The Sun.
London, England, 1829-05-06 00:00:00

TILE DUKE OF WELLINGTON TO LORD ANGLESEA.

" London, Sept. 28, 1828.
" My DEAR LORD ANGLESEA-1. have equally with my
Colleague seen three letters which you have written to Mr.
Peel on the Roman Catholic Question. I have laid one
of them before the King ; the other two he has not seen
yet, as his Majesty has been unwell ; and no immediate
necessity existed for laying them before him. But I will
lay them before the King as soon as he will be sufficiently
well fur me to speak to him, upon a subject of which he
never hears, nor never thinks, without being disturbed by
it. I have not written to you on this subject, because I
had nothing to tell you. As an individual Member of
Parliament, I never will support what is called Catholic
Emancipation till it will be brought forward by the Govern-
ment, as Government, in a shape to satisfy me that the
arrangement proposed will secure the interests of the State.
In these I include the Church of England. As the King's
servant, I, equally with all the servants whom his Majesty
has had in his service since the year 1810—that is, the
commencement of the unrestricted Regency, am bound not
to act in this question as the King's Minister. The late
Mr. Canning embodied in a Memorandum which I have
Seen, and which was communicated to the members of his
Government, that which was before that time understood.

" From this statement you will see, that the first step
of all is to reconcile the King's mind to an arrangement
Till that should be done, I should deceive myself, or the
person to whom I should address myself, by tasking abou
it at all.

" I think, likewise, that I should find just ground for
suspicion to his Majesty, and his servants, and to the
Protestants of the Empire in general, with whom after all
the difficulty of the Question rests, if I were to discuss
with the Roman C►tholic Clergy or the Demagogues of
the Roman Catholic Association, a plan to be submitted
by the Government to Parliament for the adjustment of
this Question.

" You see the preliminary difficulties attending it; and
I must add that all those attending the Question exist
here. These are of a nature quite distinct from those
existing in Ireland. Some are of opinion that the diffi-
culties in Ireland will be got the better of by the adjust-
ment of the Question. I doubt it. But whether this
will he the result or not it is quite clear that nothing can
he done now—that our affair now, and indeed in Ireland
always,will be, to preserve the peace, and to insure the loyalty
and goodwill of all his Majesty's subjects, by protecting
the lives and properties of all.—Ever yours, &c.
(Signed) " WELLINGTON."
LORD A NGLESEA TO MR. PEEL.

" July 26th, 182 S.
" If I should fortunately be enabled by the advice and
warnings I give, to keep this country in a quiet state for a
little time longer—if the Association should cease to agi-
tate, and there were to he any thing like an appearance of
moderation, I most seriously conjure you to signify an
intention of taking the state of Ireland into consideration
in the first days of the next Session of Parliament."

DISTURBANCES AT MANCHESTER.

A FACTORY BURNT.

MANCHESTER, MONDAY EVILNING.

In my Saturday's letter I mentioned to you that the
distress in this district was not to be estimated by the
number of persons absolutely out of employment, as
the most distressed were those who earned too little to
afford to turn out ; i'and that with 25,000 persons going
about idle, and a much greater number scarcely earning
enough to keep soul and body together, there was a great
risk that some impulse might be given to them which
would make them disregard their own sober convictions
and the injunctions of the better informed of their num-
ber. Believing that the elements of disturbance existed,
I did not, however, at all anticipate that I should so soon
have occasion to notice a lawless destruction of property.
Yesterday morning a meeting was held in a field to the
north-east of the town, which was attended principally by
hand-loom weavers, the class which is suffering the
greatest privations; and I understand that a number of
addresses were made descriptive of the misery which was
endured by the speakers and their families, and that after
sueh picturings of their wretched state, it was taken into
consideration what should be done to prevent that con-
stant reduction of wages which threatened to render their
present wretched lot even more intolerable. It was at
last resolved upon, that certain hand-loom weavers, who
worked in factories, and who had on Saturday agreed that
the " cut': which had been paid 2s. should be reduced
on Monday to Is. 91—it was agreed that these weavers
should he invited to leave their factories rather than sub-
mit to the reduction. On Monday morning a number of
persons met at ilarpurhey, near the town, who adjourned
to St. George's-fields about one o'clock. Here they were
joined by a great assemblage, and were addressed by some
men who were observed from a distance to be very animated
in their gesticulations. About half-past ten the persons
in the centre of the meeting, to the number of a few
hundreds came out, and went off in the direction of a
factory near at hand, where six hundred weaver s had been
employed. I have not heard whether these men left their
work early in the morning, or whether they left it in the
expectation of this visit, but when the mob came to the
place it was empty. They then proceeded onwards to a
small factory belonging to a Mr. Guest, close to the im-
mense mills of the M'Connells and the Murrays. Guest's
men immediately obeyed their summons, and left their
mills. Hitherto their intentions seem to have been to get
the men to leave their work; but when they got to an-
other factory in Mather-street belonging to a Mr. Twiss,
they were not satisfied with requiring the men to leave
their work, but broke into the mill, and cut to pieces all
the warps in the looms, and broke the reeds, and every
thing that was easily destructible about the looms. They
then set about tossing the webs into the street, and when I
went to the place, I found the street for 50 yards on each side
of the factory, literally covered with cloth trampled into
the mud. Here the damage done was not very consider-
able, as the looms were of wood, not easily broken;, and
not very valuable. The mob then proceeded to Mr. Har-
bottle's factory, in Pollard-street, and having effected a
forcible entry, they at once set to at the work of destruction,
as if in their unchecked progress they had entirely lost
sight of their first intention, for no invitation was given
to the weavers to turn out. Here the mischief was much
greater than at Mr. Twiss's. The windows were instantly
smashed in, and the great destruction of machinery was
systematic and effective. Forty-six power-looms were in-
stantly rendered useless, a single blow with a sledge ham-
mer being sufficient to break the east-iron framing, and
another to destroy the regulating pinion wheels. In
a spinning-room below, less evil was done, for the
spindles are not easily broken ; but in a long
shed, one story in height, containing ninety-two dandy-
looms (a hand-loom, with iron framing, and pinions to
turn the beam as fast as the cloth is made), the destruc-
tion was complete. One man, on each side, with a single
cut of a knife, cut through the warp, and with another
the healds, while another man on each side followed, and
with one blow broke the frames, and with another the
wheels. After having demolished the whole of the win-
dows is front, they went leisurely off. All this was done
in less than an hour from the time they left St. George's-
fields. They then came back in the direction of Mr.
Guest's factory, from which they had previously induced
the weavers to withdraw. They seemed now flushed with
success, for, immediately on coining to tke factory, they
set to work, knocked out the windows, and in five mi-
nutes fifty-three power-looms were broken, and a vast
quantity of warps tossed out of the windows, and thrown
into the canal, which was covered with them, as the
road had been at Twiss's with webs. By this time
the beadles, with Lavender, the deputy constable, at
their head, had arrived ; but as soon as they were
perceived they were assailed with a shower of atones,
one of which broke a hole in Lavender's hat ; and
the beadles, seeing the hopelessness of contending with
such multitudes, withdrew, and were followed all the way
to the Albion Inn by a crowd, throwing atones all the
way. The coast being now clear of the peace- officers,
and there being no military heard of, a fresh impulse seems
to have been given to the mob, for they almost immedi-
ately returned to Messrs. Parker's factory, which was the
first they had visited in the morning, and began to destroy
the looms, and to throw out the webs and the warps. I
mentioned before that this factory contained 600 looms.
These being of wood, were not so easily destroyed as if

