CONTRIBUTIONS 
 
 TO 
 
 POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 POPULAR TUMULTS.
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 POPULAR TUMULTS; 
 
 ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE 
 
 EVILS OF SOCIAL IGNORANCE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 C. KNIGHT & CO., 22, LUDGATE STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXXVII.
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed b^ W. CLOWES and Sows, 
 Stamford Street.
 
 SKETCHES 
 
 Ol' 
 
 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 SECTION T. TUMULTS OF RELIGIOUS FANATICISM. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 As it has been with wars, so it has been with riots ; some 
 of the fiercest and bloodiest which history records have 
 been excited, not by the pressure of any real grievance 
 not by the hope of attaining any tangible advantage 
 but by mere speculative opinions, right or wrong, which 
 haA r e inflamed men's passions, and filled them with ha- 
 tred and rage against all who did not think in the same 
 way with themselves. We say, by opinions right or 
 wrong ; for, unfortunately, the truth of the thing believed 
 has been no security whatever against this bigotry and 
 fury in the believer. We bring no charge, therefore, 
 against any particular system of doctrine religious, 
 political, or of any other kind when we speak of its 
 adherents as having at one time or another resorted to 
 physical violence against persons of a different creed. 
 This is simply the effect of an ignorant zeal, which, of 
 course, may be felt as strongly for the truest as for the 
 falsest opinions. It is nourished by motives and conside- 
 rations which have nothing to do with the mere sound- 
 ness of the faith in behalf of which it manifests itself. 
 
 Sincerity of conviction itself is apt only to add fuel to 
 this fire and the deeper the interest taken in the 
 
 1327151
 
 2 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 matter of difference, and the higher its importance is 
 rated, the greater the danger of its hurrying the unen- 
 lightened or unreflecting into the most deplorable ex- 
 cesses. Hence by nothing has society been so frequently 
 and so fearfully convulsed in this way as by religion itself, 
 which is the thing in which, of all others, men have the 
 most concern, and that which takes the strongest hold 
 of their imaginations and affections. In their heat and 
 exaltation of spirit people have, no doubt, often con- 
 vinced themselves that the persecution of those holding 
 wrong opinions in religion was a duty which religion it- 
 self enjoined ; and there has also been a vague notion 
 entertained by many, that one of the most expedient and 
 effectual ways of putting down a heresy was to attack, 
 not the minds, but the bodies of those professing it. 
 But such imaginations are merely the shadows which 
 passion calls up to satisfy itself with something in the 
 shape of reasoning, and would not impose upon the un- 
 derstanding in any case in which there was nothing to 
 disturb its natural coolness and powers of judging. 
 Who has ever thought of employing physical force in 
 order to convert men to sound views in the mathematics ? 
 It is in regard to such things only as greatly interest 
 and excite their hopes or fears, that people can be 
 brought to look upon so extraordinary a mode of pro- 
 ceeding as at all reconcileable with common sense. 
 But even here, probably no one would, in a professed 
 argument upon the subject, justify the course that has 
 in many cases been actually followed in the application 
 of the principle. Some might defend the policy of dis- 
 countenancing and trying to repress obnoxious opinions 
 by the steady action of the law ; but who would main- 
 tain that it was proper to seek the same object by 
 resorting to the irregular and perilous force of popular 
 excitement and tumult ? or would not reprobate and
 
 CH. I.] THJE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 3 
 
 deplore the wild passions then called into play, and the 
 desolating excesses to which they give rise ? 
 
 The history of almost every age and country might 
 furnish us with illustrations of the fearful lengths to 
 which men are liable to be carried, in outrage and 
 cruelty, under the instigation of religious fanaticism. 
 But, from the crowd of examples that might be brought 
 forward, we will select only certain of the most memo- 
 rable that the annals of our own country supply ', and, 
 to show what an obstinate vitality the evil spirit in 
 question possesses, we will exhibit it as it has broken 
 out and displayed itself, first in a remote and compara- 
 tively rude age, and then in times near to our own and 
 in a far advanced state of society. It is strange and sad 
 to see how little its ferocity appears to have been miti- 
 gated during the progress of six centuries of augmenting 
 light and civilization. 
 
 The first instance we shall take is the series of bar- 
 barous outrages committed in the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries by the people of this country on their fellow- 
 subjects of the Jewish religion. 
 
 It has been frequently stated, that the first Jews that 
 were ever seen in England came over in the reign of 
 William the Conqueror. " Among other grievances," 
 writes Holinshed, " which the English sustained by the 
 hard dealing of the Conqueror, this is to be remem- 
 bered, that he brought Jews into this land from Rouen, 
 and appointed them a place to inhabit and occupy." 
 But that there were Jews in England before the Con- 
 quest is proved by one of the laws of Edward the Con- 
 fessor, which declares, that all Jews that were in the 
 kingdom were to be under the king's protection, so that 
 none of them could put themselves into the service of 
 any great man without the king's leave ; for that Jews, 
 it is added, and all that is theirs, are the king's. 
 
 B2
 
 4 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SKC. I. 
 
 This last expression very correctly describes the light 
 in which the Jews who resided in England were looked 
 upon in old times. They and all that was theirs were 
 indeed considered to be at the absolute disposal of the 
 crown. This seems to have been the recognized law 
 with regard to them. " The King of England," says 
 Tindal, in a note to Rapin's History (reign of Henry 
 III.), "was wont to draw a considerable revenue from 
 the Jews residing in this realm ; namely, by tallage 
 (assessment) and fines relating to law proceedings, by 
 amerciaments for misdemeanours, and by fines, ran- 
 soms, compositions, which they were forced to pay 
 for having the king's benevolence ; for protection, for 
 license to trade, for discharges, for imprisonment, and 
 the like. He would tallage the whole community or 
 body at pleasure, and make them answer the tallage for 
 one another. In short, the king seemed to be absolute 
 lord of their estates and effects, of their persons, their 
 wives, and children." 
 
 This, however, was only a part of the system. The 
 Jewish community, in fact, formed in those days one of 
 the chief instruments by which the crown was enabled 
 to extract a revenue from the people. These foreigners, 
 by their vast superiority in mercantile resources and 
 skill in the command of ready money, and in the know- 
 ledge and practice of commercial operations over the 
 rude, military, and agricultural population in the midst 
 of which they were settled, were enabled almost to mo- 
 nopolize the business of traders and money-dealers, and 
 of course their profits were very great. By the high 
 interest, especially, which they obtained on their ad- 
 vances of money, much of the wealth of the country 
 was continually flowing into their hands. This was 
 their compensation for the state of subjection in whicli 
 they were held, and that which induced them to remain
 
 CH. I.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 5 
 
 in the kingdom, notwithstanding all the exactions of the 
 crown. On the other hand, the crown, while thus op- 
 pressing them, certainly did not wish to drive them 
 away. It is probably quite true that many were brought 
 over from Normandy by the Conqueror, although some 
 may have been settled in the country at an earlier pe- 
 riod. The Jews served that politic ruler and his suc- 
 cessors as an admirable financial sponge, which they 
 had only to allow to fill itself by its own powers of 
 suction, and might then squeeze whenever they chose 
 into the royal treasury. In those times certainly no 
 other engine of taxation could have been applied either 
 with so much effect, or with so little odium. 
 
 It was an engine, nevertheless, which there was some 
 art and management required in working. On the one 
 hand, these Jews were not to be treated with so much 
 severity as to induce them to wish to quit the country. 
 They were to be tempted to remain in it. For this 
 purpose the process in which they acted so important a 
 part, while it largely benefited the king, was to be al- 
 lowed to be also somewhat profitable to themselves. 
 The pressure of the royal grasp was not to be carried so 
 far as to wring from them the whole amount of their 
 exorbitant gains. Above all, they were to be protected 
 by the law in those rights, without the enforcement of 
 which they could not have satisfied the rapacity of their 
 oppressor. But, on the other hand, the hatred witli 
 which they were naturally regarded by the people was 
 also to be maintained and cherished ; for without this it 
 would have been impossible for the sovereign power to 
 have continued to treat them in the arbitrary and tyran- 
 nical manner we have just described. It was, no doubt, 
 found to be somewhat difficult to effect these two objects 
 at the same time, namely, to grant to the Jews the 
 perfect protection of the law against every one else ex- 
 
 B 3
 
 6 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I 
 
 cept the king, and yet to keep the popular feeling against 
 them in so inflamed a state, that it was always ready to 
 approve whatever cruelty and oppression that single 
 licensed power might exercise upon them. 
 
 In truth, it was soon found that the two things could 
 not be perfectly reconciled. The populace, taught to 
 .ook upon the Jews as proper objects of royal persecu- 
 tion, very naturally thought there could be no great 
 harm in sometimes taking a part themselves in the same 
 meritorious as well as pleasant pastime. To hunt down 
 the noxious vermin was indeed trespassing upon the 
 king's preserve and as such was prohibited by the 
 law; but we know the slight degree of moral guilt 
 which has always been attached in the minds of the 
 multitude to a transgression of that sort. In this case 
 the main part of the sin undoubtedly lay at the door of 
 those who, for their own unworthy purposes, had en- 
 couraged the mistaken notion under which the people 
 laboured, and the ferocious feelings which thus broke 
 out into action. The people themselves acted, as they 
 almost always do, honestly, but in ignorance. They 
 did not, however, on that account act the less directly 
 in opposition to their own true interests ; for, undoubt- 
 edly, in tolerating the ill-usage of the unhappy Jews by 
 the king, they were doing their best to feed and strengthen 
 a tyranny which might have eventually been turned 
 against themselves. Such are the penalties ever paid 
 by popular ignorance the dangers from which men 
 can be saved only through that diffusion of knowledge 
 which is not more fitted to enlighten their understandings 
 than it is to tame their bad passions, and to soften their 
 hearts. 
 
 The first riot against the Jews, we believe, of which 
 our old chroniclers have preserved any account, is that 
 which happened on the 3rd of September, in the year
 
 CH. I.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 7 
 
 1189, at the coronation of Richard I. " Upon this day 
 of King- Richard's coronation," says Holinshed, "the 
 Jews that dwelt in London and in other parts of the 
 realm, being there assembled, had but sorry hap, as it 
 chanced. For they meaning to honour the same coro- 
 nation with their presence, and to present to the king 
 some honourable gift, whereby they might declare them- 
 selves glad for his advancement, and procure his friend- 
 ship towards them, for the confirming of their privileges 
 and liberties, according to the grants and charters made 
 to them by the former kings he, of a zealous mind to 
 Christ's religion, abhorring their nation, and doubting 
 some sorcery by them to be practised, commanded that 
 they should not come within the church when he should 
 receive the crown, nor within the palace whilst he was 
 at dinner." 
 
 We here see exemplified the common usage which 
 this people received at the hands of our kings. Of any 
 refusal of their proffered gift by King Richard we hear 
 nothing; that, notwithstanding all his zeal for Christ's 
 religion, and abhorrence of their nation, he no doubt 
 accepted gladly enough. But the givers are at the same 
 time treated with ostentatious contempt, and even their 
 offer itself, accepted though it was, held up to the eyes 
 of the people as an insolent intrusion. Nor is it neces- 
 sary to suppose that this conduct was all mere show and 
 pretence on the part of Richard ; it is likely enough that 
 he had his full share of the prejudices of his subjects, 
 and really thought that he was doing what was accept- 
 able to God in thus publicly manifesting his aversion 
 for the unhappy race which it was then universally be- 
 lieved that God himself hated. He may have consi- 
 dered that he was in this way in some degree atoning 
 for anything of questionable propriety there was in the 
 acceptance of their money.
 
 8 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 To return, however, to our narrative. " But at dinner 
 time," continues Holinshed, " among others that pressed 
 in at the palace gate, divers of the Jews were about to 
 thrust in, till one of them was stricken by a Christian, 
 who, alleging the king's commandment, kept them back 
 from coming within the palace, which some of the un- 
 ruly people perceiving, and supposing it had been done 
 by the king's commandment, took lightly occasion 
 thereof, and falling upon the Jews with staves, bats, and 
 stones, beat them and chased them home to their houses 
 and lodgings. Herewith rose a rumour through the 
 city, that the king had commanded the Jews to be de- 
 stroyed, and thereupon (the people) came running toge- 
 ther to assault them in their houses, which, when they 
 could not easily break up nor enter, by reason the same 
 were strongly builded, they set fire to them, so that 
 divers houses were consumed, not only of the Jews, but 
 also of their neighbours, so hideous was the rage of the 
 fire." 
 
 In this, as in other cases, the chronicler here re- 
 marks, we see how a king's example sways the world. 
 He then proceeds, " The king being advertised of this 
 riotous attempt of the outrageous people, sent some of 
 his counsellors, as Ranulph de Glanville, Lord Justice, 
 and other officers to appease the tumult ; but their au- 
 thority was nothing regarded, nor their persuasions any 
 whit reverenced, but their threatenings rather brought 
 themselves in danger of life among the rude sort of 
 those that were about to spoil, rob, and sack the houses 
 and shops of the Jews ; to the better accomplishment of 
 which their unlawful act, the light that the fire of those 
 houses which burned gave after it was once night, did 
 minister no small help and occasion of furtherance. 
 The Jews that were in those houses which were set on 
 fire were either smouldered and burned to death within.
 
 CH. 1.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 9 
 
 or else at their coining forth most cruelly received upon 
 the points of spears, bills, swords, and gleaves of their 
 adversaries, that watched for them very diligently. This 
 outrage of the furious and disordered people continued 
 from the midst of the one day till two of the clock on 
 the other; the commons all that time never ceasing 
 their fury against that nation, but still killing them as 
 they met with any of them, in most horrible, rash, and 
 unreasonable manner. At length, rather wearied with 
 their cruel doings than satisfied with spoil, or moved 
 with respect of reason or reverence of their prince, they 
 withdrew themselves from their riotous enterprize, after 
 they had executed many unlawful and horrible enor- 
 mities." 
 
 Some of our historians assert, that, the very day after 
 these barbarous outrages were committed, the king 
 caused the ringleaders of the riot to be apprehended, 
 and to be hanged immediately. It is very probable 
 that precipitate vengeance was thus taken upon those 
 who could be easily got hold of; for so flagrant a breach 
 of the king's peace could hardly fail to irritate the pas- 
 sionate and domineering monarch who now filled the 
 throne ; and besides, as we have seen, it was not the 
 policy of our kings, although oppressing the Jews them- 
 selves, to suffer them to be ill-treated with impunity by 
 the people. Nevertheless, there is reason to believe 
 that the rude and partial justice which was exhibited on 
 this occasion was little fitted to deter the populace from 
 the repetition of similar atrocities. Holinshed expressly 
 says, " This great riot well deserved sore and grievous 
 punishment, but yet it passed over without correction, 
 in respect of the great number of the transgressors, and 
 for that the most part of men, for the hatred generally 
 conceived against the obstinate frowardness of the Jews, 
 liked the doings hereof well enough, interpreting it to be
 
 10 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 a good token, that the joyful day of the king's advance- 
 ment to the crown should be doleful unto the Jews, in 
 bringing them to such slaughter and destruction." He 
 adds, however, that " after the tumult was ceased, the 
 king commanded that no man should hurt or harm any 
 of the Jews, and so they were restored to peace, after 
 they had sustained infinite damage." 
 
 This writer's concluding remarks upon the whole 
 affair are so sensible, that we shall transcribe part of 
 what he says. " The occasion," he truly observes, " of 
 this tragedy and bloody tumult (redounding to the 
 Jews' great vexation and pitiful distress, but to the sa- 
 tisfying of the people's furious and unbridled proneness 
 to cruelty) sprang principally from the king, who, if he 
 had not so lightly esteemed of the Jews when they re- 
 paired unto him with their present, in sign of submission, 
 and hope of obtaining their suit then purposed to be ex- 
 hibited, this hurly-burly had not ensued. For it was a 
 violent example and a mighty motive to the people to 
 malign the Jews ; as also a heart-grief to them in re- 
 spect of their rejection, when the prince gave them so 
 discourteous a repulse." He then takes occasion to 
 point out the duty incumbent upon kings and other per- 
 sons in superior station to be careful of the example 
 they exhibit, seeing the strong tendency that there is in 
 the multitude to copy whatever is thus set before them. 
 In consideration of this, he observes, " the mighty ones 
 of the world have special cause to have an eye to their 
 course of life, and to set caveats before their actions, 
 that the people may in them see none but good signs of 
 commendable and virtuous imitation." 
 
 The law, so omnipotent when it has the support of 
 public opinion, has but little strength when it is not in 
 accordance with the general feeling of the community. 
 The want of that agreement has often deprived a bad
 
 CH. I.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 11 
 
 law of much of its evil, and even compelled its revoca- 
 tion ; but the same circumstance has also frequently 
 made a good law inoperative. The best laws, indeed, 
 that could be framed might work very indifferently with 
 a people so sunk in moral debasement, or in intellectual 
 darkness, as not to be able to appreciate their excellence; 
 for they would there be without that general respect and 
 disposition to obey them for which nothing else can 
 compensate. Give me the making of the popular songs 
 of a country, said one who knew mankind, and he who 
 pleases may make its laws ; a strong way of intimating 
 how powerless the latter would be found, let them be of 
 what character they might, if they had not in their 
 favour the hearts and habitual feelings of the people, 
 which are in great part moulded by their common songs, 
 or by that literature which addresses itself to their ima- 
 ginations and affections. This, at least, is to be re- 
 membered, that by enlightening the popular mind you 
 ensure the eventual establishment of good laws as a ne- 
 cessary consequence ; whereas, if the good law is at- 
 tempted to be established before a proper foundation 
 has thus been laid for it, the probability is that it will 
 be of little more effect than would a lamp lighted in a 
 place where all present were asleep or blind. 
 
 It seems to have fared nearly thus with King Richard's 
 proclamation for the protection of the Jews, issued im- 
 mediately after the dreadful riot at his coronation. Of 
 the insignificant force it was able to oppose to the 
 rancorous and deep-rooted prejudices of the people we 
 have proof sufficient in the fact, that within a few 
 months the tumultuous and bloody attack upon the 
 Jews, which had taken place in London, was imitated 
 in many of the other principal towns of the kingdom. 
 This renewal of the attempt to exterminate the un- 
 happy race is said by Holinshed to have been begun
 
 12 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 at Lynn, in Norfolk. " It fortuned," he says, " that 
 one of the Jews there was become a Christian, where- 
 with those of his nation were so moved, that they de- 
 termined to kill him wheresoever they might find him. 
 And hereupon they set upon him one day as he came 
 up through the streets ; he, to escape their hands, fled 
 to the next church ; but his countrymen were so de- 
 sirous to execute their malicious purpose, that they 
 followed him still, and enforced themselves to break 
 into the church upon him." 
 
 The historian proceeds, " Herewith the noise being 
 raised by the Christians that sought to save the con- 
 verted Jew, a number of mariners, being foreigners, that 
 were arrived there with their vessels out of sundry parts, 
 and divers also of the townsmen, came to the rescue, 
 and setting upon the Jews, caused them to flee into 
 their houses. The townsmen were not very earnest in 
 pursuing of them, because of the king's proclamation 
 and ordinance beforetime made in favour of the Jews ; 
 but the mariners followed them to their houses, slew 
 divers of them, robbed and sacked their goods, and 
 finally set their dwellings on fire, and so burnt them up 
 altogether. These mariners being enriched with the 
 spoil of the Jews' goods, and fearing to be called to ac- 
 count for their unlawful act by the king's officers, got 
 them forthwith to shipboard, and, hoisting up sails, de- 
 parted with their ships to the sea, and so escaped the 
 danger of that which might have been otherwise laid to 
 their charge. The townsmen being called to an account, 
 excused themselves by the mariners, burdening them 
 with all the fault." And in this way, it appears, by 
 laying the blame partly upon the foreigners who had 
 fled, and partly upon the Jews whom they had destroyed, 
 the ingenious inhabitants of Lynn contrived to get 
 themselves off altog-ether.
 
 CH. I.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 13 
 
 Holinshed himself acknowledges, that no sooner had 
 Richard set out for Palestine, which he did on the 5th 
 of December, 1189, than "the heads of the common 
 people began to wax wild, and fain would they have 
 had some occasion of raising a new tumult against the 
 Jews, whom (for their unmerciful usury practised to the 
 undoing of many an honest man) they most deadly 
 hated, wishing most earnestly their expulsion out of 
 England." Accordingly, after the tumult and slaughter 
 we have just mentioned had happened at Lynn, " other 
 people," he tells us, " in other parts of the realm, taking 
 occasion hereat, as if they had been called up by the 
 sound of a bell or trumpet, arose against them in those 
 towns where they had any habitations, and robbed and 
 beat them after a disordered and most riotous manner." 
 
 He afterwards says, that the Jews were " thus un- 
 mercifully dealt with in all places in manner through 
 this realm." Other historians state that the populace 
 rose at Norwich on the 6th of February ; at Stamford, 
 on the 7th of March ; at York, on the 16th ; and at St. 
 Edmondsbury, on the 18th of the same month. There 
 was also a rising at Lincoln. The tragedy enacted at 
 York was frightful. In this city the wretched Jews 
 preferred killing their wives and children themselves, 
 and aftenvards being their own executioners, to await- 
 ing a more barbarous and dishonourable death from 
 the hands of their infuriated assailants. " After a 
 number of them," says Holinshed, " had been besieged 
 certain days within a tower of the king's (whither they 
 fled for succour), one of their learned governors caused 
 four hundred of their company to consent to have their 
 throats cut one at another's hands, he himself cutting 
 his wife's throat first, whose name was Anna, then his 
 children's, one after another, and last of all slew him- 
 
 c
 
 14 POPULAR, TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 self, only rather than he would fall into the hands of 
 the Christians that had thus long besieged them. The 
 rest perceiving what their great Rabbi had done, set fire 
 upon all their goods and substance, which they had 
 gotten into the tower with them, and so consuming the 
 same, would have burnt also the residue of their fellows 
 which would not agree to the Rabbi's counsel in the 
 cruel murdering of themselves, if they had not taken a 
 strong turret hard by within that tower, and defended 
 themselves both from the fire and cruelty of their breth- 
 ren, who had made away themselves in such manner 
 as I have said ; and that to the number of four hundred, 
 or (as some write) five hundred at the least. On the 
 morrow those that were saved called out to the people, 
 and not only showed how and after what sort their 
 fellows were dispatched, but also offered to be baptized 
 and forsake their Judaism, if they might have their lives 
 saved from the imminent and present danger wherein 
 they saw themselves to be wrapped through the fury of 
 the people. To be short, this thing was granted, arid 
 they came forth ; howbeit, they were no sooner entered 
 into the press but they were all slain, and not one of 
 them preserved. After this, also, the people ran to the 
 cathedral church, and broke into those places where 
 their bonds and obligations lay, by the which they had 
 divers of the king's subjects bound unto them in most 
 unconscionable sort, and for such detestable usury as, 
 if the authors that write thereof were not of credit, 
 would hardly be believed. All which evidences or bonds 
 they solemnly burned in the midst of the church. After 
 which each went his way, the soldiers to the king, and 
 the commons to their houses, and so was the city 
 quieted." 
 
 The people of York did not escape quite so easily as
 
 CH. I.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 15 
 
 those of Lynn ; but the manner in which they were pu- 
 nished is exceedingly characteristic. The main object 
 kept in view seems to have been to turn the affair to the 
 advantage of the royal treasury. As soon as the king, 
 who was by this time in Normandy, heard of what had 
 taken place, he wrote over, we are told, to the Bishop 
 of Ely, his Chancellor, charging him to see to the pu- 
 nishment of the offenders. " The bishop," continues 
 Holinshed, " with an army went to York ; but the chief 
 authors of the riot, hearing of his coming, fled into 
 Scotland; yet the bishop, at his coming to the city, 
 caused earnest inquiry to be made of the whole matter. 
 The citizens excused themselves, and offered to prove 
 that they were not of counsel with them that had com- 
 mitted the riot, neither had they aided nor comforted 
 them therein in any manner of wise. And, indeed, the 
 most part of them that were the offenders were of the 
 countries and towns near to the city, with such as were 
 crossed into the Holy Land, and now gone over to the 
 king, so that very few or none of the substantial men of 
 the city were found to have joined with them. Howbeit, 
 this would not excuse the citizens, but that they were 
 put to their fine by the stout bishop, every of them pay- 
 ing his portion according to his power and ability in 
 substance, the common sort of the poor people being 
 pardoned, and not called into judgment, sith the ring- 
 leaders were fled and gone out of the way." There can 
 be no question, although it is not expressly stated, that 
 the money thus obtained went all to the king, who was, 
 no doubt, thought to have the best right to whatever 
 could be made out of the Jews, alive or dead. Here, then, 
 we see the real authors of the riot let alone, and, con- 
 sequently, nothing really done to deter from the repeti- 
 tion of such barbarous excesses those alone made to 
 
 c2
 
 16 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 pay for the mischief done whose crime was, not their 
 proved participation in the riot, but their wealth, which 
 marked them as fit subjects for the royal rapacity and 
 above all, not a thought of any compensation to the un- 
 fortunate persons whose property had been plundered or 
 destroyed, or to the heirs of those of them who had been 
 despoiled by the fanatic, but at the same time not alto- 
 gether disinterested mob, both of their properties and 
 their lives. 
 
 After this, however, we read of no more attacks upon 
 the Jews by the populace for some time ; the general 
 attempt which had been made to exterminate the un- 
 happy race probably reduced them almost everywhere 
 to an insignificance which was their best protection. 
 But various instances are recorded of the oppression ex- 
 ercised towards them on the part of the crown, and also 
 of the impunity with which they were occasionally ill- 
 treated by other parties. Thus, under the year 1246 
 Holinshed writes : " On the day of the purification of 
 our Lady, a robbery was committed upon certain Jews 
 at Oxenford, for the which fact five and forty of the 
 offenders were put in prison, but at the suit of Robert 
 Bishop of Lincoln, they were delivered by the king's 
 commandment, because no man impeached them of any 
 breach of peace or other crime." An attack in which 
 more, possibly many more, than forty-five persons were 
 concerned seems to be oddly designated a robbery. It 
 looks much like a tumult an outbreak of fury on the 
 part of the populace generally. That the robbers (if 
 they are to be so called) had, at any rate, the feeling of 
 all classes of the community with them cculd not be 
 more distinctly intimated than it is by the two facts 
 mentioned that no man stood forth as their accuser, 
 and that they had a bishop for their active intercessor.
 
 CH. I.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 17 
 
 Of the exactions and cruelties of the crown we may 
 quote the following instances. In 1210 a general tax 
 was imposed upon the Jews by King John, and such of 
 them as could not or would not pay the sums demanded 
 of them were subjected both to imprisonment and torture, 
 in order to force their compliance. " Amongst others," 
 says Holinshed, " there was one of them at Bristow 
 which would not consent to give any fine for his deli- 
 verance ; wherefore, by the king's commandment, he 
 was put into this penance, that every day till he would 
 agree to give to the king those ten thousand marks that 
 he was seised (assessed) at, he should have one of his 
 teeth plucked out of his head. By the space of seven 
 days together he stood steadfast, but on the eighth day, 
 when he should come to have the eighth tooth and the 
 last (for he had but eight in all) drawn out, he paid 
 the money to save that one, who with more wisdom and 
 less pain might have done so before, and have saved his 
 seven teeth, which he lost with such torments, for those 
 homely tooth-drawers used no great cunning in plucking 
 them forth, as may be conjectured." During the long 
 reign of John's son and successor, the weak and needy 
 Henry III., the property of the Jews was a source re- 
 peatedly resorted to in the most arbitrary manner to 
 replenish the king's exhausted exchequer. Thus, in 
 1230, they were compelled to surrender to him the third 
 part of their moveable goods. Ten years after, on the 
 pretence that a murder had been secretly committed by 
 some of them, their whole body was punished by the 
 deprivation of the third part of all they possessed. In 
 1241, according to Hume, 20,000 marks were exacted 
 from them ; two years after, they were compelled to pay 
 a further sum, and from one of them alone, Aaron of 
 York, above 4000 marks were extorted. " In 1250," 
 
 c3
 
 18 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 continues this historian, "Henry renewed his oppres- 
 sions ; and the same Aaron was condemned to pay him 
 30,000 marks upon an accusation of forgery : the high 
 penalty imposed upon him, and which, it seems, he was 
 thought able to pay, is rather a presumption of his in- 
 nocence than of his guilt." Under the year 1255, Ho- 
 linshed writes of this king, " Moreover, whereas he 
 stood in great need of money, he required by way of a 
 tallage eight thousand marks of the Jews, charging 
 them, on pain of hanging, not to defer that payment. 
 The Jews, sore impoverished with grievous and often 
 payments, excused themselves by the Pope's usurers, 
 and reproved plainly the king's excessive taking of 
 money, as well of his Christian subjects as of them. 
 The king, on the other side, to let it be known that he 
 taxed not his people without just occasion, and upon 
 necessity that drove him thereto, confessed openly that 
 he was indebted by his bonds obligatory in 300,000 
 marks ; and again, the yearly revenues assigned to his 
 son Prince Edward arose to the sum of fifteen thousand 
 marks and above, where the revenues that belonged 
 unto the crown were greatly diminished, in such wise, 
 that, without the aid of his subjects, he should never be 
 able to come out of debt. To be short, when he had 
 fleeced the Jews to the quick, he set them to farm under 
 his brother Earl Richard, that he might pull off skin 
 and all." It is added, however, that Richard's pity 
 was moved by their poverty, and he used his powers 
 with lenity. 
 
 We notice these facts as illustrating what we have 
 said in regard to the manner in which the fanatical ani- 
 mosity of the populace against this unfortunate race de- 
 livered them over bound and helpless to the tyranny of 
 the crown, while, at the same time, that tyranny in its
 
 CH. I.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 19 
 
 turn excited, and might almost be said to license, the 
 fury and sanguinary violence of the mob. In the mi- 
 serable ignorance of the time, when the Christian reli- 
 gion (the light of which has always been dimmed in an 
 age of intellectual darkness) was so grossly misunder- 
 stood, that it was almost universally believed to enjoin as 
 a duty the persecution even to extermination of the fol- 
 lowers of every other creed, the possessions, the liberties, 
 and the very liA r es of the Jews were the victims of the in- 
 terested cunning of one party and the inflamed passions 
 of another. In them these passions and this cupidity 
 found equally their readiest sustenance. Whenever the 
 king wanted money, the plunder of the Jews was his 
 easiest and most popular way of obtaining it ; when the 
 saA r age multitude wanted excitement, the butchery of a 
 few dozens or a few hundreds of Jews was an indulgence 
 which they claimed in their turn, and which could 
 hardly be well refused to them. Sometimes the blood 
 they thus thirsted for they shed with their own hands ; 
 sometimes the government shed it for them. Of the 
 latter mode of procedure we have several instances in 
 the well-known stories of those children whom at different 
 times the Jews were accused by the wretched credulity 
 of the people of having crucified. In the famous case 
 of Hugh of Lincoln, which occurred in the year 1255, 
 eighteen Jews of that city were hanged on the evidence 
 of a person, who, after having been induced to confess 
 himself an accomplice in the alleged murder on a pro- 
 mise of pardon, was, with the same kind of justice that 
 characterized the whole proceeding, hanged along with 
 the rest. 
 
 Among the popular risings against the Jews in the 
 thirteenth century, one of the most terrible was that 
 which took place in London on Passion week in the
 
 20 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 year 1264. The chroniclers, who allege, as usual, that 
 this attack was provoked by the misconduct of its 
 victims, are very far from agreeing as to what really 
 was the act which inflamed the zeal of the mob. Ho- 
 linshed's account is, that " the Jews that inhabited in 
 London being detected of treason, which they had de- 
 vised against the barons and citizens, were slain, almost 
 all the whole number of them, and great riches found 
 in their houses, which were taken and carried away by 
 those that ransacked the same houses." Maitland, 
 however, on the authority of Fabyan, tells us that the 
 occasion of the attack was an attempt on the part of one 
 of the Jews to extort from his Christian debtor more 
 than the interest allowed by law, namely, two-pence per 
 week for twenty shillings. On this " the populace," 
 he adds, " assembling from all parts of the city, fell 
 upon them in a most cruel and barbarous manner, mas- 
 sacring above five hundred of them, and afterwards 
 robbed and destroyed their houses and synagogue ; and 
 such of them as were concealed and saved by persons of 
 humanity and conscience were sent to the Tower of 
 London for their greater security." The year before 
 this many of the London Jews had been in like manner 
 plundered and put to death in a tumult, said to have 
 been excited by a Jew having wounded a Christian 
 within Colechurch, in the ward of Cheap. 
 
 At length this long series of cruel oppressions was 
 terminated in 1290, the eighteenth year of the reign of 
 Edward I., by the entire expulsion of the Jews from 
 England. The manner and circumstances of this final 
 act of tyranny were highly appropriate. The king was, 
 in the first place, bribed to give his consent to it, the 
 parliament making him a grant of a fifteenth as the 
 price of his compliance. This, however, was but a
 
 CH. I.] THE JEWS IN ENGLAND. 21 
 
 small compensation for the permanent loss of revenue 
 which the king thus entailed upon himself. During a 
 space of only about seven years, from the 1 7th of De- 
 cember, in the fiftieth year of Henry III., till the Tuesday 
 in Shrovetide, in the second year of Edward I., the 
 crown is stated to have extorted from the Jews (amounting 
 in all to probably not more than five hundred families) 
 the immense sum of 420,000/. 155. 4d. Edward, how- 
 eA r er, could not resist the present temptation. " And so 
 hereupon," says Holinshed, "were the Jews banished 
 out of all the king's dominions, and never since could 
 they obtain any privilege to return hither again. All 
 their goods not moveable were confiscated, with their 
 taillies and obligations (that is, the bonds they held of 
 their debtors) ; but all other their goods that were 
 moveable, together with their coin of gold and silver, 
 the king licensed them to have and convey with them. 
 A sort of the richest of them, being shipped with their 
 treasure in a mighty tall ship which they had hired, 
 when the same was under sail, and got down the Thames 
 towards the mouth of the river beyond Queenborough, 
 the master mariner bethought him of a wile, and caused 
 his men to cast anchor, and so rode at the same, till 
 the ship, by ebbing of the stream, remained on the dry 
 sands. The master herewith enticed the Jews to walk 
 out with him on land for rect cation. And, at length, 
 when he understood the tide to be coming in, he got him 
 back to the ship, whither he was drawn up by a cord. 
 The Jews made not so much haste as he did, because 
 they were not ware of the danger. But when they per- 
 ceived how the matter stood, they cried to him for help ; 
 howbeit, he told them that they ought to cry rather 
 unto Moses, by whose conduct their fathers passed
 
 22 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 through the Red Sea, and therefore, if they would call 
 to him for help, he was able enough to help them out 
 of those raging floods which now came in upon them ; 
 they cried indeed, but no succour appeared, and so they 
 were swallowed up in water. The master returned with 
 the ship, and told the king how he had used the matter, 
 and had both thanks and reward, as some have written. 
 But others affirm (and more truly, as should seem) that 
 divers of those mariners, which dealt so wickedly against 
 the Jews, were hanged for their wicked practice, and so 
 received a just reward of their fraudulent and mischievous 
 dealing." It is possible enough that both these accounts 
 may be true. The master of the ship might probably 
 be allowed to retain part of the gains of his villainy on 
 condition of handing over the bulk of the plunder to the 
 king; and a show of satisfying justice might, at the 
 same time, be made by the execution of a few of the 
 comparatively guiltless seamen. 
 
 The entire number of Jews who were thus driven out 
 of the country is stated to have been 16,511, including 
 men, women, and children. As is well known, the 
 Jews continued from this time to be rigidly excluded 
 from England, till they were again admitted by Oliver 
 Cromwell in the year 1655. When, however, nearly a 
 century later (in 1753), an act of parliament was passed 
 merely permitting Jews, upon application, to be natu- 
 ralized by parliament without receiving the sacrament, 
 provided that they should have inhabited for three years 
 in his majesty's dominions, without being absent above 
 three months at any one time, such a ferment was 
 thereby excited in the public mind, that it was found 
 necessary to repeal the act the first thing that was done 
 the following session. In such strength did the old
 
 CH. ii.] RIOTS OF 1779-1*780. 23 
 
 fanaticism still survive. And even to this day, the 
 legislature continues to withhold from this portion of 
 the community those civil rights and privileges which 
 have now been conceded to every other class, without 
 exception, of his majesty's subjects. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BUT the story of the outrages and barbarities perpe- 
 trated by English mobs in former ages against the Jews, 
 discreditable as it is, has been fully matched in modern 
 and very recent times by the excesses of a fanaticism of 
 a similar character directed against another class of 
 persons. 
 
 The most dreadful riots which London ever saw hap- 
 pened about fifty years ago in the year 1780. The 
 frightful scenes which then occurred the plundering, 
 the burnings, the wanton destruction of property the 
 universal terror, while thieves and prostitutes, and the 
 worst miscreants of every description, ranged the streets 
 in bands, having the whole town at their mercy, and 
 doing whatever they pleased the miserable end of so 
 many of the unhappy wretches, perishing, in the midst 
 of their fury and drunkenness, in the fires of their own 
 raising, or mangled by the shot of the military and 
 the fate also of those who afterwards died a disgraceful 
 death on the gibbet ; all this mass of calamity grew 
 out of a circumstance in appearance little likely to 
 give rise to such consequences. But a riot, if allowed 
 to go on to a certain height, will often run to as wild 
 an excess, when it has begun in a seemingly trifling
 
 24 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 cause of dissatisfaction, as if it had been stirred up by 
 what might be deemed a much more serious grievance : 
 it is as when a house is once fairly in a blaze, it does 
 not matter whether the flames may have been first kin- 
 dled by the explosion of a quantity of gunpowder or by 
 the slow smouldering of a bundle of rags. A riot, in 
 general, very quickly loses its original character, what- 
 ever that may have been and, let it have commenced 
 how it may, becomes nothing but a work of confusion, 
 outrage, and spoliation. Law and order once thrown 
 down, numbers, ready to profit by the occasion, crowd 
 from every quarter to help to trample upon them ; and 
 from this moment the grand object is merely to aggra- 
 vate and spread the uproar, consternation, and dis- 
 traction and, if possible, to tear society, as it were, in 
 pieces that brute strength may carry all before it. 
 But this will be most forcibly shown by a short account 
 of the origin and cause of the riots we have just men- 
 tioned. 
 
 And first, as to the cause which provoked so terrible 
 a display of violence and madness. It has certainly 
 seldom happened that a matter which at first drew so 
 little notice has so suddenly started up into threatening 
 importance, and raised such a storm in the state. In the 
 year 1 178 a bill had passed through Parliament to relieve 
 the Roman Catholics from a very few of the many severe 
 laws which had previously existed in our statute-book. 
 It is to be remembered that England, like the rest of 
 Europe, was anciently a Catholic country, and that the 
 Protestant faith was only finally established by law 
 on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, about two hun- 
 dred and eighty years ago. But the Catholics were at 
 that time, and long continued to be, a very numerous 
 and powerful body as any one indeed might suppose
 
 CH. n.] RIOTS OF 1179-1780. 25 
 
 would be the case seeing not only that the old religion 
 had been so long rooted in the kingdom, but that the 
 new had really been enabled to take its place at last, 
 more perhaps through the accident of Elizabeth hap- 
 pening to be a Protestant than from anything else. 
 Under her sister Mary, who reigned before her, and 
 who was a bigoted Catholic, the established church 
 was Catholic also, although previously, in the time of 
 Edward VI., it had been Protestant ; and, in all like- 
 lihood, if Elizabeth had died after reigning only a few 
 years, and the throne had come again to be filled imme- 
 diately by a Catholic sovereign, an attempt would have 
 again been made to restore the ancient faith. Many 
 of its parti/ans, no doubt, looked to this chance and 
 particularly as long as Queen Mary of Scotland lived 
 (who was the next heir to the crown, and a Catholic) 
 that is to say, for nearly thirty years of Elizabeth's 
 reign, their hopes would be far from being extinguished. 
 We need not wonder that, in this state of things, the 
 Catholics should be regarded as public enemies. The 
 established religion was in fact in considerable danger 
 from them, aided, as they were likely to be, in over- 
 turning it by foreign powers. It was natural, there- 
 fore, for the Protestants to seek, as far as they could, 
 to break their strength, by subjecting them to certain 
 disabilities, and to endeavour to prevent the spread of 
 their religion by laws discountenancing and laying pe- 
 nalties on the profession of it : accordingly, many such 
 laws were passed in that reign. Under the next king, 
 James I., the danger was thought not to be yet over; 
 the Gunpowder Plot, indeed, which happened almost 
 immediately after James came to the throne, awakened 
 a greater dread and hatred of Popery than ever, and 
 more laws were made against it. The case was nearly 
 
 D
 
 26 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 the same a good many years afterwards, in the reign of 
 Charles II. The brother of that monarch, and the heir 
 of the crown, was a Catholic ; and it was deemed neces- 
 sary to fence round the Protestant Establishment by 
 new laws against persons of that religion, in order to 
 meet this new danger. Again, after the Revolution of 
 1688 had chased this Catholic king, James II., from 
 the throne, additional restrictions were imposed upon 
 the profession of the Catholic religion. It was thought 
 that its professors, being joined by the other friends and 
 adherents of the deposed sovereign, might prove dan- 
 gerous disturbers of the new settlement, and therefore 
 ought to be well watched, and completely excluded from 
 political power. Here, then, we have a full hundred 
 years of law-making upon this subject; and after so 
 many enactments had been directed against them, it 
 may be believed the Catholics were pretty securely bound 
 down, and effectually shut out from having anything to 
 do with the government. At the same time, this is to be 
 said for the severities to which they were in those days 
 subjected that the laws under which they suffered 
 were all passed while the two religions were, as it were, 
 fighting with each other and struggling for the mastery, 
 and that every new statute had been in some degree 
 provoked by the state of public affairs, and had at least 
 seemed to be called for by some new exigency which it 
 was intended to meet. The passing of such laws at 
 that time, therefore, was a very different thing from in- 
 sisting upon their maintenance long afterwards, when 
 all the dangers that occasioned them to be made had 
 nearly disappeared. It is very evident that the Pro- 
 testant Establishment could not need the same protec- 
 tion after it had existed for nearly three hundred years, 
 as it might be supposed to require when it was compara-
 
 CH. it.] RIOTS OP 1179-1780. 21 
 
 tively new nor when all the Catholics in the country 
 amounted only to a few thousands, as when they were 
 nearly half the population nor when none but a Pro- 
 testant king could sit on the throne, as when it might 
 be filled by a Catholic nor when the power of the pope 
 was reduced almost to nothing, as when he ruled over 
 the greater part of Europe nor, in one word, when an 
 attack by popery upon our institutions, either from 
 within or from without the realm, was a thing which 
 nobody even pretended to dream of, as when there was 
 really great and acknowledged danger of such an 
 attempt. 
 
 But the law which the Parliament repealed in 1778 
 was, at any rate, not one of those which any body could 
 decently pretend to think ought to be kept up either for 
 the security of the state or for any other good purpose 
 whatever. It was not made at any of the difficult or 
 alarming emergencies which we have mentioned, but 
 after they had all passed away, when the Catholic reli- 
 gion had been put down for much more than a hundred 
 years ; and when the settlement effected at the Revolu- 
 tion, and now firmly established, had placed the exist- 
 ing institutions of the kingdom in a state of much 
 greater security than they had ever before enjoyed. Yet 
 this was the time chosen to pass against the Catholics 
 by far the most cruel law to which they had yet been 
 subjected ; it was thought fit to bind them in the 
 straitest fetters when their power to work any mischief, 
 supposing them to have been inclined to do so, was the 
 least. The history of this law is disgraceful. It was 
 brought forward in the year 1699, ten years after 
 the Revolution, and, strange to say, was passed, it may 
 be literally asserted, against the wish of all parties in 
 the nation and in the legislature. The thing happened 
 
 o2
 
 28 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 is this way. The party in opposition to the king and the 
 ministry laid a scheme to get their adversaries into a 
 difficulty, by forcing them either to do what was very 
 bad and absurd in itself, and contrary, besides, to their 
 well-known principles, or to make themselves unpo- 
 pular by seeming to protect the hated Papists. " We 
 will offer them a new law against Popery," said these 
 plotting politicians, " more severe than any that has yet 
 been proposed ; they will of course reject it, and then 
 we will represent them to the people as the friends of 
 Rome, and the enemies of the Protestant interest." So 
 to work they went upon this plan. They brought in 
 the bill of which we are speaking, " and made it," says 
 an eloquent writer, " purposely wicked and absurd, that 
 it might be rejected. The then court-party, discovering 
 their game, turned the tables on them, and returned 
 their bill to them stuffed with still greater absurdities, 
 that its loss might lie upon its original authors. They, 
 finding their own ball thrown back to them, kicked it 
 back again to their adversaries. And this Act, loaded 
 with the double injustice of two parties, neither of whom 
 intended to pass what they hoped the other would be 
 persuaded to reject, went through the legislature, con- 
 trary to the real wish of all parts of it, and of all the 
 parties that composed it. In this manner, these inso- 
 lent and profligate factions, as if they were playing with 
 balls and counters, made a sport of the fortunes and the 
 liberties of their fellow-creatures." 
 
 Such was the scandalous origin of this law. We 
 will avail ourselves of the language of the same writer 
 to describe its nature and import. By this statute, " the 
 saying mass (a church-service in the Latin tongue, 
 not exactly the same as our liturgy, but very near it, 
 and containing no offence whatsoever against the laws,
 
 CH. II.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 29 
 
 or against good morals) was forged into a crime, pun- 
 ishable with perpetual imprisonment. The teaching 
 school, an useful and virtuous occupation, even the 
 teaching in a private family, was in every Catholic 
 subjected to the same unproportioned punishment. Your 
 industry and the bread of your children were taxed for a 
 pecuniary reward to stimulate avarice to do what nature 
 refused to inform and prosecute on this law. Every 
 Roman Catholic was, under the same Act, to forfeit his 
 estate to his nearest Protestant relation, until, through 
 a profession of what he did not believe, he redeemed by 
 his hypocrisy what the law had transferred to the kins- 
 man as the recompense of his profligacy. When thus 
 turned out of doors from his paternal estate, he was dis- 
 abled from acquiring any other by any industry, do- 
 nation, or charity ; but was rendered a foreigner in his 
 native land, only because he retained the religion, along 
 with the property, handed down to him from those who 
 had been the old inhabitants of the land before him." 
 " The effects of the Act," the writer afterwards remarks, 
 " have been as mischievous as its origin was ludicrous 
 and shameful. From that time, every person of that 
 communion, lay and ecclesiastic, has been obliged to 
 fly from the face of day. The clergy, concealed in gar- 
 rets of private houses, or obliged to take a shelter 
 (hardly safe to themselves, but infinitely dangerous to 
 their country) under the privileges of foreign ministers, 
 officiated as their servants, and under their protection. 
 The whole body of the Catholics, condemned to beg- 
 gary and to ignorance in their native land, have been 
 obliged to learn the principles of letters, at the hazard 
 of all their other principles, from the charity of your 
 enemies. They have been taxed to their ruin, at the 
 pleasure of necessitous and profligate relations, and ac- 
 
 D3
 
 30 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 cording to the measure of their necessity and profligacy. 
 Examples of this are many and affecting." In fact, 
 the law was in every way so monstrous, such an outrage 
 upon common sense and common humanity, that it 
 could not be enforced without shocking the whole com- 
 munity. Think of a son being permitted, upon merely 
 swearing himself a Protestant, to seize upon his parent's 
 estate, and to turn out that parent from his home, and 
 the home of his ancestors, to spend the rest of his days 
 a wandering beggar. The operation of such a law, it 
 is plain, could not be often publicly exhibited without 
 rousing a spirit which would have compelled its removal 
 from the statute-book. All the better feelings of so- 
 ciety were united in throwing obstructions in the way 
 of its action ; and the judges themselves, when called 
 upon to apply it, did everything they legally could do, 
 and perhaps in some cases even stretched their powers 
 a little beyond their due limits, to save those who 
 would have suffered by it from the injustice and 
 cruelty with which they were threatened. Still, as the 
 law stood unrepealed, and any man who was black 
 enough in heart to do such a thing might take advan- 
 tage of it, if he was next heir to an estate held by a 
 Catholic, it could not be always prevented from taking 
 effect. Many Catholics only retained their estates by 
 consenting to pay large sums of money to those at 
 whose mercy they were, whenever the latter threatened 
 to exert their powers. Besides this, any common in- 
 former, by the Act, might prevent a Catholic from con- 
 tinuing to hold an estate which he had inherited or 
 purchased, by merely denouncing him as a person who 
 had not made the declaration against Popery; or, if 
 the unfortunate man had ever been guilty of the new- 
 made crimes of celebrating mass, or acting, however
 
 CH. II.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 31 
 
 privately or unobtrusively, as a schoolmaster or a family 
 tutor, could by a word consign him to the most dreadful 
 of all dooms, perpetual imprisonment. To exist thus 
 in subjection to the very lowest and most worthless 
 members of society (for such these informers might be), 
 buying their forbearance from time to time by the 
 payment of almost any tribute they chose to extort, was 
 a slavery at once the most cruel and the most de- 
 grading. 
 
