Hit IT A IN. 



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on the part of the people of an existing government 

 to overturn it, namely, the right of armed interference, 

 as it is called, yet they have carefully avoided going 

 farther than a mere verbal explanation of their views. 

 On the entrance of Canning into the department of 

 foreign aflairs, after the suicide of Londonderry (q. 

 v.), the British withdrew from the continental system 

 of politics. 



After the termination of the wars with Napoleon, 

 notwithstanding the economy of the government, par- 

 ticularly shown in the reduction of the army, so great 

 a burden was left upon the nation, and the bad har- 

 vests of 1816 and 1817 had made the necessities of 

 the manufacturers so urgent, that this class of the 

 nation was reduced to despair. In June, 1819, dis- 

 turbances began in the manufacturing districts. 

 Meetjngs were held, in which annual parliaments, 

 and a radical reform in the election of members, 

 were the great topics of declamation. The well 

 known Hunt was conspicuous on these occasions. 

 The assemblies went so tar as to choose delegates for 

 a new parliament ; and no one knew what a mob of 

 many thousands might undertake next. Serious 

 measures were therefore adopted. Such a mob at 

 Manchester (Aug. 16, 1819) was dispersed by the 

 authorities of that place, by means of a military force. 

 On this occasion, many persons were killed and 

 wounded. The authorities were reproached, not only 

 with having used force without necessity, but also as 

 having violated the forms of law. Judicial proceed- 

 ings were instituted against them, which ended with 

 their acquittal. These excitements (see Radical Re- 

 formers} assumed every day a more dangerous char- 

 acter, and the ministry were compelled to propose to 

 parliament, at the end of the year, extraordinary 

 measures, which, a month before, had been deter- 

 mined upon in Germany for five years. These 

 were adopted by the parliament, to be continued 

 for five years likewise, and consisted of five arti- 

 cles : 1 . a prohibition of private military exercises ; 

 2. of the possession of weapons ; 3. of the liberty 

 of holding meetings of the people, without the per- 

 mission of the local authorities; 4. the application 

 ot the severe stamp system to- pamphlets under two 

 sheets, and a more rigorous punishment of libels, and 

 of seditious or irreligious writings ; lastly, 5. the ac- 

 celeration of judicial proceedings in case of small 

 offences. 



The death of George III. (January 29, 1820) made 

 no change in these respects, though it produced 

 many important consequences. The dangers of 

 radicalism vanished, as peace, the consequent dimi- 

 nution of taxes, the increased demand for manufac- 

 tures abroad, particularly in Spanish America, better 

 harvests, and cheaper means of living, again improved 

 the situation of the manufacturers. The renewal 

 of specie payments, by which the value of the 

 paper currency was increased, was also of great 

 effect, and was particularly favourable to the manu- 

 facturers. The last convulsion of this disorder, was 

 the conspiracy of a band of desperate men, under the 

 conduct of Arthur Thistlewood, a man who had 



sunk from a respectable standing by misconduct, to 



assassinate all the ministers. They were betrayed. 

 Thistlewood and four of the other conspirators were 

 executed, and four others were transported, for life, 

 to Botany Bay. 



If much revolutionary spirit had really existed in 

 Britain, and given occasion to these disorders, instead 

 of their having sprung, as they did, merely from want, 

 it would have taken a very dangerous turn, at the 

 time of the trial of the queen. This trial, which was 

 brought on by faults and passions on both sides, and 

 in which all regard to female dignity and princely 

 honour was trodden under foot, gave a new pretext, 



a new rallying point, to the discontented. It began 

 upon the return of the queen to England (June 6, 

 1820), by a message to the parliament to inquire into 

 her conduct ; whereupon a ministerial motion follow- 

 ed, proposing an injudicious personal penal law (bill 

 of pains and penalties), discreditable to the British 

 legislation. The purport of the bill was, that queen 

 Caroline had forfeited the title, rights, and preroga- 

 tives of a queen of England, and that her marriage 

 with the king was to be regarded as dissolved. The 

 shameful charges brought against the queen in parlia- 

 ment, were retaliated by the most bitter satire upon 

 the king. The opposition among the people to this 

 measure was so great, that the ministers dared not 

 bring into the lower house the bill passed in the up- 

 per. The time was, likewise, too dangerous, as the 

 revolutions in Spain, Portugal, and Naples, followed 

 each other in quick succession. The assassination 

 of the duke of Berry (February 13, 1820), the 

 Cato-street conspiracy (February 23), were important 

 symptoms. The crisis in Britain, however, passed 

 quickly over. The disturbances among the manu- 

 facturers ceased, as their wants were alleviated ; the 

 popularity of the king was re-established by a journey 

 through his dominions ; and the queen was almost 

 forgotten when she died, August 7, 1821. See 

 George If. 



But much more serious disorders, in the internal 

 relations of Great Britain, appeared (1822), and 

 showed the consequence of that disproportion, which 

 exists in the British islands, between the great landed 

 proprietors and the actual cultivators of the ground. 

 The property of the soil is in comparatively very few 

 hands. Besides the clergy, who possessed about six 

 thousand estates, and the corporations, whose posses- 

 sions might be reckoned at an equal number, there 

 were then in England but about twenty thousand 

 landholders. The British law, which gives to the 

 eldest son all the real estate, is itself sufficient to keep 

 together large masses of landed property ; but the 

 pressure of war has done still more. In 1786, there 

 were 250,000 landed proprietors. The small farmers 

 are now, almost without exception, tenants ; of whom 

 Mr Coke alone has 500 around him. In Scotland, 

 the ancient common possessions of the clan have 

 passed to the chief. In Ireland, the ancient proprie- 

 tors were almost all displaced by the confiscations of 

 Elizabeth, Cromwell, and William III., and their 

 landed estates divided among a few English families. 

 Besides their own possessions, the clergy in England 

 and Ireland have tithes from almost all real estate. 

 In 1818, the high price of corn had sunk ; and, in 

 1820, the value of money was increased by the re- 

 newal of specie payments at the banks ; so that ruin 

 threatened the tenantry (in England the strength of 

 the nation, and in Ireland the great mass of the 

 people), from their inability to fulfill the terms of their 

 leases, which had been made when the value of money 

 was less. In England they expected general poverty. 

 In Ireland, a famine arose, in consequence of a bad 

 harvest. In Scotland, the inhabitants were expel led 

 from their places of residence. One proprietor (in 

 April, 1820) removed 600 families from their farms, 

 in the county of Ross ; in the county of Sutherland, 

 the marchioness of Stafford did the same towards 

 15,000 persons, turning their farms into sheep-walks, 

 for the sake of greater profit ! In England, this state 

 of the agricultural population excited far more anxiety 

 than the disturbances of the manufacturing districts, 

 because it affected a more important and energetic 

 part of the nation, and sprung from a deep and per- 

 manent cause ; but the means proposed to remedy the 

 evil were very various. The ministry pointed out, as 

 the true cause of this evil, the abolition of the income 

 tax by act of parliament, which they had, even in 



