The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-10 00:00:00

THE MANCHESTER MURDERS OF 1819:

Lord ALTHORP rose to present a petition. Since he
had been in Parliament he had made it an invariable rule
to present all petitions that were entrusted to his care for
presentation, whether be agreed with their prayer or not.
The petition was one in the prayer of which he could not
agree. It purported to he the petition of the inhabitants
of Manchester, in the county of Lancashire, but was
signed only by one person of the name of Hewit, as the
Chairman of that meeting. It prayed that the House
would be pleased to order an inquiry to take
place into the circumstances that occurred in Manchester
in the month of August, 1819. It happened that he
(Lord Althorp) was the person who, about the time at
which those lamentable circumstances occurred, moved for
a Parliamentary enquiry into them, and probably it was
on that account he had been entrusted with his petition.
At that time, he was ready to say, he was desirous there
should have been an enquiry; but it was a very different
thing at that time to say there ought to be an enquiry, and
now to say there ought now to be an enquiry. It would
be impossible to go into the circumstances now as they could
have been gone into then ; therefore, though on the former
occasion he did move for enquiry, he hoped he would not he
considered inconsistent for now saying that at this time he
could not consent to support such a motion. The peti-
tioners stated the occurrences which took place in Man-
chester in August, 1819 ; and they went on to say, using
exceedingly strong language, but certainly not stronger
than language which had been used in petitions that had
been formerly received by the House—that the petitioners
had heard with horror and indignation that Mr. Halton had
declared, that if occasion required, he would again resort
to the same sort of means that were resorted to in 1819.
He (Lord Althorp) did not apprehend there was any truth
in this allegation. He had not heard that any one
had used any such threats.—(Hear.) However, the
petition being respectfully though strongly worded, he
begged leave to be allowed to bring it up, declaring at the
same time he would not move to have it printed.
Mr. J. WOOD regretted he had on this occasion
to differ from the Noble Lord. It had seldom been his
lot to differ from him, but on this occasion he (Mr.
W.) only expressed an opinion entertained by almost
every one in Manchester, and by a vast body of
the public, that the circumstances attending the shedding
of the blood at Manchester, on the disgraceful day alluded
to, had not been sifted, as they should have been. Every
attempt at enquiry had been frustrated, and he had yet to
learn, that it was now too late to make some sort of satis-
faction and atonement for the victims of that day, by
having the enquiry now which should have taken place long
ago. Whether the representations of the present pe-
tition were true or not, he did not know, but he
(Mr. Wood) had seen a recent publication which in-
duced him to suppose that the horrors of that
day might still be repeated, and he hoped that the
Noble Lord would trot put his negative, and by his
voice, the negative of Government upon the object
of this petition. He was one of those who bad ever made
ineffectual attempts to bring the circumstances before thept o-