BOOK THE SECOND. CHAPTER I. FROM THE RE-ASSEMBLING OF PARLIAMENT ON FEBRUARY 3RD, 1831, TO THE DEFEAT OF THE MINISTRY ON THE FIRST REFORM BILL IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS-AND DISSOLUTION OF PARLIAMENT THEREON. LORD GREY, when he became the first minister of the Crown, declared his intention to propose certain great reforms in our political institutions, but at the same time unequivocally stated his determination to put down in every part of the kingdom all illegal attempts to bring about any change by violence or terror. To relieve the distress,' he said, when giving a general description of his intended policy, 'which now unhappily prevails in some districts of the country, will be the first and most earnest object of our deliberations; and I must declare, and on this point I not only speak for myself, but with the full approbation of all my colleagues, I declare that it is my determined resolution wherever outrages are perpetrated, or excesses committed, to suppress them with vigour. Anxious as I am to relieve the distress of the country, I wish it to be distinctly understood 2 MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS. [1831. there will not be on the part of the administration any want of courage to repress the disturbances in which the people of England-no-not the people of England -God forbid that I should bring so groundless a charge against them!-but in which a portion of the people of England in some districts have been deluded to engage." In pursuance of this determination, special commissions were issued, and the judges proceeded immediately into the country to try the offenders who had already been arrested. The whole of the southern counties had for some months been in a state of great disturbance-they had met tumultuously during the day for the purpose of breaking the threshing-machines-and at night had set fire to the ricks of corn in the hopes of terrifying the farmers into giving them higher wages. As fires of this kind had also occurred in France, a cry was immediately raised in England, that what some were pleased to designate the un-English crime of arson, did not originate with the English peasants, but was suggested to them by foreign emissaries, who were intent on creating mischief and misery in England. No such emissary was found-no trace of such a person ever appeared in any of the trials which now took place. 1 Mirror of Parliament, 1830, p. 311. On March 28, 1831, Lord Grey declared that at the time he took office, in November, 1830, the counties around London were in open insurrection,' and that no measures had been taken by the late government to put down these disturbances.-Mirror of Parliament, 1831, p. 1209. 1831.] PUBLIC DISTURBANCES. 3 The whole guilt and folly were found to belong to ourselves, and assuredly there was no reason to go abroad in order to find reasons and explanations concerning the whole of these foolish as well as wicked proceedings. The success of the French and Belgian revolutions had excited every class of the English people-and each class manifested its excitement in a way that was precisely in accordance with the degree of its intelligence. The middle classes both in town and country met in public meetings, talked much good sense, and much nonsense passed resolutions, and determined to obtain for themselves the reforms or changes in their institutions which they believed necessary for good government. There was naturally constant allusion to France, and to the success, the glorious success as it was universally termed, of the French, who had risen in armed rebellion against the King of France and his army. That such constant allusions to armed resistance, accompanied often with fierce threats as well as unbounded praise, should excite congregations of ignorant men, need not surprise any one. The mobs in the towns did every now and then accept the inuendoes of the middle-class speakers as if they were intended to be advice and suggestions to themselves—and, thereupon, they were guilty of various outrages alarming to many, but which, nevertheless, served the purposes of the reformers, and were used by them as arguments to induce the aristocracy to yield in time to the moderate and rational demands made by the reforming party. In the country |