 This was the oppressive law which the parliament 
 repealed in 1778, after it had disgraced the character of 
 English justice for nearly fourscore years. The bill for 
 its repeal passed through both houses of the legislature 
 without a vote being given or a voice raised against it 
 the best evidence of the conviction that was enter- 
 tained by all parties of the propriety and equity of the 
 measure, and of its having no tendency to endanger the 
 Protestant interests. Nor did it excite, at first, any 
 alarm in the nation at large, or any other feeling except 
 that of general satisfaction that so severe a law was 
 abolished. Two bodies, indeed, composed of obscure 
 individuals, were formed in London and Edinburgh about 
 the time when the repealing bill was brought in, to 
 watch, as they professed, the growth of Popery, and to 
 guard the Protestant interests ; but their existence was 
 hardly known for a long while to any one except their 
 own members. Some months afterwards, however, the 
 Edinburgh Association began to make more noise. It 
 was generally understood that it was intended to propose 
 to parliament the extending to the Catholics of Scotland 
 the same relief which had been granted to their English 
 brethren, for it was only the latter to whom the recent 
 bill referred. The report of this intention excited con- 
 siderable alarm in Scotland, particularly in the western
 
 32 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 parts of the country, where the hatred of Popery had 
 always been extremely strong. It is not easy to con- 
 ceive how any body could be brought seriously to fear 
 the overthrow of the Protestant faith, professed by 
 ninety-nine out of every hundred individuals in the 
 country, from a much greater relaxation of the bonds of 
 the Catholics than was now contemplated ; but so it 
 was the notion that their religion and their liberties 
 were in danger took possession of the minds of the 
 people, and speedily inflamed them to a wild fever of 
 terror and rage. Busy zealots encouraged this phrenzy, 
 often by the grossest misrepresentations. In particular, 
 the members of the Association which sat at Edinburgh, 
 or Committee for the Protestant Interest, as they called 
 themselves, left no means untried to stir up the worst 
 passions of their fellow-countrymen against the unhappy 
 Catholics. They established other societies in every 
 part of the kingdom, with which they corresponded ; 
 they collected large funds by means of the subscriptions 
 of those whom they terrified into the belief that the days 
 of Popeiy and persecution were again at hand, unless 
 averted by their exertions ; and they were in this way 
 enabled to scatter about everywhere vast numbers of 
 the most violent handbills, pamphlets, and other writings, 
 calling upon the people to do nothing less than to ex- 
 tirpate the whole body of their Catholic brethren from 
 the land. One of the publications, for instance, which 
 was extensively dispersed, either by the Association or 
 by some of their partizans, gave the following di- 
 rections for the treatment of this unfortunate class of 
 persons : " Have no dealings with them ; neither buy 
 from them, nor sell them anything ; neither borrow nor 
 lend with them ; give them no visits, nor receive any 
 from them In order to do this effectually, let the
 
 CH. II.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 33 
 
 ministers, elders, heritors, and heads of families, of any 
 parish in Scotland who have declared against the repeal, 
 and who approve of such declarations, meet by them- 
 selves ; and let them make a list of the papists within 
 their bounds, containing their names, callings, and places 
 of abode, and publish it, that all men may know them ; 
 and let each parish make a solemn public resolution to 
 drop all intercourse with papists ; particularly bearing 
 in mind that they will not for the future employ papists 
 in any business whatsoever ; that they will not buy nor 
 sell with them, nor willingly keep them company ; and 
 that whosoever within their bounds acts contrary to this 
 resolution shall be reputed a papist, and dealt with ac- 
 cordingly." This is, in plain language, as much as to 
 say, " Do not gather together and hunt the Catholics out 
 of the country, that is riot necessary starve them out of 
 it. If they and their children are hungry, and come to you 
 to purchase bread, refuse their money turn from them, 
 however long or closely you may have been connected 
 with them in the intercourse of business or of acquaint- 
 anceship, and leave them to perish. They are few and 
 utterly helpless; a single family, perhaps, is all the 
 parish contains ; it is evident, therefore, that if you 
 follow this plan of treating them, they will not be able 
 to hold out long. If they do not take flight, they must 
 lie down and die where they are." But instigations 
 such as this were not the only ones by which the bigots 
 who were now at Avork stirred up the passions of their 
 deluded followers. The more violent among them did 
 not hesitate to point out more active measures, and to 
 excite the people to the most bloody vengeance against 
 not only the Catholics, but every individual who ven- 
 tured publicly to blame or oppose their proceedings. 
 Principal Robertson, one of the clergymen of the city,
 
 34 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 and one of the most eminent men his country ever pro- 
 duced, was suspected to have exerted his influence in 
 forwarding the apprehended measure of relief: he had, 
 in fact, done no such thing, but, on the contrary, liberal 
 as were his own principles and feelings, as soon as the 
 temper of the people became manifest, he advised the 
 government to give up their intention of bringing in the 
 bill. The manner in which he was treated, as after- 
 wards described by himself, in consequence of this un- 
 founded suspicion, may serve as a sample of the perse- 
 cution to which every man was exposed whom these 
 agitators chose to point out as marks for the popular 
 hatred and fury. " My character as a man, as a citizen, 
 and as a minister of the gospel, has been delineated in 
 the most odious colours ; I have been represented as a 
 pensioner of the pope, as an agent for Rome, as a 
 seducer of my brethren to Popery, as the tool of a king 
 and ministry bent on overturning the Protestant religion : 
 in pamphlets, in newspapers, and handbills, I have been 
 held out to an enraged mob, as the victim who deserved 
 to be next sacrificed, after they had satiated their ven- 
 geance on a popish bishop. My family has been dis- 
 quieted my house has been attacked I have been 
 threatened with pistols and daggers I have been 
 warned that I was watched in my going out and my 
 coming home the time has been set beyond which I 
 was not to live and for several weeks not a day passed 
 on which I did not receive incendiary letters." ' 
 
 These atrocious means, adopted to inflame the public 
 mind, at length produced their natural effect an effect 
 not the less natural and inevitable that the wretched 
 zealots who had laboured so hard to blow up the fire 
 
 * Speech in General Assembly on 25th May, 1779.
 
 CH. II.] RIOTS OF 1719-1180. 35 
 
 were, or pretended to be, astonished when they saw it 
 at last burst out into a flame. 
 
 Late in the evening of Sunday, the 31st of January, 
 the following incendiaiy letter was communicated to 
 one of the magistrates, having been, we suppose, picked 
 up in the street : " Men and brethren, whoever shall 
 find this letter will take (it) as a warning to meet at 
 Leith-Wynd on Wednesday next, in the evening, to 
 pull down that pillar of Popery lately erected there. 
 A PROTESTANT. Edin., January 29, 1779. P. S. 
 Please to read this carefully, keep it clean, and drop it 
 somewhere else. For king and country UNITY." The 
 paper was addressed on the back, " To every Protestant 
 into whose hands this letter shall come, greeting." 
 
 The " Pillar of Popery," as it was absurdly desig- 
 nated, which the people were thus invited to pull down, 
 was in fact a house which had been erected, a year be- 
 fore the bill for the relief of the Catholics had ever been 
 mentioned in parliament, for the residence of the Ca- 
 tholic bishop, and in which one room was appropriated 
 as a place of worship for his small congregation. Four 
 other Catholic families lodged under the same roof. 
 
 The letters scattered about the streets on Saturday 
 and Sunday, the two- last days of January, had called 
 upon the people, as we have seen, to proceed to the 
 business of demolishing this building on the Wednesday 
 following ; but, worked up to fury as they had been, 
 their impatience was too great to wait till the appointed 
 day. Between three and four in the afternoon of Tues- 
 day, the 2nd of February, a mob, which in the first in- 
 stance consisted principally of boys, collected around 
 the devoted house. The provost (or chief magistrate 
 of the city) was not long in coming with some of his 
 brethren to the place ; but, although they came attended
 
 36 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 by the city guard, a force powerful enough, there can 
 be no doubt, to have effectually quelled the tumult at 
 this stage if it had been allowed to act, the rioters felt 
 probably no great dread of being seriously interrupted 
 in their proceedings by these functionaries ; for the 
 town council had all along openly leagued themselves 
 with the Protestant Committee, in whose name, and at 
 whose incitement, the work of destruction was now 
 about to be commenced. In fact, nothing beyond what 
 we may call the acting of a few mutual civilities seems 
 to have passed between the two parties : the provost, by 
 his own account,* exhorted the crowd to disperse, not 
 because they were violating the laws, but because, as he 
 told them, their point had been already gained, inas- 
 much as he had received an assurance from London 
 that the bill for the relief of the Catholics would not be 
 brought in. The rioters, on hearing this announce- 
 ment, it is said, withdrew in a body; they could hardly 
 do less in return for the politeness of their magistrates, 
 who on their part withdrew also, leaving indeed the 
 show of a guard to protect the building, but taking care 
 that no one of themselves should remain to give the 
 men authority to act. It happened, accordingly, as 
 was to be expected ; as soon as the official personages 
 were fairly out of sight, the rioters, who had consi- 
 derately refrained from beginning the outrage they had 
 met to perpetrate so long as these nominal guardians 
 of the law were actually looking on, returned to the 
 scene of action, overpowered the guard, says the narra- 
 tive, and pi'oceeded without further opposition to execute 
 their purpose. The families who lodged in the house 
 with difficulty escaped with their lives ; fire was applied 
 
 * See Narrative of the late Riots at Edinburgh, and Vindication 
 of the Magistracy. 4to. Loud, 1779.
 
 CH. II.] RIOTS OF 1779-1180. 37 
 
 i 
 
 to the lower part of the building, while the timber-work 
 iu the upper floors was at the same time beaten in to 
 give it more fuel and readier vent ; and in a short time 
 the whole was a blazing ruin. It continued to burn till 
 noon the following day, the people not permitting any 
 attempt to be made to extinguish the fire ; and a party 
 of soldiers, who were marched to the place and detained 
 there for some time, not having been allowed to do any- 
 thing more than stand by. A few persons indeed were 
 taken prisoners, but apparently only to keep them out 
 of harm's way ; for, strange to tell, all those who were 
 captured, both here and at other parts of the town, 
 during the continuance of the disturbances, were, soon 
 after their termination, set at large by the authorities, 
 without ever being brought to trial, or any inquiry 
 being made into their conduct. 
 
 This, however, was only one of many points at which 
 the tumult was raging, and the work of destruction 
 going forward. Soon after the commencement of the 
 attack upon the chapel in Leith Wynd, another multi- 
 tude collected around the old Catholic place of worship, 
 a house likewise inhabited by several families, in Black- 
 friar's Wynd. Here likewise they were at first met by 
 the magistrates, attended by a party of fencibles ; and 
 by means, we suppose, of the same supplication and 
 coaxing which had answered its purpose in the other 
 case, were induced to make a pretence of departing. 
 But they went off only to return again when they should 
 find a more suitable moment, and in the mean time to 
 carry their ravages over other parts of the city. The 
 inconsiderable number of Catholics then in Edinburgh 
 belonged chiefly to the very poorest classes. Their un- 
 provided lodgings it was no object to attack. Plunder 
 had now become the order of the clay among the 
 rioters ; and they were not, of course, to spend their 
 
 E
 
 38 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 time in work which would not pay them for their pains. 
 However, they directed their course to the houses and 
 shops of some tradesmen of the obnoxious persuasion, 
 stripped them of whatever they contained, and then set 
 them on fire the inmates barely escaping with their 
 lives. Several other Catholics, particularly two or three 
 ladies, were insulted and threatened in the streets, and 
 obliged to take shelter in the castle. 
 
 Already, then, we see the character of the mob 
 changed. At first the sole passion by which they were, 
 or seemed to be, moved was a hatred of Popery, which 
 blinded them indeed to justice and common humanity, 
 but still did not permit them to add theft to their other 
 crimes. In truth, however, the thieves had been among 
 them at first as well as now ; they only kept their true 
 character and object concealed till they had helped the 
 deluded populace, with whom the riot commenced, to 
 bring about that state of universal confusion and terror 
 in which they might carry on their depredations. Such, 
 as we have already had occasion to remark, is the 
 natural course of a riot, begin how it may. 
 
 Finding no more of the poor Catholics worth the 
 plundering, the ringleaders of the mob now resolved to 
 seek other victims. Still leading on their followers, 
 therefore, by the cry of " No Popery," they took their 
 way to the houses of some of the most distinguished 
 Protestants who were known or believed to be favour- 
 able to the proposed mitigation of the Catholic dis- 
 abilities. It was now that they attacked the residence 
 of Principal Robertson, in the College. But they found 
 that gentleman so well prepared for their reception, a 
 number of his friends well armed having assembled to 
 defend him, that, after smashing a few windows, they 
 deemed it best to retire without attempting any further 
 outrage. They also went to the house of Mr. Crosbie,
 
 CH. n.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 39 
 
 an eminent advocate, who, it was understood, had been 
 employed to draw up the bill of relief; but here, also, 
 they were intimidated by the arrangements which had 
 been made for resisting them, and they did not venture 
 upon any actual violence. 
 
 During part of the night, the town was generally 
 tranquil at least the magistrates say that they walked 
 through many of the streets about three or four o'clock 
 in the morning, and found every thing quiet. But 
 the rioters, indeed, seem to have throughout the whole 
 affair always stopped proceedings till these gentlemen 
 had turned their backs. Between eight and nine on 
 Wednesday morning, however, information was brought 
 that the mob had again attacked the old chapel in 
 Blackfriars Wynd, from which they had been per- 
 suaded to retire the evening before. Some soldiers 
 were immediately dispatched to the place, who, the 
 magistrates tell us, not only dispersed the crowd, but 
 actually captured some women, with articles which 
 they had pilfered in their possession. The dispersion 
 of the crowd, however, it turns out, was not effected till 
 it could be done, we may suppose, with a very gentle 
 exertion of force, namely, after they had plundered the 
 house of everything it contained, destroying or carrying 
 away, along with other effects, a valuable library be- 
 longing to the bishop, and reduced the whole to a heap 
 of ruins. After taking their own time to commit all 
 this devastation, the soldiers looking quietly on all the 
 while, they were no doubt very easily dispersed. 
 
 The two " Pillars of Popery," however, having been 
 now pulled down, the mere zealots probably thought 
 that the affair had gone far enough. But they had 
 raised a tempest which was rather too strong for them 
 to guide. Their Protestant mob had turned to a mere 
 band of plunderers. They were attacking the shops in 
 
 E2
 
 40 POFULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 various parts of the town, which, in fact, seemed wholly 
 at their mercy. All who had anything to lose began to 
 be afraid. In these circumstances an additional military 
 force was sent for, and a proclamation was printed and 
 dispersed, announcing that, if the tumult should con- 
 tinue, the soldiers would now certainly fire. The mob, 
 however, do not seem to have greatly heeded this threat, 
 for the riot lasted all the day. The soldiers, indeed, 
 are stated to haA T e done what they could to protect the 
 shops that were attacked, but their services appear to 
 have been confined to an endeavour to keep off or to 
 terrify the assailants by merely showing themselves. 
 They were forced, we are told, to stand still, without 
 being allowed to use their arms, while the mob pelted 
 them with stones, by which many of them were severely 
 wounded.* 
 
 These dreadful disorders were not, in fact, put down 
 until the rioters had obtained the full concession of all 
 they demanded. The magistrates thought proper to 
 announce by proclamation to the triumphant, because 
 entirely unresisted mob, that their wishes would prevail, 
 and that no bill for the relief of the Catholics would be 
 brought into parliament. The Lord Provost, it was 
 declared, had received from London the most complete 
 assurance to this effect. It was hoped, therefore, the 
 proclamation went on to say, that there would now be 
 an end of those riotous proceedings which had arisen 
 from the misapprehensions of " well-meaning people." 
 Any future disorders, however, they added, would be 
 considered as proceeding " only from the wicked views 
 of bad and designing men ; " and would, therefore, be 
 repressed by the most vigorous measures. After this 
 nobody could deny that the mob were well entitled to 
 look upon themselves as having obtained a complete 
 * Annual Register for 1780, p. 30.
 
 en. ii.] RIOTS OF 1179-1780. 41 
 
 victory over their magistrates at least, if not over the 
 government of the country itself. Any doubt that 
 might remain upon this last head was removed a few 
 days after by the appearance on the walls of another 
 proclamation from the Lord Justice Clerk, the first cri- 
 minal judge in Scotland, intimating in still more decided 
 terms than the former one, that the Relief Bill would 
 not be brought in his Lordship, as he chose to inform 
 the people, having just had a letter conveying that 
 piece of intelligence from Lord Weymouth, Secretary of 
 State. Not a syllable was to be found in the paper 
 expressing any disapproval of the recent excesses. On 
 the contrary, the perpetrators of those outrages must 
 naturally have conceived that the motives at least of 
 their conduct were considered praiseworthy by the go- 
 vernment, so praiseworthy, that anything illegal they 
 might have done was on that account overlooked and 
 pardoned. They would be still more convinced of this 
 when, soon after, as we have already mentioned, all the 
 prisoners who had been taken in the riots were discharged 
 without being ever brought to trial. 
 
 The magistrates of Edinburgh took great credit to 
 themselves for the manner in which they had contrived 
 to allay these disturbances by gentle words, as they 
 would have made it out, instead of by the shedding of 
 blood. All good men will abhor bloodshed, and will 
 regard the destruction of human life, when not called 
 for by a great necessity, as one of the greatest of crimes. 
 Even in the suppression of a tumult, the employment of 
 fire-arms is not to be hastily resorted to, nor till all 
 other means of asserting the sovereignty of the law have 
 been tried and failed. But still, as the grand interest 
 of society, the law must be maintained in its authority, 
 even if it should be at the expense of the lives of some 
 of its violators. Let the daring wrong-doers have all 
 
 E3
 
 42 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I 
 
 manner of warning of the fate to which they expose 
 themselves ; let them be with all earnestness and anxiety 
 exhorted and besought to withdraw from a course which 
 is leading them to destruction ; but if after all this they 
 will persist in their wild attacks upon the rights of all 
 around them, pillaging every man's goods on which 
 they can lay their hands, or destroying with merciless 
 fury whatever they can approach, there is a necessity 
 for stopping their desolating progress, and such of them 
 as may perish in the contest which they have so reck- 
 lessly provoked have as little claim upon our pity or 
 regret as any malefactors whose crimes have ever 
 brought them to a violent death. 
 
 The Edinburgh mob no doubt went very far beyond 
 the views of those by whom it had been excited to pull 
 down the chapels, when it proceeded to the indiscrimi- 
 nate plunder of Catholic and Protestant, and seemed to 
 threaten the destruction of the whole city. But it was 
 not now to be subdued by the voice of the law ; the law 
 had been thrown down at its feet, and the only expe- 
 dients left for the restoration of the public tranquillity 
 were either the application of force now certain to be 
 met with a ferocious resistance, and to be followed by a 
 profuse waste of life, in proportion to the time that had 
 been lost and the weakness of the temporising measures 
 that had been adopted or the complete submission of 
 the authorities, and their concession of all the mob's de- 
 mands. The latter course was taken ; the magistrates 
 consented to enter into a formal treaty with the victorious 
 labble, and a few days afterwards the government of 
 the country ratified this disgraceful surrender. The 
 array of the rioters was thus broken up and dispersed ; 
 the complete triumph they had gained left them nothing 
 more to wish for ; quiet was restored to the streets, 
 which had lately rung with such terrific confusion and
 
 cir. in.] KIOTS OF 1119-1780. 43 
 
 uproar ; the two popish chapels, besides, were in ashes ; 
 the professors of that faith and their friends had been 
 terrified and humbled, and received a lesson which they 
 were not likely soon to forget ; and best of all, the 
 hated Catholic Relief Bill had been smothered before 
 seeing the light. It may perhaps be thought by some 
 that all these benefits were cheaply purchased at the 
 cost merely of a temporary prostration of the law : let 
 such as are disposed to take this view of the matter 
 mark what followed. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 No sooner had the news of what had taken place in 
 Scotland of the victory, as it was openly and truly 
 called, whicli the Protestant Committee there had ob- 
 tained over the Catholics reached the Society of the 
 same name whicli was established in London, than 
 these zealots seemed to have determined, if possible, to 
 rival the exploits of their northern brethren. Scotland, 
 by the spirit she had shown, had forced the government 
 to draw back from its intention of relieving the Catho- 
 lics, in so far as she was concerned ; and was England, it 
 was said, to submit to an indignity which Scotland had 
 successfully resisted ? The legislature must be forced 
 to retrace its steps, and repeal the law passed in the 
 last session of parliament. The work of stirring up the 
 passions of the people by the dissemination of inflam- 
 matory addresses was now pursued with new zeal and 
 activity. Every expedient was at the same time em- 
 ployed to augment the numbers of the Association, and 
 to gain an imposing notoriety for its proceedings. At
 
 44 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 the first institution of this body, as we have already 
 stated, it consisted of only a few obscure individuals, 
 whose meetings for a long time were nearly quite un- 
 noticed ; but now large crowds were wont to assemble 
 to hear their debates, and many were induced to in- 
 scribe their names as members. In these preparations 
 for the grand effort passed the summer of 1779; at 
 length, in the month of November of that year, the 
 heads of the Society conceived that their scheme was 
 sufficiently advanced to entitle them, by a new stroke, 
 to crown their rising importance. 
 
 Lord George Gordon, the brother of the Duke of 
 Gordon, then in his twenty-ninth year, had been for 
 some time in parliament, but had only of late begun to 
 distinguish himself by his vehement zeal for what he 
 called the Protestant interest. He had been a member 
 of the House of Commons when the bill for the relief of 
 the English Catholics passed ; but so far from opposing 
 this measure, he is said to have expressed his approval 
 of it. Another account, however, says, that he after- 
 wards excused himself for his silence on that occasion, 
 on the ground that he had not then " taken to speak- 
 ing." When he did take to speaking, which happened 
 soon after this, he made himself very remarkable by the 
 oddity of his style of oratory, as well as by many other 
 singularities of manner. He was, in fact, a source of 
 great amusement to the House, and was generally 
 looked upon by the sober-minded part of the community 
 as a little insane. However, as he had a great flow of 
 words, made a profuse use in all his harangues of the 
 language of scripture, and professed an extraordinary 
 zeal for the Protestant religion, and an equally bitter 
 hostility to the Catholics, he had already acquired for 
 himself considerable popularity, both among enthusiasts 
 of his own principles and with the more ignorant classes
 
 CH. III.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 45 
 
 of the nation in general. Other peculiarities in his si- 
 tuation and conduct, besides his bigotry against the 
 Catholics, contributed to recommend him to the popular 
 favour. His rank gave him consideration in the eyes 
 of the multitude, which was not diminished but rather 
 increased by his being known to be very poor ; espe- 
 cially as he was in the habit of boasting that he had 
 rejected several opportunities of mending his fortunes at 
 the expense of his principles. Then, his ardour in the 
 cause of Protestantism itself was scarcely more fierce 
 than that which he avowed on all occasions for the po- 
 litical rights and privileges of his humbler fellow- 
 countrymen. To these professions was added the studied 
 practice of various external affectations, such as the 
 artful demagogue generally finds useful for his purposes. 
 Contemporary accounts, for instance, describe him as 
 wearing his hair, by way of suiting his religious pre- 
 tensions, combed stiff and flat over his forehead and 
 temples, after the fashion of the old Puritans a singu- 
 larity which would look more ostentatious in those days 
 when it was usual for gentlemen to have their hair more 
 ornamentally dressed than now. Such a personage, 
 heated with zeal, not ungifted with talents of a certain 
 sort, and hungering after the distinction and power of a 
 popular leader, was just the man whom the Protestant 
 Association now wanted to head their proceedings. 
 Accordingly, on the 12th of November, the council 
 wrote Lord George a letter, soliciting him to become 
 their president ; and he at once accepted the proffered 
 honour.* He was now exactly in the situation which, 
 with his temper and ambition, he probably most coveted. 
 Unfortunately, it was also that in which, with such dis- 
 positions, his power of doing mischief was immense. 
 
 * Evidence of the Rev. E. Middleton on Trial of Lord George 
 Gordon Howel's State Trials, vol. xxi. p. 563.
 
 46 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 His lordship is said to have been an eye-witness of 
 the riots which had recently taken place at Edinburgh;* 
 and there can be little doubt as to the sort of impression 
 made upon his mind by the victory then obtained by the 
 rabble over the legislature. Indeed, the consequences 
 likely to flow from the feebleness shown by the govern- 
 ment on that occasion were foreseen by many persons 
 of very different principles from the president of the 
 Protestant Association. Very soon after the termination 
 of the Edinburgh riots, when it was announced by the 
 ministers in parliament that they no longer intended to 
 bring in the bill formerly spoken of for the relief of the 
 Scotch Catholics, they were warned that their submis- 
 sion to the dictation of the Edinburgh populace was 
 setting a fatal example to that of London : yet the go- 
 vernment proceeded in the same timid and short-sighted 
 course. An eminent member of parliament, having 
 moved that Catholics should be exempted in future from 
 a very absurd burthen which an old law had imposed 
 upon them namely, the obligation of paying certain 
 taxes twice over it was thought proper to resist this 
 reasonable proposal, not indeed by attempting to show 
 that it was other than reasonable, but on the hardly 
 disguised ground that, notwithstanding its justice, 
 it would displease the Protestant Associators, were it 
 adopted. In like manner, when a petition was pre- 
 sented from the Edinburgh Catholics, praying for com- 
 pensation for their losses in the late riots, even this 
 demand the ministers were not ashamed to meet by 
 moving the previous question ; that is to say, they did 
 not pretend that the claim was not a perfectly equitable 
 one, but only resisted its being taken into consideration 
 at all. In other words, the wrongs of these innocent 
 sufferers were to remain unredressed, because to notice 
 * Fanaticism and Treason, &c. 8vo. Lond. 1780.
 
 CH. III.] RIOTS OF 1119-1780. 4*7 
 
 them might probably give offence to those by whom 
 they had been inflicted. It would have been wonderful 
 indeed if all this mistaken lenity had not encouraged the 
 mob-leaders to further assaults upon the legislature 
 though the daring lengths to which they actually pro- 
 ceeded, and the lamentable scenes which attended the 
 renewed explosion of the popular fury certainly far ex- 
 ceeded all that any one had predicted or apprehended. 
 
 The Protestant club having got Lord George for 
 their president, exerted themselves now in their work of 
 inflaming the passions of the multitude with more acti- 
 vity and more success than ever. The attraction of his 
 lordship's name, no doubt, helped greatly to swell their 
 ranks. The grand scheme upon which they were for 
 the present intent was the getting up of a petition to 
 parliament for the repeal of the late Relief Bill. In 
 this, of course, there was nothing unconstitutional, or 
 for which any person had a right to blame them. They 
 were entitled to express their sentiments and wishes, be 
 they what they might, in this way, to the legislature, 
 and also to endeavour to give weight to their appeal by 
 procuring as many signatures to it as they could. But 
 the leading members of the Association, or at least a 
 majority of them, carried their views as to the means to 
 be taken, in order to obtain their demands, much farther 
 than this. Their plan was nothing else than to terrify, 
 or rather actually to compel, the parliament to grant 
 them what they sought, by the employment of physical 
 force by arraying an immense multitude of their fol- 
 lowers, and leading them against the two houses like an 
 invading army. It is true that they did not in so many 
 words declare such to be their design ; nay, that after 
 they had failed in their main object, arid were in danger 
 of being called to account by the law for the deplorable 
 mischiefs which their insane rashness had occasioned,
 
 48 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sKC. I. 
 
 they were most earnest in denying that any intention 
 either to force or to frighten the legislature had ever 
 entered their thoughts. But men's motives and pur- 
 poses must be judged by their acts, not by their profes- 
 sions or their apologies ; and, if we go by this safe rule, 
 we fear the facts about to be related can leave but one 
 opinion as to what was the real aim of the president of 
 the Protestant Association and his colleagues. 
 
 It was at a meeting held at a public-house called the 
 Crown and Rolls, on the 4th of May, 1780, (Holy 
 Thursday,) that it seems first to have been proposed 
 that the members of the Association should be called 
 upon to carry up their petition to the House of Commons 
 in a body. This meeting, however, was a thin one ; 
 Lord George himself was absent ; and nothing was de- 
 cided upon. According to a member of the committee, 
 when the proposal was made " there was a great deal of 
 confusion; some were for it, and some against it." Most 
 of the members of the committee, indeed, are asserted at 
 this time to have been inclined to put off the presenting 
 of the petition altogether till another session of parlia- 
 ment. If such was really their mind, they were not 
 long in being persuaded to adopt a different course. 
 Lord George having learned what was going forward 
 assembled them ; and " after two or three meetings," 
 says the witness we have just quoted, " they were so 
 convinced by his lordship's arguments of the expediency 
 of presenting the petition in the present session, that 
 they unanimously agreed to it." Another public meet- 
 ing was then advertised to take place on Monday, the 
 29th of the same month, in Coachmakers' Hall, Noble 
 Street. 
 
 Accordingly, on that day a very large crowd of people 
 convened in the appointed place. Lord George having 
 made his appearance took the chair, and immediately
 
 CH. m.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 49 
 
 proceeded to address the assembly. In the course of 
 his harangue, having read over a number of the old 
 penal laws against the Catholics, he told the people that 
 his Majesty, by giving his assent to the late Bill of Relief, 
 had broken his coronation oath, and brought himself to 
 the same pass in which James II. was after his abdica- 
 tion.* He reminded them of the success with which 
 the efforts of the Scotch had been crowned, and hoped 
 that no one of those who had signed the present petition 
 would be ashamed or afraid to show himself in the cause. 
 For his own part, he said, he was ready, if necessary, to 
 go to the gallows in it ; but he would not present the 
 petition of a lukewarm people ; if such was their dispo- 
 sition, they must find another president ; he would not 
 carry up the petition to the House of Commons unless 
 he were met on the occasion in St. George's Fields by 
 at least twenty thousand people ; if there should be one 
 man less, he would decline the office. He recommended 
 to them the example of the Scotch, who, by their firm- 
 ness, as he was pleased to call it, had carried their point; 
 and he begged them to remember that he was not asking 
 them to go into any danger which he would not himself 
 share.t 
 
 This address produced upon the audience the effect 
 that might have been expected. When his lordship, 
 telling them that he had been informed that many of 
 them were against going up with their petition, desired 
 to know from themselves if it were so, cries of " O no, 
 my lord; no, my lord," were immediately returned from 
 all parts of the hall.J He then formally moved that 
 they should all meet at the place he had named at ten 
 o'clock on the morning of the following Friday (the 
 
 * Evidence of William Hay. 
 
 f" Evidence of Mr. Metculf and Mr. Anstruther. 
 
 I Evidence of the Kcv. E. Middlutoii. 
 
 F
 
 50 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 2nd of June) that every petitioner and real Protestant 
 should wear a blue cockade in his hat and that, for 
 the better preservation of order, they should arrange 
 themselves in separate divisions, the Protestants of the 
 city of London placing themselves on the right, those of 
 the city of Westminster on the left, those of the borough 
 of Southwark forming a third body, and the Scotch re- 
 siding in London and its neighbourhood making the 
 fourth and last. These resolutions, as soon as they were 
 proposed, were carried by acclamation. They were im- 
 mediately afterwards printed, and posted up and dispersed 
 in all directions over the metropolis. 
 
 Lord George Gordon and his associates in these pro- 
 ceedings had no intention, it may be admitted, of over- 
 turning the existing institutions of the state, or of intro- 
 ducing the horrors of general confusion. But their 
 rashness, notwithstanding, was exceedingly foolish and 
 criminal. In the first place, it is perfectly evident that 
 they wished and expected, by means of their array of the 
 populace, to overawe the legislature into the granting of 
 the particular demand which they were about to urge ; 
 or for what purpose were the multitude to assemble at 
 all ? There may be some meaning and propriety in the 
 people collecting and forming into gay or imposing pro- 
 cessions on an occasion of national rejoicing, or any other 
 at which a mere show is appropriate ; but here no festive 
 display could be intended; the sole object manifestly 
 was a display of numbers and physical strength. Those 
 to whom the petition was addressed were known to be 
 almost to a man opposed to its prayer ; but it was hoped 
 that the sight of the vast army of its supporters, drawn 
 up in battalions, headed by their captains, and evidently 
 in earnest, would make them feel it to be prudent to 
 vote, not as they wished, but as they were desired. 
 That the views of Lord George and the other conveners
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 51 
 
 of the mob went to this extent, \ve think there can be no 
 doubt. He himself and some of the more heated of his 
 confederates, it is probable, looked even to something a 
 little way beyond this ; at least, the strange language 
 he used in regard to the example which had been set by 
 the Edinburgh rioters, and his own willingness to go to 
 the gallows in the cause, would incline one to suspect 
 that he would not have been sorry to see a popish chapel 
 or two pulled down or burnt by his followers before 
 they separated. But the grand mistake of these pre- 
 sumptuous zealots was the common one that is made by 
 all who think to work any good end through the agency 
 of mobs. They were letting loose a whirlwind which 
 was sure, ere long, to be as much beyond their control 
 as any tempest of the elements that ever raged. In 
 their printed advertisement they expressed their expec- 
 tation that a much larger crowd than even that men- 
 tioned by Lord George in his speech would assemble on 
 the occasion of presenting the petition ; " Inasmuch," 
 the paper began, " as no hall in London can contain 
 FORTY THOUSAND PERSONS ; " and then it went on in the 
 words of the motion to announce that the meeting would 
 be held in St. George's Fields, and to give directions as 
 to the cockades and the divisions. What was to be ex- 
 pected from so immense a gathering of people, animated 
 by one purpose, and inflamed as these Protestant peti- 
 tioners were known to be (such, indeed, was the boast 
 of their leaders) by the most intense zeal for their opi- 
 nions, what, we say, was to be expected, especially in 
 the event, which was in the highest degree probable, of 
 their demands being rejected, except disorder and tumult ? 
 The noble demagogue, it is true, at whose bidding they 
 were to assemble, had, we are told, according to the 
 form commonly observed in such cases, mixed up or 
 ended his fiery harangue about the example set them by 
 
 F2
 
 52 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 the Scotch with sundry exhortations to avoid all breaches 
 of the peace, and not even to return a blow if they 
 should receive one. " If they smite you," said his lord- 
 ship, in his usual pious style, " on the one cheek, turn 
 the other also."* But he could not be weak enough to 
 suppose that such crumbs of good advice would go any 
 great way in restraining the passions of his numerous 
 followers. Such as the recommendation was, it was 
 addressed only to a very few hundreds of the many thou- 
 sands who were expected to be present on the grand 
 day. But even if all the forty thousand members of the 
 Association had been well ascertained to be the most 
 peaceably disposed persons in the world (of which, how- 
 ever, they must themselves have had some doubts), who 
 or what was to prevent many others of a different temper 
 from mixing with their meek array ? The opportunity 
 was a tempting one for evil-intentioned persons of all 
 descriptions to endeavour to take advantage of; any 
 one had merely to put a bit of blue ribbon in his hat if 
 he wanted to be taken for one of the associators ; or he 
 might dispense with that ceremony, and come forth, as 
 well as they, to make confusion on his own account. 
 Disorderly characters in plenty were, in fact, sure to 
 be there, let the forty thousand petitioners demean 
 themselves as they might. Lord George, indeed, pro- 
 fessed a wonderful reliance on the orderly habits of his 
 followers. At the meeting on the 29th, when some 
 one expressed his fears that if they should assemble in 
 St. George's Fields at so early an hour as was pro- 
 posed, they might fall to drinking, his lordship an- 
 swered, that " the Protestant Association were not 
 drunken people, and he apprehended no danger on that 
 account." But, as we have said, many other persons 
 besides the members of this sober club were certain 
 * Evidence of Rev. E. Middleton.
 
 CH. m.] RIOTS or 1779-1780. 53 
 
 to be In the crowd; and for the character and dis- 
 positions of these strangers the noble lord could hardly 
 pretend to vouch. Besides, the associators them- 
 selves, it ought to have been considered, were to be ex- 
 posed on this occasion to unusually strong temptation ; 
 collected as they would be in great force, if a tumult 
 should by any chance spring up, and their own favourite 
 war-cry should be heard at its head, they too, soberly 
 and peaceably inclined as they ordinarily were, might 
 be caught by the contagious excitement, and borne along, 
 hardly knowing what they did, even into the very thick 
 of the plunder and devastation. Was it to be expected 
 that, agitated with indignation at the rejection of their 
 demands by the legislature, they should hear the in- 
 spiring yell of " No Popery" on every side of them, and 
 not rush to join the bands of wild avengers by whom it 
 was raised in their work of rage and destruction ? In 
 this way it is that riots, commence with whom they 
 may, have almost always swept into their vortex many 
 who, when they were first drawn to mix in the crowd, 
 little thought of the excesses and crimes in which they 
 were shortly to bear a part. What had lately taken 
 place in Scotland ought to have warned Lord George 
 and his friends of this danger. But that example, as 
 we have already seen, appears to have been taken by 
 them as anything rather than a warning, both in this 
 point of view and in every other. 
 
 We now proceed to detail the deplorable events which 
 all this reckless fanaticism brought about taking our 
 notices, as far as possible, from the statements of those 
 who were present, or the accounts which were drawn 
 up and published at the time. 
 
 By ten o'clock on the morning of Friday, the 2nd of 
 June, the multitude, as directed, had assembled in great 
 force in St. George's Fields. Their numbers are stated 
 
 F3
 
 54 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 to have amounted to forty or fifty thousand. Many of 
 them wore blue cockades ; and they were arranged, as 
 Lord George Gordon had desired, in four divisions, 
 under banners inscribed with the words " Protestant 
 Association," " No Popery ! " and other party mottos. 
 During the interval before Lord George made his ap- 
 pearance, they employed themselves in singing psalms 
 and hymns.* His lordship, however, did not keep them 
 very long waiting. A friend, who called on him this 
 morning at his house in Welbeck Street, about nine, 
 found him at breakfast, with his hat lying beside him 
 on the table, adorned with an immense blue cockade, 
 and his sword drawn near it.f He came in a coach to 
 St. George's Fields about eleven. He seems, on his 
 arrival, to have delivered a short address to those im- 
 mediately around him ; after which he drove off to the 
 House of Commons : the people at the same time leav- 
 ing the ground in three bodies, with the purpose of 
 crossing the river, and after marching through the heart 
 of the town, meeting again in Palace Yard, around the 
 Houses of Parliament. The first division accordingly 
 proceeded over London Bridge, the second over Black- 
 friars' Bridge, and the third over Westminster Bridge, 
 with colours flying and bagpipes playing. The petition 
 was carried before one of the divisions (which, is some- 
 what uncertain), on a man's head. During their march 
 the several bodies conducted themselves with perfect 
 decorum. By about half-past three they had all arrived 
 and taken their stations in Palace Yard. They cele- 
 brated their re-assembling here by giving a general 
 shout. 
 
 Before this time, however, symptoms of disorder had 
 begun to show themselves, if not among the members 
 of the Association, yet among the mixed crowd, who 
 * Fanaticism and Treason, &c. f Ibid.
 
 en. in.] RIOTS or 1779-1780. 55 
 
 had also gathered to the principal scene of proceedings. 
 Sir Philip Jennings Clerke, a member of the House of 
 Commons, who rode from St. George's Fields to West- 
 minster, between one and two, says, in his evidence, 
 " There was a vast number of people upon the road, 
 and many coining back from the Fields, for the great 
 body of them had marched away to the city ; but I met 
 vast numbers returning to the Fields, and many were 
 going from the Fields, and there were great numbers in 
 the Fields." As yet, the throng seemed to Sir Philip 
 to consist of the better sort of tradesmen : " They were 
 all," he says, " well-dressed decent sort of people." 
 Another witness, however, Alexander Fraser, tell us, 
 that so early as eleven o'clock many of the persons who 
 were assembled in groups on Westminster Bridge were 
 in liquor. These persons had all blue cockades ; but 
 Fraser, who was himself a member of the Association, 
 is unwilling to allow that any of them were his fellow- 
 members. Between three and four, when the Asso- 
 ciation came up (we suppose he means the last squadron 
 of the petitioners), " these people," he says, " were 
 going along the bridge promiscuously, in the greatest 
 confusion ; I suppose a hundred of them were passing 
 continually both from the Borough and to the Bo- 
 rough." He adds, that when he asked them if they 
 were of the Association, " one, with a great stick, who 
 seemed to be in liquor, held up his stick, and said, 
 ' No, damn it, this is all our Association.' " 
 
 The thieves and others whose interest it was to create 
 disorder were probably, in fact, already at work. Of 
 course, however, their plan was to assume the popular 
 colours, to vociferate the popular watch-words, and to 
 confound themselves in every other way with those who 
 formed the bulk of the multitude, that they might draw 
 in the latter to aid them in their attempts to produce com-
 
 56 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 motion ; just as at Bristol, a few years ago, the per- 
 sons who led on the populace to the perpetration of the 
 terrible outrages of which that city was the scene, de- 
 luded the crowds in which they mixed, first to applaud 
 and then to join in their violence, by being louder than 
 any body else in bawling out Reform ! and hissing at 
 and reviling Sir Charles Wetherell. These are the 
 well-known ways by which collected masses of people 
 are inflamed, and transformed from quiet and orderly 
 assemblies into ungovernable mobs. But, indeed, from 
 other causes, as well as the one just mentioned, the 
 multitude was now fast falling into disorder. The more 
 idle and unsteady members of the different bands were, 
 in all likelihood, by this time beginning to tire of merely 
 marching about and standing still. The day had been 
 excessively hot, and many we may suppose were now 
 seeking refreshments after their fatigue, and indulging 
 themselves on such an occasion with perhaps less mo- 
 deration than they might have been expected to dis- 
 play. Besides, in the state of excitement in which they 
 were, every moment they remained together, contem- 
 plating their formidable numbers and brooding over the 
 imaginary grievances they came to redress, was of itself 
 increasing the fermentation of their spirits and ripening 
 them for tumult and violence. 
 
 Their first outrages were committed upon the persons 
 of several members of the two Houses of Parliament. 
 They obliged almost all who passed to put blue cockades 
 in their hats, and to call out " No Popery ! " " Some 
 they compelled," says one account, " to take oaths to 
 vote for the repeal of the obnoxious Act ; others they 
 insulted in the most indecent and violent manner. They 
 took possession of all the avenues up to the very doors 
 of both Houses of Parliament, which they twice 
 attempted to force open. The Archbishop of York was
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1719-1780. 57 
 
 one of the first they attacked : as soon as his coach was 
 known coming down Parliament Street he was saluted 
 with hisses, groans, and hootings. The Lord President 
 of the Council, Lord Bathurst, they pushed about in the 
 rudest manner, and kicked violently on the legs. Lord 
 Mansfield had the glasses of his carriage broken, the 
 pannels beat in, and narrowly escaped with life. The 
 Duke of Northumberland had his pocket picked of his 
 watch. The Bishop of Litchfield had his gown torn. 
 The wheels of the Bishop of Lincoln's carriage were 
 taken off, and his lordship escaped with life, being 
 obliged to seek shelter in the house of Mr. Atkinson, an 
 attorney, where he changed his clothes, and made his 
 escape over the leads of the adjacent houses. The 
 Lords Townshend and Hilsborough came together, and 
 were greatly insulted, and sent into the House without 
 their bags, and with their hair hanging loose on their 
 shoulders. The coach of Lord Storm ont was broken to 
 pieces, himself in the hands of the mob for near half an 
 hour; he was rescued at last by a gentleman, who 
 harangued the mob and prevailed on them to desist. 
 Lords Ashburnham and Boston were treated with the 
 utmost indignity, particularly Lord Boston, who was so 
 long in their power, that it was proposed by some of the 
 Peers to go as a body and endeavour by their presence 
 to extricate him ; but whilst they were deliberating his 
 lordship escaped without any material hurt. Lord 
 AVilloughby de Broke, Lord St. John, Lord Dudley, 
 and many others, were personally ill-treated ; and 
 Mr. Welbore Ellis was obliged to take refuge in the 
 Guildhall of Westminster, whither he was pursued, 
 the windows of which were broke, the doors forced, and 
 Justice Addington with all the constables expelled: 
 Mr. Ellis escaped with the utmost hazard." * 
 * Annual Register, vol. xxiii. p. 258.
 
 58 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 But the chief scene of turbulence and outrage was the 
 lobby of the House of Commons. So many of the 
 crowd had forced themselves into this apartment as 
 completely to fill it, and to make it almost impossible 
 for the members to enter or leave the house by the usual 
 door. The conduct of the persons collected here grew 
 more and more riotous every moment. They kept up a 
 constant noise by means of one cry or another, and 
 chiefly by merely chiming over and over the words 
 " Lord George Gordon ! Lord George Gordon ! " When 
 the Speaker appeared, as he with difficulty made his 
 way into the House, they assailed him with a deafening 
 clamour of " Repeal ! Repeal ! " Every other member 
 who ventured among them was pursued by the same 
 cry. After some time it was with the utmost difficulty 
 that the door-keepers could keep them back from pressing 
 the doors open and rushing into the House. Sir Philip 
 Clerke, whose evidence as to the respectable appearance 
 of the generality of the crowd in the earlier part of the 
 afternoon we have already quoted, tells us that those 
 who now filled the lobby did not seem to him, either 
 from their appearance or behaviour, to be the same sort 
 of people he had seen in St. George's Fields. They 
 struck him as being " a lower kind of people," he says ; 
 " more a mob of blackguards." He went out two or 
 three times to the gallery or staircase over the lobby, 
 and looked down upon the crowd, " but the stench," he 
 adds, " from the bottom was so bad, nobody would have 
 chosen to have stayed long." Another witness, Sir 
 James Lowther, who was in the lobby after the people 
 had left it, tells us there was still " a prodigious smell" 
 there, which made it excessively disagreeable. How- 
 ever, these persons are stated to have almost all worn 
 blue cockades ; so that, if they did not actually be- 
 long to the Protestant Association, they at least found
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 59 
 
 it convenient to pretend that they did, and may be 
 therefore said to have been, to all intents and purposes, 
 an Association mob. It is evident that, by assuming 
 the common badge, they secured the forbearance, if not 
 the actual favour and co-operation, of Lord George's 
 numerous followers of whom we do not hear that any 
 one lent the least assistance to put down their turbu- 
 lence, notwithstanding the recommendation his lordship 
 is said to have given them to be the first to aid the au- 
 thorities in capturing whosoever should show any dis- 
 position to riot. But it is likely that many of the 
 persons who now besieged the doors of parliament were 
 actually what they pretended to be members of the 
 Association. Many who left their homes in the morning 
 without any mischievous intention would be drawn on, 
 as the general excitement increased, and the example of 
 others led the way, from one manifestation of angry 
 feeling to another, until they found themselves at last 
 irretrievably embarked in the work of illegal violence, 
 and driving along in the full tide of tumult and insur- 
 rection. 
 
