GENERAL HISTORY. 



[^7 



in many of these districts parti- 

 cular causes of distress have no 

 doubt operated to expose the 

 minds of the labouring classes 

 of the community to irritation 

 and perversion, yet they are per- 

 suaded that this distiess must for 

 the most part be considered rather 

 as the instrument than as the 

 cause of disaffection. In some of 

 the places where these practices 

 have prevailed, they believe the 

 want of employment to have been 

 less felt than in many other parts 

 of the kingdom ; while in other 

 places, where the pressure has 

 been perhaps most grievous, it has 

 certainly been sustained with a 

 spirit of patience, loyalty, and 

 good order, which cannot be too 

 highly commended. And your 

 committee cannot refrain from ex- 

 pressing their opinion, that it is 

 chiefly by the means pointed out 

 in the report of the former com- 

 mittee, by the widely extended 

 circulation of seditious and blas- 

 phemous publications, and by the 

 effect of inflammatory discourses 

 continually renewed, that this 

 spirit has been principally excited 

 and diffused. By these the attach- 

 ment to our established govern- 

 ment and constitution, and the 

 respect for law, morality, and re- 

 ligion, have gradually been weak- 

 ened among those whose situations 

 most exposed them to this destruc- 

 tive influence ; and it is thus that 

 their minds have been prepared 

 for the adoption of designs and 

 measures no less injurious to their 

 own interests and happiness than 

 to those of every other class of his 

 majesty's subjects. 



ijince the peiiod of the former 

 report, Manchester and its neigh- 

 bouihood have (as far as your 



committee has seen) been the only 

 places where meetings have been 

 convened and assembled suffici- 

 ently numerous to create imme- 

 diate apprehensions for the public 

 tranquillity. At a meeting which 

 was convened there on the 3rd of 

 March for the purpose of petition- 

 ing against the suspension of the 

 Habeas Corpus act, and where 

 several thousand persons appear 

 to have been assembled, it was 

 proposed and agreed to that ano- 

 ther meeting should be held on the 

 following Monday, viz. the 10th of 

 March, with the professed inten- 

 tion that ten out of every twenty 

 persons who should attend it 

 should proceed to London with a 

 petition to his royal highness the 

 Prince Regent. 



The interval was employed in 

 almost daily meetings of the dis- 

 affected, which were numerously 

 attended. The real intentions of 

 tiie leaders were there developed 

 to their foUow^ers in speeches of 

 the most undisguised violence. 

 One of them avowed that he was 

 a republican and a leveller, and 

 \vould never give up the cause till 

 a republican form of go^ ernment 

 was established. The people were 

 told by others, that if their peti- 

 tion was rejected, they must force 

 it : that the large towns in York- 

 shire were adopting the same 

 plan, and would meet them on the 

 road, or at least march at the 

 same time to London : that there 

 was reason to ijelieve that the 

 Scotch were then on their march : 

 that they should be one hundred 

 thousand strong, when joined by 

 the peojjle of other manufacturing 

 places upon the road ; and that it 

 would be impossible for the army 

 or any thing else to resist them. 



[F2] These 



