CHAP. VIL] CHARTIST RISING 49 



succeeded, it would have proved a match to light the 

 smouldering Chartism of the Midlands and the North of 

 England, and even under the circumstances the case was 

 described in the Attorney-General's address to the Jury 

 at the commencement of the Monmouth trial as follows : 



" There has recently been in this County an armed 

 insurrection, the law has been set at defiance ; there has 

 been an attempt to take forcible possession of the town 

 of Newport, there has been a conflict between the insur- 

 gents and the Queen's troops ; there has been bloodshed, 

 and the loss of many lives. The intelligence of these 

 outrages has caused alarm and dismay throughout the 

 kingdom." I 



When divested of the repetitions and technicalities of 

 the reports of the sworn witnesses, and also of the addresses 

 of the Lord Chief Justice and legal authorities, the story 

 of the rising possesses much interest as an account in many 

 of its details of what could not happen in the present day. 

 The mountainous nature of the insurgent locality, the 

 extraordinarily stormy weather which threw the un- 

 disciplined thousands out in their calculations, and the 

 short, but (for the time occupied) bloody climax would 

 have formed under such a pen as Sir Walter Scott's, a 

 narrative of interest almost equal to some of those of the 

 Covenanting troubles. 



The part of the County in which the disturbances took 

 place was what is called the " hill district " of Monmouth- 

 shire (plate xv.), which has been described as an area of 

 triangular form, having for its apex to the south, Risca, a 

 town five miles W.N.W of Newport. The base of the triangle 

 was at a distance of from fifteen to twenty miles in a 

 northerly direction, with the great Beaufort and Nant-y-glo 

 iron works to the west, on the edge of Brecknockshire, and 

 to the east Blaenavon on the Usk in its hilly, or it might be 

 said mountainous, neighbourhood. The area of this hill 

 district is varied with hill and dale, intersected in parts 

 by deep glens, and also by mountain streams, of no 

 inconsiderable force after heavy rains. Picturesquely 

 considered the country is of great beauty, but beneath 

 the surface are rich supplies of coal and iron. For some 

 years before 1839, the mines had been much worked, 



1 The Trial of John Frost for High Treason under a Special Com- 

 mission held at Monmouth, in December 1839, an ^ January, 1840, (p. 58). 

 London, Saunders and Benning, Law Booksellers, 43, Fleet Street, 

 1840. (E.A.O.) 



5 