 Lord George showed by his conduct that he looked 
 upon these rioters in the lobby as his own Protestant 
 mob. When the House first met, a debate naturally 
 arose on the extraordinary situation in which the legis- 
 lature was placed, thus blockaded and all but actually 
 attacked by the populace. Lord George afterwards 
 brought up his petition, which he described as signed by 
 a hundred and twenty thousand persons, and moved 
 that it should be taken into consideration immediately. 
 This motion was warmly opposed, and in the course of 
 the debate which ensued several members expressed 
 themselves very indignantly on the state of subjection 
 in which it was attempted to place them to the orders 
 of a tyrannic mob. During this discussion, Lord George
 
 60 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 went repeatedly to the door of the House, and announced 
 to the crowd in the lobby the names of the speakers 
 who were opposing the immediate consideration of the 
 petition. In thus pointing out objects for the popular 
 vengeance, he would remark with characteristic insidi- 
 ousness, " I give you no advice as to what you should 
 do; only be temperate and firm." One would think 
 that in the circumstances his lordship need not have 
 been so sparing of his advice ; his hearers, conducting 
 themselves as they were doing, might have been the 
 better for a few good counsels from one to whom they 
 were wiling to listen. At another time, coming out to 
 the gallery overhead, he told them that they had been 
 called a mob within the House ; and again, bidding 
 them to recollect how the Scotch by their steadiness 
 and firmness had carried their point, said he had no 
 doubt his Majesty would send to his ministers, desiring 
 them to repeal the act when he found the confusion it 
 created. AVhen several of the people called to him to 
 say if he wished them to disperse, he told them that 
 they were themselves the best judges of what they ought 
 to do ; but added, that if the consideration of their peti- 
 tion was deferred, as their adversaries proposed, till the 
 following Tuesday, the parliament might be in the mean 
 time prorogued or dissolved. This was a tolerably plain 
 intimation to them that their only chance of obtaining 
 their object was to endeavour to force it from the House 
 before they withdrew and in that sense his words were 
 taken. The people, instead of departing, became more 
 riotous than ever. The noise they made was so great, 
 that for some hours all speaking in the House was im- 
 possible, and the members sat still in their places, an 
 assembly of silent and helpless prisoners. They could 
 not even divide upon the motion which had been made, 
 the forms requiring that the voters on one side of the
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 61 
 
 question should separate themselves from their oppo- 
 nents by going into the lobby, which was crammed 
 nearly to suffocation by the crowd. Meanwhile some 
 members endeavoured to address the mob from the 
 gallery stairs, but were not listened to. Others appealed 
 to Lord George to use his influence to induce the people 
 to disperse, but with as little success as the former had 
 found in trying to reach the reason of the excited rabble. 
 To an earnest request to that effect from the chaplain 
 of the House his lordship made no reply, but left the 
 room where he was, and going to the gallery made a 
 speech to those below about the attempt that had been 
 made to introduce a Popery Bill into Scotland. " The 
 Scotch," said he, " had no redress till they pulled down 
 the mass-houses ; Lord Weymouth then sent official 
 assurances that the act should not be extended to them, 
 and why should they be better off than you ? " When 
 one of his relations, General Grant, a member of the 
 House, came behind him, as he was going on at this 
 rate, and implored him for God's sake not to lead the 
 poor people into danger, he merely called the attention 
 of his auditors to the interruption he had met with as 
 an instance of the difficulties he had to encounter in 
 pursuing the path of his duty from " the wise men of 
 this world." Another of his relations, Colonel Gordon, 
 appealed to him in a somewhat different tone, and 
 perhaps with more effect. " My Lord George," said 
 he, "do you intend to bring your rascally adherents 
 into the House of Commons ? If you do, the first man 
 of them that enters, I will plunge my sword, not into 
 his, but into your body." 
 
 It was found necessary, at last, to send for the mili- 
 tary; and between eight and nine o'clock a party of 
 Horse and Foot Guards arrived under the command of
 
 62 POPULAR TUMUJ/TS. [sEC. I. 
 
 Justice Addington. On the appearance of this force 
 the mob dispersed. 
 
 They only left this scene of action, however, to commit 
 still greater outrages elsewhere. Duly remembering 
 their president's repeated exhortations touching the ex- 
 ample of the Scotch and the destruction of mass-houses, 
 they immediately proceeded, some to the Sardinian 
 Ambassador's Chapel in Duke Street, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, others to that of the Bavarian Ambassador in 
 Warwick Street, Golden Square. Both of these build- 
 ings they almost entirely demolished. A witness, who 
 saw them at work in Duke Street about ten o'clock, 
 tells us, that of the persons who were within the chapel 
 and engaged in the work of destruction none had any 
 blue cockades in their hats ; the one who was most 
 active, indeed, had no hat at all; but he saw many 
 people with blue cockades standing in the street, look- 
 ing on, arid encouraging the actual perpetrators of 
 the mischief. These thoughtless zealots were the true 
 authors of the devastation which they thus senselessly 
 applauded, and which could not have been carried 
 on but for their countenance and support. Another 
 witness, Mr. Rainforth, who was at the same place 
 at a later hour about half past eleven says, " I made 
 my way into the chapel ; it was not then on fire ; they 
 had torn down the organ, and had made fires in the 
 street; some were throwing the inside of the chapel 
 out, and other people threw it into the fire ; there were 
 not above five or six people in the chapel." This 
 witness had the courage to seize one of these persons, a 
 young fellow, by the collar. " Mr. Maberly," he says, 
 " who was along with me, joined me ; we brought him 
 almost as far out of the mob as Mr. Carpue's, a silk- 
 dyer's door ; some of the mob said of me, ' Damn him,
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1*779-1780. 63 
 
 that is the late high constable, knock him on the head; ' 
 then they rescued the man." The witness made his 
 escape with great difficulty, and immediately proceeded 
 to Somerset House Barracks, where he obtained a party 
 of a hundred men armed with bayonets from General 
 Winyard, the commanding officer of the Guards. He 
 at the same time directed Mr. Maberly to get together 
 a number of the Westminster constables, and, returning 
 to the chapel, to seize some of the ringleaders, in the 
 performance of which duty he would come and support 
 him with the soldiers. " Upon my going up," he con- 
 tinues, " I desired every person in the chapel might be 
 taken into custody. The gentlemen there thought I 
 understood something of rioting business. I formed the 
 soldiers round three deep, and made a prison in the 
 street." The result was, that the mob were eventually 
 dispersed, and thirteen prisoners taken, who were lodged 
 in the Savoy. 
 
 At Warwick Street the military had also to be called 
 out. Mr. Hyde, a justice of the peace, proceeded thither 
 about twelve o'clock at night, with a party of twenty 
 soldiers under his command. When he entered the 
 street, he found it filled with a vast number of people 
 having blue cockades in their hats. On getting to the 
 front of the chapel, he saw a man bringing a portion of 
 the furniture out for the purpose, probably, of burning 
 it in one of the bonfires in the street. " I struck at 
 him," says Mr. Hyde, " knocked him down, and sent 
 him to the watchhouse." The inside of the chapel, 
 however, was by this time completely sacked. At both 
 these scenes of devastation the crowd kept up the cry of 
 "No Popery! Down with it!" while the destruction 
 of the building was going forward. 
 
 These were the principal acts of riot which were per- 
 petrated this night. On the following day (Saturday)
 
 64 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 there were few or no disturbances, and it was generally 
 imagined that the mob had been completely put down 
 by the check it had received. So confidently was this 
 opinion entertained, that no precautions seem to have 
 been taken either by tae government or by the magis- 
 tracy against the renewal of the tumults. The rioters 
 who had been taken were examined in the morning at 
 one of the police offices ; one was discharged, and the 
 rest were remanded back to prison till Monday. 
 
 The mob, however, and their ringleaders had no in- 
 tention of terminating their operations quite so soon. 
 Indeed, although they attempted scarcely any actual 
 outrage during this day, they did not disband, but 
 paraded about through different streets of the town 
 in great force. This might have put the authorities 
 more on their guard, and have made them provide 
 themselves with the means of effectually preserving the 
 public peace against any attempt that might be made to 
 break it. While they were doing nothing, the mob- 
 leaders were, no doubt, concerting their plans actively 
 enough. It was not reasonably to be expected that they 
 should stop, after having gone so far, without going 
 farther. They had accomplished quite enough to give 
 them a notion of how much they could effect, and of 
 the extent of popular favour and aid they might count 
 upon ; their dispersion by the military at the two chapels 
 had only taken place after they had finished, or all but 
 finished, the work they came to do, and could hardly be 
 regarded as a victory gained over them by the public 
 authorities. The only thing that could have greatly 
 galled them in the result of these affairs, or impressed 
 them with any sense of having sustained a defeat, was 
 the circumstance of several of their comrades having 
 been captured. One of their main objects now, accord- 
 ingly, seems to have been to rescue these prisoners from
 
 CH. m.J RIOTS OF 1*779-1 780. 65 
 
 the hands of justice, and to avenge themselves on the 
 individuals who had been principally instrumental in 
 seizing them. 
 
 This was not, however, the first work to which they 
 applied themselves. On Sunday afternoon they again 
 broke out into actual violence in a quarter of the city at 
 a considerable distance from the scene of their former 
 exploits, namely, in the district of Moorfields, the part 
 of London in which the greatest number of Catholics 
 resided. They here destroyed both a Popish chapel 
 and several houses belonging to persons of that persua- 
 sion. Some accounts, indeed, speak of several chapels 
 as well as houses of the Catholics having on this occa- 
 sion fallen a sacrifice to their fury. " They stripped 
 their houses," says one writer, " of furniture, and their 
 chapels not only of the ornaments and insignia of reli- 
 gion, but tore up the altars, pulpits, pews, and benches, 
 and made huge fires of them, leaving nothing but the 
 bare walls, and in many places not even them."* All 
 this was done in open day, in the presence of a large 
 multitude of people, many of whom cheered the perpe- 
 trators with the cry of " No Popeiy ! " although others, 
 no doubt, looked on their conduct with the abhorrence 
 it deserved. But the entire inactivity of those whose 
 duty it especially was to protect the property of the un- 
 offending sufferers discouraged all others from attempting 
 to interfere. The soldiers were indeed brought out, but 
 only to grace the scene of devastation by standing by 
 and doing nothing. No magistrate would take upon 
 himself the responsibility of ordering them to act. Thus 
 employed, it would have been much better that they had 
 
 * ' A Plain and Succinct Narrative of the Late Riots,' &c., by 
 William. Vincent. This account was really written by Thomas 
 Holcroft, the well-known novelist and dramatist, under whose 
 name, therefore, we shall in future refer to itt 
 
 a3
 
 66 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 not made their appearance at all. " The mob," says 
 one writer, "knew the military did not dare to fire 
 without the command of the civil power. The military, 
 seeing they were not to be used effectually, endeavoured 
 to keep upon good terms with those who might with 
 impunity, as they did in many places, pull their noses 
 and spit in their faces. Hence reports at the time, as if 
 the soldiery had in some measure joined with the mob." 5 
 These men were, in fact, openly making war upon 
 society. The crimes which they were perpetrating 
 greatly exceeded others for which the law would have 
 held the person against whom their fury was directed 
 justified in resisting them with bloodshed. If any one 
 of those poor Catholics, whose dwellings were thus 
 mercilessly sacked and demolished, had shot a dozen 
 of his assailants dead in attempting to defend his pro- 
 perty against them, neither in the view of the law nor 
 in that of common sense would he have been regarded 
 as having done anything more than he had a perfect 
 right to do. Yet this crew of wholesale destroyers 
 and plunderers were to be allowed to continue their 
 devastations undisturbed, under the very muzzles of 
 the soldiers' guns. What gave them a claim to this 
 extraordinary indulgence ? Not the insignificant amount 
 of their ravages : the worst burglaries could have occa- 
 sioned nothing like the extent of waste and ruin which 
 they were spreading around them. Not any readiness 
 which they showed to acknowledge and submit to the 
 authority of the law when called upon to discontinue 
 their excesses, even on pain of instant death ; they 
 laughed at this threat, and proceeded with the wild work 
 they had in hand under the very eye of the law, daring 
 it to do its worst. But the motives from which they 
 acted, some will say, gave them a title to compassion. 
 * Fanaticism and Treason, &c. p. 51.
 
 CH. III.] RIOTS OF 1179-1180. 67 
 
 On the contrary, passions more dangerous to society 
 than those which instigated these furious and reckless 
 rioters cannot be named or imagined. They were such 
 as could not be allowed to rage uncontrolled without all 
 society being quickly torn in pieces. The outcry that 
 is so often raised when a mob is put down by force is 
 one of the weakest or most dishonest of the clamours of 
 faction. The persons from whom we hear this senseless 
 cant are almost always the more intemperate or more 
 ignorant partizans of those opinions which the mob was 
 understood to favour persons, in other words, who 
 differ from those that actually composed the mob only 
 in this, that, with the same spirit of intolerance and 
 violence, they have been prevented by want of courage 
 from exposing themselves to the same dangers. They 
 are the cowardly and sneaking instigators of the crime 
 which they prefer that others should take the risk of ex- 
 ecuting. It is, indeed, very natural that, after having 
 done their best to excite the populace to disorder, such 
 persons should inveigh against the employment of the 
 severe means necessary to put them down. This is 
 another display of their zeal which they may make with 
 perfect safety to themselves. But when people thus ex- 
 press a silly or affected horror at the adoption of energetic 
 measures against a mob at the commencement of its 
 career of outrage, they are in reality objecting to the only 
 humane course to be followed. The tumult must be 
 met and suppressed at one stage or another; if not 
 resisted with decision ?.t first, it will spread and become 
 more terrible every moment ; not only mil the devasta- 
 tion committed by the rioters be prodigiously augmented, 
 but their numbers will rapidly grow more formidable, 
 their phrenzy more inflamed, their courage more bold, 
 reckless, and desperate, and their strength in every way 
 more obstinate and difficult to be subdued. Yet, after
 
 68 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 all, subdued they must be ; highly excited as they are, 
 flushed with victory, intoxicated with wine, hardened 
 against the thought of yielding by the plunder they 
 have accumulated, their front of defiance must at last 
 be overthrown by the most crushing force that the law 
 can command. The military execution, which, earlier 
 applied, would have cost but a few lives, is now a pro- 
 tracted and wide-spread carnage. This is all that hu- 
 manity gains in the end from any indulgence accorded 
 to the first determined efforts of a mob to overthrow 
 the law, whether that forbearance spring from a mis- 
 taken tenderness of disposition, or, as much more fre- 
 quently happens, from sympathy, in those whose duty 
 it is to protect the public peace, with the passions by 
 which the mob are actuated. These truths will be 
 found to be abundantly illustrated by the sequel of the 
 narrative with which we are now engaged. 
 
 On Monday the rioters continued their outrages. 
 Returning to the different chapels which they had 
 already sacked, as if in contempt of the authorities, 
 they completed the work of demolition wherever there 
 remained anything more to destroy. Some of them 
 bore various fragments of the furniture of these build- 
 ings, in a sort of triumphal procession, from Moorfields 
 to Lord George Gordon's house in Welbeck Street; 
 ending the ceremony by making a bonfire of them in 
 the neighbouring fields. They also proceeded to Vir- 
 ginia Lane, Wapping, and Nightingale Lane, East 
 Smithfield, and destroyed the Catholic chapels there. 
 
 The reports in the newspapers of the examination of 
 'the prisoners taken on Friday having by this time in- 
 formed them of the names of the individuals by whom 
 they had been captured, they next went to the house of 
 Mr. Rainforth, in Stanhope Street, Clare Market, and to 
 that of Mr. Maberly, in Little Queen Street, Lincoln's
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 69 
 
 Inn Fields, stripped them of every thing they contained, 
 and made bonfires of the furniture in the streets. They 
 finished the work of the day by attacking and treating 
 in the same manner the house of Sir George Saville, 
 member of parliament for the county of York, in Lei- 
 cester Square. The offence of this gentleman, one of 
 the most sterling patriots and upright characters that 
 ever did honour to the name of Englishman, was his 
 having moved the Bill for the Relief of the Catholics. 
 
 We thus see the riot, in pursuance of the natural and 
 usual course of such movements, breaking over the 
 boundaries within which it seemed at first disposed to 
 confine itself, and directing its rage against one object 
 after another, lying quite out of its original range. Sir 
 George Saville's house might have been attacked 
 on Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday, as well as now; 
 but the mob had not then contemplated the notion of 
 carrying their violence against Popery to this extent. 
 Their views were then bounded to the destruction of the 
 chapels : now, however, that they had begun to enlarge, 
 they were likely soon to take in a still wider field. Of 
 this the government seems at last to have become sen- 
 sible ; for on this day a proclamation was issued, offering 
 a reward of 500/. for the discovery of the persons con- 
 cerned in the demolishing and settiug fire to the Sar- 
 dinian and Bavarian chapels. Notwithstanding, how- 
 ever, that the town might now be said to have been in 
 the possession of the rioters for more than three days, 
 it does not appear that any more decided measures were 
 adopted to put them down. 
 
 Their audacity and violence, as might have been ex- 
 pected, increased under this treatment. On Tuesday 
 afternoon and evening the most terrible excesses were 
 perpetrated. Notwithstanding that a considerable mili- 
 tary force was stationed around and on the way to the
 
 70 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 Houses of Parliament, several of the members were 
 again insulted and maltreated in the grossest manner. 
 Indeed, the mob by this time seem to have got over all 
 apprehensions of the interference of the soldiers. Early 
 in the afternoon several thousands of them made their 
 way down Whitehall and Parliament Street to Palace 
 Yard, shouting out " No Popery ! " having flags borne 
 before them, and brandishing oaken sticks. This ap- 
 pears to have been the first occasion on which they were 
 thus armed. As before, they were mostly decorated with 
 blue cockades in their hats. As the coaches of the mem- 
 bers made their appearance, some were allowed to pass 
 on after having had the words " No Popery ! " chalked 
 upon them ; others it was attempted to stop altogether. 
 Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was 
 in particular severely injured. Mr. Hyde, a Justice of 
 the Peace, who was in command of a small party of 
 light horse, stationed at Charing-Cross, having received 
 intimation that his lordship was in the hands of the 
 crowd, immediately hastened to his rescue. They found 
 him, at the end of Parliament Street, cut on the head, 
 and with the glasses of his carriage broken. " One 
 man," says Mr. Hyde, " a resolute, impudent fellow, 
 had a stick with a large head, with a leather apron or 
 something twisted round the top of it ; he said, ' If he 
 did not murder him then, he would before he had done 
 with him."' The soldiers, however, succeeded in res- 
 cuing his lordship, and conducted him back to his 
 house. They also attempted to disperse the mob ; but 
 when they began to ride among them, one of the per- 
 sons, bearing a flag, named James Jackson, hoisted his 
 ensign, and called out " To Hyde's house a-hoy ! " On 
 which, some hundreds of them followed him to that 
 gentleman's residence in St. Martin's Street. They 
 were not long in pulling it down, and destroying every
 
 CH. III.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 71 
 
 thing it contained. When they had finished this work, 
 Jackson again displayed his flag, and calling out, 
 " A-hoy for Newgate ! " headed them in a general rush 
 to that prison.* 
 
 Their professed object in attacking Newgate was to 
 effect the release of their comrades who were confined 
 there. We will quote the desciiption of the attack from 
 one of the narratives before us. 
 
 " When they arrived at the door of the prison, they 
 demanded of Mr. Akerman, the keeper, to have their 
 comrades immediately delivered up to them ; and upon 
 his persisting to do his duty, by refusing, they began, 
 some to break the windows, some to batter the doors 
 and entrances into the cells with pickaxes and sledge- 
 hammers, others with ladders to climb the vast walls, 
 while others collected firebrands, and whatever com- 
 bustibles they could find, and flung into his dwelling- 
 house. What contributed more than anything to the 
 spreading of the flames was the great quantity of house- 
 hold furniture, belonging to Mr. Akerman, which they 
 threw out of the windows, piled up against the doors, 
 and set fire to ; the force of which presently communi- 
 cated to the house, from the house to the chapel, and 
 from thence, by the assistance of the mob, all through 
 the prison. A party of constables, nearly to the amount 
 of a hundred, came to the assistance of the keeper; 
 these the mob made a lane for, and suffered to pass till 
 they were entirely encircled, when they attacked them 
 with great fury, broke their staffs and converted them 
 into brands, which they hurled about wherever the fire, 
 which was spreading very fast, had not caught. It is 
 almost incredible to think that it were possible to de- 
 stroy a building of such amazing strength and extent 
 
 * Evidence of Mr. Hyde and Mr. Norton on trial of Loid 
 George Gordon.
 
 72 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 with so much swiftness as they accomplished this. As 
 soon as the flames had destroyed Mr. Akerman's house, 
 which was part of Newgate, and were communicated to 
 the wards and cells, all the prisoners, to the amount of 
 three hundred, among whom were four under sentence 
 of death, and ordered for execution on the Thursday fol- 
 lowing, were released. The activity of the mob was in 
 this instance, as well as every other, amazing. They 
 dragged out the prisoners, many of them by the hair of 
 the head, by the legs, or arms, or whatever part they 
 could lay hold of. They broke open the doors of the 
 different entrances, as easily as if they had all their 
 lives been acquainted with the intricacies of the place, 
 to let the confined escape. Great numbers were let out 
 at the door that leads to the Sessions-house ; and so well 
 planned were all the manoeuvres of these desperate ruf- 
 fians, that they had placed sentinels at the avenues to 
 prevent any of the prisoners from being conveyed to 
 other jails. Thus was the strongest and most durable 
 prison in England, that had been newly erected, and 
 was not yet finished, and in the building of which the 
 nation had expended immense sums, demolished, the 
 bare walls excepted, which were too thick and strong 
 to yield to the force of fire in the space of a few 
 hours." * 
 
 Another writer tells us, that on Mr. Akerman's re- 
 fusal to open his doors, " A little boy was lifted up (the 
 method they used to fire all the prisons), who stuck five 
 or six handfuls of tow, dipped in turpentine, upon the 
 door. At the first touch of fire the door was in flames, 
 which instantly communicated." f The building thus 
 destroyed had just been erected at the cost of 140,000/. 
 
 The New Prison, Clerkenwell, was also broken open 
 this evening, and all the prisoners set at large. Attacks 
 * Jlolcroft. f Fanaticism and Treason.
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1*779-1780. 73 
 
 were likewise made upon several other private houses 
 that of Justice Cox, in Great Queen Street, was de- 
 stroyed ; that of Sir John Fielding, the magistrate, was 
 stripped of whatever it contained ; and some, inhabited 
 by Catholics, in Devonshire Street, Red-Lion Square, 
 were treated in the same manner. But the most la- 
 mentable of all the acts of destruction yet perpetrated 
 by these infuriated ruffians was that with which they 
 closed the day of madness and crime the entire demo- 
 lition of the residence of Lord Mansfield, the venerable 
 Lord Chief Justice, in Bloomsbury Square. They 
 came here soon after twelve o'clock at night, and im- 
 mediately proceeded to force their way into the house. 
 " They began," says one account, " by breaking down 
 the doors and windows ; and from every part of the 
 house flung the superb furniture into the street, where 
 large fires were made to destroy it. They then pro- 
 ceeded to his lordship's law-library, &c., and destroyed 
 some thousand volumes, with many capital manuscripts, 
 mortgages, papers, and other deeds. The rich ward- 
 robe of wearing-apparel, and some very capital pictures, 
 were also burned ; arid they afterwards forced their way 
 into his lordship's wine-cellars, and plentifully bestowed 
 it on the populace. A party of Guards now arrived, 
 and a magistrate read the Riot Act, and then was 
 obliged to give orders for a detachment to fire, when 
 about fourteen obeyed, and shot several men and wo- 
 men, and wounded others. They were ordered to fire 
 again, whicli they did without effect. This did not in- 
 timidate the mob ; they began to pull the house down, 
 and burn the floors, planks, spars, &c., and destroyed 
 the outhouses and stables ; so that, in a short time, 
 the whole was consumed. Lord and Lady Mansfield 
 made their escape, through a back door, a few minutes 
 
 H
 
 74 POPULAR. TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 before the rioters broke in and took possession of the 
 house."* 
 
 A gentleman, who, on the first irruption of the mob, 
 conducted Lady Mansfield to a house in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, on his return to Bloomsbury Square, found the 
 detachment of the Guards arrived : on requesting the 
 officer, however, to enter the house with his men, he 
 was told in reply, that the justices of the peace had all 
 run away, and that consequently it was impossible for 
 the military to act.t It seems, in fact, to have been 
 some hours after this before a magistrate was found ; 
 and during the time that was thus lost the fury of the 
 mob was increased to such a pitch by the liquor they 
 had drunk, that, when the soldiers at last fired, even 
 the sight of their companions falling dead beside them 
 produced little or no effect. The business certainly 
 could not have been worse managed. This, it will be 
 observed, was the first time the rioters had transformed 
 themselves almost into actual madmen by drink ; and 
 it was when they were in this state, careless of what 
 befell them and almost unconscious of what they were 
 doing, that the authorities, hitherto so patient, for the 
 first time determined to use force against them. How 
 much more effective, in the way of intimidation and 
 repression, would something like this vigour have been 
 if earlier resorted to how much less cruel in reality to 
 its infatuated objects themselves ! 
 
 The scene here appears to have been altogether ter- 
 rific in the extreme. The violence and ferocity of the 
 ruffians, armed with sledge-hammers and other instru- 
 ments of destruction, who burst into the house the 
 
 * Annual Register, vol. xxiii. p. 261. 
 
 f Evidence of Sir Thomas Mills ou trial of Mr. Maskall. 
 State Trials, vol. xxi.
 
 CH. m.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 75 
 
 savage shouts of the surrounding multitude the whole- 
 sale desolation the row of bonfires blazing in the 
 street, heaped with the contents of the sacked mansion, 
 with splendid furniture, books, pictures, and manu- 
 scripts, the loss of which was irreparable the drunken 
 wretches staggering against each other or rolling on 
 the ground the pealing of the musketry, followed the 
 next instant by the screams of the wounded and the 
 dying, and the roar of vengeance from ten thousand 
 throats soon after this, the fires lighted in every room, 
 and finally the flames rushing upward from windows 
 and roof in one magnificent conflagration ; all these 
 horrors may well be conceived to have formed a pic- 
 ture, or rather a succession of pictures, which, thus 
 exhibited under the dark sky of midnight, would seem 
 hardly of this world. The inhabitants thronged from 
 every part of the town to the spot; and during this 
 night indeed all London was awake, the houses in many 
 parts being lighted up as in a general illumination. 
 
 Lord Mansfield, whose dwelling was thus barbarously 
 pillaged and destroyed, and who on the first day of the 
 riots had even been personally attacked and buffeted, 
 was at this time in the seventy-sixth year of his age. 
 The mob by whom the destruction we have just de- 
 scribed was perpetrated are said, one writer tells us, " to 
 have brought a rope wherewith to have executed im- 
 mediate vengeance on his lordship, had they found 
 him." After having set fire to the house, it seems, the 
 miscreants armed themselves with the iron rails by 
 which it had been surrounded, and marched off; the 
 person at their head ringing his lordship's dinner-bell 
 to keep them together. " Conversation passed among 
 them of cutting the pipes whereby the devoted city was 
 supplied with water of proceeding to burn Lord Mans- 
 
 H2
 
 76 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 field's villa at Caen Wood and to destroy the Bank." * 
 In point of fact, they attempted to execute all these 
 atrocities,; but, fortunately, as we shall find, owing to 
 the energetic measures that were now adopted, without 
 success. 
 
 The scenes that took place on Wednesday were still 
 more dreadful than those by which Tuesday had been 
 marked. The town indeed was now in a state of complete 
 insurrection ; and it was felt by all that the mob must 
 be put down at any cost, if it was intended to save the 
 metropolis of the kingdom from utter destruction. This 
 day, accordingly, the military were out in all quarters, 
 and were everywhere employed against the infuriated 
 multitudes who braved their power, with a vigour as 
 unsparing as the forbearance which had preceded it had 
 been indulgent. The King's Bench Prison, the New 
 Gaol, the Borough Clink, the Surrey Bridewell, were 
 all burned to-day. The toll-houses and the gates on 
 Blackfriars' Bridge were also set on fire and consumed. 
 A party, on their way to burn Lord Mansfield's house at 
 Caen Wood, were met and turned back by a detachment 
 of Horse, which had been sent off to protect the place. 
 The Mansion House, the Museum, the Exchange, the 
 Tower, and the Bank, were all, it is understood, marked 
 for destruction. Lists of these and the other buildings 
 which it was intended to attack were circulated among 
 the mob. The Bank was actually twice assaulted ; but 
 a powerful body of soldiers, by whom it was guarded on 
 both occasions, drove off the crowd, though not without 
 great slaughter. At some places the rioters returned 
 the fire of the military. The citizens, however, roused 
 from their first indifference and the consternation which 
 had succeeded it, were now everywhere forming them- 
 * Fanaticism and Treason, p. 56.
 
 CH. m.] RIOTS OF 1179-1780. 77 
 
 selves into armed associations, to co-operate with the 
 military, so that the mob had no chance at any point 
 where they were firmly met and anything like a contest 
 took place. Still, in certain of the less protected parts of 
 the town, they continued for some time longer to carry 
 everything before them. All Holborn, in particular, 
 seems to have been kept by them, during the whole of 
 this day, in a state of complete terror and subjection. 
 
 One account says, " Three boys went through the 
 streets, and in particular down Holborn, in the middle 
 of the day, with iron bars, got from the railing before 
 Lord Mansfield's house, extorting money at every shop, 
 huzzaing and shouting ' No Popeiy ! ' and though 
 numbers were passing and re-passing, the inhabitants 
 durst not refuse them money ; nor durst anybody attempt 
 to secure them to have them punished. Small parties, 
 of the like daring nature, were formed in other parts, 
 and the whole city was laid under like contribution. 
 One man in particular was mounted on horseback, and 
 refused to take anything but gold. Two men, in the 
 broad day, not contented with the former mischief, got 
 into Mr. Maberly's house, in Queen Street, and stayed 
 for upwards of an hour, knocking down the wainscoting, 
 and every bit of wood-work they could with safety to 
 themselves ; and though a great many peaceable, well- 
 dressed people looked on, no one molested them. In 
 the afternoon all the shops were shut, and bits of blue 
 silk, by way of flags, hung out at most houses, with 
 the words ' No Popery ' chalked on the doors and 
 window-shutters, by way of deprecating the fury of the 
 insurgents, from which 110 person thought himself 
 secure. 
 
 Among other houses which were set on fire in Hol- 
 born were the extensive premises of Mr. Langdale, the 
 * Holcroft. 
 
 H3
 
 78 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 distiller, who was a Catholic. The loss which this 
 gentleman sustained is said to have amounted to nearly 
 a hundred thousand pounds. The worst consequence 
 of this outrage, however, was the additional excitement 
 which the phrenzy of the mob received from the quan- 
 tities of spirits with which they were here supplied. 
 Many indeed drank themselves literally dead ; and 
 many more, who had rendered themselves unable to 
 move, perished in the midst of the flames. 
 
 Six and thirty fires, it is stated, were this night to be 
 seen, from one spot, blazing at the same time in different 
 quarters of the town. The writer whom we have last 
 quoted gives us the following description of the general 
 consternation and confusion which prevailed. 
 
 " Men, women, and children were running up and 
 down, with beds, glasses, bundles, or whatever they 
 wished most to preserve. In streets where there were 
 no fires, numbers were removing their goods and effects 
 at midnight. The tremendous roar of the insatiate 
 arid innumerable fiends who were the authors of these 
 horrible scenes was heard at one instant, and at the 
 next the dreadful report of soldiers' muskets, as if firing 
 in platoons, and in various places : in short, everything 
 that could impress the mind with ideas of universal 
 anarchy and approaching desolation seemed to be accu- 
 mulating. Sleep and rest were things not thought of 
 the streets were swarming with people, and uproar, 
 confusion, and terror reigned in every part." 
 
 All the prisons in London were burned in the course 
 of this day, except the Poultry Compter. Nothing 
 could be more daring than the systematic manner in 
 which these atrocities were perpetrated. Notice was in 
 every case sent to the prisoners by the mob, some time 
 before they made their approach, to prepare to evacuate 
 their lodgings. It was at first intended to attack the
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 79 
 
 Fleet Prison on Tuesday night, and an announcement 
 to that effect was made to the inmates ; but they re- 
 quested, as a favour, not to be turned out at so late an 
 hour, or without more time for preparation ; and the 
 mob consented to give them twenty-four hours longer to 
 remove their goods. The prison was destroyed on the 
 evening of Wednesday. It seems to have continued to 
 burn during the night and a great part of the following 
 day. The soldiers, who had not been able to prevent 
 it from being set on fire, were at last, on the Thursday, 
 obliged to discharge their muskets upon the crowd, who 
 were still collected around the blazing pile, and had 
 tossed into the flame a fire-engine which had been 
 brought to play upon the contiguous buildings. 
 
 " Among others," says Mr. Holcroft, in his account, 
 " there were four people seated upon the roof of the 
 market-house, who refused to obey the military, who 
 were therefore ordered to fire. The discharge of the 
 muskets came from three directions, in the front and at 
 each side, so that it seemed impossible for any one to 
 escape, and for a considerable time they all four lay 
 dead, as it was supposed : at length, however, one of 
 them was observed to raise his head a little, and in- 
 stantly clap it down and lie still again ; he repeated 
 this manoeuvre two or three times, till at last he ven- 
 tured to slide down, and ran away with great alacrity. 
 He was by far the genteelest in appearance of the four. 
 The three were shot dead at the instant, and two were 
 on one side of him and one on the other. One of the 
 dead was a chimney-sweeper, about sixteen years old, 
 and had forty guineas in his pocket." 
 
 The last-mentioned circumstance may give us some 
 idea of the extent to which plundering had already been 
 carried by the mob ; while the fate of the chimney- 
 sweeper, who, after having filled his pockets with gold,
 
 80 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC I. 
 
 had not so much sense or self-command as to withdraw 
 himself from the scene of crime and danger, affords an 
 iastructive example of how little good commonly comes 
 of such dishonest gains. 
 
 In addition to the buildings we have already men- 
 tioned as understood to have been marked for destruc- 
 tion by the mob on Wednesday, great apprehensions 
 were entertained, on the evening of that day, for the 
 safety of the Royal Palaces, the Arsenal at Woolwich, 
 and the different Inns of Court : all possible precau- 
 tions, therefore, were taken, which the number of troops 
 in town would allow, to guard these several posts. The 
 members of each of the Inns of Court armed themselves 
 for their own protection. A strong guard was also 
 stationed at the New River Head, to prevent the mob 
 from executing their threatened design of cutting off 
 the large supply of water derived by the town from that 
 source. 
 
 A witness, Mr. Turner, who was examined on the 
 trial of Lord George Gordon, gives us some details of 
 encounters which took place this evening between the 
 mob and a body of the armed citizens, called the London 
 Military Association, which he commanded. About 
 six or seven o'clock, they found the rioters destroying 
 the house of a Mrs. Donovan, in Broad Street. They 
 were in great numbers, and employed in throwing the 
 furniture from the windows and burning it in the street. 
 " We halted a little," says Mr. Turner, " before we 
 came to them, and I, as commanding-officer of that 
 detachment, used all the arguments I could to disperse 
 them without force, but I found it ineffectual, and we 
 were afterwards obliged to fire ; after firing for four or 
 five minutes, the mob dispersed, and some prisoners were 
 taken in Mrs. Donovan's house." During the rest of 
 this night, and till six o'clock on Thursday morning,
 
 CH. III.] RIOTS OF 1119-1780. 81 
 
 the Association were employed in marching against the 
 mob, wherever they heard they were assembled, and 
 dispersing them. Mr. Turner describes them as still 
 everywhere wearing blue cockades in their hats, and 
 shouting " No Popery ! " " Down with the Papists ! " 
 and other such cries. They were armed, some with 
 iron bars, some with spokes of wheels, and a few with 
 cutlasses. One or two were also seen with fire-arms. 
 
 Lord George Gordon is stated to have been in the 
 city this day, and although he did not actually put him- 
 self at the head of the mob, his conduct was sufficiently 
 extraordinary. A curious document was produced on 
 his trial, being a sort of protection which he had signed 
 in favour of a person who had applied to him to prevent 
 the mob from setting fire to his house. " All true 
 friends to Protestants," it said, " I hope will be parti- 
 cular and do no injury to the property of any true Pro- 
 testant as I am well assured the proprietor of this 
 house is a staunch and worthy friend to the cause." 
 His lordship, therefore, if he did not actually head the 
 mob, may be said to have in some measure controlled 
 and directed their operations. He had this morning, 
 indeed, presented himself at Buckingham House, and 
 desired to see the King ; because, he said, he could be 
 of essential service in suppressing the riots. The inter- 
 view which he solicited with his Majesty was refused ; 
 but he still declared, as he went away, that his best 
 endeavours should be employed to restore the peace of 
 the town. Nor is there any reason to suppose that 
 after this he used his influence for any other purpose, 
 except the protection of individuals by giving them 
 such papers as we have mentioned. Even he seems by 
 this time to have been satisfied with the length to which 
 matters had gone. While speaking of these protections 
 granted by his lordship, we may mention that, if any-
 
 82 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 thing could excite a smile in the midst of such horrors, 
 some of the devices employed to propitiate the mob 
 were ludicrous enough. In many of the streets every 
 house displayed an announcement, in one form or ano- 
 ther, that the inhabitants were Protestants; and in 
 Houndsditch and the neighbourhood, even the Jews, in 
 imitation of their neighbours, had all chalked the words 
 " This house is a true Protestant," in large letters on 
 their doors. On the other hand, the promoters of the 
 riot also had their proclamations. " Every hour," 
 says one of the accounts, " produced handbills of the 
 most inflammatory kind accounts of the bloody mas- 
 sacres committed by the soldiers upon many hundreds 
 of his Majesty's Protestant subjects, now lying dead in 
 the streets lists of all the fooleries and villanies of the 
 Roman Catholic religion, &c. The effects of these 
 were taken off, as much as possible, by papers of a dif- 
 ferent kind, distributed, as it seemed, by Government, 
 and the friends of Government."' All the shops 
 throughout the town were shut this day, and the several 
 courts of justice in Westminster were only opened for 
 the sake of form by a single judge in each. Many 
 families fled in terror to the country, and many more 
 eagerly sought the means of leaving the devoted city ; 
 but in the universal uproar and consternation the ordi- 
 nary conveyances were scarcely to be obtained. Five 
 guineas are stated to have been refused for a chaise to 
 go ten miles. 
 
 By Thursday morning, however, the exertions of 
 Government, now thoroughly alarmed, had succeeded 
 in bringing up from different parts so large a force of 
 regular troops and of militia as to make it certain that 
 the rioters would be speedily overpowered. We have 
 no very minute account of the scenes of this day; but 
 * Fanaticism and Treason.
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OF 1779-1180. 83 
 
 there is no doubt that it was marked by much blood- 
 shed, and the loss of many lives. The soldiers attacked 
 the mob in various places, and everywhere with com- 
 plete success. One of the principal of these engage- 
 ments took place in front of the Borough Compter, 
 which the rioters were proceeding to demolish, in the 
 same manner as they had done all the other prisons in 
 London, when they were fired upon and driven back 
 with considerable slaughter. The military were also 
 obliged, as already related, to fire upon the crowd of 
 violent and tumultuous desperadoes that remained col- 
 lected around the burning ruins of the Fleet. At New- 
 gate, too, about fifty miscreants were this day appre- 
 hended in the cells, trying to rekindle the fire there. 
 In all, above two hundred persons were ascertained to 
 have been shot dead in the streets by the Associated 
 Citizens and the soldiers during this and the preceding 
 day ; and a great many more, who were carried to the 
 hospitals, afterwards died of their wounds. It was not, 
 however, in this way that the greatest number of lives 
 were lost. " Powder and ball," says an account pub- 
 lished at the time, " do not seem to have been so fatal 
 to them as their own inordinate appetites. Numbers 
 it is said, and at various places, died with inebriation ; 
 especially at the distilleries of the unfortunate Mr. 
 Langdale, from whose vessels the liquor ran down the 
 middle of the street, was taken up by pailfuls, and held 
 to the mouths of the besotted multitude ; many of whom 
 killed themselves by drinking non-rectified spirits, and 
 were burnt or buried in the ruins. Eight or nine of 
 these miserable wretches have been found and dragged 
 out. The same scenes of beastly drunkenness happened 
 in many other places ; at Mr. Cox's, at Lord Mans- 
 field's, where an ill-looking fellow, about nineteen, that 
 was wounded and had his hair clotted with blood, was
 
 84 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. I. 
 
 too drunk at one o'clock the next day to be made sen- 
 sible : at Newgate, likewise, many of them had made 
 so free with liquor, that they could not get away, 
 and were burnt in the cells. In the streets, men were 
 lying upon bulks and stalls, and at the doors of empty 
 houses, drunk, to a state of insensibility, and to a con- 
 tempt of danger ; boys and women were in the same 
 condition, and many of the latter with infants in their 
 arms." 
 
 The shops this day, we are told, still continued uni- 
 versally shut from Tyburn to Whitehall; but before 
 evening the riot might be said to be completely put 
 down, and the public tranquillity restored. This effect 
 had been accomplished by the energetic exertions of 
 only a few hours, and after both the numbers and the 
 boldness of the mob had been immensely increased by 
 several days of almost entire success and impunit\ 
 a striking and memorable proof of how feeble is a 
 mere tumultuous rabble, however numerous, to make 
 any considerable stand against the natural strength of 
 established society, when rightly aroused and directed. 
 This mob, which so long as it was unresisted had seemed 
 irresistible, was now, as soon as it was courageously 
 met, scattered like chaff before the wind ; so that, to 
 use the language of one of the narratives before us, 
 " those who, upon the appearance of such a numerous 
 banditti, wondered whence they came, now expressed as 
 much wonder whither they could be gone." But how 
 much was it not to be regretted that the same deter- 
 mination and firmness, which were in the end found to 
 be so effective, had not been earlier applied that so 
 the great destruction of property, and especially of hu- 
 man life, which actually took place, might have been 
 averted. It is not too much to say, that had the force 
 by which these rioters were eventually dispersed been in
 
 CH. m.] RIOTS OF 1779-1780. 85 
 
 readiness (as it easily might have been) to meet their 
 first attempts at disorder, the mere sight of it would 
 have been sufficient to prevent any actual disturbance. 
 Or even if the military who were drawn out on Sunday 
 evening had been allowed to fire upon the daring vil- 
 lains who were sacking the chapels and dwelling-houses 
 at Moorfields before their eyes, instead of being com- 
 pelled to stand by, the patient and inactive witnesses of 
 the devastation, under the command of magistrates, in 
 all probability, but too largely sharing themselves in the 
 bigotry and passion of the populace, there is every reason 
 to conclude that the mischief would have ended here 
 with the loss, it may be, of a few lives, but certainly not 
 of more than one in a hundred of those that were ac- 
 tually destroyed. 
 
 On Friday the courts of justice were again opened 
 for business, and the House of Commons met in the 
 evening. On its being observed, however, that the city 
 of Westminster was under martial law, it was consi- 
 dered to be injudicious for the legislature to continue its 
 sittings, and an adjournment took place to the 19th, the 
 same day to which the House of Lords had previously 
 adjourned. On this first day after the close of the riots, 
 " the metropolis," says the Annual Register, " pre- 
 sented in many places the image of a city recently 
 stormed and sacked all business at an end, houses and 
 shops shut up the Royal Exchange, public buildings, 
 and streets possessed and occupied by the troops 
 smoking and burning ruins with a dreadful void and 
 silence in scenes of the greatest hurry, noise, and 
 business." 
 
 We have not yet stated the whole of the deplorable 
 waste of human life occasioned by these riots. The law 
 also demanded that some of the criminals should, by 
 their conspicuous punishment, read a warning lesson to
 
 86 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. I. 
 
 all who might in future be tempted to plunge into the 
 same guilt. Of the persons apprehended and brought 
 to trial, fifty-nine were capitally convicted ; and of these 
 more than twenty were executed ; the others were sent 
 to expiate their offences by passing the remainder of 
 their days in hard labour and bondage in a distant 
 land. 
 
 The subsequent history of the person who had the chief 
 share in leading on so many of his countrymen to these 
 fatal excesses affords a fit commentary on the folly of 
 those who allowed themselves to be hurried along in an 
 attempt to overawe the Government at the bidding of 
 such a conductor. Lord George Gordon, in conse- 
 quence of the part he had borne in the measures which 
 led to these riots, was sent to the Tower, and some time 
 afterwards brought to trial on a charge of high treason ; 
 but as it appeared to the jury, that, whatever might 
 have been the imprudence of his conduct, and the dis- 
 astrous effects by which it was followed, he had probably 
 no intention of actually levying war against the State, 
 they returned a verdict of acquittal. A very general 
 impression, however, remained on the public mind that 
 his lordship was scarcely to be considered as altogether 
 in his senses. The strangeness of much of his subsequent 
 conduct tended greatly to confirm this opinion. After 
 continuing to attract notice by a succession of freaks, he 
 at last thought proper to venture upon another rather 
 dangerous display of his theological zeal, by endeavour- 
 ing to persuade the prisoners in Newgate that the sen- 
 tences that had been passed upon them were contrary to 
 the Scriptures. He had just before this been convicted 
 of publishing a very violent libel upon the French am- 
 bassador ; and being brought to trial also on this new 
 charge, he was again found guilty. His sentence was a 
 lengthened term of imprisonment for each offence a
 
 CH. in.] RIOTS OP 1779-1780. 87 
 
 doom which even his friends, in all probability, hardly 
 regretted, as it was likely at least to save him from fur- 
 ther follies. He contrived, however, to disappoint even 
 this expectation ; for while in Newgate, notwithstand- 
 ing all his old ardour for Protestantism, he chose to 
 turn Jew, and to practise scrupulously all the observ- 
 ances of the Hebrew religion. He died in prison, in 
 1793 ; and the thought that most troubled him on his 
 death-bed was the apprehension that his remains would 
 not be interred in the burying-ground of the ancient 
 community whose faith he had adopted.
 
 89 
 
 SECTION II. TUMULTS OF POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 
 
 IF there be any one feeling which more than another 
 marks the difference between a noble and a mean spirit, 
 it is the love of freedom. Every man, of course, would 
 rather be himself a freeman than a slave ; and in one 
 sense, therefore, all men may be said to be lovers of 
 freedom they desire the blessing for themselves, at 
 least, if not for any body else. They are lovers of free- 
 dom as they are lovers of money, or lovers of ease, or 
 of any other thing which it is convenient or pleasant to 
 have. But the true love of freedom is the admiration 
 of it wherever it is found, whether in our own possession 
 or in that of others. In the first place, no doubt, we 
 wish to secure so excellent a good for ourselves, and our 
 children, and our fellow-countrymen ; but if we love it 
 in the manner we ought to do, we shall wish also that 
 the people of other lands should enjoy it as well as we 
 that it were spread abroad over the whole earth 
 abundantly as the air of heaven. Such a love of free- 
 dom is like what we call the love of religion, or the 
 love of justice : by which expressions we do not mean a 
 desire to obtain religion and justice for ourselves only, 
 but a disinterested admiration of, and affection for, these 
 good things on account of their own beauty and excel- 
 lence, and an ardent wish that they should everywhere 
 flourish and prevail. 
 
 Such a love of freedom as this, indeed, has its root 
 
 i3
 
 90 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 in a love of justice ; and this is what makes it the noble 
 sentiment it is. You hate to see one man tyrannize over 
 another, because it is not just that it should be so. If 
 it were your own case to endure the tyranny, you might 
 feel the weight of it in many ways, all irritating enough ; 
 but above all, you would feel the infliction to eat into 
 your heart, as being an outrage upon your natural 
 rights as the fellow-man of your oppressor. And when 
 your indignation is kindled by the sight or the thought 
 of others suffering under a tyranny from which you are 
 free, this sense of injustice is then also the strong emo- 
 tion that rises up within you. You suffer no actual 
 hardship or inconvenience from the state of things 
 which in this case shocks your feelings and your reason ; 
 your own freedom is not infringed upon, nor any of your 
 possessions touched, by the tyranny which you de- 
 nounce ; you suffer nothing along with the unhappy 
 slaves whom it oppresses, except the pain of knowing 
 that a portion of your fellow-creatures are so treated. 
 It is not, therefore, any mere selfish consideration which 
 prompts you to feel as you do : it is a sentiment of a 
 much more exalted character; you cannot patiently 
 endure to see the triumph of injustice and wrong ; it is 
 your love of what is right and just, without any view to 
 what are called your own interests, that makes your 
 heart burn with the love of freedom, and impels you 
 passionately to desire, that all men, even those who are 
 neither of your kindred nor of your country, should 
 be free. 
 
 This popular feeling springs, therefore, from a gene- 
 rous source, and indicates only the best qualities in 
 those natures in which it is found. The very name of 
 liberty, accordingly, has been among every people a 
 word capable of calling into action their strongest pas- 
 sions and noblest powers, and of strengthening them
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 91 
 
 to those exertions and achievements which cast the 
 brightest splendour over their history. Even when it 
 has been used only for national independence, or free- 
 dom from subjection to a foreign yoke, it has roused 
 alike the most barbarous races and those subjected in 
 reality to the worst government at home, to the most 
 extraordinary enthusiasm. No difficulties have been 
 too formidable for them to encounter, no deeds of daring 
 so perilous as to daunt their heroism, no toils and mi- 
 series tedious and severe enough to wear out their pa- 
 tience, no losses and disasters sufficiently crushing to 
 break their hopes so long as the thought that they 
 were struggling for their liberty lived within them. 
 Quickened and inflamed by this magic sound, orators, 
 in every age and country, have uttered their most stir- 
 ring appeals, and bards poured forth many of their 
 grandest and many of their sweetest strains. " Oh, Li- 
 berty ! " fervently and beautifully exclaims our own 
 Cowper-^- 
 
 " Oh, Liberty ! the prisoner's pleasing dream, 
 The poets's muse, his passion, and his theme ; 
 Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse ; 
 Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse ; 
 Heroic song from thy free touch acquires 
 Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires." 
 
