STATE PAPERS. 



3SJ 



kave led to these outrages ; and he 

 has commanded us to thank you 

 for the wise and salutary measures 

 which you have adopted on this 

 occasion. It will be a principal 

 object of his Royal Highness's 

 attention, to make an effectual and 

 prudent use of the powers vested 

 in him for the protection of his 

 Majesty's people, and he confident- 

 ly trusts, that on your return into 

 your respective counties, he may 

 rely on your exertions for the pre- 

 servation of the public peace, and 

 for bringing the disturbers of it to 

 justice. His Royal Highness most 

 earnestly recommends to you, the 

 importance of inculcating, by every 

 means in your power, a spirit of 

 obedience to those laws, and of 

 attachment to that Constitution, 

 which provide equally for the hap- 

 piness and welfare of all classes of 

 his Majesty's subjects, and on 

 which have hitherto depended 

 the glory and prosperity of this 

 kingdom." 



Then a commission for prorogu- 

 ing the parliament was read. 



After which, the Lord Chancellor 

 said, 



" My Lords and Gentlemen, — 

 By virtue of the commission under 

 the great seal, to us and other 

 lords directed, and now read, we 

 do, in obedience to the commands 

 of his Royal Highness the Prince 

 Regent, in the name and on behalf 

 of his Majesty, prorogue this 

 parliament to Friday the 2nd day of 

 October next, to be then here 

 hoiden; and this parliament is ac- 

 cordingly prorogued to Friday, the 

 2nd day of October next." 



Report of the Secret Committee of 

 the House of Lords on the Dis- 

 turbed State of certain Counties. 



Vol. LIV. 



Your committee, in pursuing the 

 inquiry referred to their considera- 

 tion, have endeavoured to ascer- 

 tain the origin of the disturbances 

 which have arisen in the different 

 parts of the country, with respect 

 to which they have obtained infor- 

 mation, the manner in which tho-;e 

 disturbances have been carried on, 

 the objects to which they have been 

 apparently directed, the means 

 used to suppress them, the effects 

 of those means, and the state of 

 those parts of the country within 

 which the disturbances have pre- 

 vailed. 



The disposition to combined 

 and disciplined riotand disturbance, 

 which has attracted the attention 

 of parliament, and excited appre- 

 hension of the most dangerous 

 consequences, seems to have been 

 first manifested in the neighbour- 

 hood of the town of Nottingham, 

 in November last, by the destruc- 

 tion of a great number of newly 

 invented stocking-frames, by small 

 parties of men, principally stock- 

 ing weavers, who assembled in 

 various places round Nottingham. 



By degrees the rioters became 

 more numerous and more formid- 

 able, many were armed and divid- 

 ed into different parties, disturbed 

 the whole country between Not- 

 tingham and Mansfield, destroying 

 frames almost without resistance. 

 This spirit of discontent (amongst 

 other causes to which it has been 

 attributed) was supposed to have 

 been excited or called into action 

 by the use of a new machine, 

 which enabled the manufacturers 

 to employ women, in work in 

 which men had been before em- 

 ployed, anil by the refusal of the 

 manufacturers to pay the wages at 

 the rate which the weavers de- 

 2 C manded 