they had been of brittle cast-iron, so that their destruction
would have occupied some time, and the military migl!t
have been upon the rioters ere they had completed their
work : so they deliberately gathered together the cotton
wirp,4 into heap, and h tying obtained lights from an
adjuining cottage, set fire to them in several places of
the factory. In a few minutes the whole was in a
It! ,ze ; and by the time the pe.ice-oflicers, aided by
about a dozen soldiers of a recruiting party, arrived,
the flames were unquenchable, and the incendiaries dis-
persed. In little more than an hour the whole interior of
the building, a pile at least 100 feet in length, and six
stories high, was completely destroyed. I never saw so
complete destruction. Here was not a blackened mass of
ruins : every thing was burnt to white ashes. The very
walls were not smoked, but stood bare and clean, as if
there bad been no smoke, and as if a clear and bright
flame had prevailed from the very first. The blaze from
the one window joined the blaze from the window above it,
so that the whole was one immense mass of fire. The
houses in the streets or three sides of the factory were set
fire to by the beat ; some of these were at the distance of
30 yards from the factory, and it was only with the ut-
most exertions on the part of the persons who reside in
them that they were saved from the flames. The walls
stood very well, though they appear as if they had been
heated through, red hot.
The damage done at Twiss's may perhaps be about 500/. ;
at Guest's about the same, or somewhat more; at Harbor-
tle's, 2,000/. I know not if Parker's had much stock on
their premises. Their looms being of wood, and of very
simple constriction, could not have cost much ; but as the
building and a 3 it contained is destroyed, the loss cannot
be less than 8,0001. So that here is property to the
amount of 11,000/. destroyed in a time too short to allow
of any protection being obtained.
It is generally said that the ringleaders of the mob we're
men from the neighbourhood, and not belonging to Man-
chester, and this is in some measure borne out by the ex-
ceedingly quiet and unexpected manner in which their
plans were carried into effect. There had been no pre-
vious threatening, as there generally is when riots originate
in the town, and even the greater part of the -mob seemed
not to know where they were to go next. Our correspon-
dent was present during the whole proceedings, and says
that four-fiths of the rioter] were lads of from 11 to 18
years of age, and a great number even younger than that.
There were also several women assisting—many of them
were instructing the lads to proceed with their work of de-
structing ; shouting and calling to them—" As well idle
as dem (starve.") The plans were, no doubt, laid by
older heads, who made their escape as soon as the work
began.
MONDAY EVENING, HALF-PAST EIGHT.—Up to this
hour there has not been any further rioting ; but the
streets in the neighbourhood of Ancoats, the districts in
which the riots hrve taken place, are still crowded with
work-people, the younger part amusing themselves by toss-
ing about the remnants of some of the webs taken from the
factories. The Dragoons are still parading the streets to
preserve order, but the people do not disperse, and there is
some reason to fear that, before morning, there will be
other factories burned down, for the people seem deter-
mined—to use an expression of some of their leaders—
"No longer to starve quietly." It is currently reported
in town, that the Manchester work-people, in return for
the services of their friends in the country, are gone to de-
stroy looms in the districts where they are not known. It
is also said, that at Rochdale the work of destruction
continues.