 The inhabitants of this land of Britain have, from 
 the earliest times of which history has preserved any 
 record, distinguished themselves by their fond attach- 
 ment to their national liberties, and the noble ardour 
 they have shown in their defence. We find the same 
 spirit in every one of the successive races by which the 
 island has been occupied as if there were something 
 in the soil or climate favourable to the growth of a 
 sturdy love of freedom. This spirit may, indeed, have 
 sometimes sprung more from a mere proud dislike of
 
 92 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 foreign laws and manners than from any very en- 
 lightened views of civil liberty. Those who scorned to 
 submit to a foreign yoke may have tolerated a good deal 
 of misrule in their native princes contentedly enough. 
 But still the feeling was in every way an eminently 
 beneficial one. In those days, at least, a foreign domi- 
 nion was in reality the greatest of national misfortunes ; 
 and the popular patriotism, therefore, which looked 
 upon the infliction as an evil to be averted at any cost, 
 was far from being an unwise sentiment. Even in 
 modern times, when the advance of civilization has 
 softened much of the hatred by which one nation used 
 to be divided from another, the subjection of a free 
 people to a foreign yoke would still be a terrible cala- 
 mity. The success of the invasion might not be fol- 
 lowed by the actual oppressions and cruelties that would 
 formerly have been practised ; but the national spirit 
 would in all probability be effectually broken by such a 
 disgrace, and all those springs of action which had most 
 contributed to the prosperity and greatness of the people 
 lamentably weakened. On this subject, however, we 
 need not dwell. There is no great chance that we shall 
 be called upon in our day to repel an invading host 
 from the shores of England. But we may remark, that 
 in the long space of nearly eight hundred years, during 
 which we have been exempt from this visitation, that 
 hatred of oppression, which may be said to be natural 
 to our soil, has not withered and died because it may 
 not have had the defence of the national independence 
 to keep it alive. The free spirit of the people has re- 
 mained the same as ever ; it has only found other work 
 to do. The national independence being established 
 and secured, the maintenance and improvement of the 
 constitution, and the confirmation and extension of 
 the popular rights and liberties, furnished the next
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 93 
 
 great field for the efforts of patriotism. Hence, after a 
 struggle of many ages, frequently intermitted for a time, 
 but always begun again on the part of the nation with 
 new vigour, and marked as it proceeded with successive 
 victories, the free constitution we now enjoy a consti- 
 tution which, whatever additional defences it may be 
 thought to require in order to secure its permanence, or 
 whatever may be the partial incumbrances that still 
 remain to clog its perfect working, he must be very igno- 
 rant or very prejudiced indeed who will deny it to be, 
 with all its defects, one of the noblest systems of regu- 
 lated liberty the world has ever seen. We have had, it 
 is true, our seasons of weariness and dejection, when the 
 heavy hand of despotic authority has pressed us down, 
 like other nations ; but rarely, and never long, have we 
 sat quiet, as many have done, under that burden. And 
 who have risen up again from temporary subjection 
 with a more unbroken courage than we have always 
 shown, or righted themselves with so manly, and at the 
 same time so wise a spirit ? Well does one of our poets 
 say, addressing his country 
 
 " O ne'er enchained, nor wholly vile 
 
 O Albion ! O my mother isle ! 
 
 Thy valleys, fair as Eden's bowers, 
 
 Glitter green \vith sunny showers ! 
 
 Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells 
 
 Echo to the bleat of flocks : 
 
 Those grassy hills, those glittering dells, 
 
 Proudly ramparted with rocks ; 
 
 And OCEAN 'mid his uproar wild 
 
 Speaks safety to his ISLAND CHILD ! 
 
 Hence through many a fearless age 
 
 Has social Freedom loved the land ; 
 
 Nor alien despot's jealous rage 
 
 Or warped thy growth ur stamped the servile brand." 
 
 We believe that the present generation of English- 
 men, if any attempt were made to invade their liberties,
 
 94 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 would evince at least as much resolution in defence of 
 that sacred inheritance as was ever shown by their an- 
 cestors. The feeling that would pervade and animate 
 all ranks of the population would be still, as it has ever 
 been, " We must be free, or die." No king, no mi- 
 nister, that might dare to usurp powers unsanctioned 
 by the law, but would be met by such an instant and 
 determined resistance from all that constitutes the life 
 and strength of the country, as, if it did not quail the 
 arrogant aggressor and stay him in his designs, would 
 most probably shatter him in pieces on the first en- 
 counter. If, for example, as lately happened in France, 
 the king and his ministers were, by an edict or pro- 
 clamation, to abolish the liberty of the press, command- 
 ing that no man should dare to print anything except 
 what might have been first submitted to and approved 
 of by the government ; or were, by a similar act of 
 despotic violence, to take from the people their great 
 right of electing their representatives in parliament ; 
 there is, we may confidently say, no party amongst us 
 the members of which would not almost to a man resist 
 such a violation of the constitution with arms, if neces- 
 sary, as the people of France did. The occurrence of a 
 case like this would at once make rebels of us all ; or 
 rather would rally us all around the standard of the 
 constitution and the law, against which the government 
 had rebelled. There is no class of our population, we 
 are well persuaded, which would be found to separate 
 itself from the rest at such a crisis. The aristocracy, 
 the middle classes, and the working man, might have 
 different places to fill, and different parts to act, in the 
 grand national confederacy ; but they would be united 
 by the same aim and determination, and their move- 
 ment would be all in a mass in one direction. The 
 whole of the national will and strength, gathered, as it
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 95 
 
 were, into a single wave, would pour itself against the 
 daring assailant of the public liberties, and overwhelm 
 him with swift destruction. 
 
 In the case, indeed, of such an undisguisedly despotic 
 attempt as we have here supposed, the conflict would 
 probably be a very short one. No aid which the tyrant 
 could derive from any portion of the army which might 
 adhere to him, or even from foreign troops whose services 
 he might purchase, could enable him to hold out long 
 against the universal opposition of the people. But in 
 other circumstances the matter might not be so speedily 
 or so easily decided. The aggression on the part of the 
 government against the rights of the nation might be 
 much less open and daring might consist rather of a 
 long course of misrule, without any absolute violation 
 of the letter of the law, than of any single audacious 
 attack on the universally recognized liberties of the 
 country. Even here, there can be no doubt, there 
 might be ample occasion for popular resistance ; the 
 abuse of its powers by the ruling authority, whether 
 strictly legal or not, might be such as to constitute the 
 most grievous oppression, and, therefore, to give the 
 people just as good a right to rise in their own defence, 
 and to endeavour to rid themselves of their thraldom, 
 as if the most direct outrage had been offered to the 
 constitution. But still it is obvious that, in such a case, 
 the resistance would not be likely to be either so instant 
 or so unanimous ; the growth and spread of the national 
 discontent, like the progress of the wrongs which called 
 it forth, would be gradual ; some, from natural ardour or 
 boldness, or from quicker discernment of the tendency 
 of public measures, or from having been themselves 
 peculiarly affected by any of the oppressive acts of the 
 government, would be excited to desire its overthrow 
 sooner than others; and might even be provoked to
 
 96 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. II. 
 
 commit themselves in an actual attempt to effect that 
 object before their countrymen generally were ready to 
 rise along with them. The result of such a partial in- 
 surrection would depend on circumstances, and even on 
 accidents. Managed with consummate skill or good 
 fortune, it might even succeed completely and at once. 
 The choice by its leaders of a happy moment wherein 
 to strike their blow, an imposing first display of their 
 strength, or great alacrity in seizing important advan- 
 tages, might so stupefy and overawe those who were 
 opposed to the enterprize, and at the same time bring 
 over so many of the wavering to its side, as to give it 
 all the effect of a universal rising. Less fortunately 
 conducted, it might entirely fail, and only occasion the 
 ruin of its authors, and the discomfiture for the time of 
 the national cause. Or, lastly, without producing any 
 decisive result immediately, in either way, it might 
 make the commencement of a general contest, arraying 
 one part of the nation against the other, and destined 
 not to be terminated without the cost of torrents of 
 blood, and many years of confusion. Our own history 
 affords us examples of all these different issues of such 
 attempts. 
 
 But the circumstance to which we wish particularly 
 to call attention is this : no insurrection against an 
 established government ever either succeeded, or de- 
 served to succeed, which was waged only by some one 
 class of the people. In even the most simple forms of 
 society, the inhabitants of a country which has made 
 any considerable advancement in civilization and wealth 
 are of necessity divided into several classes, not distin- 
 guished from each other perhaps by any difference in 
 political powers asid privileges, but still occupying prac- 
 tically very different positions in the state. Take the 
 instance of the United States of America, where there
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 97 
 
 are no nobility or privileged orders, and all men are not 
 only equal before the laws, but invested by the consti- 
 tution with an equal share in the right of making the 
 laws : yet even in this republic there are different 
 classes of citizens. There is the great body of the la- 
 bouring population, comprising farm and domestic ser- 
 vants, many descriptions of working mechanics and 
 manufacturers, and all others whose lot it is to gain 
 their daily bread by hard labour with their hands; 
 there are the middle classes, consisting of persons en- 
 gaged in various ways in a higher walk of industry, 
 merchants and dealers in different articles, farmers, 
 master-manufacturers and tradesmen, literary men, 
 clerks, schoolmasters, clergymen, physicians, lawyers, 
 &c. All of these may perhaps be best described as half- 
 labourers and half-capitalists ; for such of them as may 
 not have capital in money, have it in something else 
 in superior talents, which they have received from na- 
 ture or superior knowledge and skill, which they have 
 procured by an expensive education or by many years 
 of study and experience. It makes no difference whe- 
 ther their capital is of the one description or the other ; 
 the benefit which they derive from it, and to which it 
 fairly entitles them, is the same namely, a higher re- 
 muneration for the same expenditure of their time than 
 is given to labourers who have no capital. Lastly, to 
 notice none of the more minute subdivisions, there is 
 the class of persons of so considerable property that they 
 can afford to live, and do live, at least as expensively as 
 any other class of their countrymen, without a2tually 
 giving their time to any particular profession or occu- 
 pation. 
 
 Now, undistinguished from one another as these se- 
 veral classes are in the eye of the law, and comparatively 
 easy and common as it is for the members of one to 
 
 K
 
 98 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. II. 
 
 pass over into another for the working-man, for in- 
 stance, to rise to be a master in his trade or branch of 
 industry ; or for the tradesman to retire from business 
 and become a mere landholder or other capitalist it is 
 evident, nevertheless, that even a man's political con- 
 dition must in certain respects be very much affected by 
 the class to which he belongs. Thus there is no legal 
 disqualification attached to the condition of a working- 
 man which prevents him from being chosen a member 
 of the legislature ; but still while he remains what he 
 is, he has manifestly just about as little chance of being 
 elevated to that dignity as if he were legally disqualified. 
 It is fit that it should be so. A member of the legis- 
 lature, it is felt, ought to be a person both having a 
 much larger interest in the country than is possessed 
 by a common workman, and endowed with a degree of 
 mental cultivation which, generally speaking, a person 
 in that rank can have had no time or opportunity to 
 acquire. If there be any labourer whose intellectual 
 attainments so far excel those of the rest of his class as 
 to fit him to be a legislator, his way to that distinction 
 is first to apply his superior powers to raise himself 
 from the condition of a labourer, and thus to place him- 
 self on that higher ground in society the occupants of 
 which alone are considered entitled to aspire to such 
 honours. We might give many other instances of the 
 same kind ; but this one will sufficiently explain our 
 meaning. Let legal distinctions be abolished as com- 
 pletely as you choose, other distinctions will remain, 
 arising from the necessary constitution and relations of 
 society, which no law can destroy. And the effect will 
 be, let the law say what it may, to occasion a really 
 very unequal distribution of political power throughout 
 the community. In no state where individual property 
 is allowed to exist, is it possible by any laws to give to
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 99 
 
 the common labourer the same importance and influ- 
 ence which will belong to the man of large possessions ; 
 or even to place him generally in that respect on the 
 same level with the manufacturer or tradesman, who, 
 although in one sense a labourer too, is yet at the same 
 time the employer of labourers. 
 
 Among ourselves, and in all the other countries of 
 the old world, such distinctions among the various 
 classes of the population are much more strongly 
 marked than they yet are in the United States. Inde- 
 pendently of what particular institutions have done to 
 give to one class more political power than to another, 
 the greater extent to which the accumulation of pro- 
 perty in the hands of individuals has proceeded amongst 
 us than in the American republic, has of necessity esta- 
 blished a still greater inequality in regard to their re- 
 spective degrees of weight in the state between one man 
 and another, here, than is found to exist in that compa- 
 ratively young community. Here, along with a nume- 
 rous labouring population, for the most part entirely 
 dependent upon their daily toil for their daily bread, we 
 have also a large class composed of the proprietors of 
 great wealth in land or in money, and on that account 
 alone necessarily the possessors of great political power. 
 By this term we do not mean merely power which has 
 been deposited in their hands by the laws, but power 
 which they would have had under any laws, and which, 
 to a considerable extent, they would be able to exercise 
 even in the midst of such a civil convulsion as might 
 threaten to lay all laws in the dust. Then, between 
 these two bodies, occupying the two extremes of the 
 commonwealth the labouring population, individually 
 poor, but of great weight and importance in the state 
 from their numbers; and the very rich, whose infe- 
 riority in numbers is compensated by their large posses- 
 
 K2
 
 100 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. II. 
 
 sions and their advantages of position we have the 
 powerful body of the middle classes, who, both on 
 account of their numbers, of their property, and above 
 all of their intelligence, may perhaps be regarded as 
 forming already the most influential order in the state. 
 
 But it is not at present our purpose to consider these 
 three great divisions of our community as balanced the 
 one against the other; or to endeavour to determine 
 the exact amount of the strength that may belong to 
 each, and which would be likely to be victorious in the 
 event of a general contest. What we wish to observe 
 is merely, that each of the three is, and ever has been, 
 and ever must be, possessed of very great inherent 
 strength and power. These divisions, be it remembered, 
 are not so many separate orders established by the law, 
 in particular countries ; but are in reality the institu- 
 tion of nature herself, in every society and under every 
 form of government. You may have no titled or pri- 
 vileged nobility, for example, no order of hereditary 
 legislators and we are not at present saying whether 
 such an order is a good or a bad thing in the state but 
 whether you have such an order or no, if you allow the 
 accumulation of property in the hands of individuals 
 and families, you must very soon come to have an aris- 
 tocracy in reality, if not in name ; that is to say, a class 
 of citizens raised above the generality of their country- 
 men by the actual possession of greater political influ- 
 ence and power, in proportion to their greater wealth. 
 They may not be formed into a House of Peers, and 
 invested by the constitution with any rank or legislative 
 authority as such ; but still this will not hinder them 
 from being an aristocracy in the sense of the word 
 which has just been explained. A very open aristocracy 
 they may, and, in such a case, will be ; that is to say, 
 no citizen will be excluded from their ranks who, by his
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 101 
 
 industry, or in any other way, may have acquired that 
 wealth which alone is necessary. An aristocracy con- 
 stituted HI this natural way, it may also be allowed, will 
 melt more gradually and insensibly into the general 
 mass of the population than one the members of which 
 are placed by law on an elevated platform, as it were, by 
 themselves, and fenced round with privileges and en- 
 signs of dignity. But all this will only render a natural 
 aristocracy in reality more powerful than one made by 
 the law; and more able, in case of a convulsion taking 
 place in the state, to maintain its ground. All except 
 those who have absolutely no hope whatever of rising 
 in society may be expected to feel themselves directly 
 and deeply interested in the preservation of a class up 
 to which each of them may soon be able to work his 
 way himself. So that, in either case that is to say, 
 whether your aristocracy be one made by the law, or 
 arising without any law out of the natural working of 
 society such a body must occupy a position of great 
 strength in the state, and one which cannot but give it 
 the power both of acting a most effective part in any 
 national struggle, and of defending itself stoutly in the 
 event of its being attacked. 
 
 We shall not stop to consider the circumstances 
 which constitute the strength of the labouring and of 
 the middle classes. The importance of each of these 
 divisions of the community, and the power which each 
 would be capable of exerting if all its energies were 
 called into action, are sufficiently obvious, and are ques- 
 tioned by nobody. It may, however, be well to suggest 
 that that description of strength which peculiarly belongs 
 to the labouring population, and which on a hasty view 
 of the matter might perhaps seem to be more formidable 
 than any other namely, numerical force would cer- 
 tainly be found the least available that would be brought 
 
 K3
 
 102 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 into the field in any contest with the other orders of 
 society. All history testifies this, and we shall have 
 frequent occasion to adduce proofs of the remark in 
 the course of this little book. 
 
 The strength, then, of each of the several orders 
 which compose every community being such as we have 
 described, it may be conceived what would be the pro- 
 bable result of any attempt to overthrow an established 
 government which should be made only by one class of 
 the people. Such an attempt may indeed succeed, and 
 often has done so, when made by the upper classes, in 
 countries where they were and had long been almost 
 the sole depositories of political power, and the rest of 
 the people never thought of taking any share in public 
 affairs. But an insurrection of the mere labouring 
 population, uncountenanced and unassisted by the upper 
 classes, never has succeeded, and, it may be confidently 
 prophesied, never will. The only national movement, 
 which, in such a country as our own, for example, could 
 have any chance of bringing about a revolution, sup- 
 posing so sad and terrible a remedy necessary for the 
 disorders of the state, would be one in which numbers 
 of all ranks among us took part in which the merchant 
 and the master-manufacturer, the landed gentleman and 
 the nobleman, should join with the mechanic and the 
 peasant. We do not mean, of course, that it would be 
 necessary for all persons belonging to the superior ranks 
 to unite themselves to the insurgents in order to secure 
 their success ; in that case, there would be no contest at 
 all. But, assuredly, without the aid and support of a 
 powerful section of the wealthier classes as well as of 
 the multitude, the revolt would fail. 
 
 And it would deserve to fail. That attempt at a re- 
 formation of the state must be a very needless or a very 
 wild one uncalled for by the actual amount of the
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 103 
 
 grievances which are to be redressed, or exceedingly 
 unreasonable in the sort of redress which it proposes 
 that can command no support, or next to none, beyond 
 the class of the labouring population. Whatever may 
 be the case with individuals, the removal of real abuses 
 in the government is the general interest of every class 
 of men in the community. Nor could a really good 
 government be established which would not shed its 
 blessings upon all ranks ; indeed, the very circumstance 
 of its benefiting only one rank would be the best proof 
 that it was anything but a good government. A scheme 
 of reform, therefore, which took the imagination of the 
 working classes only, or which, notwithstanding the 
 great diversity of political opinion and feeling which has 
 always prevailed throughout society generally, should 
 be able to engage nobody to rise in its favour except 
 persons belonging to that particular rank of the popula- 
 tion, would, we may be sure, be something both of quite 
 impracticable execution and pregnant with the most 
 disastrous consequences, even to its deluded votaries 
 themselves, if it could be realized. 
 
 Here, then, we have one easily discernible and deci- 
 sive mark whereby to distinguish what may be a just 
 and necessary national insurrection from a mere po- 
 pular tumult or riot. In support of the former, you 
 would be certain to see openly advancing and arrayed a 
 large proportion of individuals from every grade of the 
 community. When it came to actual hostilities between 
 the government and its adherents on the one side, and 
 the friends of the revolution on the other, the hardy 
 sons of industry that people our towns and villages 
 would, indeed, probably constitute the main part of the 
 armed host that would be brought out to carry on the 
 contest. But the middle classes and the gentry of the 
 land in large numbers would also be there, mingling in
 
 104 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 the same ranks with their poorer fellow-countrymen, or 
 taking whatever other posts in the enterprize the talents, 
 intelligence, or activity of each might best fit him for. 
 The rich man would give of his money to sustain the 
 charges of the common cause. The great landed pro- 
 prietor and the nobleman would be there at the head of 
 their tenantry to combat and shed their blood, as they 
 have often done ere now, for the liberties of England. 
 It would be a vast and splendid assemblage of the rank, 
 the wealth, the intellectual power, as well as of the mere 
 physical force, of the country. Hence a spirit of noble 
 and enlightened patriotism directing all its aims and 
 movements. In the very process of attacking and over- 
 throwing the government, everything would be done in 
 the spirit of order. There would be no wild uproar, no 
 needless devastation, no burning or plundering of pro- 
 perty, either public or private, no bloodshed except in 
 resisting the arms of the public enemy. Every possible 
 care, in short, would be taken that in the necessary 
 work of relieving the incumbered wheels of society the 
 risk should not be run of breaking to pieces the whole 
 machine. 
 
 The unhappy times have been in many countries, and 
 in our own among the rest, when good men have felt 
 themselves called upon to take part with heart and hand 
 in such an enterprize as this. But what resemblance 
 in almost any one respect is there to be discerned between 
 a national insurrection thus supported and thus con- 
 ducted, and those displays of popular violence and mad- 
 ness which sometimes pretend to have the same ends in 
 view ? A riot, indeed, is also a defiance and resistance 
 of the authority of the government ; but this is the only 
 point in which there is any likeness between the two 
 cases. Instead of a mixed association of men from 
 every rank in the community, a riot presents us only
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 105 
 
 with a mob composed of the very lowest orders lowest, 
 we mean, not merely in station, but in mental culture 
 and in character. It would be to libel the labouring 
 classes if we were to speak of them generally as making 
 up the furious and destroying bands which a riot lets 
 loose upon society ; it is only the most ignorant and 
 the most worthless of them who are usually found to 
 make any part of such assemblages. But to compensate 
 for the absence of all the sounder and more respectable 
 part of the population of the more sober, industrious, 
 and intelligent labourers, as well as of all the middle 
 and the higher classes there are blackguards of all 
 sorts in plenty, the idler, the vagabond, the prize-fighter, 
 the prostitute, the thief all, in short, who love mis- 
 chief for its own sake, or who have an interest in 
 throwing everything into confusion, that they may prey 
 with the more success upon the rest of the community. 
 These desperadoes and miscreants are generally in the 
 first instance the chief instigators of disturbance, in- 
 flaming and stirring up the thoughtless multitude among 
 whom they mix to acts of excess and outrage which, but 
 for their excitement, never would have been ventured 
 upon ; and often in a more advanced stage of the riot it 
 is the most daring of these villains who become the 
 ringleaders of the now infuriated throng, directing their, 
 destructive rage as best suits their own purposes of de- 
 vastation and plunder. And such being the actors in a 
 riot, what are their actions ? They profess a desire to 
 reform certain abuses or disorders in the state ; but the 
 whole of their own conduct is a career of disorder and 
 abuse. They cry out against the exactions and oppres- 
 sion of those in power, and at the same time exercise 
 their own wild power in a more arbitrary, licentious, 
 unjust, and tyrannical manner than the most insolent 
 despot that ever reigned. They would establish a better
 
 106 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 government, having among themselves no government 
 or discipline of any kind, except perhaps that of a blind 
 servility to the whistle of some self-appointed com- 
 mander, such as a herd of cattle are wont to show in 
 following the beast that snorts at their head. Instead 
 of establishing or regulating anything, their only object 
 seems to be to break down and destroy whatever comes 
 in their way. While they pretend to be vindicating the 
 popular rights and liberties, they show no respect to the 
 liberty or the rights of any but themselves. Instead of 
 anything like regularity and order, the wildest license 
 and confusion marks all their movements. Their march 
 over the land is like that of a scouring tempest. Fear 
 and flight go everywhere before them. Ruin and deso- 
 lation follow their footsteps. Their atrocities multiply 
 and grow more enormous the longer they are suffered 
 to rage unchecked. They are at the height of their 
 dissoluteness and ferocity when they are at the height 
 of their success. At last, impunity in a long course of 
 crime, aided by the effect of intoxicating liquors greedily 
 drunk up in every wine-cellar and spirit-depot into which 
 they have been able to break, makes them as mad and 
 reckless as so many wild beasts ; and the miserable, 
 worn-out wretches perish by dozens or by hundreds 
 before the fire of the soldiers, upon whose guns they 
 rush, or amid the breaking and falling rafters of the 
 blazing piles which their own torches have kindled. 
 
 A popular tumult always begins in a strong feeling 
 entertained by the people that they have some heavy 
 wrong to redress or to avenge. But for the general 
 discontent and irritation spread abroad among them by 
 this conviction, those who should attempt to stir them 
 up to acts of violence would have no materials on which 
 to work. This makes the fuel which is so ready to be 
 blown into a flame. Now sometimes, no doubt, the
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 107 
 
 people are quite misled and in error in the persuasion 
 they have taken up, that some wrong has been done to 
 them ; but frequently, also, they have abundant ground 
 for entertaining this feeling, and are only mistaken in 
 regard to the manner and the means of righting them- 
 selves. They are disposed to think, perhaps pretty 
 generally, that it might not be amiss to take the law, as 
 the expression is, into their own hands ; and although 
 with most of them this may be merely a loose, ill-consi- 
 dered notion, or a habit of talking, and will go no far- 
 ther, yet others who hold the opinion will be more 
 ready, if occasion occur, to act upon it ; and all will, at 
 any rate, be inclined by the influence of the common 
 sentiment to look at least upon the commencing excesses 
 of those who attempt to resist the law with more favour 
 and sympathy than they ought to do. In former times, 
 when the law in England was neither so powerful nor 
 so equitable as it now is, and when much horrid oppres- 
 sion was really practised in its name and under its 
 sanction, this distrust and disregard of it was more ex- 
 cusable than it now would be. Yet in the result no 
 good ever came of the wild and desperate efforts which 
 were frequently made by the lowest orders of the popu- 
 lation to resist its authority. On the contrary, much 
 mischief and calamity was always occasioned by these 
 risings, a heavy portion of which never failed to fall 
 upon the heads of the insurgents themselves. Their 
 riots and tumults were generally marked by all the folly, 
 extravagance, and crime which we have described as 
 almost necessarily accompanying the progress of such 
 irregular movements ; and, therefore, with whatever 
 feelings they might have been regarded at first by those 
 who wished well to the cause of the public liberty, they 
 very soon inspired only universal disgust and horror, so 
 that all classes were ready to join with their best energy 
 in effecting their suppression.
 
 108 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. II. 
 
 One of the most memorable of these insurrections 
 was that commonly known by the name of Wat Tyler's 
 Rebellion. It happened in the year 1381, in the be- 
 ginning of the reign of Richard II. The kingdom at 
 this time was far from being in a prosperous state, and 
 the working classes especially felt themselves heavily 
 oppressed by a poll-tax which had been imposed the 
 year before, and which, being farmed by several noble- 
 men, was exacted by their collectors with great severity. 
 Tyler, who lived at Dartford, in Kent, and was, according 
 to some accounts, a blacksmith, according to others of 
 the trade which his name designates, having been used 
 with insolence by one of these collectors, struck the man 
 with a hammer which he held in his hand, and knocked 
 out his brains. The action was universally applauded 
 by the peasantry and the working people ; and such 
 was the temper in which they were, that nothing more 
 was wanted to bring them in throngs from all the 
 neighbouring towns and villages, resolved both to pro- 
 tect Tyler from punishment, and to make a general 
 effort to rid themselves of the hated impost. In this 
 view they chose Tyler for their captain and such was 
 the rapidity with which the flame spread, that he soon 
 found himself at the head of nearly a hundred thousand 
 men, composed chiefly of the peasants of Kent and 
 Essex. 
 
 According to other accounts, however, the Essex 
 men were not, in the first instance at least, under the 
 command of Tyler ; and some writers assert, also, that 
 the insurrection really commenced with them. " Thomas 
 Walsingham," says Holinshed, " affirmeth, that the 
 first sparks of this rebellion kindled in Essex, where the 
 inhabitants of two towns only at the first, that were the 
 authors and first stirrers of all this mischief, did send 
 unto every little town about, that all mariner of men, 
 as well those that were aged, as others that were in their
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 109 
 
 lustiest time and youthful years, should come to them 
 with speed, setting all excuses apart, in their best array 
 and furniture for war, threatening to such as came not 
 that their goods should be spoiled, their houses burnt 
 or cast down, and they to lose their heads when they 
 were taken. The terror of this threatening caused the 
 ignorant people to flock to them by heaps, leaving all 
 their business, letting plough and cart stand, forsaking 
 wife, children, and houses, so that in a short time there 
 were five thousand gotten together of those commons 
 and husbandmen, of which number many were weaponed 
 only with staves, some with rusty swords and bills, and 
 others with smoky bows, more ruddy than old ivory, 
 not having past two or three arrows, and the same 
 haply with one feather apiece. Among a thousand of 
 those kind of persons, ye should not have seen one well 
 armed ; and yet, by reason of their multitude, when they 
 were once got together, they thought the whole realm 
 had not been able to resist them ; and supposed that 
 they could with facility (in respect of the adverse part) 
 make the states of the land stoop to them, and by their 
 permission to retain, or compulsion to resign, their 
 rooms of dignity." 
 
 These peasants, who fonned the chief part of this 
 disorderly array, were almost all either bondsmen that 
 is, slaves or what the law called villains, that is to 
 say, labourers who were considered as forming part of 
 the manor or estate on which they resided, and might 
 be sold along with it. It was natural that, collected 
 as they now were in such immense numbers, and buoyed 
 up by their excited feelings and the idea which their 
 vast array was calculated to give them of their own 
 power, they should very soon extend their views beyond 
 their original object, and think of taking advantage of 
 what seemed so favourable an opportunity of asserting
 
 110 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 their political freedom. This intention, accordingly, 
 they made haste to proclaim being excited to take 
 that course, it is said, in a great measure through the 
 exhortations of a priest named John Ball, whom they 
 let out of Maidstone Jail, where he had been long con- 
 fined, and who in return for this favour proffered them 
 his services as their chaplain. Ball's political notions 
 seem to have been of a very extravagant description ; 
 but they were probably not the less acceptable on that 
 account to his present flock. He took for the text of a 
 sermon which he preached to them thfe two doggrel 
 lines 
 
 " When Adam delved, aud Eve span, 
 Who was then a gentleman? " 
 
 And in the spirit of these words he endeavoured to 
 prove to them that all men were by nature equal, and 
 that therefore it was both their right and their duty to 
 insist upon the abolition of all distinctions of rank, and 
 to accomplish that reformation by their swords if they 
 could in no other way. This discourse, as might be 
 expected, was received with great applause. 
 
 Meanwhile, the signs of what the affair was about to 
 turn to were fast showing themselves. The outcasts of 
 society were flocking from all parts to join the insur- 
 gents ; and the depraved and disorderly multitude began 
 to perpetrate the most savage atrocities. Ball had in- 
 structed them that the best way of putting an end to 
 the oppression under which they laboured was to destroy 
 all the nobility and lawyers ; and these principles being 
 Cordially embraced both by the mob and their captain, 
 they were immediately and remorselessly acted upon. 
 They cut off the heads of all persons thus denounced 
 who fell into their hands and, to make the surer work, 
 they served every man in the same manner whom they 
 found to be possessed even of pen and ink.
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. Ill 
 
 " Stopping the way that led to Canterbury," says 
 Holinshed, " and arresting all such as passed by the 
 same, they caused them to swear that they should be 
 ready to come to them whensoever they sent for them, 
 and induce all their neighbours to take part with them. 
 And further, that they should never yield to any tax to 
 be levied in the realm, except a fifteenth only. Thus it 
 came to pass, that after it was spread abroad what stir 
 these Essex and Kentish men kept, the commons also 
 in the counties of Sussex, Hertford, Cambridge, Suffolk, 
 and Norfolk, and other shires about, bustled up and ran 
 together on heaps, so that the number of those unruly 
 people marvellously increased, in such wise as now they 
 feared no resistance, and therefore began to show proof 
 of those things which they had before conceived in their 
 minds, beheading all such men of law, justices, and 
 jurors, as they might catch and lay hands upon, without 
 respect of pity or remorse of conscience, alleging that 
 the land could never enjoy her native and true liberty, 
 till all those sorts of people were dispatched out of the 
 way." The old chronicler's marginal summary here is 
 also worth preserving for the sake of a singular expres- 
 sion which he uses : " Lawyers, justices, and jurors, 
 brought to blockam-feast by the rebels." 
 
 Signalizing their progress by these shocking barba- 
 rities, they advanced upon the capital, and, at last, en- 
 camped on Blackheath. Having sent from hence a 
 message to the king, desiring him immediately to repair 
 to their camp, on receiving a refusal, they forthwith set 
 out for London, and entered South wark on the 10th of 
 June. Here they immediately proceeded to the wildest 
 excesses. All the houses which they could learn Avere 
 tenanted by lawyers were with all speed laid in ruins 
 and the archbishop's palace at Lambeth, with all the 
 stores of furniture, books, and manuscript documents 
 
 L2
 
 112 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 which it contained, met with the same fate. To help 
 them in these destructive outrages, and to augment the 
 force with which they hoped to pull down the whole 
 fabric of the state, they had on their first entrance into 
 Southwark broken open the two great prisons of the 
 King's Bench and the Marshalsea, and released all the 
 prisoners. These persons, most of them hardened vil- 
 lains, all joined the ranks of their deliverers. 
 
 An insurrection, of which such were the instruments, 
 and which resorted to such courses to attain its end, 
 never could have come to good, let its objects have been 
 eA^er so reasonable or praiseworthy. But in this case 
 the schemes of our political reformers were in many re- 
 spects as absurd as the way in which they attempted to 
 bring about their accomplishment was bloody and bar- 
 barous. The day after their arrival in Southwark, they 
 forced an entrance into the city of London. Here they 
 were joined by a new rabble, and, inflamed by success, 
 were ready to prosecute their career of destruction with 
 increased boldness and violence. Their first object of 
 attack was the palace of the Savoy, belonging to the 
 Duke of Lancaster, the king's uncle, " to the which," 
 says Holinshed, " in beauty and stateliness of building, 
 with all manner of princely furniture, there was not any 
 other in the realm comparable : " this magnificent edifice 
 they set on fire and burned to the ground. Their con- 
 duct on this occasion well illustrates the usual rise and 
 course of mob phrenzy and crime. At first the multi- 
 tude, it may be, are too full of their grand political pro- 
 jects, too much exalted by the visions of liberty, reform 
 of abuses, and revenge on the supposed authors of their 
 wrongs, to care much about mere plunder. Besides, 
 the ringleaders of enterprises of this kind always find it 
 necessary to keep up for some time the cry by which 
 they had first collected their followers, for obvious rea-
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 113 
 
 sons. It is of importance in the commencement of such 
 attempts to impose upon the world as far as possible by 
 specious pretences, that the more may be deluded to 
 join the mob, and the sympathy of others may be en- 
 listed in its favour. Men must be led on gradually to 
 such utter abandonment as characterizes a riot in its 
 latter stages. And the power and self-confidence both 
 of the leaders and the led must be established by a 
 series of successes achieved in the name of some im- 
 posing principle or profession, before they can safely 
 throw off all disguise or all restraint, and plunge into 
 the mere baseness of open and indiscriminate pillage. 
 Such a course, if proposed at first, would revolt many 
 who will nevertheless be found quite ready to join in it 
 after they have inflamed and brutalized themselves, and 
 at the same time drawn down on their heads the ban 
 and threatened vengeance of society, by many previous 
 excesses. Accordingly, when the Savoy was set on fire, 
 Tyler caused proclamation to be made, that whoever 
 should be detected appropriating any article should 
 suffer death ; and one man, it is said, on a piece of 
 plate being found in his possession, was actually, in con- 
 formity with this announcement, thrown into the flames. 
 One temptation, however, assailed them here, which 
 they could not resist. Having broken into the wine- 
 cellar, many of them made themselves so drunk, that 
 even the conflagration roaring over their heads called 
 upon them in vain to effect their retreat ; and thirty- 
 two unhappy wretches, whose cries for help, it is 
 affirmed, were heard for seven days, perished under the 
 ruins. All this while no one, in that stern and ruthless 
 age, would lend a hand to extricate, them from their 
 miserable, but, as was deemed, amply merited fate. 
 
 Maddened more than ever by the new stimulus to 
 which they had now begun to have recourse, the tri- 
 
 L3
 
 114 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sKC. II. 
 
 umphant destroyers of the Savoy lost no time in follow- 
 ing up this grand exploit by other similar atrocities. The 
 Temple and the other inns of court were next attacked, 
 and burned with all that they contained. Many of the 
 most ancient and curious records, relating to our national 
 history, perished in these conflagrations. The prior}' 
 of St. John of Jerusalem, in Clerkemvell, one of the 
 richest religious buildings in London, and the prior's 
 house at Highbury, were also destroyed in the same 
 manner. Soon after, the prisons of Newgate and the 
 Fleet were broken open, and all the prisoners released ; 
 whence a new and formidable augmentation of despe- 
 radoes to the desolating crew. 
 
 As yet, neither the government nor the citizens had 
 made any attempt to resist the rioters. Their prodi- 
 gious numbers, and the terrible excesses by which they 
 gave demonstration of their temper and their strength, 
 seem to have struck all powerless with consternation. 
 The city, indeed, was completely in their hands, and at 
 their mercy if such an expression can be employed of 
 those who showed none. In addition to the lawyers 
 and the nobility, they now extended their fury to almost 
 all who were in any way distinguished from the gene- 
 rality of their fellow-citizens. In this wild and barba- 
 rous attempt to realize the chimera of universal equality, 
 whatsoever or whosoever was deemed to stand out from 
 the dead level to which it was wished to reduce society, 
 was remorselessly cut down. All the richest and most 
 influential citizens who did not secure their safety by 
 flight were hanged or beheaded. Another of the fero- 
 cious antipathies of these root-and-branch reformers 
 was directed against the foreign residents in London. 
 The Flemish merchants, in particular, were sacrificed 
 by them in great numbers. The process by which they 
 detected these unfortunate objects of their resentment
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 115 
 
 was of the same summary sort with that which they 
 applied, as already mentioned, to persons whom they 
 suspected to be guilty of the crime of belonging to the 
 profession of the law. The poor Flemings were desired 
 to pronounce the words bread and cheese, and when- 
 ever any one failed to give the true English sounds, his 
 head was struck off without further loss of time. Many 
 of these foreigners had fled for safety to the churches ; but 
 they were at once dragged forth from thence, on being 
 convicted by this shibboleth, and murdered in the streets. 
 The following are further extracts from the narrative 
 in Holinshed : " On the same day, also, they beheaded 
 many others, as well Englishmen as Flemings, for no 
 cause in the world, but only to satisfy the cruelty of the 
 Commons, that then were in their kingdom ; for it was 
 a sport to them, when they got any one amongst them 
 that was not sworn to them, and seemed to mislike of 
 their doings, or if they bare but never so little hatred to 
 him, straightways to pluck off his hood, with such a 
 yelling noise as they took up amongst them, and imme- 
 diately to come thronging into the streets, and strike off 
 his head. Neither had they any regard to sacred places ; 
 for, breaking into the church of the Augustine Friars, 
 they drew forth thirteen Flemings, and beheaded them 
 in the open streets ; and out of the parish churches in 
 the city they took forth seventeen, and likewise struck 
 off their heads ; without reverence either of the church 
 or fear of God. But they continuing in their mis- 
 chievous purpose showed their malice specially against 
 strangers, so that, entering into every street, lane, and 
 place whei-e they might find them, they brake up their 
 houses, murdered them which they found within, and 
 spoiled their goods in most outrageous manner. . . . They 
 that entered the Tower used themselves most presump- 
 tuously; and no less unreverently against the Princess
 
 116 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 of Wales, mother to the king ; for, thrusting into her 
 chamber, they offered to kiss her, and swasht down 
 upon her bed, putting her into such fear that she fell 
 into a swoon, and being taken up and recovered was 
 had to the water-side, and put into a barge, and con- 
 veyed to a place called the Queen's Wardrobe, or the 
 Tower Rial, where she remained all that day and the 
 night following, as a woman half-dead, till the king 
 came to re-comfort her." 
 
 While one division of the mob was employed in thus 
 ranging through the city, and filling it with burnings 
 and slaughter, another division had encamped on Tower 
 Hill, and a third, consisting of the men of Essex, had 
 retired to Mile End. The king and the royal family 
 had by this time taken refuge in the Tower, which was 
 garrisoned by twelve hundred men. But, upon a mes- 
 sage being received from the Mile End mob, desiring a 
 conference with his Majesty in person, it was resolved 
 that he should repair thither, unarmed and unattended, 
 in the hope that some effect might be produced upon 
 them by this proof of confidence. The gate of the 
 Tower was accordingly opened for his Majesty to pass 
 out ; and of this, advantage was immediately taken by 
 the assemblage, who had stationed themselves in the 
 neighbourhood to make a rush for the interior of the 
 building, which they gained, in spite of all the resist- 
 ance that could be made to their sudden and unexpected 
 assault. Forcing their way into the royal apartments, 
 they seized there the Lord Chancellor Sudbury, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, and Sir Robert Hales, the Prior 
 of St. John's ; both of whom they dragged forth and 
 immediately put to death, notwithstanding all their 
 prayers for mercy. The manner of the archbishop's 
 slaughter was particulaiiy barbarous,^ for, in the im- 
 petuosity of their fury, they did not succeed in depriving
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 11*7 
 
 him of life till they had given him eight blows with the 
 axe, and shockingly mangled different parts of his body. 
 
 This was on the fifteenth. The king meanwhile had 
 presented himself to the body of insurgents at Mile 
 End, and invited them to state their wishes. They 
 demanded the abolition of bondage, a general pardon, 
 and several other concessions, the majority of which 
 were by no means unreasonable. Indeed, this Essex 
 mob appears, throughout the course of these transac- 
 tions, to have been animated by a much less savage 
 spirit than their allies who remained in London, under 
 the more immediate command of Tyler. All the recent 
 violence and bloodshed had been the work of the latter. 
 On this occasion, when Richard intimated his assent 
 to their propositions, they professed themselves satisfied, 
 and at once dispersed. 
 
 On the return of his Majesty to town, and his report 
 of his success with the Mile End assemblage, it was re- 
 solved that an attempt should be immediately made to 
 effect the dispersion of those who occupied the city, in 
 the same manner. Most of our readers probably have 
 heard and recollect the singular result of this attempt. 
 It was arranged that the king should proceed, for the 
 purpose of holding a conference with the rioters and 
 their chief, to West Smithfield, where they were then 
 collected. His Majesty accordingly made his appear- 
 ance, attended by William Wai worth, Lord Mayor, and 
 a few other followers. Tyler, who also sat mounted in 
 front of his rabble, as soon as he perceived the king 
 approach, put spurs to his horse, and dashing forward 
 did not stop till he had placed himself close by Richard. 
 " Sir King," he then said, " seest thou all yonder 
 people ? they be all at my command, and have sworn 
 to me their faith and truth to do all that I would have 
 them." He followed up this speech by indignantly
 
 118 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 commanding one of the king's attendants, Sir John 
 Newton, to dismount and remain on foot in his pre- 
 sence; and on the knight's refusal, drew his dagger 
 and rushed to stab him an intention which he was 
 only prevented from putting into execution by the king 
 requesting Newton to come down from his horse. The 
 arrogant mob-captain, whom the height of power to 
 which he had been raised had thus intoxicated and 
 made giddy, then proposed the conditions on which he 
 would consent to disband his men. Of these the most 
 remarkable was, that he should have a commission 
 given him to put to death all the lawyers in the king- 
 dom. Of course, such a demand as this could not de- 
 cently be assented to even in appearance, and although 
 there had been no intention on his Majesty's part of ad- 
 hering to the forced agreement. Indeed, there can be 
 no doubt that the article was insisted upon by Tyler 
 merely for the purpose of breaking off the negociation. 
 Several efforts were made by the king and those with 
 him to prevail upon the haughty rebel to come to more 
 reasonable terms ; but he only replied to their remon- 
 strances with scorn and defiance. At last, incensed at 
 his insolent bearing, the royal attendants called upon 
 his Majesty, without more ado, to have him arrested. 
 Richard, with some hesitation, pronounced the bold 
 order : when Walworth, immediately advancing, struck 
 Tyler a blow upon the head with his sword, which at 
 once brought him to the ground ; a few more strokes 
 from the rest soon dispatched him. The mob, mean- 
 while, as soon as they saw their leader fall, raised a 
 shout of vengeance, and were preparing to rush against 
 the king and his friends. One instant, however, of 
 surprise and indecision still retained them where they 
 stood, when Richard, with extraordinaiy resolution and 
 presence of mind, especially for one so young (he was
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 119 
 
 only as yet in his fifteenth year), rode up to them, and 
 exclaimed, " What, my friends, will you kill your king? 
 Be not troubled for the loss of your leader ; I will be 
 your leader, and all you desire shall be granted ! " This 
 address acted upon them like a spell : with wild accla- 
 mations they one and all followed their new captain to 
 St. George's Fields, across the river. No sooner were 
 they gone, than Walworth, who had already acted so 
 bold a part, proceeded, with the aid of a few friends, to 
 raise such a force as he could among the citizens ; and 
 his active exertions succeeded, in a wonderfully short 
 space of time, in bringing together a body of a thousand 
 men in arms. 
 
 Holinshed's graphic account is as follows : " In the 
 meantime, the Lord Mayor of London was returned 
 into the city, with one man only attending upon him, 
 and cried to the citizens, ' Oh ye good and virtuous 
 citizens, come forth out of hand and help your king, 
 ready to be slain, and help me your mayor, standing in 
 the same peril ; or if you will not help me for some 
 faults committed by me against you, yet forsake not 
 your king, but help and succour him in this present 
 danger ! ' When the worshipful citizens, and others, 
 that in their loyal hearts loved the king, had heard 
 these words, incontinently they put themselves in strong 
 and sure armour, to the number of a thousand men, and 
 gathering themselves together into the streets, tarried 
 but for some lord or knight that might conduct them to 
 the king; and by chance there came unto them Sir 
 Robert Knolles, whom all of them requested that he 
 would be their leader, lest, coming out of array and 
 order, they might the sooner be broken." 
 
 Sir Robert Knolles having accordingly placed him- 
 self at their head, they were immediately marched to 
 the place where the rioters, full thirty thousand in
 
 120 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 number, had been already conducted by the king. "While 
 his Majesty still held them in parley, the band of armed 
 citizens made its appearance. Instantly a conviction 
 fell upon the alarmed and confounded multitude that 
 they were betrayed that their cause was lost that 
 they were about to be overpowered and destroyed. They 
 were too much stupified even for flight, or their un- 
 wieldy numbers seemed to make such an attempt hope- 
 less. They therefore threw from their hands the bows 
 with which they were armed ; and, addressing them- 
 selves to the king, begged for mercy. Richard was too 
 well pleased with the victory he had obtained over 
 them to refuse their prayer ; he even offered them the 
 same terms which he had already granted to those of 
 Essex, that they might disperse the more readily. But 
 these promises of pardon and enfranchisement were all 
 soon after revoked by royal proclamation ; and an army 
 of forty thousand men having been collected from every 
 part of the kingdom, was sent into the two counties to 
 which the rioters had chiefly belonged, to execute ter- 
 rible vengeance upon those who had dared to rise 
 against the law. Some resistance was made by the 
 people, but it was quite unavailing against the powerful 
 force by which they were now assailed. Great numbers 
 were slaughtered by the swords of the military, being 
 found with arms in their hands ; and many more, whom 
 the soldiers spared, afterwards expiated their crimes on 
 the scaffold. A historian relates, that of those who 
 were tried and convicted before a commission sent into 
 the recently disturbed counties, above fifteen hundred 
 actually died by the hands of the hangman a horrid 
 and sickening waste of life, altogether useless for any 
 of the salutary purposes of example, and having only 
 the tendency to make the law, which revelled in such 
 bloody butchery, not respected, but abhorred. Among
 
 CH. I.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 121 
 
 the victims who thus perished was a fellow named Jack 
 Straw, Tyler's chief coadjutor. Straw, before his exe- 
 cution, made a confession regarding the designs which 
 had been entertained by himself and his associates. On 
 the very evening of the day, he said, on which Tyler 
 was killed, the mob were to have commenced the ge- 
 neral pillage and burning of the city. It had been 
 arranged, that at the conference in Smithfield, all the 
 attendants on the royal person should be seized and 
 killed ; and that then the rebels, having his Majesty in 
 their hands, should proceed through the different parts 
 of the kingdom, proclaiming everywhere, that what 
 they did was done by the king's orders ; by which 
 means it was thought that the people generally would 
 be induced to join them. All the nobility, gentry, and 
 clergy were to have been destroyed the mendicant 
 friars only excepted, who, it was considered, would be 
 quite sufficient for the performance of the offices of reli- 
 gion to all the people. The old laws were to be every- 
 where wholly abolished. Finally, the king himself 
 was to be put to death, as soon as it was conceived that 
 he could be of no more use in fonvarding the purposes 
 of the revolutionists ; and then every county was to be 
 formed into a separate kingdom, with one of the ring- 
 leaders of the mob for its monarch. Tyler himself, 
 under this precious scheme, was to have had the throne 
 of Kent. 
 
