STATE PAPERS. 



1 



structive proceedings have been 

 generally the want of employment 

 for the working manufacturers, a 

 want, however, which has been 

 the least felt in some of the places 

 where the disorders have been most 

 prevalent ; the application of ma- 

 chinery to supply the place of 

 labour; and the high price of pro- 

 visions ; but it is the opinion of 

 persons, both in civil and military 

 stations, well acquainted with the 

 state of the country, an opinion 

 grounded upon various informa- 

 tion from different quarters now 

 before your committee, but which, 

 for obvious reasons, they do not 

 think proper to detail, that the 

 views of some of the persons en- 

 gaged in these proceedings have 

 extended to revolutionary mea- 

 sures of the most dangerous de- 

 scription. 



Their proceedings manifest a de- 

 gree of caution and organization 

 which appears to flow from the 

 direction of some persons under 

 whose influence they act; but it is 

 the opinion of a person, whose 

 situation gives him great opportu- 

 nities of information, that their 

 leaders, although they may possess 

 considerable influence, are still of 

 the lowest orders ; men of desperate 

 fortunes, who have taken advan- 

 tage of the pressure of the moment, 

 to work upon the inferior class, 

 through the medium of the asso- 

 ciations in the manufacturing parts 

 of the country. 



The general persuasion of the 

 persons engaged in those transac- 

 tions appears, however, to be, that 

 all the societies in the country are 

 directed in their motions by u Se- 

 cret Committee, and that this Se- 

 cret Committee is therefore the 

 great mover of the whole machine; 



and it is established by the various 

 information to which the com- 

 mittee has before alluded, that so- 

 cieties are formed in different parts 

 of the country ; that these socie- 

 ties are governed by their respec- 

 tive secret committees; that dele- 

 gates are continually dispatched 

 from one place to another, for the 

 purpose of concerting their plans; 

 and that secret signs are arranged, 

 by which the persons engaged in 

 these conspiracies are known to 

 each other. The form of the oath 

 or encasement administered to 

 those who are enlisted in these so- 

 cieties, also refers expressly to the 

 existence of such secret commit- 

 tees. 



The object of this oath is to pre- 

 vent discovery ,by deterringthrough 

 the fear of assassination those who 

 take it from impeaching others, 

 and by binding them to assassinate 

 those by whom any of the persons 

 engaged may be impeached. These 

 oaths appear to have been admi- 

 nistered to a cotisiderable extent; 

 copies of them have been obtained 

 from various quarters, and though 

 slightl)' diff"ering in terms, they 

 are so nearly the same, as to prove 

 the systematic nature of the con- 

 cert by which they are adminis- 

 tered. 



The oath itself is of so atrocious 

 a nature, that your committee have 

 thought it right to insert the form, 

 as it appears in one of those co- 

 pies:— 



" /. A, B. of my own voluntary 

 will, do declare, and solemnly 

 swear, that I never will reveal to 

 any person or persons under the 

 canopy of heaven, the names of 

 the persons who compose this Se- 

 cret Committee, their proceedings, 

 meeting, places of abode, dress, 



feature*, 



