STATE PAPERS. 



389 



ed with great regularity and caution, 

 first seizing tiie watchman at the 

 mill, and placing guards at every 

 neighbouring cottage, threatening 

 death to any who should attempt to 

 give alarm, and then lorcibly en- 

 tering the mill, they completely 

 destroyed the machinery. In the 

 following night, notwithstanding 

 the precautions adopted, the build- 

 ings belonging to Messrs. Dickin- 

 sons, in Leeds, were forcibly en- 

 tered, and the whole of the goods 

 there, consisting principally of 

 cloths, were cut to pieces. Many 

 other persons in Leeds were threat- 

 ened with similar treatment, and 

 the proceedings at this place are 

 represented to have had for their 

 object the destruction of all de- 

 scriptions of goods prepared other- 

 wise than by manual labour. 



At Leversedge, near Hock- 

 mondwicke, which is in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Moors dividing 

 Lancashire and Yorkshire, an at- 

 tack was made early in the morn- 

 ing of the 12th of April by a body 

 of armed men, represented to have 

 been between two and three hun- 

 dred in number, on a valuable mill 

 belonging to Mr. Cartwright. The 

 mill was defended with great cou- 

 rage by Mr. Cartwright, the pro- 

 prietor, with the assistance of three 

 of his men and five soldiers, and 

 the assailants were at length com- 

 pelled to retire, being unable to 

 force an entrance into the mill, and 

 their ammunition probably failing. 

 Two of the assailants were left on 

 the spot desperately wounded, and 

 were secured, but died of their 

 wounds. Many others are suppos- 

 ed to have been also wounded, and 

 information was afterwards obtuined 

 of the death of one of them. When 

 the asbailants retired, they declared 



a determination to take Mr. Cart- 

 wright's life by any means. One 

 of the wounded men who was left 

 on the spot was only nineteen years 

 of age, and son of a man in a re- 

 spectable situation in the neigh- 

 bourhood ; but neither this man 

 nor the other prisoner would make 

 any confession respecting their con- 

 federates in this outrage. The 

 neighbouring inhabitants, who as- 

 sembled about the mill, after the 

 rioters had retired, only expressed 

 their regret that the attempt had 

 failed. A vast concourse of people 

 attended the funeral of the young 

 man before described, who died of 

 his wounds ; and there was found 

 written on walls in many places, 

 " Vengeance for the blood of the 

 innocent." 



The threats against Mr. Cart- 

 wright's life were attempted to be 

 put into execution on the 18th of 

 April, when lie was twice shot at 

 in the road from Huddersfield to 

 Rawfold. About the same time a 

 shot was fired at a special constable 

 on duty at Leeds, and a ball was 

 fired at night into the house of Mr. 

 Armitage, a magistrate in the 

 neighbourhood, and lodged in the 

 ceiling of his bed-room. Colonel 

 Campbell also, who commanded 

 the troops at Leeds, was shot at in 

 the night of May 8, upon returning 

 to his own house, by two men, 

 who discharged their pieces at him 

 within the distance of twenty yards, 

 and immediately after, a third shot 

 was fired, directed towards the 

 room usually occupied by Colonel 

 Campbell and his family. 



At Horbury, near Wakefield, 

 valuable mills were attacked on the 

 9th of April by an armed body, 

 supposed to coiisist of 300 men. 

 The machinery and considerable 



property 