 Such was the end of this famous outbreak of popular 
 fury, which, from the vast numbers of the insurgents 
 and the sweeping political changes which they aimed 
 at accomplishing, has been often styled a rebellion, but 
 which, in the suddenness of its commencement, the 
 description of persons who engaged in it, the savage de- 
 struction and bloodshed which marked its progress, the 
 wretched extravagance and folly of the views entertained
 
 122 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. II. 
 
 by its leaders, and its brief duration, exhibited all the 
 characters of a mere riot. The people, no doubt, were 
 goaded to rise as they did on this occasion by severe 
 oppression ; but nothing, for all that, could have been 
 worse contrived than the plan they adopted, either to 
 cast off the yoke by which they were weighed down, or 
 to effect any permanent improvement of their condition. 
 We have seen that, instead of succeeding in their ob- 
 jects, they only by their wild revolt brought down upon 
 themselves new miseries, and gave to the tyranny under 
 which they groaned additional force and ferocity. And 
 such is almost always the disastrous result of such 
 attempts. The effort applied to pull down an existing 
 government, when so signally defeated as it was here, 
 rarely fails to strengthen and consolidate what it would 
 have overthrown. All the natural friends of things as 
 they are seize the occasion to demand new supports and 
 defences for the institutions which had been attacked 
 and exposed to danger. Many who have hitherto been 
 jealous of the encroachments of power are now drawn 
 to join in the same cry, struck with sudden terror by a 
 convulsion which had threatened the very existence of 
 society. Those, on the other hand, who still abide by 
 their old unwillingness to impose more fetters upon the 
 freedom of the subject, weakened by the desertion of 
 their former associates, and embarrassed by the folly, 
 violence, and crimes by which the very name of free- 
 dom has recently been disgraced, are dispirited, cowed, 
 and without power to make any effectual stand against 
 the prevailing clamour. In this way, both in other 
 countries and in our own, has the public liberty often 
 received its severest wounds from the precipitation and 
 intemperance of its mistaken friends. 
 
 Insurrections of the working classes, similar to that 
 which took place under Wat Tyler, were for a long
 
 CH. 1.] POLITICAL EXCITEMENT. 123 
 
 time afterwards frequent in England. None of them, 
 however, were distinguished by the repetition of such 
 atrocities as those which were perpetrated on that occa- 
 sion. It may be doubted if these commotions, indica- 
 tive as they were of a lamentably diseased and uneasy 
 condition of society, were, even after the lapse of centu- 
 ries, of any service in bringing about a better order of 
 things. The improvements which were eventually in- 
 troduced among the relations of the different classes of 
 the community have indeed been attributed to the fears 
 excited in the minds of the wealthy and powerful by 
 these often-recurring attempts of the labouring popu- 
 lation to throw off the oppression by which they felt 
 themselves to be weighed down ; but it does not seem 
 that the effect in question can really be satisfactorily 
 traced home to that cause. It would rather appear to 
 have been the result of that general advancement of ci- 
 vilization which may be said to have been steadily going 
 on for the last three centuries, and which has brought 
 so many benefits of every kind along with it softening 
 the minds and the manners of men of all classes, and 
 at the same time largely augmenting the comforts and 
 enjoyments of the whole community. Certain it is, at 
 any rate, that the unhappy persons who from time to 
 time were tempted to engage in the frantic efforts of 
 which we now speak never themselves reaped any ad- 
 vantage from the terror which their excesses occasioned. 
 To them the consequence was constantly only unsparing 
 chastisement, and, at least for a time, a severer and 
 more vigilant system of repression and exaction than 
 they had before known. If their exertions tended in 
 any way to produce a mitigation of that lot to which 
 they were born, the good effect was destined at the best 
 only to be felt by their remote descendants, after they 
 themselves should have long mouldered into dust. 
 
 M 2
 
 124 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 But, in truth, tumultuous risings of this description, 
 confined to a small part of one class of the population, 
 and generally to a single town or a single district of 
 the kingdom, have no pretensions to be considered as 
 great national movements ; nor would the overthrow of 
 an established government by such an assault be any- 
 thing else than the most deplorable of national cala- 
 mities. What, for example, would England have been 
 turned to if Wat Tyler and his levelling crew had got 
 the country into their own hands ? We may judge from 
 the wild conduct by which they signalized their short 
 period of power. The besom of destruction would have 
 swept from the land alike whatever encumbered and 
 whatever adorned it not only the feudal oppression 
 whose yoke was felt to be so burdensome, but at the 
 same time all the wealth and all the civilization of the 
 kingdom not only all bad laws, but all laws of every 
 kind. Of liberty, no doubt, there would soon have 
 been enough, if that meant merely the absence of all 
 legal restraints. But it would quickly have been found 
 that the worst of all tyrannies was that of the reign of 
 universal disorder and confusion when the strong man 
 did what he chose by his weaker neighbour, and, all the 
 ordinary securities of social existence being gone, all the 
 regular industry by which alone human beings are 
 clothed and fed, was also fast drawing to an end. Those 
 ignorant, deluded, and violent disturbers might have 
 succeeded in overturning the existing government ; but 
 they certainly never would have succeeded in establish- 
 ing another in its place. That is a task requiring under- 
 standings of a very different stamp from theirs, and to 
 be gone about by far other methods than the burning of 
 houses, the beheading of their occupants, and the pil- 
 laging of their wine-cellars, in which reformers of their 
 sort have always shown themselves most expert.
 
 GH. H.] 125 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM RIOTS OF 1791. 
 
 NOT many years after the Protestant Riots of 1780 had 
 almost laid the capital of England in ashes, a tumult 
 broke out in another of the chief towns of the empire, 
 which showed that the populace might even still be 
 carried to acts of as great violence and frenzy by poli- 
 tical as by religious excitement. We refer to the famous 
 Birmingham Riots of 1791. A number of gentlemen, 
 residing in that town and the neighbourhood, had an- 
 nounced their intention of dining together on the 14th 
 of July, to celebrate the anniversary of the French Re- 
 volution. Similar meetings were intended to be held 
 on the same day in London and various other places. 
 The country, as most of our readers must be aware, 
 was at this time violently divided in opinion upon the 
 subject of the great events which had recently taken 
 place in France. One party beheld, in the success of 
 the national revolt against the ancient order of things, 
 only the overthrow of despotism ; the other, the over- 
 throw of all government whatever. The friends of re- 
 form in this country, then much less numerous than 
 they now are, espoused, as might naturally be expected, 
 the first of these views. Rejoicing that a great nation 
 like France had at last risen from the political subjec- 
 tion and degradation of so many ages, and boldly 
 asserted its right to be free, they hailed so noble an 
 example as pregnant with the promise of universal 
 liberty to mankind. Even in England, hitherto the 
 
 M 3
 
 126 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 only free country in Europe, many of the most tried and 
 attached friends of the constitution believed that such 
 an example was fitted to produce the most beneficial 
 effects. The political improvements introduced in 
 France would rouse their countrymen, they hoped, to 
 insist on the amendment of whatever might be defec- 
 tive in the practice of their own^government; and 
 liberty, they thought, would be all the more secure at 
 home, if it were also generally established in foreign 
 countries. 
 
 The party, however, who entertained these senti- 
 ments in the town of Birmingham consisted, at this 
 time, of but a small number of the inhabitants. Not 
 only the great majority of the wealthier classes, but the 
 labouring population generally, who were in their em- 
 ployment, were violently opposed to all change both at 
 home and abroad. They were Church-and-King men, 
 as they called themselves ; that is to say, they would 
 hear of no alteration whatever in the present order of 
 things in church or state and professed to look upon 
 the friends either of revolution abroad or of reform at 
 home as the enemies of the British constitution. 
 
 The announcement of the dinner to take place on the 
 14th of July gave great offence to a large portion of this 
 party. They regarded it as nothing less than an insult 
 offered to themselves and their principles. Most un- 
 doubtedly nothing could be more unreasonable than 
 this feeling ; for let the persons who proposed comme- 
 morating the Frencli Revolution have been right or 
 wrong in their admiration of that event, their dining 
 together was certainly a matter^with which those who 
 differed from them in opinion had nothing whatever to 
 do. The wish to restrain them from so meeting was 
 conceived in the very spirit of the most odious tyranny. 
 
 Some days before the 14th, a hand-bill was scattered
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 127 
 
 over the town, of a very seditious and inflammatory 
 tendency. It professed to come from the projectors of 
 the intended anniversary dinner, which it invited all 
 the enemies of despotism to honour with their presence. 
 Its real object, however, was to excite the alarm and 
 indignation of the rest of the community against the 
 reformers, by the extravagant opinions and violent lan- 
 guage which it put into the mouths of the latter. It 
 spoke of the meeting on the 14th, in fact, not as a mere 
 social festival, but as meant to present an imposing ex- 
 hibition of the numerical force of the supporters of the 
 new opinions. " Extinguish the mean prejudices of 
 nations," it said, " and let your numbers be collected, 
 and sent as a free-will offering to the National As- 
 sembly. But," it then went on, " is it possible to forget 
 your own parliament is venal your ministry hypo- 
 critical your clergy legal oppressors the reigning 
 family extravagant the crown of a certain great per- 
 sonage becoming every day too weighty for the head 
 that wears it, too weighty for the people that gave it," 
 &c. &c. It concluded by recommending, with suffi- 
 cient inconsistency after these stimulating appeals, that 
 in the mean time the public tranquillity should be re- 
 spected ; but of the day, it added, when the majority of 
 the people shall have declared themselves in favour of 
 an insurrection, " let tyrants beware ! " 
 
 As soon as the committee for the anniversary dinner 
 were informed of the existence of this hand-bill, they 
 disavowed all connexion with it, by an advertisement in 
 the public papers. They also offered a reward for the 
 discovery of its fabricators. But all this by no means 
 did away with the effect which the authors of the 
 wicked imposition had counted upon producing. So 
 much were the minds of men blinded by their political 
 animosities, that many, perhaps most, people still per-
 
 128 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 sisted in believing the seditious hand-bill to be the 
 genuine production of the reformers. Others, again, 
 whose clearer or cooler judgments saw through the 
 trick, were not perhaps very unwilling that their neigh- 
 bours should remain deceived. They thought it well 
 that, whether by fair means or the reverse whether by 
 true representations or by false the popular mind 
 should be inflamed as much as possible against the 
 party whom it was thus attempted to bring into dis- 
 credit. A most dishonest and detestable policy but 
 which has too often been practised by all political par- 
 ties against their opponents. It is, in truth, one of the 
 chief methods usually resorted to by those who aspire 
 to be the leaders of the mere rabble, or who have pur- 
 poses which they expect to carry through their aid. 
 Such persons rarely pay their eager supporters the com- 
 pliment of supposing that they are to be swayed merely 
 by truth and reason. These, in their opinion, would 
 be very insufficient excitements. The passions of the 
 populace, they hold, must be to a certain extent aroused 
 by exaggerations and delusions ; or, at any rate, if such 
 notions have taken possession of them as, no matter 
 how unfounded, have a tendency to inflame them with 
 more of what is deemed the right spirit, the erroneous 
 impressions are to be carefully left undisturbed. Even 
 many well-meaning people think all this perfectly fair 
 and proper. The end, in their estimation, justifies the 
 means. But in this, as in every other case in which it 
 is applied, that maxim is a most false and pernicious 
 one. No moral end really can be advanced by the em- 
 ployment of immoral means ; nor can the interests either 
 of liberty or those of good government be promoted by 
 any act which goes to abuse the understandings of the 
 people. 
 
 From the moment of the appearance of this hand-bill
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 129 
 
 the evidences of the popular exasperation, which it had 
 so greatly contributed to heighten, began to show them- 
 selves in so alarming a manner, that the gentlemen who 
 had proposed dining together on the 14th were almost in- 
 duced to abandon their design. Upon full consideration, 
 however, it was thought best that the dinner should take 
 place ; although, for the sake of avoiding offence, in as 
 quiet and unostentatious a manner as possible. Accord- 
 ingly, on the day appointed, about eighty individuals 
 assembled at one of the inns. They sat down to dinner 
 at three in the afternoon ; and they had all again left 
 the house before six. 
 
 Even during this short space of time, however, a con- 
 siderable mob had collected in front of the house, and 
 under the windows of the room where the company were. 
 Still, up to the time of their departure, no actual out- 
 rage was committed ; but after that, the crowd con- 
 tinued to increase in numbers and in violence, till about 
 eight or nine o'clock, when, restraining themselves no 
 longer, they began a general attack with stones upon 
 the windows of the inn, and soon smashed them all to 
 pieces. On its being announced that they were thus 
 employed, the magistrates repaired to the place, and of 
 course endeavoured to dissuade them from proceeding 
 with the work of destruction. It has been alleged, how- 
 ever, that the manner of their interference for this pur- 
 pose was somewhat extraordinary. They had them- 
 selves, it would appear, dined in a body at a neighbour- 
 ing tavern, from which they issued forth upon the mob, 
 waving their hats, and huzzaing " Church and King ! " in 
 a style of vehement vociferation not very well calculated 
 to calm or overawe the passions of an excited multitude, 
 who were at the moment employed in perpetrating an 
 act of lawless violence to the very same cry. There can 
 be no doubt whatever, indeed, that these gentlemen were
 
 130 POPULAR TUMULTS, [SEC. II. 
 
 rather pleased than otherwise with the sort of spirit dis- 
 played by the mob. They probably thought that the 
 whole mischief likely to result from so gratifying an 
 ebullition of loyalty would be merely the breaking of a 
 few panes of glass ; and if the pulling down of one or 
 two dissenters' meeting-houses should follow, there 
 would not be much to regret. 
 
 From the inn, in fact, the mob proceeded directly to 
 one of these buildings, called the New Meeting-House, 
 a place of worship in which the celebrated Dr. Priestley, 
 one of the most eminent men of the age, officiated. 
 Dr. Priestley's political sentiments were well known to 
 be favourable to the extension of civil and religious 
 liberty; and the mob, accordingly, had expected that 
 he would be present at the anniversary dinner, and had 
 anxiously inquired for him while assembled around the 
 inn. He had not, however, been there ; and it was to 
 revenge themselves for the disappointment they had thus 
 met with in missing the opportunity of inflicting some 
 conspicuous insult or outrage on the most distinguished 
 individual belonging to the party against which their 
 hostility was directed, that the rioters now took their 
 way to his meeting-house. After having torn to pieces 
 all the pews and furniture of the building, which was a 
 very large one, they set it on fire ; and every part of it 
 except the walls was in a short time consumed. They 
 then proceeded to the chapel of another dissenting con- 
 gregation, known by the name of the Old Meeting, and 
 destroyed it in the same manner. 
 
 A mob always becomes the bolder and more ferocious 
 the longer it is permitted to range unchecked, and the 
 farther it has gone in its course of violence and crime. 
 An hour or two ago this crew of miscreants, in all pro- 
 bability, had no intention of carrying their fury against 
 Dr. Priestley farther than the destruction of his chapel ;
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 131 
 
 if they could accomplish that, they thought they should 
 be satisfied. Had they originally contemplated making 
 an attack upon his private residence, they would have 
 proceeded thither immediately ; but this scheme, we 
 may suppose, only entered their heads after they found 
 with how much ease they succeeded in their less atro- 
 cious attempt of destroying the chapel. Their ima- 
 ginations were now heated, and their confidence in their 
 strength greatly elevated both by their triumphal per- 
 formance of this exploit and by their increasing num- 
 bers. They therefore no longer hesitated to do that 
 which at first perhaps the boldest of them would have 
 shrunk from. They set out in a body for the Doctor's 
 house at Fairhill, about a mile from the town ; and as 
 soon as they had reached the place they commenced 
 their attack with such eager impetuosity that the family 
 had hardly time to escape with their lives. Every- 
 thing which the house contained having been torn to 
 pieces or carried away, it was set on fire, as the two 
 chapels had been, and quickly reduced to a mass of 
 smoking ruins. But what rendered the destruction 
 which was committed here most deplorable was, that 
 among much else which perished in the flames were 
 not only a large library and an extensive and most 
 valuable collection of philosophical instruments, but all 
 the Doctor's papers and works in manuscript the labour 
 of many studious years, and which no money could ever 
 restore. Thus, in one moment, by the act of this 
 handful of villains, were lost, irretrievably, discoveries 
 which might perhaps have benefited the whole of man- 
 kind in every future age. 
 
 Here the mob ceased from their devastations for this 
 night. But as they had been hitherto wholly unop- 
 posed in their audacious proceedings, it was not to be 
 expected that their career of mischief would finally ter-
 
 132 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 minate here. At an early hour on the morning of the 
 following day, which was Friday, they were again to be 
 seen parading the streets in different bands. Mr. Wil- 
 liam Hutton, bookseller, one of the most influential in- 
 habitants of Birmingham, and a gentleman who had 
 raised himself to the wealth and distinction he enjoyed 
 from the lowest possible beginnings, entirely by his own 
 efforts, has, among other valuable works which he wrote, 
 left us an interesting account of these riots ; by which, 
 as we shall see immediately, he was one of the principal 
 sufferers. He had spent the preceding afternoon and the 
 night, as usual, at his house in the country, and knew 
 nothing of what had happened till his servant told him 
 when he rose that morning. " I was inclined," he 
 says, " to believe it only a report, but coming to the 
 town I found it a melancholy truth ; and matters wore 
 an unfavourable aspect, for one mob cannot continue 
 long inactive, and there were two or three floating up 
 and down, seeking whom they might devour though 
 I was not under the least apprehension of danger to 
 myself. The affrighted inhabitants came in bodies to 
 ask my opinion. As the danger admitted of no delay, 
 I gave this short answer, ' Apply to the magistrates, 
 and request four things to swear in as many con- 
 stables as are willing, and arm them ; to apply to the 
 commanding-officer of the recruiting parties for his 
 assistance ; to apply to Lord Beauchamp, to call out the 
 militia in the neighbourhood ; and to write to the Se- 
 cretary-at-War for a military force.' "\Vhat became of 
 my four hints is uncertain, but the result proved they 
 were lost." 
 
 It appears, in fact, not to have been till some hours 
 after this that the magistrates adopted any decided mea- 
 sures to protect the town from the alarming dangers 
 with which it was threatened. Some time in the course
 
 C1I. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 133 
 
 of the day, indeed, they determined upon sending to 
 London for the aid of a military force ; but it was not, 
 in fact, till two o'clock on Saturday afternoon that their 
 express arrived in the metropolis. In the mean time, 
 the rioters had renewed their devastations. Towards 
 noon a body of about a thousand of them proceeded to 
 Easy Hill, the residence of John Ryland, Esq., a gen- 
 tleman known, indeed, for his liberal political principles, 
 but who had not attended the dinner any more than 
 Dr. Priestley. They broke into the house, and the 
 scene soon became one of universal destruction and 
 plunder. " Every room," says Hutton, in his account, 
 " was entered with eagerness ; but the cellar, in which 
 were wines to the amount of 300/., with ferocity. Here 
 they regaled till the roof fell in with the flames, and six 
 or seven lost their lives. I was suqjrised at this rude 
 attack, for I considered Mr. Ryland as a friend to the 
 whole human race. He had done more business than 
 any other within my knowledge, and not only without 
 a reward, but without a fault. I thought an obelisk 
 ought rather to have been raised to his own honour, 
 than his house burnt down to the disgrace of others." 
 Other accounts state that the number of the rioters 
 who perished here, by the falling in upon them of the 
 burning floors and roof while they were carousing in 
 the cellar, was much greater than Mr. Hutton men- 
 tions. Ten dead bodies, it appears, were soon after dug 
 from among the ruins ; together with six other poor 
 wretches, terribly bruised and wounded, although still 
 retaining the breath of life. About four o'clock, while 
 the mob were still engaged here, a number of con- 
 stables who had been sworn in by the magistrates came 
 up to attempt to disperse them. They were armed with 
 mop-staves, and their first attack had the effect of 
 driving off the crowd. But, comparatively few in iium- 
 
 N
 
 134 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 ber, and unsupported as they were, they were not able 
 to maintain their ground when the battle was soon 
 after renewed with more determination on the part of 
 the rioters. After many severe wounds had been re- 
 ceived on both sides, and one gentleman killed by the 
 mob, the constables were obliged to retire. 
 
 Had this been a Reform instead of a Church-and- 
 King mob, it is probable that the Birmingham magis- 
 trates would have acted with more energy in repressing 
 it. At this time " many solicitations," says Mr. Hut- 
 ton, " were made to the magistrates for assistance to 
 quell the mob, but the answer was, ' Pacific measures 
 are adopted.' Captain Archibald, and Lieutenants 
 Smith and Maxwell, of recruiting parties, offered their 
 services ; still the same answer. A gentleman asked 
 if he might arm his dependents ? ' The hazard will be 
 yours.' Again, whether he might carry a brace of 
 pistols in his own defence ? ' If you kill a man, you 
 must be responsible.' Thus sentenced and tied, we 
 were to suffer destruction without remedy. Had the 
 inhabitants been suffered to arm, there were people 
 enough willing to oppose the rioters ; but every degree 
 of courage was extinguished, and an universal damp 
 prevailed." 
 
 After completing the demolition of Mr. Ryland's 
 house, the mob proceeded to Bordesley Hall, the resi- 
 dence of John Taylor, Esq., and set it likewise on 
 fire. The house, with everything it contained, the out- 
 offices, and stables, were all reduced to ashes. Mr. 
 Taylor was the son of a gentleman to whom the trade 
 and industry of Birmingham were largely indebted. 
 " No man," says Hutton, " could cultivate peace 
 and social harmony more. His is the art of doing 
 good by stealth. Offence was never charged against 
 him ; but, alas, he was a dissenter ! The sons of plun-
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 135 
 
 der, and their abettors, forgot that the prosperity of 
 Birmingham was owing to a dissenter, father to the 
 man whose property they were destroying. He not 
 only supplied thousands of that class who were burning 
 his son's house with the means of bread, but taught 
 their directors the roads to invention, industiy, com- 
 merce, and affluence roads which no man trod before 
 him." 
 
 About noon this day a person had come to Mr. Hutton 
 in tears, and told him that his own house was con- 
 demned to fall. " As I had never," says he, " with 
 design offended any man, nor heard any allegations 
 against my conduct, I could not credit the information. 
 Being no man's enemy, I could not believe I had an 
 enemy myself. I thought the people, who had known 
 me forty years, esteemed me too much to injure me." 
 Soon after, however, some of his friends came to him to 
 advise him to take care of his goods, it being determined 
 that his house must come down. " I treated the advice," 
 says he, " as ridiculous, and replied, ' That was their 
 duty, and the duty of eveiy inhabitant, for my case was 
 theirs : I had only the power of an individual. Besides, 
 fifty waggons would not carry off my 'stock-in-trade, 
 exclusive of the furniture of my house ; and if they 
 could, where must I deposit it ? ' I sent, however, a 
 small quantity of paper to a neighbour, who returned it, 
 and the whole afterwards fell a prey to rapine." 
 
 " All business," he continues, " was now at a stand. 
 The shops were shut. The town prison, and that of 
 the Court of Requests, were thrown open, and their 
 strength was added to that of their deliverers. Some 
 gentlemen advised the insurgents assembled in New 
 Street to disperse ; when one whom I well knew said, 
 ' Do not disperse, they want to sell us. If you will pull 
 down Hutton's house, I will give you two guineas to 
 
 N 2
 
 136 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 drink ; for it was owing to him I lost a cause in the 
 court." 1 Hutton had been for some years a commis- 
 sioner in the Court of Requests, where he had given 
 ungrudgingly his time and labour to the public with- 
 out any remuneration ; and he attributed much of the 
 popular fury that was now directed against him to the 
 decisions pronounced by him in his judicial capacity, by 
 which of course he had displeased many individuals. 
 Although a dissenter, he had never taken any active part 
 either in religion or in politics. 
 
 " About three o'clock," he proceeds, " they ap- 
 proached me. I expostulated with them. ' They would 
 have money.' I gave them all I had, even to a single 
 halfpenny, which one of them had the meanness to take. 
 They wanted more, ' nor would they submit to this 
 treatment,' and began to break the windows, and at- 
 tempted the goods. I then borrowed all I instantly 
 could, which I gave them, and shook a hundred hard 
 and black hands. ' We Mill have some drink.' ' You 
 shall have what you please, if you will not injure me.' 
 I was then seized by the collar on both sides, and hauled 
 a prisoner to a neighbouring public-house, where, in 
 half an hour, I found an ale-score against me of 329 
 gallons. The affrighted magistrates were now sitting 
 at the Swan, in Bull Street, swearing constables, whom 
 they ordered to rendezvous in St. Philip's Church-yard, 
 ' where they would meet them.' Here the new-created 
 officers, armed with small sticks, waited with impatience, 
 but no magistrates came. They then bent their course, 
 without a leader, to New Street, attacked the mob 
 which had been with me most furiously, and in a mi- 
 nute dispersed it." It was after this that these con- 
 stables proceeded, as already mentioned, to Mr. Ryland's, 
 whose house, however, was nearly burnt down before 
 they arrived.
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 137 
 
 About five o'clock, Mr. Hutton deemed it best to 
 retire himself to his country-house at Bennett Hill, 
 where his wife and daughter were, leaving his son to do 
 the best he could for the protection of the house and 
 property in town. On reaching home he found that 
 his family and servants had made various attempts to 
 induce the neighbours to give shelter to some of the 
 furniture, but all had declined through fear of their own 
 dwellings being burned in consequence about their ears. 
 
 One person had consented to allow the things to be 
 put into his barn, but before midnight he too became 
 impressed with the universal terror, and again ordered 
 them away. Meanwhile, after Hutton had left Bir- 
 mingham, his son, by giving money to the leaders of 
 the mob, had three times succeeded in saving the pre- 
 mises when they were on the point of being attacked. 
 But, about nine o'clock at night, they came back for 
 the fourth time, when nothing would prevail upon them 
 to withdraw. " They laboured," says our author, " till 
 eight the next morning, when they had so completely 
 ravaged my dwelling, that I write this narrative in a 
 house without furniture, without roof, door, chimney- 
 piece, window, or window-frame. During this interval 
 of eleven hours, a lighted candle was brought four times 
 with the intent to fire the house, but by some humane foot 
 was kicked out. At my return, I found a large heap of 
 shavings, chips, and faggots, covered with about three 
 hundred weight of coal, in an under kitchen, ready for 
 lighting. The different pieces of furniture were hoisted 
 to the upper windows to complete their destruction ; 
 and those pieces which survived the fall were dashed to 
 atoms by three bludgeoners, stationed below for that 
 service. Flushed with this triumphant exercise of law- 
 less power, the words ' Down with the Court of Con- 
 science!' 'No more ale-scores to be paid!' -were 
 
 N3
 
 138 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 repeated. A gentleman remarked to the grand 
 slaughterers of my goods, ' You'll be hanged as the 
 rioters were in 1780.' ' O damn him,' was the reply, 
 ' he made me pay fifteen shillings in the Court of Con- 
 science.' This remark was probably true ; for that 
 diabolical character which could employ itself in such 
 base work was very likely to cheat another of fifteen 
 shillings, and I just as likely to prevent him." 
 
 Such were the achievements of these destroyers on 
 Friday. At four o'clock on Saturday morning, a party 
 appeared before Mr. Hutton's country-house, and im- 
 mediately commenced an attack upon it. They threw 
 out all the furniture, and consumed it in three fires ; 
 after which they set fire to the house itself. " It ex- 
 pired," says its unfortunate proprietor, " in one vast 
 blaze. The women were as alert as the men : one fe- 
 male, who had stolen some of the property, carried it 
 home while the house was in flames ; but returning, 
 saw the coach-house and stables unhurt, and exclaimed, 
 with the decisive tone of an Amazon, ' Damn the coach- 
 house, is not that down yet ? we will not do our work 
 by halves ! ' She instantly brought a lighted faggot 
 from the building, set fire to the coach-house, and re- 
 duced the whole to ashes." 
 
 Various other houses in the neighbourhood of Bir- 
 mingham were destroyed, with similar barbarity, in the 
 course of this day. That of Mr. Humphrys, at Spark- 
 brook, was completely sacked and gutted, but not set on 
 fire. This gentleman had in the first instance driven 
 off the mob by merely firing a pistol among them 
 charged with powder ; but they afterwards returned in 
 greater numbers, and although he was well prepared 
 for a vigorous defence, the fears of the ladies in the 
 house would not permit him to make any further resist- 
 ance. From Mr. Humphrys 's the rioters proceeded to
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 139 
 
 Mr. Russell's, at Showell Green, whose residence, with 
 all it contained, they burned to the ground. The houses 
 of Mr. Hawkes and of Mr. Thomas Russell, at Moseley- 
 Wake Green, were next attacked ; both were plundered 
 and greatly injured, but not burnt. From thence the 
 multitude took their way to Moseley Hall, the residence 
 of the Countess Dowager of Carhampton, mother of the 
 Duchess of Cumberland, but the property of Mr. Taylor, 
 whose house had been destroyed the preceding day. 
 Lady Carhampton having been ordered to remove her- 
 self and her furniture, the house was set on fire as soon 
 as she had left it, and consumed to the bare walls. 
 Finally, the houses of a Mr. Hobson, a presbyterian 
 minister, at Balsall Heath, and of a Mr. Harwood, a 
 baptist, at King's Heath, both in the neighbourhood 
 of Moseley Hall, were soon after to be seen accompany- 
 ing, with their humbler blazes, the conflagration of that 
 building. The occupants of both these houses were 
 poor men, and lost on this occasion all that they pos- 
 sessed in the world. 
 
 The mob, it will be observed, during this day had car- 
 ried on their ravages principally without the town. The 
 consternation in the interior of Birmingham, however, 
 continued unabated ; and there also the rioters might 
 still be said to bear supreme sway. Small parties of 
 them, wearing blue cockades in their hats, went up and 
 down many of the streets, levying contributions from 
 the inhabitants ; nor, insignificant as the numbers 
 of these plunderers were (the party consisting in most 
 cases of only three or four individuals), did any 
 person dare to resist their demands, any more than in 
 ordinary times they would have done those of the col- 
 lector of the king's taxes. The strangest soothing 
 system was adopted by the authorities, with the view of 
 staying the career of the savage and triumphant rabble.
 
 140 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 Some of the magistrates harangued them and requested 
 them to desist from further violence, on the ground that 
 they had now done enough to show their loyalty and 
 attachment to the government. The same style was 
 adopted in sundry printed proclamations, which were 
 stuck up on the walls and distributed. " Friends and 
 brother Churchmen," began one of these effusions, 
 headed " Important Information to the Friends of 
 Church and King," and subscribed by sixteen magis- 
 trates and other gentlemen. These gentle counsellors 
 then went on to call to the recollection of their friends, 
 that the damage they were doing would fall, not upon 
 the persons whose houses they were destroying, but upon 
 the respective parishes, and would have to be paid out 
 of the rates a circumstance, they remarked, with which 
 they were conscious that their said good friends were 
 unacquainted. " We, therefore," continued the address, 
 " as your friends, conjure you immediately to desist from 
 the destruction of any more houses; otherwise, the very 
 proceedings of your zeal for showing your attachment 
 to your Church and King will eventually be the means 
 of most seriously injuring innumerable families who are 
 hearty supporters of Govtrnmeiii, and bring on an addi- 
 tion of taxes, which yourselves and the rest of the friends 
 of the Church will feel a very grievous burthen. And 
 we must observe to you," it concluded, " that any fur- 
 ther violent proceedings will more offend your King and 
 Country than serve the cause of him and the Church." 
 What must the innocent individuals, who had actually 
 suffered from the fury of the populace, or who were 
 threatened with the destruction of their property and 
 the burning of their houses, by the lawless violence 
 which was abroad, have felt on reading this silly and 
 infamous proclamation! The rioters their drunken 
 and merciless persecutors they here found styled the
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 141 
 
 peculiar friends of the Church, the King, and the Govern- 
 ment. It was exactly the same thing as if they them- 
 selves had been expressly denounced as the enemies of 
 the State. And so, undoubtedly, would the mob them- 
 selves understand the language addressed to them. The 
 proclamation may have been well intended ; but any- 
 thing better adapted to encourage the blackguard multi- 
 tude in their criminal career, and to spur them on to 
 new excesses, could not well have been contrived. 
 
 Sunday rose a cloudless and beautiful morning. 
 " Ranting, roaring, drinking, burning," remarks Mr. 
 Hutton, " is a life of too much rapidity for the human 
 frame to support. Our black sovereigns had now held 
 it nearly three days and nights, when nature called for 
 rest ; and the bright morning displayed the fields, roads, 
 and hedges lined with friends and brother churclimen, 
 dead drunk." The work of devastation, however, still 
 went on ; the mob bending their course to the village 
 of Kingswood, about seven miles from Birmingham, 
 where they burned several houses, pillaged several wine- 
 cellars, and extorted money from every person they met. 
 They probably, however, did less damage in this country 
 excursion than they would have done had they remained 
 in the town ; and one most fortunate result of their 
 absence was, that the Wednesbury colliers, who had 
 assembled in a body for the purpose of joining them, 
 were deterred from entering Birmingham when they 
 found it thus deserted by those whom they came to 
 support. 
 
 At last, about ten o'clock at night, the anxiously ex- 
 pected military force from London arrived. It consisted 
 of three troops of the 15th Light Dragoons, and was 
 welcomed with the universal acclamations of the citi- 
 zens ; all parties of whom were by this time thoroughly 
 frightened, and much more than satisfied with the expe-
 
 142 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. II. 
 
 rience they had had of mob domination. The town was 
 immediately illuminated in token of the general thank- 
 fulness and sense of deliverance. It was felt that the 
 risk of any further destruction or depredation being 
 committed in the town was now over. 
 
 In the country, however, the rioters were still pursu- 
 ing their course unchecked, although in diminished 
 numbers, for drunkenness and fatigue had by this time 
 completely worn out many of them. They had now 
 nearly thrown off altogether their Church-and-King 
 pretensions, and were becoming a mere crew of robbers, 
 breaking into and plundering indiscriminately every 
 house they came to, in which they thought they were 
 likely to find anything to reward their trouble. The 
 wine-cellars were now more than ever the objects of 
 their rapacity. They were engaged on Monday morn- 
 ing in pillaging that of Dr. Withering, of Edgebaston 
 Hall who had also given them money to buy them off 
 from committing any further violence when a party of 
 the military approached. They did not wait the attack, 
 but scampered off in all directions, even before the sol- 
 diers were in sight. 
 
 Three other troops of dragoons arrived in Birming- 
 ham this day ; but on Tuesday the rioters were still 
 reported to be continuing their depredations. By this 
 time, however, confidence had been completely restored 
 to the peaceably disposed inhabitants, even of the coun- 
 try villages, which had, for the two or three preceding 
 days, been so infested and oppressed by these insolent 
 ravagers. Accordingly, on the evening of this day, 
 when a band of the rioters attacked the house of Mr. 
 Male, of Belle- Vue, the peasantry of the neighbourhood 
 rose, of their own accord, and drove them off. A party 
 of dragoons set out for the place, on receiving in- 
 formation of the attack ; but the country people had
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 143 
 
 completely overpowered the mob before the soldiers 
 came up. 
 
 This affair terminated the riots. On Wednesday 
 business was resumed in the town, and all the manu- 
 factories were again at work as usual. The cavalry 
 scoured the country this day for ten miles round ; but 
 no rioters were any where to be seen. Their lately nu- 
 merous and formidable array had melted away, none 
 could tell whither. All of them that now remained 
 visible were the numerous prisoners that had been 
 taken. Many of these were some time afterwards 
 brought to trial ; and, notwithstanding the strong party 
 spirit of the juries, which led them to acquit whenever 
 they possibly could, the guilt of several was so clearly 
 established, that they were convicted and sentenced to 
 death. Three were actually executed. 
 
 The loss of property occasioned by these mad dis- 
 orders was very considerable ; and there can be no 
 doubt that drunkenness, exhaustion, and various casual- 
 ties, destroyed the lives of many more of the rioters 
 than were ever actually ascertained to have perished. 
 Although, also, only one individual is stated to have 
 been killed in conflict with the mob, who can tell how 
 many others, persons in infirm health, and timid or de- 
 licate females, may have been eventually brought to 
 their graves by the rough usage, or the mere alarm, to 
 which they were exposed during those terrible days ? 
 Some such calamities are always among the conse- 
 quences of a great riot. Mr. Mutton's wife, who was 
 unwell at the time, never recovered the shock she re- 
 ceived from being, along with her family, burned, as 
 we have related, out of her home, and being afterwards 
 driven, for some days, from one place of shelter to ano- 
 ther by the infuriated crew, who, having first destroyed 
 her husband's property, seemed then to thirst for his
 
 144 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 life. She lingered, in great feebleness and anguish for 
 some years, till death put an end to her sufferings 
 Hutton sums up what he had received at the hands of 
 the rioter in intense and touching language : " His sa- 
 vage fangs," says he, " tore me to pieces, and ploughed 
 up that even path of contentment which time cannot 
 again make smooth." 
 
 " I cannot blame either the King or the Church," 
 this writer well remarks in another place, " though my 
 houses were destroyed in those names, for it was done 
 by people who would have sold their king for a jug of 
 ale, and demolished the church for a bottle of gin." 
 Nothing, indeed, can be more unfair than uniformly, 
 as many do, to attribute the blame of the excesses of 
 rioters to the political or other party whose name the 
 mob may have chosen to assume, or some one of whose 
 known principles or watch-words they may have taken 
 up as their cry. According to this way of judging, there 
 is no great principle, whether political or religious, and 
 no class of men in either the church or the state, which 
 may not be condemned as chargeable with all the mi- 
 series and crimes of popular disorder and violence. To 
 take the case of the riots we have just been relating : 
 the mob no doubt shouted Church and King as they 
 rushed along the streets and highways, plundering, 
 burning, and destroying ; but how were the principles 
 which they thus proclaimed proved to be either right or 
 wrong by these devastations ? Whatever may be thought 
 of the doctrines or opinions denoted by the words 
 Church and King, it will hardly be asserted that they 
 really mean universal confusion, and the entire disso- 
 lution of society. They have commonly been charged 
 as rather too favourable to the maintenance of things 
 as they are, leaning too greatly to the preservation of 
 the order and quiet, at the expense of the other in-
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 145 
 
 terests of the community, too sternly opposed to every- 
 thing savouring of popular menace or commotion. 
 Individuals in the upper classes, calling themselves 
 Church and King men, may on this occasion have 
 conducted themselves intemperately enough ; and may 
 have even done what they could to stir up the passions 
 of the populace, and to encourage them to acts of law- 
 less violence. Such persons, although they may not 
 have actually joined the mob, are to be considered as 
 having really belonged to it, and as having formed the 
 most guilty part of it. Let their extreme folly and 
 thoughtlessness, or the worse motives by which they 
 were instigated, be condemned with all deserved seve- 
 rity. Let not their cowardice, in flying from the con- 
 flagration, palliate their crime in kindling it. But with 
 their conduct, their principles and their party gene- 
 rally are not to be held as having anything to do. 
 The principles are to be deemed good or bad, as their 
 tendency can be shown to be beneficial or the reverse. 
 They are to be judged of by their own obvious mean- 
 ing, not by either the violence of their more intemperate 
 promulgators, or by the rude and absurd interpretation 
 they have received from those who knew little or no- 
 thing more of them except the slang appellation by 
 which they may happen to be distinguished. 
 
 But the promulgation of certain principles may, at 
 least, have been the chance occasion which gave rise to 
 the riot. What of that ? If the principles were true, 
 and such as it was important to make known, were 
 their believers to refrain from professing them, because 
 they might by possibility produce somewhere or other 
 some popular excitement ? No doubt the existence of 
 that possibility is a good reason for the exercise of 
 prudence and caution on the part of all who aim at 
 influencing society by the spreading of great principles,
 
 146 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. II. 
 
 whether new or old ; they are to take care that they do 
 not give any encouragement to their disciples to endea- 
 vour to propagate by violence, that which should make 
 its way only by the force of reason. But more than 
 this they are not called upon to do. They are not 
 called upon either to shut their lips altogether, or even 
 to keep back any part of that which they believe to be 
 the truth. Nay, they are under no obligation to check 
 even the warmth and earnestness with which they na- 
 tutally feel inclined to plead their cause. Argument, 
 entreaty, illustration, and all the other resources of 
 eloquence, are the rightful armour of truth ; and none 
 are to be debarred from using them in what they hold 
 to be her defence. None have ever allowed themselves 
 to be so debarred ; the greatest and the best men who 
 have distinguished themselves in political or religious 
 controversy in every age, have without scruple availed 
 themselves, in writing or in oratory, of every power 
 which they possessed to move either the understandings 
 or the hearts of those around them. And in so doing 
 they did well, and no more than they were in duty 
 bound to do. There may be there often have been 
 times when, on the diffusion and maintenance of some 
 great principle, depended the safety of nations perhaps 
 the welfare of the world. At the crisis of the Refor- 
 mation, for example, would it have done for Luther, 
 and the other intrepid spirits who followed the banner 
 he had raised, to have fought with irresolute heart 
 or languid arm the momentous battle in which they 
 had engaged ? What though the zeal of some of their 
 emancipated adherents overflowed in extravagance and 
 tumult, was the chance of such ebullitions to be for 
 a moment weighed against the mighty deliverance 
 which they believed themselves to be destined and 
 commissioned to work out for mankind ? a local,
 
 CH. II.] BIRMINGHAM RIOTS. 147 
 
 passing evil, against a universal good, to be enjoyed 
 throughout all ages ? In like manner, in the history 
 of every nation there have been eras when the question 
 of the triumph of one or the other of two contending 
 principles involved, perhaps, that of the very existence 
 of the state. When such is the case, those who are 
 appointed to carry on the contest on either side will 
 not, and must not, shrink from the full assertion of the 
 opinions they have undertaken to defend, nor from 
 exerting all their zeal and all their powers to win the 
 victory from their opponents. 
 
 o 2
 
 149 
 
 SECTION III. EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1799 
 AT NAPLES. 
 
 OF the proceedings which are now to be related, a 
 principal portion in the extent of the scale upon which 
 they were carried on, and the military regularity dis- 
 played in them, as well as in the magnitude of their 
 results assume all the character of a great national 
 revolution. But, mixed up with the movements of 
 armies, the course of these extraordinary events presents 
 also in every part of it much of mere popular tumult, 
 in which the most terrible passions were called into 
 action, and the most sanguinary license exercised by 
 the wholly unbridled multitude. Here we have riot 
 not merely resisting authority, but raging uncontrolled 
 in the absence of all government, and the complete 
 dissolution of the body politic. 
 
 We are indebted for the account to an eye-witness of 
 the scenes which it describes ; and it will be found to 
 form an important contribution to the history of the 
 wonderful times in which we and our fathers have 
 lived, as well as a narrative of the deepest interest. 
 
 In the year 1798, I, then a boy, was living with my 
 parents in the city of Naples. Our family consisted of 
 my father and mother, my brother, and myself. We 
 occupied a wing of the palace of the prince of Monte- 
 mileto, a Neapolitan nobleman then absent from the 
 country. This spacious and massive building is situated 
 on an eminence in the outskirts of the town, near the 
 Infrascata, at the back of the hill of St. Elmo, and 
 immediately below the castle of that name. From our 
 
 o 3
 
 150 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 terrace we enjoyed a splendid view of the greater, or 
 eastern, part of the town, of the bay, and of Vesuvius ; 
 and the mountains of Castellamare opposite. It was 
 one of those glorious prospects with which that favoured 
 region abounds, and which I have never since found 
 matched in any other land. The crowded scene below 
 the world of white houses, painted domes, and wide- 
 spreading terraces the long line of bright villas and 
 casinos, extending for miles, as far as the royal resi- 
 dence of Portici ; farther on, the darker-looking build- 
 ings of Torre del Greco, embedded in still darker strata 
 of lava the purple cone of Vesuvius rising above, 
 crowned with its crest of smoke the blue waters of 
 the bay glittering with the reflection of the sun while 
 beyond them a faint whitish line marked the site of the 
 marina of Castellamare ; these, and other features of 
 that wide scene, lost nothing of their effect on my 
 youthful mind, which was then as transparent and un- 
 clouded as the sky and the sea I gazed upon. 
 
 Naples had enjoyed, since the peace of Aix-la-Cha- 
 pelle, half a century of undisturbed repose. The wars 
 of the French in the north of Italy had of late years 
 caused some alarm, but the danger had been removed 
 by timely concessions ; and the kingdom of the two 
 Sicilies, nearly insulated at the farther end of the 
 Peninsula, screened behind the Papal dominions, and 
 defended by its natural boundary of the Apennines, 
 seemed almost beyond the reach of the storm that raged 
 in the middle of Europe. Ever since Don Carlos of 
 Spain, the father of the reigning monarch, had trans- 
 planted a branch of the Bourbons to the shores of 
 the Tyrrhenian, people sang and danced, went to the 
 procession and to San Carlo, bawled and laughed as 
 thoughtlessly as they had always done, and their fathers 
 before them.
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 151 
 
 I made no reflections of this sort at the time, but I 
 partook of the general feeling of careless security ; and 
 I believed King Ferdinando Quarto, whom I had 
 learned to venerate in the Court Almanack, to be as 
 much a fixture of Naples as the marble giant which 
 stood before his palace. Alas for stability ! I lived 
 to see them both unceremoniously removed, and that 
 before I was much older. Annexed to the said Alma- 
 nack was a neat-looking miniature map of the king- 
 dom, duly divided into twelve provinces, the names of 
 which I well knew ; those of Calabria and Basilicata 
 sounding to my fancy as wild as Borneo or Timbuctoo 
 to a student of geography in the present day. I heard 
 at times strange stories related of those Calabrians, the 
 fiercest fellows imaginable little better than Turks or 
 the Algerine pirates, of whom also wild tales were re- 
 lated at that time at Naples. As for the lazzaroni*, 
 whom I saw every day in walking through the town, 
 they appeared merry and good-humoured, very civil to 
 gentlefolks, good-natured towards women and children. 
 Their erect and comely persons, their wide grinning 
 mouths, their white teeth, their lank black hair, and 
 sparkling eyes, became soon objects of familiar ac- 
 quaintance to me, when walking with my father, either 
 near the marina, or on the mole. 
 
 Life was uniform diversions and pleasures came by 
 rotation ; the evening trottata, or ride along the marina, 
 and the return by the great street of Toledo, where two 
 interminable files of carriages, each lighted by volanti, 
 or running footmen, carrying torches, were moving 
 
 * The lazzari, or lazzaroni, properly speaking, are the porters ; 
 but the name has been extended to the lowest classes in general, 
 whether porters, boatmen, fishermen, or other rambling and 
 vagrant orders, who inhabit chiefly the district of Mercato and 
 the adjacent parts.
 
 152 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 along in regular line the halt before the celebrated 
 ice-house at La Carita, from whence excellent ices of 
 all descriptions were handed to the company in each 
 carriage in succession the return home by the steep 
 winding ascent of Monte Santo the cool breeze that 
 met us on our own terrace, so refreshing after inhaling 
 the heated air of the crowded streets below, all these 
 were become, by frequent repetition, like parts of our 
 existence. But much more to my taste were our occa- 
 sional pedestrian rambles by the shaded paths that 
 wound round the hill of Capodimonte in our neigh- 
 bourhood, or towards the Chinese College, or round by 
 the Arenella, to the foot of the lofty Camaldoli. Some- 
 times we adjourned to a famed rural tavern, in a most 
 delightful spot, called the Cleft Mountain (Montagna 
 Spaccata), where we were regaled with soffritto, maca- 
 roni, and other national dishes, dressed in the genuine 
 country style, which was but clumsily imitated by fa- 
 mily cooks in town. Naples has ever been a country 
 of epicurism, and in speaking of its life, descriptions 
 of feasts and dinners must always have a prominent 
 place. 
 
 Mine was not the age of dark forebodings; I little 
 suspected what was lurking under the apparent calm 
 and indolence of all around us ; I could not know the 
 discontent, the plots, the distrust, that had been of late 
 years undermining the smooth walk of society, much 
 less could I foresee the storm that was to exert a mate- 
 rial influence over our fortunes and future life. If at 
 times I caught words of serious import, of arrests of 
 emissaries, of fears of war, cautiously emitted by some 
 of my father's visitors, I could not understand half- 
 spoken sentences, and the impression was soon effaced 
 from my mind. 
 
 I had passed the first years of my life at Rome, where
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 153 
 
 I left my nurse, to whom I was fondly attached ; and 
 the recollection of the huge ruins, the quiet streets, 
 and the magnificent churches of the eternal city, was 
 strongly impressed on my mind, and of course I felt as 
 deep an interest as I was then susceptible of in the news 
 I heard from that quarter. My infant plays, my first 
 studies, the kindness I had experienced under the hum- 
 ble roof of my nurse, were dearly remembered by me. 
 I do not know but that, of the two only places I knew, I 
 liked Rome best, and I was often inquiring about it. 
 One day my father, on coming home, told me that the 
 French had taken Rome, that the Pope had gone away, 
 and that the Roman republic (a high-sounding name), 
 with its consuls, was re-established. This information 
 struck me forcibly. I had read something of Rollin's 
 Roman History, and the idea of Roman consuls on the 
 Capitol recalled many historical associations ; yet, I re- 
 member it appeared to me more in the light of a play 
 than a real event. A few months after, the Roman 
 republic was abolished, and the poor consuls shame- 
 fully paraded on asses through the Corso* amidst the 
 revilings of the mob. 
 
