDRO, against Por-
tugal, or, as some think, the Western Islands, where the
sovereignty of Donna MARIA is already partly acknow-
ledged. The Lord Blayney was forced by the gale on
Nlowlay last to take shelter in Milford Haven, and to get
a supply of coals. She arrived and anchored off Milford
on Tuesday last, at eleven a.m., when between 100 and
200 of the volunteers forcibly left the steamer in shore-
boats, although threatened to be fired upon for so doing
by the officers on board. These men stated that they had
been deceived by the persons by whom they had been
engaged, having agreed to man transports under the Bri-
tish flag, but that when they had arrived in " blue water"
the officers who were to command them informed them
that they were to man Don PEDRO'S squadron of men of
war, and fight under the Portuguese flag. 'This they
indignantly declined, but had no objection to fight for
their own KING and under the British flag. The officers
state that the men were all aware of the expedition they
were recruited for, and had received two months' advance
on account thereof. However, the greater part of those
that came on shore returned to Liverpool by land, some
remained, and others rejoined their vessel. In consequence
of so many men being let loose, a guard was established
at Milford and Hain, to protect the inhabitants from
their drunken frolics, it having been represented that some
of them were very suspicious characters. The Lord
Blayney sailed on Wednesday noon.—Cumbrian.

A remarkable phenomenon occurred at Lyme
on Friday morning. The sea suddenly rose to an alarming
height, several feet above its usual level, at the same time
making a tremendous noise, although at the time there was
a compete calm ; several vessels in the harbour received
much damage. The sailors call it a bore, or ground-swell
and they attribute it to an earthquake, or to a violent gal:
happening at a distance.—Edinburgh Evening Courant,
4
EXAMINATION OF AN IRISIIMAN.-otl
Monday last an Irishman, just imported from the sister
isle, was brought up before Mr. PETER. BOURNE, at the
public tlfice, on the charge of being drunk and disorderly.
On Pat being placed at the bar the following colloquy
took place :—" What are you?" " Place your worship,
I'm an Irishman ! '—(A laugh.) " What do you
what profession are you ?" " Profession ; plase your ho-
nour's worship, I'm a Roman Catholic!"—(Great
laughter.) " Where do you live ?"—" I live nowhere at
present !—(A laugh)—but I live in Ireland when I'm at
home."—(Laughter.) The worthy Magistrate, finding
it impossible to make any thing of the prisoner, ordered
him to be discharged. " Many thanks to your Lord-
ship's worship !" exclaimed Pat, as be walked from the
bar, amid moire of laughter.—Liverpool Chronicle.

A THIEF ALARMED !—For some time past
Mr. INPAnaar, of Crozier Lodge, near this city, has been
put to considerable trouble and no little expense, by having
his hedges and fences broken down, and the stakes carried
away. At last he hit upon a scheme by which he hoped
to frighten, if he did not detect future depredators. He
ordered, a short time ago, his hedge to he repaired again,
alter some recent injury, and a hole to be bored in each
of the stakes, and the hole filled with gunpowder. This
was soon done, and in a few days the whole of the stakes
were again missing. In the beginning of last week his
Majesty's loyal and peaceable subjects, in the charming
village of Belle Vue, were thrown into great alarm by a
' loud report, which they supposed to be that of a gun or
pistol, in the house of an honest Emeralder domiciled
there. Some serious accident was apprehended ; and
they ran to give assistance. On entering the house they
found Paddy's wife standing in the middle of the floor iu
a state of great excitement, and the young "spalpeens"
making the beat of their way out of the house ; the large
pot, which had been full of potatoes, was lying on the
flour, which was covered with the contents of the pot ;
and poor Pat, who looked like a man half " Bislioped,"
on being asked the cause of the alarm, exclaimed, "By
the dive! is in the sticks, for they have blown the
big pot with the pratties aff the fire." Mr. APAnam, we
need not say, imagines his stakes had some " hand " in
causing Pat's alarm.--Carlisle Journal.