 We, however, heard nothing more for some months. 
 French soldiers then made their appearance on the 
 frontiers of the kingdom. Reports came of partial in- 
 surrection in the Roman states, which ended, as usual, 
 by the natives being put to the sword, their women 
 abused, and their villages burnt. Meantime the go- 
 vernment of Naples was actively recruiting its army by 
 a forced levy among the peasantry, much against the 
 inclinations of the latter. Soldiers marched and pa- 
 raded through the streets, and we had the benediction 
 of banners, harangues to the troops, processions, and 
 
 * This disgraceful exhibition took place after the second occu- 
 pation of Rome by the Neapolitan troops, in August, 1799.
 
 154 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 the other ceremonies attendant on a military establish- 
 ment in Catholic countries. A camp was formed at 
 San Germane, near the confines, and yet Government 
 made loud profession of being at peace with all the 
 world. 
 
 In September the English admiral Nelson came 
 into the bay after the victory of the Nile, and was re- 
 ceived with acclamations and rejoicings. The king 
 went to meet him in his barge, and the queen called 
 him the deliverer of her country. His ships were sup- 
 plied with stores and provisions, and with permission to 
 refit in the harbours of the kingdom. All this was 
 done under the eyes of a French minister residing at 
 Naples. Prudent people murmured in secret at these 
 at least rash manifestations, and augured no good from 
 them. 
 
 We remained quiet, however, in appearance, till the 
 month of November, when we heard that, in the midst 
 of the rains of that season, the Neapolitan army, fifty 
 thousand strong, was going to enter the Roman States. 
 The king himself, in fact, left the capital, and placed 
 himself at their head. A curious manifesto was now 
 issued, in which the government required of the French 
 commanders that they should evacuate the Papal terri- 
 tories, and at the same time professed to be at peace 
 with the French republic. After the departure of the 
 troops Naples became still quieter than before, many 
 of its bustling spirits having accompanied the army. 
 We soon heard that the king had entered Rome with- 
 out opposition, but that the Castle of Saint Angelo held 
 out. After a few more weeks gloomy reports began to 
 be circulated in private. Defeats, treason, the return 
 of the king to Caserta, the retreat of the army, all 
 these pieces of intelligence were rumoured in rapid suc- 
 cession, and were at last confirmed by the king's pro-
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 155 
 
 clamation, exhorting his faithful subjects to arm them- 
 selves in defence of their holy religion, their families, 
 and property against the invaders ; reminding them 
 that they were the descendants of the Samnites, the 
 Lucanians, and the Brutii ! These pompous names 
 exerted little influence on the minds of an illiterate 
 population ; but the religious appeal, supported by the 
 clergy, produced great effect in the provinces, as we 
 found to our cost a few months after. 
 
 At Naples a cry of indignation resounded through 
 the town. The clamour was especially directed against 
 the general Mack, a German officer who had held 
 the chief command in the late disastrous campaign. 
 A numerous and expensive armament had been de- 
 stroyed in a month's time, and a foreign army had been 
 provoked to enter the country, and to advance within 
 twenty miles of the capital. That the fault did not rest 
 entirely with the Neapolitan soldiers was proved by the 
 good behaviour of a division under Count Damas, a 
 French emigrant officer, who, being cut off from the 
 rest by Mack's sudden retreat from Rome, found him- 
 self insulated with six or seven thousand men in the 
 inhospitable wilderness of the Maremme ; and although 
 closely pressed by Kellerman, effected his retreat in 
 good order to the harbour of Orbetello, on the coast of 
 Tuscany, and there embarked his troops in safety. 
 
 The outcry of the Neapolitans became now loud 
 against the foreigners who had monopolized, under 
 Acton's ministry, and through the favour of the queen, 
 the principal offices of the state. To their bad advice, 
 mismanagement, and selfishness, all the disasters of the 
 country were ascribed. These things were now repeated 
 loudly, and in broad day, in the very streets of the 
 capital. 
 
 On the 19th of December a crowd assembled under
 
 156 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 the windows of the royal town palace, and soon in- 
 creased to an immense mob, vociferating " Viva il Re," 
 and demanding to see the king. The dense mass and 
 determined appearance of the people, not composed 
 merely of the lower classes, was reported by those who 
 witnessed it as imposing beyond anything of the kind 
 that had been seen at Naples in the recollection of any 
 one alive. The king, however, did not appear at the 
 balcony; but two noblemen, Pignatelli and L'Acerra, 
 came forward and spoke fair words to the people. Two 
 or three among the latter stood up as orators, and com- 
 plained that the faithful subjects of the king had been 
 neglected in favour of aliens, who were betraying the 
 country; that since foreigners had been thus patronized, 
 peace and comfort had fled from Naples ; that the 
 king ought to choose his ministers and officers from 
 among his loyal Neapolitans ; that they did not fear 
 the French ; that they would defend their country, &c. 
 Of course this exhibition led to nothing for the mo- 
 ment, and by degrees the people dispersed from before 
 the palace and went to their dinner, to reassemble 
 again in the afternoon in various parts of the town. 
 
 Next morning a scene of blood took place, which in- 
 creased the alarm of the quiet citizens. A courier of 
 the Austrian cabinet went to the quay, and bespoke a 
 boat to carry him to the English admiral in the bay, 
 for whom he had despatches. He spoke Italian with a 
 foreign accent, at least not like a Neapolitan, and some 
 one of the bystanders said he was a Frenchman; upon 
 which the lazzaroni fell upon him, stabbed him in many 
 places, and then tied a rope round him, and dragged 
 him in that condition, all covered with blood and dust, 
 before the king's palace, roaring out all the way, with 
 horrid imprecations, that they would serve all Jacobins 
 in a like manner. The king happened this time to be
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 157 
 
 on the balcony, and heard the horrible shouts, saw the 
 ferocious mob, and at last perceived the disfigured body. 
 Indolent as he was, he felt horror at the sight, and 
 uttering a scream, covered his face with both his hands. 
 But did he give any orders ? Did he remonstrate with 
 the populace ? No ; he withdrew, and the Neapolitans 
 saw no more of him afterwards. Those who surrounded 
 him, supported by the queen, took advantage of the 
 terror and disgust produced on him by the sight, and 
 his embarkation for Sicily was decided. The prepara- 
 tions for this step were taken with great secrecy, yet 
 men were seen busy in the night removing everything 
 valuable from the palaces, the Museum, and the Trea- 
 sury. Naples was, in fact, spoliated. Everything was 
 carried on board the English and Neapolitan ships in 
 the bay that were ready to sail. At last another editto, 
 or proclamation, appeared one morning posted at the 
 corners of the streets, by which his Majesty made 
 known to his faithful subjects that " he was proceeding 
 for a short time to Sicily, whence he would return with 
 powerful reinforcements. Meantime he appointed Don 
 Francesco Pignatelli di Strongoli his vicar-general 
 during his absence." 
 
 The first impression produced by these announce- 
 ments was that of mute stupor, which soon, however, 
 gave way to cries of indignation and despondency. It 
 was now Christmas time, a season devoted, especially at 
 Naples, to universal festivity. From the prince to the 
 fisherman, they look on that epoch as one of rejoicing 
 and feasting, the very poorest of the people saving all 
 the little they can in order to supply themselves with 
 the usual delicacies. The night preceding Christmas- 
 day is spent in parties, assembled round a plentiful 
 supper, first beginning with fish and other meagre diet, 
 but being purposely lengthened till midnight; when,
 
 158 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 meat being allowed by the church regulations, a second 
 course is brought in of fowls, turkeys, and other rich 
 viands. Meantime the streets resound with the noise 
 of squibs and fireworks, and night service is performed 
 at the various churches in honour of the Nativity ; and 
 hardly anybody thinks of retiring to rest till daybreak, 
 when they go to bed for a few hours to recruit their 
 strength for the festivities of the day, which conclude 
 with another equally copious dinner ; after which games 
 of old tradition are introduced. 
 
 Such is the Christmas of the Neapolitans ; but little 
 of this was seen at that of 1798. People were too 
 much under the influence of terror. The few visitors 
 that came to our house could talk of nothing but 
 fearful topics. The king had, indeed, set sail in the 
 English admiral's ship, after being detained some days 
 in the bay by contrary winds. While yet in sight of 
 his capital, a deputation had been sent by the citta, or 
 municipality, to entreat him not to abandon his sub- 
 jects ; but all to no purpose. The ties of sympathy that 
 had attached the Neapolitans to a king born among 
 them, and who had certainly continued popular till 
 then (for all the blame of mismanagement had been 
 thrown upon his ministers), were now broken by his 
 cold indifference and neglect. " He is going to leave 
 us in the danger he has brought upon us," was the 
 general observation. " He trusts more to foreigners 
 than to his own subjects." 
 
 A dreadful storm arose after the king's departure. 
 Several of the Neapolitan men-of-war, who were not 
 in a condition to put to sea, remained in the bay ; 
 among them a 74-gun ship, and various large frigates. 
 The news from Capua was unfavourable. The soldiers 
 had mutinied against Mack, and chosen for their gene- 
 ral Moliterno, a young nobleman who had made his
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 159 
 
 first campaign in Lotnbardy, where he had lost an eye 
 in a charge of cavalry, and who was really a bold and 
 enterprising officer. It was also understood that nego- 
 tiations were going on between the viceroy and the 
 French general Championnet, who was encamped be- 
 fore Capua. Bat the viceroy did not inspire confidence; 
 the municipality disputed his power, and another piece 
 of improvident and wanton destruction came to widen 
 the breach. 
 
 One evening the Neapolitan ship of the line Guis- 
 card, and the frigates that had remained in the bay, 
 were seen in flames. People ran to the sea-side or 
 crowded on the terraces to witness this awful sight. 
 The fire, it was soon found out, was not accidental. The 
 viceroy had given the orders for the work of destruction, 
 and a Portuguese man-of-war had executed it. The 74 
 blazed during the greater part of the night. It was an 
 awful scene. The stores in the arsenal and the gun-boats 
 were likewise destroyed. We saw the fire from our ter- 
 race, and watched the progress of the flames until the 
 last sparks went out, and all was dark and mournful 
 again. The act was committed, it appeared, to prevent 
 the ships from falling into the hands of the French. 
 But why did government wait till the eleventh hour, 
 and leave a fleet which had been built at so much ex- 
 pense in such a state of disrepair as to make it unfit to 
 be removed even the short distance to Sicily ? It was, 
 indeed, a subject of indignant reproach against the go- 
 vernment, obvious even to the most unreflecting mind. 
 But the whole old machinery of the state was crumbling 
 to pieces. The government had fallen into dissolution 
 of itself. 
 
 There is a feeling of awe and dismay which pervades 
 the population of a great city, at least the peaceful part 
 of it, on the eve of the dissolution of a long established 
 
 p 2
 
 160 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 government, however faulty and corrupt, and at the 
 approach of a foreign invading army, which comes for 
 the avowed purpose of changing the whole system of 
 society. This feeling has been experienced by turns in 
 every kingdom of Europe during the last war, with the 
 exception of England. When this has happened, fare- 
 well to that sentiment of security of which we do not 
 appreciate the value until we have lost it that security 
 which makes an honest man lay his head on his pillow 
 at night, confident that he will, on awakening, find 
 things as he left them, and the customary walks of life 
 open to him as usual ; all this is replaced by anxious 
 fears of distress, danger, spoliation, insult of loss of 
 employment, of loss of life, and of, what is dearer than 
 life, the honour of one's family. Of the grounds for 
 these fears I had but a very indistinct idea at that time ; 
 still I caught the contagion of general uneasiness and 
 alarm. In the case of Naples, besides the enemy with- 
 out, there was a well-grounded apprehension of internal 
 danger from a numerous, naked, and ignorant popu- 
 lace ; who, although remarkably quiet of late years, 
 bore a traditional character of lawlessness and ferocity 
 when roused, as the excesses of the revolt of Masa- 
 niello and other similar instances had repeatedly de- 
 monstrated. 
 
 On the 12th January, 1799, the armistice concluded 
 with the French was made known at Naples. It was 
 as disgraceful as every late act of the government had 
 been. The French were put in possession of Capua, 
 and were now within an easy day's walk of Naples. 
 They were to be paid 10,000,000 of francs within a few 
 days, as a bribe not to molest the capital for two 
 months longer; and a commissary actually came to 
 town to receive the first instalment. That very even- 
 ing a dreadful tumult broke out. The lazzaroni came
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 161 
 
 forth out of their haunts, crying furiously, " Our holy 
 faith for ever !" " Long live the Neapolitan people !" 
 " Down with the traitors !" They also vociferated tliat 
 Pignatelli had given up the city to the French, and 
 that a French officer had come to receive the keys 
 the keys of an open town, without walls or gates ! 
 However, to the Frenchman's hotel they went. Luckily 
 he was absent. Some one said he was at the theatre 
 of San Carlo, and to San Carlo they rushed, over- 
 powered the guards, filled the house to suffocation, and 
 searched every box ; but no French commissary was 
 there. He had luckily had time to escape out of the 
 viceroy's box, by a private gallery communicating with 
 the royal palace. The confusion was extreme ; the 
 performance was stopped ; many of the spectators were 
 ill-used, some wounded and robbed ; there was an end 
 of the Opera for the present season. 
 
 This was the beginning of the anarchy in Naples. 
 The populace now ran to the castles, and the guards 
 having no instructions how to act in such an emer- 
 gency, the lazzaroni made themselves masters of the 
 fortresses, seized the arms, and then went out on the 
 road to Capua to fight the French. The armistice was, 
 of course, at an end ; and the vicar, frightened at the 
 storm he was unable to direct, ran away to Sicily. All 
 these reports reached us in succession. Meantime the 
 tumult and uproar were increasing throughout the town. 
 Firing was heard in different directions, and the distant 
 roar of the cannon announced that the mob and the 
 French were engaged near Aversa. The former did, 
 in fact, attack the French advanced posts with great 
 spirit, but the grape shot that was poured upon them, 
 and the charges of the cavalry, obliged them to fall 
 back on the capital. Then they stationed themselves 
 at the approaches, determined to oppose the French, 
 
 p 3
 
 162 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 who paused before they ventured into a populous town 
 in a state of complete insurrection. 
 
 Meantime blood was shed in the streets. Persons of 
 decent appearance, or gentlemen (galantuomini), were 
 particularly obnoxious to the populace. The lazzaroni 
 visited the houses to seek for Jacobins and concealed 
 arms. They entered that of the advocate Fasulo, where 
 they found a box full of tri-coloured cockades. Fasulo's 
 sister had just time to burn some papers, containing 
 lists of patriots ; and while her brother was escaping 
 by the terraces of the house, she snatched up a crucifix 
 and threw herself at the feet of the lazzaroni. She was 
 spared, but the house was plundered and set on fire. 
 This course was henceforth followed against all sus* 
 pected houses, and I remember seeing columns of smol^e 
 rising from various parts of the town, their lurid shade 
 contrasting with the beautiful azure of the sky above. 
 
 In the chapel, or oratory, of the palace we inhabited 
 was a relic of considerable celebrity namely, the foot 
 of St. Anne, which was kept in a silver case. This was 
 an heir-loom of the family of Tocco, the sirname of 
 the princes of Moritemileto, brought, it was said, from 
 the East by their ancestors, who were at one time 
 despots of Achaia. The priest who had charge of the 
 sanctuary, an old Calabrian, shrewd, but withal quiet 
 and well-disposed, expecting that the lazzaroni, who 
 were prowling in the vicinity, would soon pay us a 
 visit, kept a number of tapers burning before the relic, 
 as on a day of festival. He then watched about the 
 great terrace, which looked towards the outer gate. At 
 last he saw a party of suspicious-looking fellows, some 
 of them armed, approach with some caution, and pass 
 through the outer gate into the court below. He im- 
 mediately went to meet them, and was informed that 
 they were looking for Jacobins, who might be concealed
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1*799. 163 
 
 in this extensive building. The priest shook his head, 
 and replied mildly, that he and two old servants of the 
 prince were the only inhabitants of the palace, besides 
 a foreigner, an Englishman he believed (the name of 
 Englishman being then a protection, was as such as- 
 sumed by persons of other nations who happened to be 
 at Naples), who, with his family, had long inhabited 
 the right wing a very quiet man, an invalid, who was 
 there for the benefit of his health. With this he led 
 them up the great staircase to the chapel, and asked 
 them whether they would like to kiss the miraculous 
 foot of St. Anne, the patroness of the place ; and as he 
 spoke he threw open the door. The lazzaroni doffed 
 their caps and knelt down ; the relic was taken from 
 the altar and handed round by the priest ; they kissed 
 it, and came out quite satisfied with the good odour of 
 the place. They even left one of their party to guard 
 the gate, and prevent others from annoying us; and 
 the good priest came immediately after, and told us the 
 occurrence, to our great comfort. 
 
 Meantime the city below was given up to all the 
 horrors of anarchy. Moliterno, who had for a moment 
 fixed the affections of the populace, was soon suspected, 
 and obliged to conceal himself. The lazzaroni put 
 themselves under two well-known leaders of their own 
 caste, Paggio, and Michael, called Lo Pazzo, or Mad 
 Michael, on account of his eccentricity. Many of the 
 people were really intent upon defending their country, 
 and supporting their old institutions ; others, and those 
 were the refuse of the town, discarded servants, run- 
 away apprentices, thieves, and galley slaves, whose 
 prisons had been opened by the mob, thought only of 
 plunder and violence, lived at discretion upon the re- 
 spectable citizens, and were guilty of all sorts of ex-
 
 164 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 cesses. The murder of the Duke della Torre was the 
 most lamentable among the numerous tragedies then 
 perpetrated. My mother knew the family well. The 
 duke was a man of a most estimable character. Fond 
 of study and averse from political strife, he devoted 
 himself especially to natural philosophy, had a valuable 
 collection, and was in correspondence with several aca- 
 demies. His brother, Cavaliere Filomarino, was a man 
 of letters, a wit, and a poet. The Palace della Torre 
 stood in the old town. A menial, the duke's hair- 
 dresser, spread the report that his master was preparing 
 a banquet for the French, whom he expected to enter 
 the city that evening. The palace was immediately 
 surrounded. It would seem that the duke, relying on 
 the appearance of returning calm, as Moliterno had 
 proceeded to the French head-quarters, had asked a 
 few intimate friends to supper that evening. But men 
 of all opinions are agreed that he had no share in the 
 transactions of the time. The populace entered the 
 apartments, seized the duke and his brother, and, in 
 spite of the entreaties of his wife and of his children, 
 they were doomed to instant death. The duke was 
 dragged down to the gate of his palace, and there mur- 
 dered ; but, before he was quite dead, the barbarians, it 
 was afterwards said, cast him into a fire which they 
 had lighted in the square in front of the house, and in 
 which they threw the furniture and other effects they 
 could not carry away. The house was plundered; and 
 the rich library, a collection of valuable prints, and 
 the cabinet of natural history, were destroyed. It was 
 said the lazzaroni mistook the electrical machines, and 
 other scientific apparatus, for guillotines and other trai- 
 torous Jacobinical contrivances. Filomarino was taken 
 to the square of the Mercato, and there shot. The
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1*199. 165 
 
 duchess and her children were not ill-used ; they were 
 put by the people into one of their own carriages, and 
 told to drive wherever they liked. 
 
 The consternation of all the peaceful inhabitants had 
 become now most intense. We could not foresee what 
 would be the fate of us all in a few days ; we did not 
 know what the French were doing, or meant to do, 
 although they were within sight of the town, and their 
 outposts skirmishing daily with those of the people. 
 No decent man dared to appear in the streets. Fresh 
 victims were sacrificed hourly in the most barbarous 
 manner. The women of the lower classes took part in 
 the massacres. 
 
 On the morning of the 20th of January my father 
 and I were standing by a window that looked towards 
 the Castle of St. Elmo. We cast our eyes towards 
 that fortress, and saw flying on the staff no longer the 
 royal banner, but a tri-coloured flag. My father could 
 not believe his own eyes ; he rubbed them and looked 
 up again; it was the, to him, well-known ensign of the 
 French republic. It was the first time I beheld those 
 famed colours. To me they carried no associations of 
 ideas of dismal or glorious reminiscences no fore- 
 boding of future evil. To me it was only a striped 
 cloth white, red, and blue. Not so to my father. He 
 had seen that flag unfurled over the French fleet that 
 vomited flame and death on the devoted town of One- 
 glia*, when his father had been obliged to fly from the 
 place with the loss of the greater part of his property. 
 That flag waved over Paris when my father witnessed 
 the massacre of the 10th of August, and the butcheries 
 of September, 1792, when tigers in human shape ran 
 
 * A sea-port town, belonging to the king of Sardinia, on the 
 Genoese coast, and which was bombarded in 1792 by Ihe French 
 fleet under Admiral Trtiguet.
 
 166 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. JJJ. 
 
 about the streets, carrying the heads of the murdered on 
 their streaming pikes, and obliged all whom they met 
 to clap their hands-. That flag my father had left be- 
 hind him flying on the extreme French frontier line, as 
 he crossed the Jura to take shelter in the then happy 
 valleys of Switzerland ; and he then wished and hoped 
 he had seen it for the last time. But that flag had 
 still moved on waving triumphantly across Jura and 
 Alps and Apennines, and was now unfurled under the 
 blue sky of Parthenope. For once he was glad, he 
 said, to behold that flag again. " It was the only 
 chance of safety for our devoted city," I heard him 
 exclaim. The firing of cannon from the fortress inter- 
 rupted his reflections. A shot was fired in the direc- 
 tion of the most populous part of the town, and we 
 fancied we heard a tremendous yell of defiance below. 
 Soon after we saw a glittering of arms, bayonets wind- 
 ing in a serpentine line at the foot of the grey walls of 
 the castle. It was a column of French infantry, who 
 were proceeding to take possession of the fortress. The 
 measured march of the men their blue uniforms seen 
 through the foliage of the intervening trees the white 
 belts the shining muskets the plumed caps, were all 
 strikingly in contrast with the motley dirty attire of the 
 armed populace we had beheld for the last fortnight. 
 The long line wound round a corner of the bastion 
 facing us, and gradually disappeared. Soon after we 
 heard rapid and thick discharges of musketry in that 
 quarter, which were answered by others in the direc- 
 tion of Foria, or the entrance from Rome. The attack 
 was evidently general. 
 
 In order to explain how the important Castle of St. 
 Elmo had come into the power of the besiegers, we 
 must revert to certain occurrences of the day before, as 
 they became afterwards known to the public. Moliterno,
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 167 
 
 who, after the flight of the viceroy, had been for a mo- 
 ment the leader of the lazzaroni, did not go far enough, 
 as they thought, in favour of popular supremacy, or, in 
 other words, of anarchy. His real intentions at first 
 appear to have been to avail himself of the formidable 
 attitude of the people, in order to obtain favourable 
 conditions from the French general Championnet, by 
 which Naples should have been recognised as an inde- 
 pendent State, distinct from the fugitive government of 
 King Ferdinand ; and thus been able to establish for 
 itself popular institutions, without the interference of 
 the French army. The idea was good and patriotic, 
 but Moliterno, like other popular favourites, soon found 
 that the instruments he had reckoned upon turned in 
 his hands against himself. In fact, there was hollow- 
 ness of purpose on both sides. Moliterno, while acting 
 as the chief of the Neapolitan people, and acknowledged 
 as such by the citta, or municipal council, contrived to 
 get the castles out of the hands of the lower classes, 
 and intrusted them to his friends, emphatically called 
 the gentlemen. He then threatened with summary 
 execution any one who attempted to assault or plunder 
 a citizen. The lazzaroni had conceived an aversion 
 against gentlemen as much as against Frenchmen, be- 
 cause they considered both as leagued in an unholy 
 compact against religion; and although troubling their 
 heads but little about the king's authority, which was 
 now defunct, they yet hated the idea of innovation, 
 which they considered as Jacobinical and heretical. The 
 beau ideal of lazzaroni government would have been to 
 pay no taxes, and to make the wealthier class share 
 their property with them, with sundry other privileges 
 of doing as they liked, while they professed all the time 
 to be royalists. 
 
 But the death-blow to all the plans of Moliterno and
 
 168 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 his friends came from the French general. Cham- 
 pionnet was an able officer cool, wary, and well versed 
 in revolutionary tactics. He had advanced thus far, and 
 risked to a certain degree the safety of his army without 
 a sufficient authorization from the French Directory, 
 who, in fact, did not wish at the moment to carry things 
 to extremities with the court of Naples. The conquest 
 of Naples was therefore necessary to Championnet in 
 order to justify his advance, and the millions which he 
 intended to tax the Neapolitans at, would also prove an 
 argument in his favour with the Directory. Besides, 
 Championnet was urged to the same end by the Nea- 
 politan political exiles who had now returned with the 
 French army, their minds soured with the recollection 
 of their sufferings. They wished to triumph in their 
 own country, and thought the presence of a French 
 army necessary to the establishment of their favourite 
 theory of a republican government. They represented 
 to the French general that there was now no authority 
 at Naples that the mob would not be able to resist 
 disciplined troops that it was absolutely necessary to 
 push forward, and make no concessions to a population 
 plunged into anarchy. When, therefore, Moliterno 
 presented himself at the French head-quarters with full 
 powers from the citta, or municipality, of Naples, to 
 conclude peace, or arrange rn armistice in the name of 
 the nation, he was haughtily answered that the flag 
 of the Bourbons was still floating above the castles 
 that the French commander could not separate the na- 
 tion from its king that he could not acknowledge the 
 self-assumed and precarious authority of the eletti, or 
 municipal magistrates and, in fine, that the only way 
 of saving the city from the horrors of a bombardment 
 was to submit quietly to the fortune of war. For this 
 purpose Moliterno was advised to exert himself with his
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 169 
 
 friends, and to deliver the castles into the hands of the 
 French. 
 
 With such an answer Moliterno could not think of 
 facing the people again ; he saw that the die was cast, 
 and the only part left to him was to follow the French 
 general's advice. He entered Naples secretly, concerted 
 with his friends, and in the night surprised the Castle 
 of St. Elmo, which, during his absence, had been 
 occupied again by the lazzaroni, and drove the latter 
 away. He then had a tri-coloured flag made by the 
 monks of the adjoining convent of San Martino out of 
 the church drapery, and hoisted it at break of day. A 
 column of French troops, joined by the Neapolitan 
 republicans, now advanced and took possession of the 
 castle, in order afterwards to attack the town from that 
 point. 
 
 The whole of that day and the next (the 21st) were 
 passed in obstinate fighting in the different avenues of 
 the town. The French advanced in two columns by 
 Foria and by Porta Capuana, but they gained little 
 ground the first day. Houses, palaces, and convents 
 became so many ramparts ; and the lazzaroni had 
 cannon, which was served by some regular artillery- 
 men and Albanian soldiers of the king's army. The 
 uproar, the confusion, the carnage, were truly fright- 
 ful. From our elevated situation, being out of the im- 
 mediate sphere of action, we could hear the reports 
 of the fire-arms, mixed with the distant yells of the 
 enraged multitude, and judge by the smoke of the pro- 
 gress of the combatants. We saw several buildings in 
 flames. A few ships that were still in the bay sailed 
 away from our devoted shores, as if leaving us to our 
 fate ; and in the course of the day, that sea, a few days 
 before so lively with sails, became wholly deserted not 
 even a boat was seen gliding over its still surface. On 
 
 Q.
 
 170 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 the evening of the 21st the French, who had now pos- 
 session of all the heights that command the town, 
 seized eight pieces of artillery which the people had 
 placed in the wide street of Foria. Championnet's 
 head-quarters were on the hill of Capodimonte. 
 
 Early on the 22nd the French renewed the attack. 
 The lazzaroni stood like tigers at bay behind their bar- 
 ricades and their remaining cannon ; and the French 
 paused awhile before they ventured into the narrow 
 and intricate streets of the old city. The column that 
 advanced by Foria, however, pushed on into the square 
 delle Pigne, when they found themselves supported on 
 their left by the fire of the medical students and other 
 republicans, who had fortified themselves in the great 
 hospital called the Incurabili. The lazzaroni became 
 thus disconcerted, and General Rusca, at the head of 
 some cavalry, seizing the opportunity, charged them, 
 took their guns, and, setting fire to the palace Soli- 
 mene, drove them out of that position. The French 
 now turned towards the great central street of Toledo, 
 which intersects the town from north to south. At the 
 same time General Macdonald moved from St. Elmo, 
 supported by Moliterno and his friends, who descended 
 the hill towards the same quarter. Mad Michael, who 
 commanded the lazzaroni in that quarter, defended 
 himself bravely ; but being overpowered, he was taken 
 prisoner and brought before the French general, who, 
 feeling a regard for his courage, offered him the rank 
 of captain, with five hundred ducats, if he succeeded in 
 disarming the people, promising them a general am- 
 nesty. Michael, who was not so mad as people sup- 
 posed him to be, accepted the mission, and partly 
 succeeded in dispersing the lazzaroni; some of whom, 
 hearing that the French behaved generously towards 
 the vanquished, came with all the native warmth of
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IX 1199. 171 
 
 their untutored feelings to throw themselves at Mac- 
 donald's feet ; the general gave them money and sent 
 them home. 
 
 Meantime part of the populace, seeing that things 
 were drawing to a close, thought of availing themselves 
 of the last moment of their liberty to plunder the royal 
 palace. In this work they were joined by some of the 
 French soldiers, who had now spread over the greater 
 part of the town. The French commanders, however, 
 put an end to this disgraceful scene ; and, after the loss 
 of some more lives, the scattered remnants of the mob 
 skulked sullenly away towards their haunts and fast- 
 nesses in the old city, the district of Mercato. The 
 small Castle del Carmine in that neighbourhood was 
 the last to surrender. 
 
 On the 23rd of January the whole city was in pos- 
 session of the French, after three days' obstinate resist- 
 ance by an undisciplined multitude against an army of 
 nearly twenty thousand veteran soldiers. The loss of 
 lives on both sides was never precisely known, but that 
 of the lazzaroni was roughly calculated at between six 
 and seven thousand men. 
 
 The peaceable citizens now poured out of their homes 
 or places of concealment, and congratulated or condoled 
 with each other according to the various fate their friends 
 had experienced during the week of anarchy that had pre- 
 ceded. The churches were filled with people returning 
 thanks for their deliverance. In the midst of the general 
 feeling of congratulation, it seemed not even to be noticed 
 that foreign soldiers garrisoned the town. Some alarm 
 was spread, however, by a report that the French soldiers 
 had been promised the plunder of the houses of all those 
 who had not certificates of republicanism ; but the sug- 
 gestion, if ever entertained during the combat, was 
 given up on condition of the city paying two millions 
 
 Q 2
 
 172 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 and a half of ducats. A proclamation of a general 
 amnesty by Championnet came next to reassure the 
 inhabitants ; and as if to give more eclat to the scene, 
 Vesuvius exhibited a splendid, though harmless, erup- 
 tion of its liquid flame the very day after the entrance 
 of the French. 
 
 Of the political transactions which occurred at Na- 
 ples after the occupation by the French, of the establish- 
 ment of a provisional government under the influence of 
 the conquerors, the disputes between General Cham- 
 pionnet and the Directory at Paris, the recall of the 
 former, and the appointment of General Macdonald as 
 his successor; of these and similar occurrences I must 
 briefly speak from after-report. Events which have 
 been actually seen with the eyes, leave a clear impres- 
 sion on a youthful mind ; while reports of abstruse dis- 
 cussions and secret intrigues, carried on in cabinets, coun- 
 cils, and clubs, produce but a vague sensation, which is 
 soon obliterated. All I can remember from the desul- 
 tory conversation I heard at the time, is, that affairs 
 were going on as badly as my father had always feared 
 they would. 
 
 There were among the Neapolitan patriots, for such 
 was the name the republicans had assumed, men of ho- 
 nourable principles, of pure sentiments, of upright inten- 
 tions, of enlightened minds, for it is unquestionable that 
 at this period the most able and intellectual persons 
 in the country belonged to that party. Professional, and 
 especially medical men, artists, the few men of letters 
 the country could boast of, many superior officers, 
 and almost all the junior members of the nobility, were 
 patriots. These men had no interest in producing mis- 
 chief; the welfare of their country was necessarily con- 
 nected with their own. But there was among them, 
 with few exceptions, a sad deficiency of political expe-
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 
 
 rience, a want of forethought, and of habits of business; 
 elated with their success they did not calculate the dan- 
 ger of a reverse, they did not seem to feel that they were 
 treading, as it might in truth be said, both in a physical 
 and in a figurative sense, on the crust of a volcano. 
 They had, besides, in their wake the crew of selfish, 
 licentious, and unprincipled men, to whom a revolution 
 is a matter of speculation. There were others who had 
 been exiles for years in France from former judicial and 
 political proscription; these men had become almost 
 foreign to their country in their habits and ideas ; they 
 had contracted a bias for the sweeping tenets and sum- 
 mary methods of the French military republicans, and 
 a sort of contempt for their less exalted countrymen. It 
 was chiefly out of this, which might be styled the French 
 party, that Championnet selected the members of the 
 provisional government, which was entrusted with the 
 executive power, as well as with the task of preparing a 
 constitution for the Neapolitan or Parthenopean re- 
 public. 
 
 The provisional government issued pompous procla- 
 mations full of that turgid phraseology which had been 
 brought into fashion in France, and which the Neapo- 
 litans, naturally inclined to bombast, were not slow in 
 adopting. The king and queen were compared to 
 Claudius and Messalina, and they, as well as the aris- 
 tocrats, were denounced as enemies to the people. 
 " Those who had served the tyrant, it was stated, had 
 nothing to expect from the republic." Thus the officers 
 of the king's army were left destitute, the soldiers dis- 
 banded, and when afterwards the government perceiving 
 its error, wished to collect together the remnants of the 
 old army, it was too late ; the greater part had gone to 
 seek their subsistence among the ranks of the insurgents 
 in the provinces. The provincial courts and their em- 
 
 Q 3
 
 174 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 ployes, the armigeri, or baronial police of the feudal 
 districts, were summarily dismissed, and of course in- 
 creased the number of the malcontents. A number of 
 convents were also suddenly suppressed. In many cases, 
 however, it must be observed, the violent measures 
 taken against the clergy, especially in the provinces, did 
 not emanate directly from the central government, but 
 from the caprice of subordinate agents, whose mischievous 
 interference the government did not or could not restrain. 
 In the first ebullition a number of patriots, chiefly 
 young men, were sent into the provinces with a certifi- 
 cate from the central or home department, of being de- 
 mocratizers, a new-fangled word, and their business, 
 without any specific instruction or authority, was to 
 preach democracy and organize the republic. In most 
 places they found themselves at variance with the local 
 authorities, while they also disgusted the people ; some 
 of them were ill-treated, others, especially in Calabria, 
 were not allowed to reach their destination. At last 
 they were recalled, but not till they had done irreparable 
 mischief. 
 
 The French generals meantime seemed jealous of 
 allowing a national army to be formed. They seized all 
 the arms, and placed them in stores under their own 
 guards. The Directory sent Commissary Faipoult, who, 
 treating Naples as a conquest of the French republic, 
 claimed in the name of the latter all the property of the 
 late king. This, in a country for ages governed absolutely, 
 was a very vague and indefinite demand. Accordingly it 
 was considered to include the royal palaces, the property 
 of the suppressed convents, that of the military orders of 
 Malta and of Constantine, the royal fabric of porcelain, 
 the banks, and even the antiquities of Pompeii ! This 
 absurd decree displeased Championnet himself, who was 
 a man of sense and honour ; he suppressed the edict and
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 1*75 
 
 dismissed Faipoult. He thus incurred the displeasure of 
 the Directory, who soon after removed him and sent him 
 under arrest to the citadel of Grenoble, whence how- 
 ever he was taken out a few months after, during the 
 unfortunate campaign of the French against Suwarrow, 
 and was appointed to command the army in Piedmont. 
 He was defeated at Fossano by the Austrians, and died 
 at Nice of a contagious fever in the same year. 
 
 These few outlines of the condition of Naples during 
 the French occupation are matters of notoriety and re- 
 gistered in history. They are traced here without the 
 least partiality, merely to show the inevitable conse- 
 quences of an invasion, even where the invaders come 
 with friendly professions towards the people, and the 
 fallacy of expecting improvement at the hands of a 
 foreign army. 
 
 Championnet was regretted at Naples. He had in- 
 gratiated himself with the lower classes by his firm and 
 impartial justice, without distinction of parties; he had 
 attended publicly the festival of the miracle of St. Ja- 
 nuarius, and had even made a present to the church of 
 the saint. He had also appointed mad Michael to his 
 personal staff, and that low-born and illiterate but 
 grateful man, behaved ever after with honesty and fide- 
 lity to his employers, until he perished, one of the many 
 victims of the reaction. Dressed in his French uni- 
 form, and followed by two orderlies, he on several occa- 
 sions went to harangue the turbulent populace, and suc- 
 ceeded in calming their effervescence. Another lazza- 
 rone, Pagliuchella, was appointed justice of peace over 
 his brethren. All this had a good effect on the excitable 
 but warm-hearted populace. Some one reported that 
 Championnet was their own countryman, a name similar 
 to his being discovered in the registers of the parish of
 
 176 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 Spirito Santo. Championnet smiled at this, but did 
 not contradict the report. 
 
 Meanwhile the unemployed patriots of the capital were 
 busy in making speeches, abusing the late government 
 and its allies, and severely canvassing the conduct of 
 their present legislators. They denounced most of the 
 agents, and even some of the members of the provisional 
 government, and their clamours caused the appoint- 
 ment of a censorial commission of five members, who 
 were to examine the merits of each officer or candidate 
 for office, and whose verdict was without appeal. 
 
 Public festivals were also held in the squares where 
 the tree of liberty had been hoisted. In the Largo 
 Spirito Santo a pavilion was raised where young men 
 and women repaired to sing patriotic hymns, accompa- 
 nied by guitars and other instruments. 
 
 In the theatres and saloons of the capital, dramas 
 allusive to passing events were acted, in which Ferdi- 
 nand and Caroline were introduced and severely carica- 
 tured ; all this was well known at Palermo, and pro- 
 bably contributed to sour the temper of the queen to 
 the degree she afterwards manifested ; but these exhibi- 
 tions had little attraction for the mass of the people, 
 among whom the coarse dialect of the king, his rough 
 manners, and his trivial pastimes, were rather objects of 
 sympathy and popularity. Indeed many of the respect- 
 -able and sober-minded citizens of Naples deprecated 
 these exposures as unbecoming, and at best idle, and 
 augured no good to the cause which its friends at- 
 tempted to serve by such means. 
 
 The patriotic -Gazette or Monitore of Naples, was 
 edited by a lady, Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel. Ami- 
 able and accomplished, an artist, a poetess, and an im- 
 provvisatrice ; she was enthusiastic in the cause of the
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 177 
 
 republic. Her eloquence was often highly figurative, 
 her philosophy and her politics were moulded by clas- 
 sical recollections, and this was mostly the case among 
 the educated classes at Naples. A sort of better epi- 
 curism, partaking of the languor and effeminacy of that 
 school, an exalted admiration of physical beauty, a high 
 opinion of the superiority of their country, and at the 
 same time a supercilious contempt for the millions of 
 their uneducated countrymen, all this reduced the pa- 
 triots to a coterie, between whom and the people there 
 could be but little sympathy. 
 
 When in after years I returned to Naples, and resided 
 there at various epochs, and had opportunities of study- 
 ing the character of its inhabitants, I could then find a 
 clue to the anomalies which their revolution had ex- 
 hibited. 
 
 Much may be said in apology for the aberrations of 
 the Neapolitan patriots, aberrations which they so 
 cruelly expiated. There were many virtues among 
 them ; there was disinterestedness (I am speaking of 
 the leading characters), there were a devotedness and a 
 brotherly affection, the charm of which was sufficiently 
 touching ; there were sparks of genius and talents worthy 
 of a better fate. Unacquainted with a practical system 
 of national government, they resorted either to classical 
 models or to the example of the French. With either 
 of these the people could not sympathize. The people 
 loved their processions and their serenades better than 
 civic feasts and patriotic hymns ; they preferred the 
 symbol of the cross to the tree of liberty ; they con- 
 sidered the new pageants as irreligious. At last some 
 ecclesiastics adopted a more successful method. They 
 repaired to cross-roads and market-places, crucifix in 
 hand ; they preached to the populace in their own jar- 
 gon ; they explained to them passages of the gospel, its
 
 178 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEG. III. 
 
 lessons of brotherly charity and humility, which maxims, 
 they said, were in accordance with the principle of 
 liberty and equality. These sermons produced some 
 effect, and they may be numbered among the singu- 
 larities of those times. 
 
 I have a better recollection of the impression pro- 
 duced by the news that came from the provinces, even 
 through the distorting channel of the newspapers. The 
 state of the unfortunate country was obviously dreadful. 
 We heard and read of towns taken by storm and burnt, 
 of no quarter given to the insurgents, and all the horrid 
 phraseology of a civil war, whose dreadful import began 
 to break upon my mind as a disturbed vision of the in- 
 fernal regions and of incarnate fiends. I remember par- 
 ticularly reading one day of the town of Carbonara, in 
 Puglia, being carried by the French moveable column, 
 under a General Broussier, when the whole population 
 was put to the sword; and this feat, which was reported 
 as a triumph by the republicans, left a dark confused 
 image in my mind of horrors which I could not tho- 
 roughly understand, and the two names of the town 
 and of the general I remembered for many years after 
 in painful association. 
 
 The fact was, that the country people, having been 
 invited by the king's proclamation before his departure 
 to take up arms against the invaders, and then being 
 abandoned by the central authority, soon split into fac- 
 tions according to the feelings or interest of the in- 
 fluential people of each place, the commercial towns 
 being mostly inclined for the new government, from 
 which they expected the abolition of monopolies and 
 privileges, and of the restraints on trade, and a better 
 administration of justice, while the inland towns and 
 the agricultural and feudal districts were for the old 
 system. A French division, under General Duhesme,
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 179 
 
 accompanied by a legion of Neapolitan patriots, was 
 sent from the capital across the Apennines, into the fer- 
 tile provinces of Puglia,* to enforce submission to the 
 republican government, and, at the same time, to exact 
 payment of a contribution of fifteen millions of ducats, 
 which the French commander-in-chief had imposed on 
 the kingdom. In the levying of this by the local autho- 
 rities, a distinction was made between patriots and aris- 
 tocrats. But this was not all. Many of the officers and 
 commissaries raised also contributions on their own ac- 
 count, and the municipalities were obliged to furnish a 
 greater amount of provisions and forage than the troops 
 of the expedition required. In short, all the oppressions 
 of foreign invasion and civil war combined were felt. 
 Those who ventured to complain were answered taunt- 
 ingly: " You must pay a high price for liberty and 
 equality. We shed our blood for you, and you only 
 disburse your money." Some of the walled towns 
 attempted to resist the troops ; they were carried by 
 storm, and the fire and the sword made terrible execution 
 among the distracted inhabitants, who did not seem to 
 comprehend clearly the nature of their situation. The 
 town of San Severo, on the borders of Puglia, was one 
 of the first attacked. This was the stronghold of the 
 royalists in that quarter, being built on a commanding 
 hill, and surrounded by olive plantations. Several 
 
 * The kingdom of Naples was divided into four grand districts, 
 viz., Terra di Lavoro, Abruzzi, Puglia, and Calabria. Each of 
 these was subdivided into three provinces, viz., Terra di Lavoro, 
 properly so called, or the province of Naples, Principato Citra, and 
 Principato Ultra ; Abruzzi was divided also into Citra and Ultra, 
 and Contado di Molise. Puglia contained Capitanata, Terra di 
 Bari. and Terra d' Otranto. Calabria was divided into Citra, and 
 Ultra, and Basilicata. These divisions are still preserved, with the 
 exception of Calabria Ultra, which has been subdivided into two 
 provinces, viz., Reggio and C'atauzaro,
 
 180 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 thousand men, with cannon, were posted outside of the 
 walls. The French attacked them in front, while 
 another body fell on their rear, and cut off their retreat. 
 A dreadful scene of slaughter now began, when a mul- 
 titude of women and children, who had been spectators 
 of the combat from the town walls, came out to implore 
 mercy for their husbands and brothers ; and, to the ho- 
 nour of the French general be it said, they obtained it. 
 Duhesme restrained the fury of his soldiers, and espe- 
 cially of his Neapolitan auxiliaries, who, as it often 
 happens in civil factions, were more inveterate against 
 their own countrymen than the strangers. In these 
 volcanic regions, among a population ignorant but in- 
 flammable, in whom imagination overrules judgment, 
 party politics assume all the savage vindictiveness of per- 
 sonal hatred. There, amidst orange-groves, myrtles, 
 olives, and aloes, amidst the perfumes of flowers and 
 the luxuriance of bounteous Nature, men, dark, scowl- 
 ing, and ruthless, fought desperately with the enthu- 
 siasm of martyrs, and bled, and groaned, and died; 
 and for what ? For a king who was then far away hunt- 
 ing in his royal preserves near Palermo ? a foreign 
 queen who despised them ? for ministers who had loaded 
 them with taxes, and brought the invaders into their 
 land ? for their noblemen, who still exacted with the 
 utmost rigour their remaining feudal perquisites ? for 
 priests and monks who lived in idleness on the produce 
 of others' labours ? Nominally for these ; but in reality 
 they fought for worthier objects, for their religion, 
 which they thought insulted, for their country, which 
 they beheld invaded, for their homes, which they saw 
 violated, for their children, whom they considered as 
 the intended victims of foreign ambition or lust. Others, 
 and they were the worthless many, fought for plunder, 
 for amnesty of past crimes, for revenge, or excited by
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1*799. 181 
 
 that spirit of havoc which, in times like these, maddens 
 men into a phrenzy of destruction. 
 
 The town of Andria was the next to suffer. The son 
 of the titular duke of the place commanded the be- 
 siegers. He was a fierce daring enthusiast in the cause 
 of the republic, and had no mercy for royalists, or rebels, 
 as he called them. Andria was entered by storm both 
 by the French arid the Neapolitan legion ; but the in- 
 habitants continued to fight from the terraces and win- 
 dows of their houses, and their resistance so enraged the 
 victors that they gave no quarter. All the men ca- 
 pable of bearing arms were killed, and the town was 
 given up to the flames. It was indeed a frightful mas- 
 sacre, which was repeated soon after at Trani, a city 
 still more considerable, where eight thousand men were 
 destroyed. Puglia now, though not for any length of 
 time, submitted to the French, whose exactions in 
 the towns of that province, whether royalist or not, 
 amounted to spoliation. The people were stripped of 
 their plate and other valuables. 
 
 A singular adventure, which exhibits the character 
 of the people in the remote parts of the kingdom in a 
 strong light, occurred in another district of Puglia. 
 A few Corsican emigrants, who had left their island 
 when the French occupied it, and had taken refuge in the 
 kingdom of Naples, happened to be, in the early part of 
 February, in the town of Taranto, whence they intended 
 to sail for Sicily. But the wind being contrary, they 
 found themselves detained until messengers from the re- 
 publican government established at Naples reached the 
 place. The town acknowledged the new authorities. 
 The Corsicans then thought it prudent to quit Taranto 
 quietly, and, crossing the lapygian peninsula, try their 
 chance at Brindisi on the Adriatic coast, where they 
 might meet with a passage for Trieste. After walking 
 
 R
 
 182 .. POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 on foot through part of the country, they stopped for the 
 night at the village of Monteasi, where they asked for 
 lodging at the house of an old woman. There was a 
 rumour afloat at the time, that the king's eldest son, 
 the hereditary prince, was concealed somewhere in the 
 country. One of the Corsicans, it appears, either as a 
 joke, or in order to ensure better treatment, hinted to 
 their hostess that the prince was one of their party. The 
 appearance of the strangers, and their language, were 
 different from what those villagers had been in the 
 habit of seeing and hearing. The old woman ran to 
 one of her relations, a substantial farmer in the place, 
 named Girunda, and told him the news. The latter 
 came immediately to pay his homage to his royal high- 
 ness, and was directed to one of the youngest of the 
 party, who was thought to bear some resemblance to the 
 royal family. Girunda knelt before him, and offered all 
 he had and all he could dispose of. He then withdrew 
 for the night. Being left to themselves, the Corsicans, 
 and especially he who had been thus without his con- 
 sent proclaimed a prince, began to reflect seriously on 
 the probable consequences of this freak. French de- 
 tachments were known to be approaching in that direc- 
 tion. Our party therefore thought prudent to make 
 their escape in the night, and pursue their way towards 
 Brindisi. The old woman, as soon as she missed them 
 in the morning, went to inform Girunda, who, mount- 
 ing his horse, followed by some of his men, went to 
 seek after the fugitive prince, giving, at the same time, 
 the alarm to the country around. The news spread 
 like wildfire, the population ran to arms, the village 
 bells were ringing ; " the king for ever ! down with the 
 republic !" was shouted from a thousand mouths. At 
 last the Corsicans were overtaken at the village of Me- 
 sagne, not far from Brindisi ; they would fain have un-
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 183 
 
 deceived the people, but they perceived it was now too 
 late. The pseudo-prince was obliged to assume his new 
 honours with the best face he could. He praised the 
 lo} r alty of the people, gave directions to the local autho- 
 rities to introduce some regularity into their tumultuary 
 movements, especially if they intended to oppose a suc- 
 cessful resistance to the French ; and then, as a mea- 
 sure of security, he removed his head-quarters to the 
 castle of Brindisi, where, reflecting on the dangerous 
 predicament in which he stood, having against his will 
 usurped a title for which he would be called to account, 
 yet judging that the insurrection thus raised might be of 
 sendee to the king, he bethought himself of the expe- 
 dient of proceeding himself to Sicily to give the first in- 
 formation of the event. He told the people that he had 
 positive orders from his royal father to repair to him, that 
 he would soon return with reinforcements, and mean- 
 time he would leave them two of his companions as his 
 lieutenants, to organize the defence of the province. He 
 did so, and was reluctantly allowed by the natives 
 to sail. Having proceeded to Palermo, he stated can- 
 didly to the king and queen all that had happened, and 
 he had the satisfaction of having his conduct approved 
 of, and a pension allotted to him, which he continued 
 ever after to enjoy. He afterwards held a commission 
 in a foreign corps in the British service. I met him 
 many years after at Naples, where he had taken up his 
 residence since the peace, and he confirmed all the cir- 
 cumstances of this singular story. He must have been 
 a very young man at the time he extricated himself with 
 so much judgment from the difficult position in which 
 he was placed. 
 
 The two lieutenants he left behind with Girunda pro- 
 ceeded to arm the peasantry; they roused the whole 
 province of Otranto and that of Bari, and thus esta- 
 
 R 2
 
 184 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 blished the insurrection in Puglia. They were, how- 
 ever, defeated by the French at Casamassima, when 
 one of the leaders was taken prisoner ; but the other, 
 named De Cesare, escaped into Basilicata, where he 
 joined the Calabrian insurrection, led by Cardinal 
 Ruffo. As this last-mentioned personage figured at the 
 head of all the strange characters of his country and 
 epoch, and even gained to himself a sort of historical 
 reputation for boldness of talent crowned by success, it 
 may be well to give here a few particulars of his former 
 life. 
 
 Fabrizio Ruffo was born of a noble family, whose 
 principal estates lie in the neighbourhood of Scilla, at 
 the farthest end of Calabria. Being a younger son, 
 he was destined for the church, and educated at Rome, 
 under the direction of his uncle, who was a cardinal. 
 He soon entered the career of that half-spiritual, half- 
 temporal diplomacy which is maintained at the court of 
 Rome ; and he was at an early age made treasurer by 
 Pope Pius VI. Ruffo's temperament, however, was 
 but little suited for an ecclesiastical life ; he confessed 
 himself he was more fit for the army. He fell in love 
 with a handsome marchioness, to whom he devoted his 
 time, and whose influence soon became apparent in the 
 management of the affairs entrusted to Ruffo's charge. 
 Complaints reached the ears of the pope, who being 
 partial to young Ruffo, first tried remonstrances, and 
 at last, in order, as it was said, to dismiss him ho- 
 nourably, created him cardinal. Ruffo now being un- 
 employed, proceeded to Naples, went to court, and soon 
 won the favour of Ferdinand by his frankness, boldness, 
 and taste for sporting exercises, the latter being always 
 the best recommendation with the hunter-king. Ruffo 
 was made intendant or director of the royal domain of 
 Caserta, an office which his former patron the pope
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1199. 185 
 
 considered as derogatory to the character of a cardinal ; 
 but Ruffo liked it and retained it. He mixed also in 
 the court intrigues, and was opposed to Acton's minis- 
 try. When the king embarked for Sicily, Ruffo fol- 
 lowed him there. Having been apprised, however, 
 soon after that the Calabrians were ripe for insurrection 
 against the republican government of Naples, which, in 
 fact, they had never acknowledged, and that they wanted 
 a leader of confidence, with full power to organize them, 
 Ruffo offered himself, and the king authorized him, but 
 without any other encouragement, to proceed on this ad- 
 venturous mission. Ruffo lost no time ; from Messina 
 he crossed in a boat with his secretary, an aide-de-camp, 
 a lieutenant-colonel, and three attendants, seven per- 
 sons in all, with which retinue, and a few thousand 
 ducats, he was going to reconquer a kingdom. 
 
 The state of Calabria was very singular. The people 
 of that extensive, wild, and secluded region were not in 
 the beginning altogether averse to a change of govern- 
 ment, for they were sensible of the abuses of the old 
 administration, and weary of the feudal exactions and 
 immunities of the barons. But they were decidedly 
 hostile, from old national feelings, to the advance of the 
 French on their territory, and determined to oppose any 
 such attempt. In the towns there was a considerable 
 party inclined to the formation of an independent and 
 representative government, but the commissaries sent 
 by the patriots of the capital disgusted the fiery Cala- 
 brians by assuming too commanding a tone. The 
 Calabrians never liked the people of the metropolis, 
 whom they regarded as effeminate and pompous, and 
 whom, besides, they looked upon as strangers. How- 
 ever, most towns appointed their municipal authorities, 
 formed a national guard, and proclaimed the republic. 
 The country people stood apparently passive, but they 
 
 R 3
 
 186 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 did not like the name of a republic. They were at- 
 tached to the forms of their religion, and jealous of the 
 chastity of their women ; and they were led to think 
 that the republicans disregarded both. As soon, there- 
 fore, as the royal flag was again unfurled among them, 
 the peasantry took the side that best agreed with their 
 customs and prejudices. 
 
 The Calabrians are generally, from early practice, 
 good marksmen. At the time we are speaking of 
 almost every man had his musket, and went about 
 armed. They are courageous, persevering, firm friends, 
 and implacable enemies. The reply of the wounded 
 Calabrian to his confessor has become proverbial. 
 Being exhorted to forgive his enemy, as a necessary 
 condition of his own salvation, he answered resolutely, 
 " Se moro lo perdono; se campo I'allampo" " If I die 
 I forgive him; if I recover I will shoot him." A me- 
 lancholy temperament, a concentration of feelings, and 
 a sullen distrust, render them formidable when irritated. 
 Even their women seem endowed with a masculine 
 spirit ; their features, harsh though regular, are scowl- 
 ing and wrinkled even in youth, and their uncouth dress 
 leaves them little of that delicacy which is considered 
 elsewhere natural to the sex. The men, with their short 
 jackets, close trowsers, leather gaiters, and sandals of un- 
 dressed skin, tied by thongs, and a rusty conical hat, with 
 narrow brim and trimmed with ribands, and images of 
 the Virgin, may be seen skulking about behind their 
 olive-trees, or some loose stone wall, as if in wait for 
 some passenger to fall upon. Such, at least, is the in- 
 ference a stranger would draw from their appearance. 
 Their towns are built on steep conical hills, crowned 
 with houses to the very top, the outer or lower build- 
 ings being joined together by walls so as to form a sort 
 of rampart. The central region is occupied by the
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1*199. 187 
 
 great Apennine ridge, wild and bleak, to which, how- 
 ever, whole colonies, with their cattle, migrate in the 
 summer ; the flats near the coast are marshy and un- 
 healthy, and inhabited by herds of buffalos, but the 
 valleys at the foot of the mountains are delightful and 
 rich with the most luxuriant vegetation. The vine, 
 the orange and lemon trees, the fig, the olive, and all 
 the fruits of southern climes, grow there to perfection. 
 Here and there you see the devastations produced by 
 the terrible earthquakes to which this country has been 
 repeatedly subject. Ruins of convents, churches, and 
 whole villages ; whole districts overwhelmed by the fall 
 of a mountain, or the turning of a river from its former 
 bed ; these are common sights in Calabria, and were 
 still more so at the time of the insurrection, when the 
 calamities of the great earthquake of 1783 were still in 
 everybody's recollection ; and many of the villages 
 which had been destroyed were not yet rebuilt, the 
 people living in temporary huts. There was no car- 
 riage road through the country, and a journey from 
 Naples to Calabria was considered, and justly too, as 
 both a difficult and a dangerous undertaking. 
 
 RujFo and his small party landed in the month of 
 February near Scylla, where he collected three hundred 
 men, chiefly among the retainers of his family ; and of 
 these he made his guard. He then proceeded to Bag- 
 nara, where he increased the number of his followers. 
 He issued proclamations with the double authority of a 
 cardinal and a king's lieutenant, commanding all true 
 Catholics to join the royal standard, denouncing ex- 
 communication against the refractory, and bestowing 
 indulgences on those who should fall in the strife 
 against Jacobins and infidels. He wrote circulars to 
 the bishops and curates, requiring of them to preach 
 the insurrection in their respective circuits. A white
 
 188 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 cross became the symbol of the soldiers of the Christian 
 army (such was the name assumed by Ruffo's followers). 
 The cardinal offered also a full pardon to all criminals 
 and outlaws who should present themselves at his head- 
 quarters and enlist in his ranks. The two provinces of 
 Calabria were at that epoch the refuge of a multitude 
 of men who had escaped from confinement during the 
 confusion and anarchy of Naples and other towns. 
 These were formed into bodies of irregulars under bold 
 and enterprising chiefs. Michele Pezza, better known 
 by the name of Fra Diavolo, was one of the most pro- 
 minent. He had been a monk, but having left his 
 convent through restlessness or misconduct, he had 
 become a highway robber, and had even attacked the 
 royal mail. He now became an officer of the Santa 
 Fede. Panzanera and Pane di Grano were men of a 
 similar stamp. Next came the curates who, crucifix 
 in hand, led bands of young Calabrians going, as they 
 thought, to victory or martyrdom, or else attracted by 
 the prospect of a roving, licentious life. Rinaldi, the 
 curate of La Scala, was the first among these. He had 
 himself, unaided, begun the insurrection in his parish ; 
 he had seized two pieces of cannon out of the Castle of 
 La Scala; and from him had proceeded the earliest 
 communications about the Calabrian revolt, which had 
 been at first treated by the court of Palermo as the 
 dreams of a visionary. 
 
 Winspear, the president, and Don Angelo Fiore, the 
 auditor, of the province of Calabria Ultra under the 
 king, with several officers, civil and military, hastened 
 to join Ruffo's standard. But one of the most import- 
 ant accessions to the royalist cause was that of Sciarpa. 
 This man had been an officer of the criminal court of 
 Salerno, and as such was acquainted with all the law- 
 less and daring characters of that province. He was
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 189 
 
 active, intelligent, and bold. Being thrown out of em- 
 ployment by the change of government, he asked to be 
 allowed to serve under the republic, and was refused. 
 He then assembled his former acquaintances, and be- 
 came the soul of the insurrection which blazed over that 
 part of the country, almost in sight of the capital, and 
 afterwards communicated with the advanced parties of 
 the Calabrians. 
 
 Ruffo having collected a corps of several thousand 
 men, with some field-pieces, advanced to Mileto, and 
 from thence summoned Monteleone, a wealthy and im- 
 portant town, which had declared itself for the republic. 
 Monteleone sent in its submission, with a sum of money 
 and horses for the service of the army. The terms were 
 accepted, and the royalists moved on to Cotrone, an 
 ancient city on the Ionian coast. Cotrone attempted to 
 resist, but afterwards opened its gates ; it was pillaged, 
 and several of its citizens were put to death. Thence 
 Ruffo proceeded to Catanzaro, the capital of the whole 
 province of Calabria Ultra. The people had mounted 
 cannon on their ramparts, and, warned by the fate of 
 Cotrone, they refused to admit the royalists ; but pro- 
 posed a capitulation, offering to hoist the king's flag, to 
 form a royal guard among themselves, and to give a 
 sum of money for the expenses of the war. Ruffo 
 agreed to the capitulation, the terms of which he strictly 
 observed. From thence he moved forwards towards 
 Cosenza, the capital of Calabria Citra. 
 
 The reports of Ruffo's achievements spread far and 
 wide. King Ferdinand named him his vicar-general 
 in the kingdom of Naples, with full powers ; and sent 
 to him General Micheroux and Prince Luperano, with 
 a regiment of cavalry and some artillery from Sicily. 
 Many of the royalist emigrants from Naples also came 
 to swell Ruffo's ranks.
 
 190 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 There was now a formidable insurrection in southern 
 Calabria, another in the province of Salerno, near 
 Naples, another in eastern Puglia, and, lastly, in the 
 north the Abruzzi were also in open revolt. In fact, 
 the latter province, like Calabria, had never submitted. 
 French columns had passed through it in their advance 
 upon Naples, and having met with opposition in the 
 mountains near Aquila, they had committed acts of 
 stern retaliation, and the inhabitants had risen again in 
 their rear. Pronj became the leader of the Abruzzian 
 insurgents. This man had been an armigero, or yeo- 
 man, of the Marquis del Vasto ; he had some natural 
 abilities, and acted a part of consequence in that emer- 
 gency. The mountaineers were irritated against the 
 French, who had burnt their villages and cut their way 
 through by fire and sword. The town of Isernia, situated 
 on a lofty mountain, had been stormed, pillaged, and de- 
 stroyed. All these outrages embittered the spirit of the 
 natives. During the stay of the French at Naples, the 
 insurgents of Abruzzi were kept somewhat in check, 
 though never subdued ; but as soon as the French 
 columns turned their backs on that devoted country, the 
 insurrection raged more fiercely than ever, and spread- 
 ing from the Apennines to the Mediterranean, the 
 Abruzzi insurgents made a junction with the armed 
 populations of Sora, Itri, and the country between the 
 Garigliano and Volturno, and thus cut off entirely the 
 communication between Naples and the rest of Italy. 
 Another leader, called Mammone, a miller by trade, 
 was at the head of the insurgents of Sora and San 
 Germane. The horrors reported of this monster are 
 almost beyond belief. He literally thirsted after human 
 blood, and drank it. 
 
 The retreat of the French army, which was the 
 signal of ruin to the cause of the republicans, took place
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 191 
 
 early in May. It was preceded by sinister reports 
 being whispered about reverses of the armies in the 
 north. In fact, the campaign had begun in Lombardy 
 by t\vo successive defeats inflicted by the Austrians and 
 Russians on the French, who had been obliged to eva- 
 cuate the whole of the Milanese territory. Few, how- 
 ever, at Naples knew anything of the particulars, except 
 the French commanders themselves, who kept them as 
 secret as they could. General Macdonald had concerted 
 with Moreau, who was the general-in-chief in Italy, the 
 bold plan of marching to the north, menacing in this 
 manner the flank of the Russians, and forming a junc- 
 tion with the French army in Piedmont ; a plan which 
 he prosecuted with equal valour and ability in the three 
 days' engagement on the banks of the Trebbia against 
 all Suwanxnv's power, nearly succeeding in turning the 
 fate of that campaign. However, for some time before 
 he left Naples, it was given out that the French were 
 going to form a camp for exercise at some distance from 
 the capital. The division of Duhesme was recalled 
 from Puglia, and that fine, but now devastated, province 
 was left again to the mercy of the insurgents. 
 
 Meantime the English and Neapolitan squadrons, 
 emboldened by the news favourable to the allies, landed 
 some troops at La Cava and Castellamare, where they 
 hoisted the royal flag, which was thus again displayed 
 in full view of our terraces. The sight brought to the 
 inhabitants of Naples unpleasant recollections and dark 
 forebodings. Macdonald, however, was too cautious 
 thus to leave the capital exposed to the insults of the 
 enemy, and marched himself on the 4th of May to Cas- 
 tellamare and retook it, making some prisoners. This 
 was the last a'ct of the French in the cause of Naples. 
 A few days after Macdonald set off for Rome, and his 
 army followed in two columns ; one by Terracina, or
 
 192 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 the lower road, the other by San Germano, skirting 
 the foot of the Apennines. The latter found the coun- 
 try in arms to oppose their passage. The French, how- 
 ever, cut their way through, and the towns that resisted 
 were ravaged. Isola especially, on the confines of the 
 Roman States, was completely destroyed, after an obsti- 
 nate resistance, and the inhabitants were cut to pieces. 
 The French army abandoned the kingdom of Naples 
 five months after they had entered it, only leaving gar- 
 risons at Capua arid Gaeta, and a small one of seven 
 hundred men in the Castle of St. Elmo. 
 
 A settled gloom now pervaded the minds of reflecting 
 people at Naples, for the bad news from the provinces 
 could not be altogether concealed, though the leading 
 patriots were in a state of exaltation which partook of 
 infatuation. They really did not see the desperate state 
 of their affairs. They even rejoiced at the departure of 
 the French, as freeing them from an irksome tutelage. 
 This would have been reasonable had there been no 
 enemies around them, or had the patriots had strength 
 to oppose the insurgents and the king and his allies. 
 The minister at war, Mantone, affected to despise the 
 insurgents. When news came to Naples that a body 
 of Russians and of Albanian Ottomans had landed 
 on the Adriatic coast as allies of Ferdinand, and 
 had already occupied Foggia, the principal town of 
 Puglia, Mantone said they were galley slaves from 
 Sicily, whom the court of Palermo had disguised in 
 that manner ! However, these Russians, under Gene- 
 ral Micheroux, who had landed with them from Corfu, 
 soon effected a junction with the army of Ruffo. 
 
 The cardinal had continued his triumphant advance 
 through Calabria Citra. Cosenza, the chief town, made 
 little resistance ; the inhabitants were divided, and it 
 was soon entered by RuiFo's soldiers. Some plunder
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 193 
 
 took place, but the lives of the people were spared. 
 Rossano and Paola were not so fortunate. They both 
 defended themselves ; both were stormed, and were 
 treated most cruelly. The latter particularly, one of 
 the finest towns of all Calabria, was completely de- 
 stroyed, and no quarter given to the unfortunate inha- 
 bitants. The tide of civil warfare rose, and became 
 more and more destructive as it rolled on towards 
 Naples. 
 
 Ruffo now entered Basilicata, a mountainous inland 
 province, on his way to form a junction with the 
 royalists of Puglia. In his way was the town of Alta- 
 mura, where many patriots had assembled from the sur- 
 rounding country ; and the people in general, alarmed 
 at the reports of the excesses committed by Ruffo's sol- 
 diers, determined to resist to the last. But their am- 
 munition failed them. On the 8th of May Altamura 
 was invested, and on the 10th it was stormed by the 
 royalists and given up to indiscriminate pillage. The 
 horrors of that devoted town are unfit for description ; 
 neither sex nor age was spared ; priests, monks, and 
 nuns suffered with the rest. Among other cruelties, 
 the living were tied to the dead and thrown into char- 
 nel pits. But enough of this. For fifteen days Alta- 
 mura was scourged with the presence of its tormentors. 
 At last, tired of slaughter and wanton destruction, 
 they left its bloody ruins and pursued their way to 
 Ariano, on the road from Puglia to Naples, about fifty 
 miles from the latter city, where Ruffo established his 
 head-quarters by the end of May, having been joined 
 by Micheroux and the Russians. All the towns, now 
 frightened by the fate of Altamura, hastened to send in 
 their submission. The principal leaders of the insur- 
 gents repaired also to the cardinal's camp. A singular 
 scene that camp presented, and a strange staff was that
 
 194 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 of Ruffo ! A set of banditti, in their coarse accoutre- 
 ments, by the side of a cardinal several noblemen and 
 old officers of the line Russian and Albanian officers 
 priests and heretics the highest and the lowest in the 
 scale of society ; the cross, the eagle, and the Turkish 
 crescent ! 
 
 Meantime what were our governors doing ? Little 
 to meet the emergency. Already before Macdonald left 
 us another change had taken place in the government. 
 The French Directory, listening at length to the remon- 
 strances of Moliterni, who had been sent as minister to 
 Paris, despatched a commissioner, Abrial, to organize 
 anew the Neapolitan republic. This gentleman, gifted 
 with mild and conciliatory manners, and benevolent 
 views, made a selection from among the most honour- 
 able patriots of a legislative body, to frame the final 
 constitution of the state, which, however, M'as never 
 promulgated. The executive power was entrusted to a 
 directory of five members, as in France, and four minis- 
 ters. This, in the crisis in which we were, was the 
 really essential branch of government. While the 
 others were legislating for future times, the executive 
 called together the national guard, a very useful body 
 for keeping order in a town, though of little service in 
 repelling an enemy. But the great error lay in despising 
 the provincial insurrections. They sent, when too late, 
 mere detachments to fight the insurgents. Schipani, a 
 warm patriot, but no general, twice marched into the 
 province of Salerno, and twice was obliged to fall back 
 upon Naples. It was this same Schipani who, when 
 Sciarpa, the insurgent leader, offered to come over to 
 the service of the republic, under certain conditions for 
 himself and his men, answered disdainfully, in the 
 words of Godefroy in Tasso's Jerusalem, Guerreggio 
 in Asia, e non vi cambio o merco " I am here car-
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 195 
 
 rying on war, and not barter or traffic." This affec- 
 tation of heroics this walking on stilts was charac- 
 teristic of the men and of the country. A trait of this 
 sort was just calculated to please my boyish fancy at 
 the time, as I can remember ; but, for the same reason, 
 it did not become the grown-up leaders of a nation. 
 
 Ettore Carafa, son of the Duke of Andria, and a 
 man of much greater abilities, was sent to the Abruzzi 
 against Pronj. He fought bravely, but was overcome 
 by immensely superior numbers, and obliged to shut 
 himself up in the fortress of Pescara. His services were 
 thus lost to Naples. Other detachments sent against 
 Ruffo had the same fate. What could a few hundred 
 patriots do against thousands ? The facility with which 
 the early insurrections had been dispersed, especially in 
 Puglia, deceived the patriots, who did not consider that 
 dispersing was at first a part of the insurgents' plan. 
 
 In the capital we had, since the removal of the pro- 
 visional government, numerous clubs or patriotic socie- 
 ties. One of these devoted itself particularly to watch 
 the labours of the legislative body. The latter had 
 been discussing the intricate subject of the feudal rights 
 and perquisites, and, after annulling the privileges of 
 the barons, proceeded to scrutinize the income pro- 
 ceeding from the forests and common lands over which 
 these noblemen held manorial rights. In pursuing this 
 examination, they required every one to bring forward 
 his titles ; and if these were wanting, or found to be 
 defective, the lands were to be divided among the com- 
 mons. Several of the legislators, however, were barons 
 themselves, and opposed this law. The discussion, 
 nevertheless, was proceeding with much moderation, 
 and according to constitutional forms, when a knot of 
 hot-headed patriots from the club called Delia Acade- 
 mia dei Nobili, repaired in arms to the entrance of the 
 
 s 2
 
 196 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 legislative assembly, and sent in a message demanding 
 the expulsion of two of its members who had voted 
 against the feudal reform, as well as the dismissal of the 
 minister of marine. After a stormy debate the three 
 members offered to retire of their own accord, thus 
 avoiding further mischief ; the legislature giving at the 
 same time a fatal example of weakness. 
 
 Several other acts of violence and terrorism took 
 place, which it would be useless now to relate, as the 
 duration of these institutions was so short that they had 
 hardly time to effect anything beyond alarming and un- 
 settling still more the minds of the people. There was 
 a society which had for its object to democratize the 
 lazzaroni ! The members met in the great square del 
 Mercato, and mixing familiarly with the populace, 
 talked to them in their own jargon, and ate and drank 
 with them in the low eating-houses and wine-vaults of 
 that neighbourhood. They appeared, however, by the 
 result, to have made but few proselytes. 
 
 Other and more urgent cares were pressing upon the 
 government. Cardinal Ruffo, with an army of fifty 
 thousand men, regular and irregular, had come down 
 from Ariano to Avellino in the vicinity of Naples. His 
 advanced parties spread completely round the capital in 
 a semicircle, extending from the Roman road to that of 
 Salerno or Calabria. It was now evident to all that 
 the city, with a population of nearly half a million, in- 
 cluding its suburbs, would in a few days be compelled 
 to surrender, if not by force, at least by famine. The 
 minister at war at length saw the impending ruin, and 
 made some efforts to avert it. The small regular force 
 he had at his disposal was sent in two parties to face the 
 royalists, one under Schipani to Torre dell' Annunziata, 
 the other to Marigliano on the Puglia road. But be- 
 fore proceeding on this last expedition, Mantone, with
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 197 
 
 great pomp, assembled his troops, as well as the na- 
 tional guards, in the wide square del Castello, and had 
 the royalist prisoners, that had been taken a month 
 before by Macdonald at Castellamare, brought into the 
 centre, and their colours thrown down at the foot of the 
 tree of liberty. The prisoners, pale and emaciated, and 
 with their hands tied, presented a miserable sight ; 
 they expected to be led to instant execution. The de- 
 nouement, however, had been concerted among the re- 
 publican leaders. The officers began to cry mercy for 
 their deluded countrymen ; the soldiers followed ; the 
 citizens and populace, assembled all around, and on the 
 crowded balconies, repeated the blessed word, " Mercy ! 
 Mercy!" The general then signified his assent, and that 
 of the government ; the prisoners were unbound ; and 
 thanking with true southern warmth of expression their 
 intercessors, they shouted also Viva la Repubblica.' 
 amidst the deafening applause of the multitude. A 
 collection was made on the spot to supply the prisoners 
 with the means of returning to their homes in the 
 country, there to spread the report of the generosity of 
 the patriots. This act of humanity graced the last 
 happy day Naples saw that year. Near morning the 
 troops marched out of town to attack Ruffo. 
 
 A number of Calabrians of all ranks, nobles, land- 
 holders, tradesmen, and even priests, who being of the 
 republican party,* had been obliged to leave their coun- 
 
 * When I speak of republicans, and especially of provincial re- 
 publicans, in this narrative, it must not be understood that the gene- 
 rality of these men were attached to that particular form of govern- 
 ment, of which most of them had very little knowledge, but being 
 practically aware of the abuses of the old system, they approved of 
 a change, and as the fashion then was for republics, they supported 
 the republic. Such was the ignorance of the lower classes, that 
 many in the remote districts fancied the repubblica, from its feminine 
 termination, and the emblematic figure they saw on the coins, to 
 
 s 3
 
 198 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 try on Ruffo's invasion, escaped to Naples. These men 
 had lost their all, they had no hopes, no mercy to ex- 
 pect from the opposite party, but they were brave and 
 determined, like all Calabrians. The minister at war 
 enlisted them to the number of two thousand, forming a 
 Calabrian legion, and to them were intrusted the Castel 
 Nuovo, and the other principal points of the capital. 
 They wrote an address to the government, stating that 
 they were men of desperate fortunes, to whom it had 
 now become a matter of indifference either to give or to 
 receive death ; that their sole wish was that their coun- 
 try should be free, or, at least, not fall unavenged. Nor 
 was this vain bombast; they kept their word, and few 
 of that legion survived the assault of Naples. These 
 men, however, unlike their royalist countrymen, re- 
 spected property and persons, and preserved the tran- 
 quillity of the town till the last. They behaved, in 
 short, honourably, being chiefly men of education and 
 respectability in their own country. 
 
 While the regular troops had marched out to fight 
 Ruffo, a conspiracy was discovered in the capital. Two 
 brothers, natives of Germany, by name Baccher, having 
 enrolled secretly a number of royalists and lazzaroni, 
 and bribed part of the national guard, had thus pre- 
 pared a counter revolution, in which they proposed 
 to destroy or secure the patriots and proclaim the king. 
 One of the initiated sent a ticket of protection to a lady 
 of the name of Sanfelice, and desired her not to venture 
 out on a certain day. The lady wishing to save a dear 
 friend, communicated the warning to him. This led to 
 a discovery. The house of Baccher was visited, royalist 
 cockades and flags were found, with lists of persons pro- 
 scribed. The two Bacchers were arrested, but no 
 
 be a woman ! and one, too, of loose character : they called it La 
 Publica.
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 199 
 
 threats or promises could make them reveal their ac- 
 complices. They were sent to the dungeons of the 
 castle, and the thanks of the nation were voted to the 
 lady Sanfelice for having been the means of saving the 
 republic. 
 
 Meantime a Franciscan friar, named Pistici, endea- 
 voured to discover the threads of the conspiracy. He 
 was popular with the sailors and boatmen of the dis- 
 trict of Molo Piccolo, though in his heart attached to 
 the republic. One day he entered a boat with some of 
 these men; and as they were sailing in the gulf, 
 he began to deplore the condition of the times, the ty- 
 ranny of the Jacobins, the contempt into which religion 
 had fallen, and then suddenly exclaimed : " Had I a 
 thousand men like you, and with arms, I would avenge 
 the altars and my king. But, alas ! the Jacobins have 
 taken your arms away !" " Arms may be found," mut- 
 tered one of the sailors. And as they reached the 
 shore the man told Pistici that if he repaired that night 
 at an hour he mentioned to the same spot, he had fur- 
 ther intelligence to communicate. Pistici did so, al- 
 lowed himself to be blindfolded and led by the hand, 
 and found himself at last in a cellar, which was full of 
 firelocks, and other weapons and ammunition. Pistici 
 represented himself as having friends among the upper 
 class of royalists, and another meeting was appointed to 
 concert measures in common. The friar having given 
 information to government, went to the same spot, 
 where he met four of the lazzaroni, who began to press 
 him about his means to effect an insurrection. The 
 agents of police being at hand arrested the party, in- 
 cluding Pistici, chained them separately, but confined 
 them in the same dungeon. This was done on the stip- 
 position that the lazzaroni might still remain in the be- 
 lief that the friar was sincere in his professions ; but they
 
 200 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEO. III. 
 
 were too wary, they loaded Pistlci with reproaches and 
 abuses, and no disclosures could be obtained from them. 
 At last they were publicly executed with the brothers 
 Baccher. 
 
 On the 5th of June the Directory proclaimed the 
 country to be in danger, and enjoined that at the firing 
 of a signal gun from the castle every inhabitant, who 
 was not inscribed on the lists of the national guard, or 
 of some patriotic society, should retire to his house, and 
 not come out again until another gun should be fired, 
 and this under pain of death. At the same signal all 
 the national guards and other patriots were to assemble 
 at their posts. The first time that this signal was given, 
 it was punctually obeyed; but many of the national 
 guards became weary of its useless repetition, by which 
 they were kept for hours under arms ; and thus it hap- 
 pened that when the enemy was really at the entrance 
 of the city, the signal was but little attended to. The 
 lower classes grumbled at being sent home thus capri- 
 ciously, in a country where thousands can hardly be 
 said to have a home, huddled up as many families are 
 in kitchens and cellars, and where it is an indispensable 
 relief for them to be out in the open air as long and as 
 late as they can. 
 
 A revolutionary tribunal was instituted to try, in a 
 summary manner, all persons charged with treason. 
 It was fortunate for the memory, if not for the cause of 
 the republicans, that this mischievous court was of such 
 short and precarious duration, that it had not time to 
 perpetrate those acts of injustice which are the usual 
 attendants of a system of terror. It must also be ob- 
 served that its establishment was forced upon the go- 
 vernment by the violent demagogues, who became more 
 noisy as times became more critical. 
 
 The last efforts of the patriots in the open field were
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 201 
 
 attended with unfortunate results. The great error of 
 their chiefs was that of scattering and dividing their 
 forces. A small column, commanded by Spano, was 
 defeated at Monteforte, near Avellino. Another de- 
 tachment, under the orders of Belpussi, was posted at 
 Marigliano, a village only twelve miles from Naples, 
 on the Puglia road. Cardinal Ruffo, who had moved 
 his head-quarters to Nola, attacked the patriots with 
 an immense force, and drove them back on the capital. 
 Schipani alone, who was stationed to the right on the 
 Calabrian road, stood his ground at Torre dell' Annun- 
 ziata, being protected by the Neapolitan flotilla on one 
 side, and by the fastnesses of Mount Vesuvius on the 
 other. A little in advance of him, Castellamara was 
 still in the hands of the patriots. But after the defeat 
 of Marigliano, Ruffo being master of the plain pushed 
 on one of his columns by the way of Somma to Por- 
 tici, and thus cut off Schipani's communications with 
 Naples, by which means the troops commanded by the 
 latter were rendered useless. Ruffo now invested the 
 capital with the whole of his force, including some 
 Russian infantry and other regular troops, besides artil- 
 lery. The principal point of attack was the bridge of 
 La Maddalena, which is at the entrance of the town on 
 the road from Calabria. The patriots had fortified the 
 avenues of Naples. The small fort of Villena stood on 
 the sea-shore, by which Ruffo was advancing. A small 
 detachment of Calabrian patriots had thrown themselves 
 into it, determined to sell their lives dear. Ruffo's artil- 
 lery soon dismantled the feeble walls, and the royalists 
 rushed in. The fight was now between Calabrians and 
 Calabrians man against man in the midst of ruins. 
 None of the garrison surrendered ; all were killed after 
 destroying many of their assailants. A small knot of 
 survivors, covered with wounds, retreated to the powder
 
 202 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. HI. 
 
 magazines, where one of them, by name Martelli, ap- 
 plied a lighted match to one of the barrels, and blew up 
 the conquerors and the conquered. The next moment 
 the little fort was but a heap of stones and mangled 
 bodies. The explosion was felt at Naples like the 
 shock of an earthquake, and at first it was thought the 
 noise proceeded from Vesuvius ; but the dismal truth 
 soon became known. 
 
 The return of the few troops under Mantone dis- 
 closed all the horror of our situation. The town was 
 surrounded by the spreading masses of the insurgents ; 
 the English and Neapolitan frigates blockaded us by 
 sea; there was no chance of escape. Roccaromana, 
 who had left Naples in order to raise some cavalry on 
 his estates near Capua, being disgusted with the repub- 
 lican government, which had treated him harshly, had 
 joined Ruffo's camp, and brought to the insurgents the 
 accession of a name at once patrician and popular. 
 The little town of Aversa, on the Roman road, had 
 also revolted, and that cut off our communications with 
 the French garrison of Capua. Colonel Mejeant, who 
 commanded the French in the Castle of St. Elmo, 
 behaved in a very equivocal manner. He had at first 
 issued an order of the day, by which he threatened the 
 lazzaroni that at the first popular insurrection he would 
 bombard the town. But when he saw the affairs of the 
 patriots at the last extremity, he shut himself and his 
 garrison in the castle ; and would not admit into it any 
 Neapolitan, except those few who held commissions in 
 the French service. He remained henceforth a passive 
 spectator of the scenes of carnage that were taking place 
 below, made no demonstrations, and fired hardly a gun 
 to support or assist the patriots. 
 
 Meanwhile the lazzaroni, and other royalists in the 
 capital, were beginning to show their long-repressed
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. . 203 
 
 joy at the approach of their friends. Already, some 
 nights before, they had marked with a red cross many 
 houses of the patriots, adding in figures the number of 
 inmates devoted to slaughter. 
 
 The islands of Ischia and Procida, at the mouth of 
 the bay, had been for some time occupied by the Anglo- 
 Sicilians who had landed from the squadron. There 
 the people, chiefly sailors and fishermen, who had suf- 
 fered most severely during the French occupation from 
 the interruption of trade and the scarcity of provisions, 
 committed many acts of sanguinary revenge against the 
 republicans. A Sicilian commissioner, by name Spe- 
 ciale, was sent from Palermo by the king's government 
 to establish a tribunal at Procida, and to try in a sum- 
 mar}' manner the Jacobins who should be brought be- 
 fore him by the peasantry. He there showed the first 
 symptoms of his truculent disposition, sentencing to 
 death with cruel and indecent haste a number of indi- 
 viduals many upon trifling grounds. The tragedies 
 of Procida became soon known at Naples, and warned 
 the patriots of the capital what they had to expect from 
 the mercy of the royalists. Similar scenes occurred in 
 the Island of Ischia. There the Sicilian commander 
 felt, or pretended to feel, some scruples about putting to 
 death several priests who had been brought before him, 
 without having them first desecrated, or divested of their 
 ecclesiastical character by a bishop ; and he even pre- 
 sumed to apply to the English commodore for a ship to 
 take them to Palermo for the purpose. Captain Trow- 
 bridge refused to have anything to do with such pro- 
 ceedings. It has been suggested, and is not at all un- 
 likely from the temper of the people in that country, 
 that it was intended to implicate the English allies in 
 the arbitrary acts which the royalist agents were per-
 
 204 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 petrating to gratify the revenge of the violent party 
 about the court of Palermo. 
 
 On the 13th June, a day devoted in the Roman 
 calendar to the commemoration of St. Anthony, the 
 patron of the Calabrians*, Ruffo made a general attack 
 on the capital. His columns moved against three 
 points Capodimonte, Foria, and the bridge of La Mad- 
 dalena ; but the principal effort was directed against 
 the latter. There the most determined patriots had 
 also collected for the defence. Writz, a Swiss by origin, 
 though naturalized at Naples, commanded them. The 
 combat was long and obstinate. Luigi Serio, one of 
 the legislative body, an old man, fought in the first 
 ranks, surrounded by his young relatives and friends, 
 and with them found an honourable death. Ruffo 's 
 troops were driven back, when all at once, towards the 
 evening, a shout of " Viva il Re!" resounded in the rear 
 of the patriots. The lazzaroni of the neighbouring dis- 
 trict of Mercato had risen and attacked the republicans 
 from behind. Others were running about the city voci- 
 ferating the same cry, and obliging the people to illu- 
 minate their windows. They were joined by numbers 
 of the populace. Many of the national guard, thinking 
 that it was all over with the patriots, threw down their 
 arms and went to conceal themselves. Meantime the 
 patriots at the bridge had turned round upon the lazza- 
 roni, and soon dispersed them with great slaughter; 
 but Ruffo, availing himself of this diversion, returned 
 to the charge, and forced the pass of the bridge. Many 
 
 * This coincidence is not so unimportant as it might appear to 
 English readers. The saint's day is still held in great veneration 
 in the southern countries. Although the insurrection of Naples 
 was not a religious one, yet stimulants of this sort were not 
 neglected.
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1*199. 205 
 
 of the patriots threw themselves into the nearest castle, 
 that of Del Carmine, which is perfectly untenable on 
 the land side. The others retreated to Castel Nuovo, 
 whither Writz had been already carried mortally 
 wounded ; and where he soon after expired, fortunate in 
 not beholding the final extermination of his brethren. 
 
 It was now impossible to defend the open city, into 
 which Ruffo's bands were pouring in by every avenue, 
 and distributing arms to their friends the lazzaroni. 
 The patriots, therefore, abandoning the old, or eastern, 
 districts, retreated upon the western part of the town, 
 entrenching themselves between the harbour and the 
 hill of St. Elmo; and making Castel Nuovo and the 
 royal, now national, palace their head-quarters, being 
 protected on the sea-side by the other castle, called 
 Dell' Uovo, and by the flotilla. 
 
 That night was a dreadful one for Naples. The 
 insurgent cavalry were scouring the streets, and the 
 populace entered the houses of the citizens and tortured 
 or murdered them ; plundering them of everything va- 
 luable, and throwing the furniture and sometimes the 
 inhabitants out of the windows. Even the apologists 
 of the counter-revolution acknowledge that the mas- 
 sacre of that night was terrible and indiscriminate. It 
 happened that, in the confusion and darkness, parties 
 of the lazzaroni pushed too far in the direction of the 
 patriots, when the latter, advancing by the flat roofs, or 
 terraces, which form a communication between the 
 houses of the same row, entered by the skylights, sur- 
 prised the insurgents at their work of plunder, and 
 killed them without quarter. At the same time many 
 of the respectable inhabitants, whether royalists in their 
 opinion or not, illuminated their windows in hopes of 
 saving themselves from destruction. Thus the unfor- 
 
 T
 
 206 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sKC. III. 
 
 tunate city presented a fearful mixture of rejoicing and 
 despair of songs of triumph, and screams and moans 
 of agony of deeds of ferocity, revenge, and brutal 
 licentiousness unchecked, unnoticed, and unpunished. 
 
 The Castle del Carmine, abandoned to its fate, being 
 at the eastern end of the city, after keeping up a firing 
 some hours, offered to capitulate. While the garrison 
 was parleying with some of Ruffo's officers, the insur- 
 gents scaled its low walls on tha side of the convent, 
 and put the whole garrison to the sword. 
 
 Next day the orgies of the reaction continued. The 
 populace pointed out to the Calabrians the houses of 
 those whom they called Jacobins, arid these unfortunate 
 individuals, beaten and wounded, were dragged through 
 the streets in the midst of the taunts and the insults of 
 the women and children. They either expired in 
 this manner, after long and severe suffering, or were 
 taken before some of the various insurgent chiefs, who 
 held their tribunals of blood in the open squares, or 
 under the vestibule of some convent or palace; and 
 whose nod sent them to immediate death, which was 
 inflicted either by the musket or by the bayonet and 
 pike. We must not dwell long upon these horrors. 
 Suffice it to say, that hundreds, if not thousands, pe- 
 rished in this manner during this second anarchy that 
 women and children, that ladies of rank, of education, 
 were not spared that some of the latter, to the dis- 
 grace of all human feelings, were stripped naked and 
 dragged through the streets* that many of the unfor- 
 
 * One of the atrocious inventions of the time to mislead the 
 credulous multitude, was the report given out by some malignant 
 fiend that the Jacobins had the tree of liberty, the republican 
 emblem, tattooed on their bodies. The consequence was that the 
 victims were thus stripped naked.
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 201 
 
 tunate victims were shockingly mutilated before death 
 that some were thrown half alive, half dead, into 
 fires which had been made in the squares out of the 
 furniture of the houses pillaged and that some of the 
 populace were actually guilty of cannibalism. These 
 things would seem incredible now, but they are too well 
 attested ; and some of the lazzaroni and insurgents were 
 heard to boast that they had tasted of the flesh of Jaco- 
 bins. A sort of madness of rage, a frightful compound 
 of all the worst passions of men, fanned by fanaticism, 
 had taken possession of this wild and half-barbarous 
 race. But there were others among them who acted 
 deliberately, who showed method in their cruelty, who 
 had some diabolical feeling to gratify ; and they excited 
 the ignorant multitude against the objects of their 
 hatred. This state of things lasted for several days. 
 Ruffo, who had taken up his quarters on the skirts of 
 the town, near the bridge of Maddalena, did not, or 
 could not, restrain his bands, who were now scattered 
 all over a vast and crowded city, where the influence of 
 a superior was still less felt than in the camp. But 
 this is no apology for him, as he must have foreseen 
 the consequences of leading fifty thousand desperate 
 undisciplined men into the heart of an immense and 
 open city. 
 
 The patriots continued to keep possession of the 
 castles and of the intervening streets, and a desultory 
 skirmishing was kept up in the avenues that led to their 
 position. On the 15th the royalists forced their way 
 down the great street of Toledo, and arrived before the 
 Palace of Stigliano, where two brothers of the Colonna 
 family had fortified themselves with their friends. 
 Obliged to give way before superior numbers, the pa- 
 triots retreated lower down to San Ferdinando, near the 
 
 T 2
 
 208 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 king's palace, which was the centre of their position. 
 The Palace of Stigliano was given up to pillage. 
 
 Ruffo having at last established a sort of comparative 
 order among his men, with the assistance of the few 
 regular troops he had, especially of his Russian auxi- 
 liaries, formed three batteries, which he stationed 
 one in the street of Toledo to act against the patriots 
 of San Ferdinando, another at 1'Immacolata to attack 
 Castel Nuovo, and one at Posilipo to batter Castel dell' 
 Uovo. The French garrison of St. Elmo did not op- 
 pose these preparations, although they might with 
 their guns have done infinite mischief to the assailants. 
 Mejeant looked from his watch-tower unmoved and 
 unmolested. He withstood the pressing remonstrances 
 of the forlorn patriots, who implored him to support a 
 general movement they would make against the bat- 
 teries. He answered them coldly, and even haughtily, 
 that he acted according to his instructions that they 
 might defend themselves in the position they occupied 
 that he could not admit persons ignorant of the art 
 of war into his fortress. On this, several hundreds of the 
 patriots entrenched themselves in the vast convent of 
 San Martino, which adjoins St. Elmo, and is under the 
 guns of that castle. 
 
 The patriots thus forsaken did not give themselves 
 up to despair. They had entertained some hopes of 
 Schipani's column, about fifteen hundred strong, being 
 able to cut its way to Naples, and thus effect a diver- 
 sion in their favour. They had even concerted mea- 
 sures with that officer, one of the patriots having swam 
 across in the night from Castel Nuovo to the shore of 
 Portici, and having reached Schipani's camp at Torre 
 dell' Annunziata in safety. That commander was 
 brave and resolute, but destitute of military talent ; he
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1199. 209 
 
 harangued his troops, represented to them that they 
 had no mercy to expect from their ferocious enemies, 
 and exhorted them to make a last effort to save their 
 country and themselves, or to die bravely in the at- 
 tempt. He was answered by a general cry of fierce 
 determination. He then marched his troops along the 
 sea-coast as far as Portici, driving the insurgent out- 
 posts before him. Having entered the town, and just 
 as the head of his column was turning the angle formed 
 by the church, it was met by the fire of two pieces of 
 cannon, behind which some Russian companies were 
 drawn up. A squadron of Neapolitan cavalry was at 
 the same time threatening to get round to the rear of 
 the patriots. Schipani then drew back a detached di- 
 vision, composed chiefly of old soldiers who had served 
 in the king's army, with orders to follow the sea-shore 
 and attack the enemy in flank. These men were no 
 sooner in sight of the royalists than some of them 
 shouted " The king for ever!" The rest were told that 
 Naples had surrendered, and promised a full pardon if 
 they assisted in decoying their former comrades. In 
 order to effect this, a random fire was kept up, as if the 
 troops were engaged. Schipani then moved on with 
 the rest of his men in close column, in the midst of the 
 fire that showered upon him from the Russians in front, 
 and from the balconies of the houses. The treacherous 
 battalion now appeared ; Schipani opened his files to 
 receive them, when they immediately fell, bayonet in 
 hand, upon their former comrades. Royalists and re- 
 publicans became now mixed together in a confused 
 mass. Schipani's soldiers could not distinguish friends 
 from foes ; they fought at random, cooped up in the 
 narrow streets, and fell in heaps. Those who survived 
 were wounded and taken prisoners. Among them was 
 
 T 3
 
 210 POPULAR, TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 Schipani, and shortly after he ended his ill-fated career 
 on the scaffold. 
 
 The news of this defeat soon became known at 
 Naples, and spread consternation among the patriots. 
 Their last hope of assistance had failed them. It 
 seemed as if everything conspired against their falling 
 cause. Scenes of outrage were still taking place in the 
 streets of the capital, although the anarchy on the 
 whole was somewhat less. The arrested were now 
 carried before a chief, and if they had been taken with 
 arms in hand they were sentenced to be shot ; if not, 
 they were immured in the prisons to await their trial. 
 The vast store-houses of corn belonging to government, 
 and called / granili, nearly half a mile in length, were 
 filled with thousands of unfortunate prisoners, exposed 
 to a suffocating heat and thirst in the hottest days of 
 the summer, without bedding to lie upon, and scantily 
 and irregularly supplied with bread and water. Here the 
 sick and the wounded lay dying for want of assistance. 
 
 Although the wholesale butcheries in the streets had 
 subsided, yet many single murders were committed by 
 the armed populace, whom no authority checked. A 
 mischievous report was spread among the lazzaroni, 
 that previous to the 13th the patriots had collected a 
 number of ropes, or halters, for the purpose of hanging 
 the royalists in the town after having repelled Ruffo ; 
 but that St. Anthony had appeared to the cardinal in 
 time to make known the plot, and thus induced him to 
 give orders for the assault on the saint's day. A rough 
 painting of the vision was paraded through the streets, 
 exhibiting a prodigious quantity of ropes. The conse- 
 quence was that the mob broke into many houses, and 
 wherever they found ropes that "they thought suspicious 
 they gave no quarter. An unfortunate butcher, by
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 211 
 
 name Cristoforo, had a quantity which was required 
 for the purposes of his trade ; but the stupid lazzaroni 
 saw in them only so many halters intended for the 
 royalists : they cut off the poor fellow's head, stuck it 
 on a pike, and earned it about, shouting, " Behold the 
 miracle of St. Anthony!" It was said that many of 
 these fatal ropes were thrown purposely into people's 
 houses by personal enemies of the owners, who went 
 and informed against them afterwards. 
 
 These atrocities took place in the broad face of day, 
 under as bright a sun and deep blue sky as ever shone 
 in that glorious climate. The calm majesty of the 
 heavens, the brilliancy of the smiling earth and the 
 glittering waves, were in striking contrast with the dark 
 murderous deeds of man. Such a discordance has been 
 noticed on many other occasions, but it will ever force 
 itself afresh on the feelings of the beholder of similar 
 scenes. 
 
 Ruffo's batteries continuing to annoy the castles, 
 especially that of Dell' Uovo, the patriots one night 
 made a sortie for the purpose of destroying the battery 
 erected against the latter. The movement was well 
 combined. The patriots stationed at the convent of 
 San Martino made a demonstration towards 1'Infras- 
 cata, and thus drew the attention of Fra Diavolo and 
 his corps, who were posted in the upper part of the 
 town, whilst another column marched silently by St. 
 Anna di Palazzo, and issued suddenly on the marina, 
 or public gardens. They surprised the first insurgent 
 sentries by their cries of " Viva il Re!" and took pos- 
 session of the battery ; the Calabrians who had charge 
 of it being either killed on the guns, or obliged to run 
 away along the sea-shore. The frigates in the bay, 
 hearing the report of musketry, fired in that direction,
 
 212 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 but their fire fell chiefly on the flying royalists. The 
 guns were spiked and the carriages destroyed. A mis- 
 hap, however, occurred which nearly proved fatal to 
 the patriots. They had concerted with those of Castel 
 dell' Uovo that the latter should join them. Those of 
 Castel dell' Uovo accordingly moved along Chiata- 
 mone, and as they approached the gardens they called 
 out " Chi viva?" The others, in the hurry of the 
 moment, cried out " Viva il Re!" upon which the 
 former opened their fire upon them and wounded seve- 
 ral. The mistake, however, was soon found out, and 
 the two divisions joined and embraced amidst cries of 
 " Liberty for ever !" They then proceeded together to 
 attack a body of Albanians who were posted towards 
 Posilipo, and defeated them. Having effected this, the 
 patriots thought it prudent to return to their castles 
 before the break of day. 
 
 This was the last effort of the patriots, and it was 
 both bold and well executed. But the necessities of 
 their situation now became imperious and urgent. They 
 had no hopes of relief ; they began to be short of pro- 
 visions ; they had a large number of persons who could 
 not fight of sick and wounded of old men, women, 
 and children, to support ; they could not expect to hold 
 out much longer ; the royalists would receive reinforce- 
 ments of regular troops ; the English fleet might be 
 expected every day, and would batter down their 
 castles ; what was to be done ? They held an anxious 
 consultation ; some proposed to form a close column of 
 all the fighting men and march out at the back of St. 
 Elmo, and endeavour to reach Capua, where a French 
 garrison was. The attempt was hazardous, and the 
 event proved that, even had they reached Capua, they 
 would have been obliged to surrender at discretion, or
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799- 213 
 
 been given up at the capitulation, as it happened to 
 their comrades who were in that fortress when it sur- 
 rendered. But the idea of leaving their families and 
 disabled comrades to the discretion of the enemy made 
 the patriots abandon the project. On this some talked 
 of capitulating. 
 
 Ruffo on his side was not disinclined to grant terms. 
 He knew that he had to deal with men become despe- 
 rate, who might, if reduced to extremities, blow them- 
 selves up after destroying half the city. He had the 
 examples of the garrison of Fort Villena, of Schi- 
 pani's column, and, lastly, that of the night attack on 
 his battery at Posilipo. The last event had alarmed 
 him particularly, and he had at one time contemplated 
 the necessity of retiring from the town. Besides, Ruffo 
 was by no means destitute of humane feelings. He felt, 
 no doubt, the heavy responsibility he was incurring; 
 hs wished to put an end to the shedding of blood, and 
 to restore order in the capital, and this he could not do 
 until it was entirely subdued. Micheroux, an officer of 
 the regular army, who had been always averse to the 
 excesses committed by the insurgents, strengthened 
 these sentiments of the cardinal. 
 
 On the 1 9th Ruffo issued a proclamation forbidding 
 any further arbitrary proceedings, any plunder, or per- 
 sonal violence against unarmed persons, it being the 
 intention of the king to forgive those who should volun- 
 tarily submit. He sent at the same time two aides-de- 
 camp to St. Elmo and Castel Nuovo, offering to sus- 
 pend hostilities on their hoisting a white flag ; and he 
 guaranteed the security of any flags of truce that might 
 come out to treat with him. The legislative corps, who 
 still held their sittings, after some consultation agreed 
 on an armistice, during which both parties should re- 
 main in statu quo in their present positions. The firing
 
 214 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 then ceased, and the anxious citizens began to breathe 
 after a week of anarchy and bloodshed. 
 
 It was about this period, when the city was returning 
 to something like the appearance of order, that our 
 own hitherto peaceful family was exposed to a scene of 
 outrage, the account of which may serve as a specimen 
 of what was perpetrated by the insurgents in a thou- 
 sand other houses, and often with circumstances of a 
 more aggravated and tragical violence. 
 
 The district in which we lived, being on the extreme 
 verge of the upper part of the town, was thereby out of 
 the first reach of popular fury, which raged chiefly in 
 the lower and more thickly-inhabited districts of the city. 
 Our immediate neighbourhood was inhabited by a quiet 
 and not very dense population ; and perhaps also its 
 vicinity to the Castle of St. Elmo did not tempt the 
 insurgents to stray towards it. But after some days 
 they ventured to reconnoitre those places which had till 
 then been spared their visitation. We had remained 
 in-doors ever since the entrance of the insurgents, our 
 man-servant Giovanni, a native of Valtelina, in the 
 north of Italy, a simple faithful fellow, venturing out 
 alone on errands of a domestic nature. He used to 
 return terrified and relate the scenes he had wit- 
 nessed, his looks of horror bearing witness to the 
 truth of his tale. He had seen unfortunate victims 
 dragged through the streets in a state of agony, amidst 
 the blows and the taunts of their tormentors. He had 
 seen human limbs scattered about, or hanging at the 
 shambles. News of this kind kept us in continual 
 alarm. 
 
 The Prince of Montemileto, who owned the man- 
 sion, part of which we occupied, had incurred I do not 
 now remember wherefore the name of being a patriot. 
 He was, luckily for him, absent, but his dwelling par-
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 215 
 
 took of its master's unpopularity ; and one day a party 
 of insurgents made their appearance in the court, and 
 ascending the great staircase, went direct to the prince's 
 suite of apartments, or piano nobile, as it is called, 
 which was kept for him whenever he chose to inhabit 
 this suburban palace, for he had another house in town. 
 The furniture was in the massive, but rich, style of the 
 old Italian nobility, the rooms hung with tapestry and 
 damask, heavy gilt arm-chairs, marble tables, large 
 mirrors and chandeliers, lofty bedsteads with silk cur- 
 tains, &c. The trembling old servant opened the mas- 
 sive doors, in rushed the insurgents, and the work of 
 devastation began. They found little to satisfy then- 
 cupidity, much upon which to vent their rage. With 
 axe and pike they split open the richly-carved bureaus, 
 chests, and presses; they carried off whatever linen, 
 lace, or plate they could meet with ; they tore the arras 
 under the pretence of looking for concealed Jacobins ; 
 they upset the heavier furniture ; in short, in the space 
 of an hour the whole of that extensive floor had scarcely 
 an article of its once costly furniture left entire. One 
 end of the prince's apartments extended over part of 
 our own, and we could distinctly hear everything that 
 was being done by the savages above our heads ; 
 their yells of execration and defiance ; the crash of 
 the falling furniture, and particularly of the lofty mir- 
 rors and glass-doors, which they hurled down upon the 
 floor, where they fell with the noise of thunder, and 
 were split into a thousand fragments. After all this 
 wanton destruction, seeing no suspicious persons in the 
 place, finding no arms or cockades or uniforms con- 
 cealed, the plunderers, either ashamed at the useless 
 mischief they had done, or checked by some of their 
 officers, listened to the old Calabrian priest, who as- 
 sured them in their own jargon that they were mis-
 
 216 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 taken in seeking for Jacobins there that the prince 
 had not been near the place for years that the only 
 inhabitants of the whole building, besides himself and 
 the old servant, were a foreign family, who had come 
 there for their health long before the king left Naples, 
 and who lived very retired, and were good royalists 
 like himself; and he offered to lead some of the officers 
 to us, in order that they might satisfy themselves. In 
 fine, the insurgents went, or rather skulked, sullenly 
 and stragglingly away, and the usual stillness resumed 
 its sway over the place. We had remained in a state 
 of silent trepidation all the while until we heard their 
 retiring steps, and the clanging of their swords and 
 firelocks against the stone steps and the flags of the 
 court-yard. The good priest saw my father in the 
 evening, and related to him all the circumstances. We 
 thought the storm had passed, and congratulated our- 
 selves on our escape. 
 
 Next day, however, they came again, and in larger 
 numbers, about sixty in all, chiefly Calabrians ; some 
 of them belonging to the half-regular corps called 
 Micheletti, with yellow jackets and military caps, a sort 
 of uniform which Ruifo had given them, and others in 
 the plain garb of their own province. With them were 
 also some of the Neapolitan lazzaroni, or populace, who 
 acted as spies and guides. They came on swearing 
 vengeance against the Jacobins, who, they said, were 
 concealed somewhere about the palace, for one of their 
 parties had been fired upon from our windows. There 
 had been, indeed, some shots fired that morning in our 
 neighbourhood, and apparently from some part of the 
 gardens of the palace, upon which another party, posted 
 above on the opposite hill, fired a volley in our direc- 
 tion. Two of the shots had entered the windows of our 
 sitting-room, and one of them passed within an inch of
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1199. 217 
 
 my brother's head, to the great terror of my mother, 
 and then embedded itself in one of the door-pannels. We 
 had reason to believe afterwards that all this business of 
 the firing was a thing concerted by some ill-intentioned 
 person, to make the credulous Calabrians believe that 
 the first shots had proceeded from our house. However 
 this might be, the party came this time not up the 
 main stairs, but, crossing the inner court, ascended the 
 flight of steps that led to our apartments. We heard 
 the rushing up of armed men, and the moment after a 
 thundering knocking at the hall-door with the butt- 
 ends of their muskets. We stood in breathless expec- 
 tation, as if riveted to the ground. Our man-servant 
 Giovanni had gone out to market ; the house-maid, 
 who was within, did not offer to stir, any more than an 
 old errand man who had just come in. My mother, 
 with that self-possession which in pressing cases is often 
 the gift of woman, went herself to the door and asked 
 who was there ? " Open ; we come in his Majesty's 
 name," replied several gruff voices at once. My mo- 
 ther then unbolted the door and withdrew a little on 
 one side. The insurgents then rushed in with fixed 
 bayonets, casting suspicious looks about them, as if 
 they really thought there was a party of Jacobins con- 
 cealed in the house. 
 
 They spread in a few moments all over the apart- 
 ments. Some went up to my mother and asked her 
 for the keys. Without waiting they next demanded 
 her pocket, and as she was offering to untie it they 
 took the more expeditious method of cutting it off, and 
 made away with it. After this, however, they offered 
 her no further insult, but watched her closely. An- 
 other party went up to my father, bound his arms 
 behind him, and struck him repeatedly. The rest went 
 on plundering. Not choosing to look for the keys, they
 
 218 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 broke open the chests, drawers, and cupboards with 
 their axes and the butt-ends of their muskets. They 
 divided among themselves the contents with the most 
 deliberate assurance. Articles of small size, such as 
 money, plate, watches, jewels, soon disappeared in their 
 pockets and sashes. The more cumbersome ones, such 
 as linen, wearing apparel, &c., were packed up, and 
 stowed in bags made out of the bed-ticks which they 
 had previously ripped open and emptied of the flock 
 and hair. They went to the cellar, brought out the 
 bottles, drank the wine partly out of them, and then 
 dashed them upon the floor. They did not forget to 
 help themselves to whatever eatables they found in the 
 kitchen, which they ate with great relish. Others threw 
 down the book-cases. Books they did not care about, 
 but the gilt binding tempted the ignorant cupidity of 
 some ; and they pocketed a few of the brightest-looking 
 volumes here and there, and thus several valuable sets 
 were spoiled. We afterwards recovered some of the 
 stray volumes at the stalls in the streets. The china, 
 earthenware, and glasses were likewise destroyed. They 
 broke some fine ostrich eggs, thinking to find money 
 concealed in them ! 
 
 Two or three men laid hold of me by the arms, and 
 insisted upon my showing where the plate was kept. 
 I said did not know. They threatened, and one of 
 them, a villanous-looking fellow, flourished a large 
 butcher's knife before my face, and made as if he would 
 plunge it into my breast, perhaps only to terrify me ; 
 another of the men, however, pushed his arm away with 
 a sort of authority, telling him to let the boy alone. 
 " I have children, too, like this one," I thought I un- 
 derstood him to say; but he spoke Calabrian, and I 
 could with difficulty make out what they said. The 
 oame man who had interfered asked me if I was a
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 219 
 
 Christian ? to which I replied in the affirmative. They 
 still urged me about the plate, and I not knowing how 
 to get rid of their importunities led them to the kitchen, 
 without knowing exactly myself for what purpose. At 
 last, some new object attracting their attention, they 
 let me go, and I returned to my father and mother in 
 the sitting-room. I remember that while I was in the 
 grasp of these men, I was particularly struck with their 
 huge broad hands, which appeared to me as if belong- 
 ing to a different race of beings from those I had been 
 in the habit of seeing. They were generally well built, 
 robust -looking men, with very dark olive complexions. 
 Some of them were in the garb of the Neapolitan 
 lowest class, with shirt-sleeves and necks bare, and 
 they made the greatest noise. Such was the man who 
 threatened me with the knife. 
 
 In the sitting-room, which was full of men, I saw my 
 father tied like a malefactor, and I burst out crying; he 
 reassured me by kind words, at the same time rousing 
 my spirit by saying it did not become me to cry in the 
 presence of all these people. This rebuke had its effect, 
 and checked my tears effectually. My mother was at 
 the time talking earnestly to one of the Calabrians, who 
 appeared superior to the rest ; and who was sauntering 
 about the room, apparently not taking part in the 
 plunder, but endeavouring to quell disputes between the 
 men, and restore some sort of order among them. He 
 came near my father, and upon my mother's remon- 
 strance ordered the cord which bound, and nearly cut 
 his wrists, to be slackened. He also ordered a pocket- 
 book, in which were my father's passports and other 
 documents, to be restored to him, that he might show 
 them on his examination. Finally, he appointed two 
 of his men to guard my father, enjoining them not to 
 ill-use him. Altogether he behaved with considerable 
 
 u 2
 
 220 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 feeling, and this was the first ray of hope that cheered 
 us on that dismal morning. We then understood that 
 Ave were to be taken before the Calabrian chief Pane di 
 Grano, who commanded the royalists in that district ; 
 and whose head-quarters were at the Convent of Monte 
 Santo. As my mother expressed a fixed determination 
 to accompany her husband wherever they took him, 
 although her presence apparently was not required, the 
 same officer gave her an opportunity of retiring to the 
 next room to make some alteration in her dress, having 
 first driven the men out of the apartment, and put him- 
 self on watch outside of the door. 
 
 I had now leisure to look about me and observe the 
 manner in which the insurgents were employed. There 
 was a group of two or three who had taken possession 
 of a casket, containing some jewels, ring's, and other 
 trinkets of my mother's ; they were examining it with 
 as much coolness and minute curiosity as people do 
 when about purchasing such articles in a jeweller's shop. 
 They took out ring after ring, brooch after brooch, and 
 then replaced them again carefully, admiring.seemingly 
 the ingenious manner in which each fitted its proper 
 place. I remember I was particularly struck with their 
 self-possession; it puzzled my youthful ideas of the right 
 of property. This was done under our eyes, and for a 
 considerable time ; the men were leaning their elbows 
 on a table on which the casket was placed, and appeared 
 regardless of anything that took place around them. 
 As far as I can recollect, they wore the yellow jackets, 
 or uniforms, and probably as a sort of regular troops 
 had a right to the best prize. 
 
 More than an hour had now elapsed, and the house 
 was stripped of everything that was worth taking, when 
 my mother came out again ready to go. She was in 
 black, with a black veil over her head. The same
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799- 221 
 
 officer who had behaved kindly to us, seeing a guitar 
 in a corner which had escaped destruction, took it up, 
 began some arpeggio, or accompaniment; then turning 
 to my mother with an air of ludicrous simplicity, said 
 he was passionately fond of music, but no performer, 
 and begged her to treat him with a tune " only one, 
 Signora," he said. The idea was strangely odd, yet to 
 him it appeared quite natural. Of course the request 
 was civilly evaded, my mother saying that really we 
 must hasten to settle this unpleasant business first, and 
 afterwards she might have better leisure to try her 
 musical skill. Often in after times the recollection of 
 this incident has brought a smile to my poor mother's 
 lips ! 
 
 The officer now began, with one or two more, to exert 
 himself in forming his men in files in the hall ; driving 
 them out of the apartments by threats, and even apply- 
 ing his stick to the backs of the more refractory. My 
 father was put in the middle, and my mother, with the 
 servant Giovanni, who had returned in the midst of 
 all this confusion, and who now took up my brother, 
 then a mere child, in his arms, following with the 
 officer in the rear of the procession. I was placed be- 
 tween two men, who each took hold of one of my hands. 
 As we were going down the stairs, my mother recog- 
 nised among the men a former servant, a Neapolitan, 
 who had been dismissed for misconduct. Calling him 
 by his name, " Thou art here, too !" said she. The 
 man, even in that moment, looked as if ashamed ; he 
 stammered out something, as if he had come in by 
 accident, and sculked away. We never saw him after- 
 wards; we had, however, little doubt but he was con- 
 cerned in that day's work. 
 
 When we came to the foot of the stairs the principal 
 party of the insurgents led the way through the gar- 
 
 u 3
 
 222 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 dens ; and I was hurried the other way through the 
 court and the outer gate. My conductors then led me 
 down the street leading to Monte Santo, where we soon 
 after arrived. My parents had not come yet. I learned 
 afterwards that they were taken through various gar- 
 dens and grounds, passing over hedges arid ditches, by 
 which my mother hurt her feet severely. Whether this 
 was done by the leaders for the purpose of avoiding 
 observation, or whether they considered this route as 
 the most expeditious, I cannot tell. I also had had 
 my share of annoyance on the road. My Calabrian 
 guards, I must say, did not behave harshly to me ; but 
 several grown-up boys of the lower classes abused me, 
 called me a Jacobin, and intimated to me in a tone 
 of triumph that two shots in my forehead, due pallc 
 ?ifronle, would soon settle my business. I could not 
 conceive at that time why these people, whom I did not 
 remember having ever seen, should have such a spite 
 against me. 
 
 Under the lofty porch of the convent of Monte Santo, 
 the massive gates of which were thrown wide open, sat 
 on a long wooden bench Pane di Grano, the Calabrian 
 chief. He appeared a middle-aged man, rather short, 
 but square-built and robust, with a sun-burnt com- 
 plexion, and a broad countryman-like countenance, 
 which to me had from the first nothing repulsive. He 
 was dressed in a short dark green jacket, with a stripe of 
 gold lace at the collar, short breeches and boots, a sash 
 round his waist, and a belt with pistols. A low-crowned 
 1; road-brimmed hat, with a red cockade and feather, 
 and a tin image of the Madonna in front, completed 
 his attire. He grasped a thick stick in his right hand, 
 and had the look of a man accustomed to command 
 and to be obeyed. Before him Calabrians in uniform 
 and without it were passing and repassing, and several
 
 CII. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 223 
 
 muskets with fixed bayonets, brighter than those I had 
 seen in the hands of the insurgents, were piled up against 
 the wall, with the royal colours furled. 
 
 I must have looked pale and scared, though I said 
 nothing, for Pane di Grano's first words to me were, 
 " Do not be frightened, boy!" and he tapped me kindly 
 on the cheek, and told me to stand by him on his left. 
 The next moment my mother rushed in. She appeared 
 dreadfully agitated, and she was nearly falling before 
 the chief; when the latter immediately arose, took her 
 by the hand, and led her to a seat on his right, telling 
 her at the same time to calm herself. All this was 
 done with as much propriety and ease of manner as 
 could have been shown by a man of breeding and edu- 
 cation. I have heard it afterwards stated, that Pane di 
 Grano had been previously a bandito, or highwayman, 
 on the roads of Calabria. I do not know how far this 
 might be true, for in those times, and in that country, it 
 was extremely difficult to ascertain the truth ; but I can 
 assert that his manner, his bearing, and his conduct to 
 us on that momentous occasion, exhibited no signs of 
 a hardened villain, and that he showed habits of feeling 
 and self-respect little in accordance with those of a pro- 
 fessed outlaw. It is true that Calabria might be alto- 
 gether considered at that time as a country out of the 
 pale of the law; and where the law is capricious, and 
 proves insufficient to repress crime where the many 
 have no chance of justice, no redress from the oppres- 
 sion of the daring and powerful, there, minds even well 
 organized will at length become cankered, and will turn 
 against a system of society which inflicts more injury 
 than it affords protection. 
 
 My father was brought in by the party of insurgents. 
 Now came the trying moment. Pane di Grano asked 
 what was the charge against the prisoner. He was a
 
 224 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 foreigner some said a Frenchman; he lived in the 
 house of a Jacobin ; the story of the firing was re- 
 peated, but one of the officers observed that nothing 
 had been found to confirm suspicion no arms, no uni- 
 forms, no cockades nothing, in short. The chief then 
 interrogated my father about his name, country, con- 
 dition, and how long he had been at Naples ? My 
 mother here interposed " Please to examine his pa- 
 pers," said she, showing my father's pocket-book ; and 
 she displayed, as my father's hands were still tied, 
 several documents, showing that he was a native of a 
 neutral country, friendly to his Sicilian Majesty that 
 he had been for years resident at Naples that he had 
 first come there even before the French revolution 
 that he had been, on account of his peaceful conduct 
 and well-known sentiments, excepted from the order of 
 expulsion which the royal government had issued at 
 one time against most foreigners that during the re- 
 public he had been an invalid, and mostly confined to 
 his house, and therefore had taken no part whatever in 
 the transactions of that period that he was personally 
 known to several individuals high in office under the 
 king's administration. In short, the evidence, sup- 
 ported by the warm confidence of truth, seemed to 
 convince Pane di Grano. Another trial remained, 
 however, that of the hair, as suggested by some of the 
 insurgents who did not seem to acquiesce so easily as 
 their chief in the belief of my father's innocence. This 
 requires, perhaps, some explanation. 
 
 Since the French republicans had invaded Italy, the 
 custom of cropping the hair behind, after the fashion 
 then called a la Brutus, had become prevalent among 
 young men, especially those who were partial to the 
 new opinions. When the re-action took place, the want 
 of a queue was considered as an evidence of jacobinism,
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799- 225 
 
 and many, therefore, put on false queues; but the in- 
 surgents were too wily to be easily duped, and they 
 adopted the system of pulling men's hair in order to 
 ascertain the soundness of their political opinions. My 
 father had luckily always preserved his hair, not, I 
 believe, from mere royalism, but because it suited his 
 convenience. One of the Calabrians pulled his hair 
 once or twice with a hard tug, that made my father's 
 head bend backwards ; but the queue was real ; it with- 
 stood all attacks, and this, joined to the other evidence, 
 became a triumphant proof in his favour. Pane di 
 Grano hesitated no longer. " I have told you," cried 
 he to his men, " to bring before me Jacobins, enemies 
 to our king ; but not quiet, honest men, and faithful 
 subjects of his majesty. Release this gentleman im- 
 mediately, and let him be escorted safely home ; and 
 let every article of his property be restored to him." 
 This last injunction was merely a show-off on his part, 
 for he himself must have known that he could not 
 enforce it. Most of the property was already beyond 
 his or our reach. My mother had informed him of the 
 manner in which we had been plundered ; and as some 
 of the men looked sulky and grumbled " What ! you 
 rascals, mariuoli" cried out the chief, jumping up and 
 nourishing his stick over their heads ; " say but another 
 word, and I'll give you such a drubbing as you shall 
 remember all the days of your life :" and he seemed 
 quite ready to put his threat into execution. This firm- 
 ness effectually silenced all opposition. Two officers of 
 the yellow uniforms offered to accompany us home. 
 My mother and father thanked Pane di Grano, who 
 wishing us well, and saying that our house should be 
 henceforth especially protected, bowed his head, and we 
 moved away. 
 
 Thus ended this eventful crisis in our domestic his-
 
 226 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 tory. I have ever since remembered Pane di Grano 
 with gratitude. In the worst of times, when the lives 
 of men were held so cheap that the least suspicion 
 seemed to justify condemnation, he behaved to us, per- 
 fect strangers, as an honest and conscientious judge. 
 Had Pane di Grano, to save trouble or responsibility, 
 sent my father to prison like thousands of others, death, 
 if not from violence, at least from ill-health and ill- 
 treatment, would most probably have ensued. 
 
 Some fourteen or fifteen years after, being at Malta, 
 I inquired of some Calabrians about Pane di Grano; 
 and felt real satisfaction in hearing that he was then 
 living quietly at Messina, on a pension which the King 
 of Sicily had granted him, with the rank of a colonel. 
 Most of the other insurgent leaders of 1799 had met 
 with violent deaths. 
 
 As we slowly retraced our way towards Montemi- 
 letto, we received the congratulations of several honest 
 people who had heard of our danger and now came to 
 their doors to wish us joy of our escape. At last we 
 reached the gate, where the Calabrian priest met us 
 with a hearty blessing. We again entered our apart- 
 ments, and a strange scene they exhibited. The ante- 
 room was strewed with fragments of broken china and 
 glass, and the floor drenched with wine ; in the sitting- 
 room, tables and drawers were shattered to pieces, and 
 hardly a chair left to sit upon ; in the bed-rooms, flock, 
 hair, and straw were heaped up in the corners, the cur- 
 tains and bed furniture had disappeared, further on 
 books and papers lay scattered about on the ground. 
 There was hardly, I believe, a piece of furniture left un- 
 injured. AVhile we were looking at this dismal wreck, 
 one of the officers who had escorted us home brought 
 back two cameo-rings or brooches, which he said he 
 had recovered with difficulty from the men, and he
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 227 
 
 plainly hinted that a remuneration was expected. My 
 father had been stripped of his money; but he had for- 
 tunately the evening before, foreseeing some occur- 
 rence of the kind, concealed two rouleaus of gold 
 pieces, one among the coals, another on the wooden 
 ledge or cornice above one of the windows. They had 
 both escaped the search of the insurgents. He now 
 looked for the former and found it safe, and out of it he 
 gave two pieces to the officer, who, seeing the gold, had 
 the impudence to ask him why he had not revealed it 
 before ! However, Pane di Grano's orders were positive, 
 and although his authority could not enforce restitution 
 of what had disappeared, it prevented further violence 
 being offered. The officers departed, and we were at 
 last left alone. A surgeon was sent for to bleed my mo- 
 ther, who now felt the effects of the terror and anxiety 
 she had endured. We slept that night on the floor, on 
 the scattered remnants of our beds. Another fear came 
 to engross our minds. There was a rumour of an 
 attack upon St. Elmo being about to take place, and we 
 dreaded lest the cannon fired by the French garrison in 
 their defence might batter our house to pieces. Next day, 
 towards the evening, we removed to another house on 
 the hill of Capodimonte, which we had formerly inha- 
 bited, and where we still retained apartments. There 
 we should be comparatively safe and further removed 
 from the scene of strife. Having put red ribands 
 on our hats, we ventured out through the streets, in 
 which hardly a decently dressed person was to be seen. 
 However, we reached our destination in safety. In the 
 night we heard the songs of triumph of the populace, 
 denouncing death to the Jacobins and to the French, 
 and boasting that Cardinal Ruffo had brought his 
 cannon to destroy them all. They had adapted the
 
 228 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 words to the ill-omened tune of the French carmagnole 
 song. 
 
 Meantime the patriots who occupied the lower castles 
 were treating with Ruffo about a surrender. The latter 
 was anxious to complete the occupation of the capital 
 before the king should come, or before the minister 
 Acton, who bore him no good-will, should interfere, 
 and perhaps supersede him. He also knew that his 
 popularity with the mob had decreased in consequence 
 of the armistice and of the restraint he had put on their 
 excesses. They were already vociferating that lie was 
 a Jacobin, and he thought it prudent to keep in doors 
 for several days and to reinforce his Russian guard. 
 
 The peasantry continued to bring in such patriots as 
 they had found concealed ; and as the keepers of the 
 prisons would not receive them in charge without 
 Ruffo's warrant, they took the unfortunate prisoners 
 on board the Neapolitan frigates in the bay, whence 
 they were sent to Procida to be tried, or rather con- 
 demned, for it was the same thing, by Speciale. The 
 work of murder continued to go on in that island. The 
 patriots in the forts complained of this, which they con- 
 sidered as an infraction of the armistice, and threatened 
 to avenge their brethren's death on the hostages they 
 had secured, among whom was Ruffo's brother. The 
 cardinal then assembled the officers of the various 
 corps of his army, and insisted with much warmth on 
 the absolute necessity of keeping a strict discipline 
 among their men, and of restraining the populace by 
 every means in their power. Patroles of non-commis- 
 sioned officers were now formed to walk the streets 
 of the city. On the 21st, order was thus re-established. 
 Arrests of declared patriots, however, took place quietly 
 in the night, and, it appears, by Ruffo's order. General
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 229 
 
 Federici, who had evaded the informers till then, was 
 among- the arrested. Many patriots repaired to Ruffo's 
 head-quarters of their own accord, to obtain papers of 
 safety, which were granted to several, but those who 
 were noted as leading characters were seized and sent 
 to prison. 
 
 The patriots of the castles appointed a day for the 
 solemn funeral of their brethren who had fallen by the 
 enemy, and whom they considered as " martyrs of 
 liberty." The melancholy ceremony was performed in 
 the square before the royal palace, which was, as I 
 have said, within their lines. The bishop of La Torre 
 pronounced the funeral oration. After this the pa- 
 triots dined in public, and drank to the memory of 
 their deceased brethren. The lazzaroni and the insur- 
 gents from the outposts could see this ceremony, in 
 which, as in everything the patriots did, there was a 
 mixture of real feeling and classical ostentation, and 
 they did not spare their taunts and contumelies. But 
 what was more serious, a party of the royalist troops 
 were at this time busily employed in re-establishing the 
 battery at Posilipo, which had been destroyed by the 
 patriots. The latter, when they perceived this, remon- 
 strated ; Ruffo asserted it had been done without his 
 orders, but the battery remained contrary to the tenor 
 of the armistice. 
 
 At last Mejeant, at Ruffo's request, came out of St. 
 Elmo, under a royalist escort, and had an interview 
 with the leaders of the patriots in the king's palace. 
 He represented to them the necessity of arranging a 
 capitulation, which he said the cardinal was willing to 
 grant, and he offered to act as mediator. In truth, the 
 situation of the patriots appeai-ed desperate. They might 
 have destroyed the castles, it is true, and with them
 
 230 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 part of the city, and this was what Ruffo feared. But the 
 latter might also have another reason not generally 
 known for granting terms. The French fleet from 
 Brest had passed the Straits, and was endeavouring to 
 form a junction with the Spanisli fleet. The English 
 admiral, Nelson, was cruising off Sicily, to protect that 
 island, where the royal family and government were : 
 had the French appeared suddenly in the Bay of Naples 
 while the castles still held out, the capital would have 
 been lost again to the royalists. 
 
 After much debate the patriots proposed articles of 
 capitulation, declaring they would not treat with the 
 king's government, but with the officers of all the 
 allied powers who were th^n present at the siege. It is 
 remarkable that St. Elmo was never included in this 
 negotiation, Mejeant reserving to himself to enter into 
 a separate treaty for his French garrison. The articles 
 as drawn by the patriots were, that they should deliver 
 the castles into the hands of the king's and the allied 
 forces ; that the garrisons, including all persons of both 
 sexes within the forts, should come out with the hon- 
 ours of war, and be embarked with their families on 
 board vessels bearing a flag of truce, to be carried 
 to Toulon or Marseilles; that the property they left 
 behind should be guaranteed and administered in their 
 absence by their agents; that those who should prefer 
 to remain at Naples should be allowed to do so without 
 being molested for their past political conduct ; that 
 the capitulation should likewise extend to all the pri- 
 soners taken by the royalists in the different combats 
 previous to the blockade of the forts, as well as to the 
 garrison of the fortress of Pescara in Abruzzo, where 
 Ettore Carafa had shut himself up ; and, lastly, that 
 several individuals of rank who were named should be
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1*799. 231 
 
 delivered as hostages to the commander of St. Elmo, 
 where they should remain until the arrival of the 
 patriots in France was properly certified. 
 
 The cardinal objected to these demands as being too 
 high for the condition the republicans were in, and es- 
 pecially to that part concerning their property, which 
 he foresaw would be claimed by the public treasury. 
 But the patriots stood firm, and at last Ruffo resolved 
 to make an end of the business by granting the capitu- 
 lation on the terms they asked. He signed therefore 
 the articles proposed, wholly and unconditionally, eras- 
 ing only some indecorous expressions about the king. 
 The capitulation was likewise signed by Kerandy, the 
 Russian commander, by Bonnieu, who commanded the 
 Albanian or Ottoman troops, and by Captain Foote of 
 the Seahorse, who was in the Bay, having with him 
 some Neapolitan frigates and smaller vessels. Captain 
 Troubridge had previously left to join Nelson. It was 
 lastly signed by Mejeant, who received the hostages 
 named by the patriots. A copy of the capitulation was 
 sent to Pescara, with orders to Carafa to deliver the 
 fortress to Pronj, and return to Naples with his gar- 
 rison, under a royal escort, which he did. 
 
 The patriots now made preparations to embark while 
 the transports were getting ready. T\vo of the latter, 
 in fact, sailed with part of them, and arrived safe at 
 Marseilles. The rest were expecting to follow. The 
 royalists meantime took possession of the castles, and 
 the patriots that were entrenched in the convent of San 
 Martino evacuated that place also, and came to Pizzo 
 Falcone to be ready to go on board. Some, however, 
 chose to remain at Naples, among others Signorelli, 
 one of the legislative body, who put on the royal 
 cockade and went home to his family. Cardinal Ruffo 
 seemed anxious to fulfil the articles of the convention, 
 
 x 2
 
 232 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 when, two days after it had been signed, Nelson appeared 
 in the Bay with his whole fleet. He refused to acknow- 
 ledge the capitulation, saying he had given no powers 
 or instructions to Captain Foote for such a purpose; 
 that the capitulation was null and void without the 
 king of Naples's signature ; and that he himself could 
 grant the rebels no terms but those of unconditional 
 surrender to their sovereign. Such was in fact the deter- 
 mination of the court of Palermo, and particularly of 
 the queen, who had said that she would sooner lose both 
 her kingdoms than degrade herself by treating with 
 rebels. Ruffo remonstrated with warmth ; he went on 
 board to Nelson, but it was all in vain. The departure 
 of the patriots was countermanded, and those ill-fated 
 persons were placed in strict confinement. A few clays 
 after the king came himself on board the Foudroyant, 
 and issued an edict formally setting aside the capitula- 
 tion, stating that it had never been his intention to 
 treat with his revolted subjects, that he had never given 
 such an authority to Cardinal Ruffo, and ordering the 
 prisoners to be detained to await his royal pleasure. 
 
 The above transactions have been often animadverted 
 upon, and the question as one of principle and justice 
 will not bear a moment's debate. But it may not per- 
 haps be altogether useless to examine by what mental 
 process a man of a lofty disinterested character, of ge- 
 nerous feelings, and completely free from guile, such as 
 Nelson unquestionably was, could be brought to act 
 such a part in this lamentable business, fancying, as no 
 doubt he did, that he was performing an act of stern 
 but necessary duty. The state 'of his mind, however, 
 may be clearly ascertained from his correspondence. 
 In it he shows throughout the feelings of utter detesta- 
 tion in which he held the tortuous policy of the French 
 directory, and, above all, the unprincipled conduct of
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 233 
 
 their armies in Italy. He was acquainted with all their 
 excesses, their exactions, their cruelties, their acts of 
 reckless spoliation, especially in the Roman and Nea- 
 politan states, where their invasion had been marked 
 by features of the darkest atrocity. He therefore had 
 accustomed himself to look upon any Italian who sided 
 with the French as an unnatural villain, a traitor to his 
 country, one who had leagued himself with the invaders, 
 in order to share in their plunder and licentiousness, 
 and in their oppression of his brethren. And he 
 considered all Neapolitan patriots, republican or jaco- 
 bin, as being men of this description, a set of knaves 
 and outlaws, entitled to no mercy or consideration. 
 This last was a grievous misconception, but it was the 
 natural consequence of his listening to the incessantly 
 repeated insinuations of the queen's party. Moreover 
 he looked upon the line of defence occupied by the 
 republicans previous to the capitulation as utterly des- 
 picable and not entitling them to military courtesy; 
 with his ships he would have forced it in one day, and 
 obliged the patriots either to surrender at discretion 
 or to bury themselves under the ruins of their forts. 
 Such, no doubt, were Nelson's feelings at the moment, 
 and he could hardly have foreseen all the dreadful ad- 
 vantages that would be taken of his annulling of the 
 treaty by the Neapolitan cabinet. With the latter, 
 indeed, it was an act of cold calculating cruelty, done in 
 perfect consciousness of the merits of the case, and with 
 a clear view of the results to which it was to lead. For 
 admitting that Ruffo had exceeded his powers, that he 
 had been guilty of informality in not submitting the 
 treaty to the king's sanction, of which no mention 
 was made in that document, the cardinal ought to have 
 been taken to account; but the capitulation signed 
 by him as " Vicar-General of his Sicilian Majesty 
 
 x 3
 
 234 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 throughout his Majesty's dominions on this side of the 
 Faro," ought to have been respected. At all events, 
 if the capitulation was not valid, the patriots ought to 
 have been restored to the same position they stood 
 in before the surrender, and there left to take their 
 chance, desperate as it undoubtedly was. 
 
 I have said thus much with no intention to diminish 
 the blame fairly attributable to any of the parties con- 
 cerned in this momentous transaction, but to award, if 
 possible, impartial justice to all, and because several 
 foreign writers have either invidiously or ignorantly 
 laboured to throw the whole blame upon the English 
 admiral. But the presiding spirit which instigated, 
 which exacted, and which availed itself of the infraction 
 of the treaty, proceeded from Palermo. There are de- 
 grees in guilt, and suum cinque ought to be the histo- 
 rian's motto. 
 
 And of Mejeant, the French commander of St. Elmo, 
 what can be said ? He, at least, was the ally of the pa- 
 triots ; he had been left there to protect them ; he was 
 the representative of a government which affected to 
 consider all republicans as its children ; lie was the 
 officer of an army which had effected the revolution at 
 Naples, and placed the patriots in open revolt against 
 their former monarch. Mejeant had acted as mediator 
 on the part of Ruffo, and had signed the capitulation ; 
 he still held the hostages in his hands ; what did he do 
 when he saw the treaty annulled ? Absolutely nothing. 
 He was himself soon after attacked, defended his castle 
 but feebly, and signed a capitulation for his French 
 garrison on the llth of July, one article of which pur- 
 ported that " he was to give up all the subjects of his 
 Sicilian Majesty," both hostages and patriots, even 
 those who held rank in the French service, such as 
 Belpussi, Matera, mad Michael, &c, A similar clause
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1199. 235 
 
 was likewise inserted in the capitulation of the for- 
 tresses of Capua and Gaeta, which surrendered soon 
 after, and it was punctually fulfilled by the French 
 commanders. If the lessons of history be of any use, 
 surely the Italians ought to have acquired great prac- 
 tical wisdom by the experience of the last forty 
 years. 
 
 The consequences of these events were not slow in 
 manifesting themselves. The patriots were reserved 
 for trial as having incurred the charge of high treason, 
 lesa maestd. One of the first executed was prince 
 Caracciolo, an old naval officer of great experience and 
 of high personal character, and who held the rank of 
 admiral in the king's service. He had at first followed 
 the court to Palermo ; but when the Neapolitan re- 
 public issued a decree recalling all the emigrants, under 
 pain of having their property confiscated, Caracciolo 
 applied to the king for permission to go to Naples and 
 thus save his estates. The king granted him leave, 
 but warned him, it was said, not to commit himself 
 with politics, telling him that things would soon take a 
 turn. Caracciolo, however, was induced, or rather ob- 
 liged, to serve the republic, and when the attack on 
 Naples took place, he fought with his gun-boats with 
 skill and bravery against the royalists, and particularly 
 against the Neapolitan frigate La Minerva. After the 
 defeat of the patriots he applied to Ruffo for a safe con- 
 duct, expressing his sorrow for what had happened, 
 and appealing to his forty years' faithful service. His 
 application however produced no effect, and he con- 
 cealed himself in the country. He was soon after 
 betrayed by a domestic, and dragged by the peasants as 
 a common malefactor on board the English admiral's 
 ship. Nelson ordered a court-martial of Neapolitan 
 officers to assemble immediately. The Neapolitan
 
 236 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 commodore Thurn was president. The trial lasted two 
 hours, and the prisoner was found guilty of treason and 
 condemned to death. That very afternoon Caracciolo 
 was, in spite of his entreaties to be shot, hanged at the 
 yard-arm of the Neapolitan frigate La Minerva, his 
 body being afterwards cut down and thrown into the 
 sea. It however rose again some days after, and floated 
 under the stern windows of the Foudroyant where the 
 king then was. The latter then gave orders to have 
 the corpse taken on shore and buried in consecrated 
 ground. 
 
 The king appointed a junta, with full powers to try 
 the patriots, or rebels as they were now called, and after 
 seeing the whole kingdom recovered to his sway, he 
 returned to Palermo with Nelson. During the four 
 weeks he remained in the Bay, Ferdinand showed great 
 apathy and unconcern at the dismal scenes that took 
 place round him. 
 
 Naples was now left entirely to the mercy of the 
 junta, as Ruffo's influence was rapidly on the decline. 
 The castles and hulks were crowded with prisoners 
 awaiting their trial. After some demur by several 
 members of the junta about the sweeping principle 
 adopted by the court, of considering all those who had 
 accepted situations under the republic as rebels, fresh 
 instructions came from Palermo ; the moderate mem- 
 bers retired, and the tribunal was finally composed 
 of the well known Speciale, Quidobaldi, Fiore, Sambuti, 
 Damiani, and Antonio La Rossa. They commenced 
 their proceedings inodo Siculo, or according to the 
 practice of Sicily, considering as guilty of high treason 
 all those who had filled the principal charges, civil or 
 military, during the republic, all those who had fought 
 against the royalists and their allies, those who by 
 word or writing had offended the king or his family,
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1199. 231 
 
 and, lastly, those who had shown their decided affection 
 towards the revolutionary government. 
 
 The Prince of Strongoli, Gennaro Serra, Gialiano 
 Colonna, the two Pignatelli, Giovanni Riario, young 
 Gensano, and several others of the first families in 
 the kingdom, some of them young men not yet 
 eighteen, were beheaded, as nobles, in the castles. 
 The commoners were hanged in the public squares. 
 The monks Belloni and Pistici were executed before the 
 Vicaria. Eleonora Fonseca was put to death in the 
 square Del Mercato ; she met her fate with perfect 
 calmness. The members of the directory, the superior 
 officers of the army and of the national guard, the judges 
 of the republican courts, civil and military, were sen- 
 tenced to death on the mere evidence of their having 
 filled these offices. Ciaja, d'Agnese. Albanese, Massa 
 Mantone, minister at war, General Federici, and Matera, 
 were among these. Ettore Carafa, on his return from 
 Pescara, which he had surrendered in consequence of 
 the capitulation, found himself a prisoner. He saw the 
 fate that awaited him, and was prepared for it. He had 
 been inflexible against the enemies of the republic, and 
 he expected no mercy at their hands. As a nobleman 
 he suffered decapitation. 
 
 When the members of the legislative body or repre- 
 sentatives, among whom were some of the ablest and 
 most learned of the Neapolitans, came to be tried, the 
 members of the junta were divided in opinion. The 
 more violent, with Speciale at their head, contended 
 that they all deserved death ; but Antonio La Rossa 
 contended that accessary circumstances and individual 
 conduct ought to have a weight in their trial, and that 
 punishment should be applied with discrimination. 
 The latter opinion prevailed in some cases. Thus Sig-
 
 238 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 norelli, Pirelli, and some others, were banished instead 
 of being put to death. 
 
 Domenico Cirillo, the celebrated physician and natu- 
 ralist, after having first refused, had been induced to 
 become a member of the legislature. His principles 
 were republican, but his conduct had been temperate, 
 decorous, and honourable. He remained at his post to 
 the last, from a principle of duty, and was of course in- 
 cluded in the capitulation. Being brought before 
 Speciale, he answered briefly and firmly to the vulgar 
 abusive language in which his judge used to indulge 
 towards his prisoners. Being sentenced to death, he 
 was made to understand that he might obtain his 
 pardon from Palermo, in consideration of his profes- 
 sional services to the royal family, if he were to address 
 a memorial to the king. He answered that he was 
 weary of a world where vice triumphed. He died calm 
 and dignified as he had lived. 
 
 Mario Pagano, a jurist and political economist, the 
 author of several works, was also executed. He died 
 in company with his friends Cirillo and Ciaja. 
 
 Conforti, a venerable old man and a learned pro- 
 fessor of civil and canonical law, who had written in 
 defence of the crown of Naples against the pretensions 
 of the see of Rome, was likewise put to death. Mar- 
 cello Scotti, also a civilian, who had advocated the 
 rights of the crown on the occasion of the famous 
 tribute of the white hackney exacted by the popes, and 
 who had written a catechism for the sailors of Procida, 
 his native country, shared the common fate, as did 
 also the bishop of Vico and several other dignified 
 clergymen. 
 
 Pasquale Baffa, a learned Hellenist, who had deci- 
 phered and published the works of Philodemus, found
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1199. 239 
 
 among the Herculaneum papyri, was among the con- 
 demned. One of his friends offered him opium. Baffa 
 refused it, saying, he did not think he had a right 
 to accelerate his death. Logoteta, another man of 
 letters, suffered likewise. Vincenzo Russo, a young man 
 of a fervid imagination and great eloquence, after many 
 weeks' painful confinement, was led to the scaffold. 
 He addressed the people with warmth until the execu- 
 tioner cut his words short by strangling him. 
 
 The names above mentioned are sufficient to prove 
 that the republicans of Naples counted among them 
 men of the highest merit, of rank, and personal cha- 
 racter, who could not be classed together as a set of 
 wild enthusiasts, demagogues, or infidels, as some would 
 have represented them. Most of the distinguished 
 members of the learned professions (the law and medi- 
 cine monopolized almost all the men of talent in the 
 country) were among the patriots. The archbishop of 
 Naples, several bishops, a number of clergymen, secular 
 and regular, were also on the same side. And it ought 
 to be observed, that in the capital at least, and at the 
 seat of government, personal character exerted a consi- 
 derable influence, especially after the French army 
 had retired, and the appointment of the above-named 
 persons is a proof of this. The republic of Naples 
 was not produced by a revolt of the mass of the people, 
 in which the lower and ignorant classes have neces- 
 sarily the preponderance ; it was not a popular revolu- 
 tion, though effected on democratical principles. It 
 has been said above, that among the republicans there 
 were many violent and unprincipled men, and that they 
 committed excesses, especially in the provinces, in the 
 confusion of the civil war ; but they were discountenanced 
 by the central government and recalled, and had it 
 been possible for the republic to have acquired stabi-
 
 240 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 lity uninfluenced by the French, the tendency would to 
 all appearance have been to temperate and conciliatory 
 measures, for the leading men were Utopians in prin- 
 ciple and gentlemen in their habits. 
 
 But it is time to draw the curtain over these melan- 
 choly events. Two more victims out of a thousand re- 
 quire notice. One of these, the princess Sanfelice, was 
 treated with peculiar cruelty. The only charge against 
 this lady was that of having revealed the conspiracy of 
 the brothers Baccher, which had been hatched by the 
 royalists of Naples during the last days of the republic. 
 For this she was sentenced to death by the junta, taken 
 to the chapel whence she was to be led to the scaffold, 
 reprieved under a doubt of her pregnancy, embarked for 
 Palermo, presented to the king, and then taken back to 
 Naples, and at last executed. 
 
 Don Domenico Cimarosa, the delightful composer of 
 the Matrimonio Segreto, and of many other fine operas, 
 was from his habits and disposition a harmless man, 
 from whom no government could have anything to fear. 
 But he had been induced to set to music a republican 
 hymn composed by a poet of the name of Rossi. This 
 was his crime. His house was plundered by the insur- 
 gents, his harpsichord, whence he had drawn so many 
 sweet melodies, was thrown out of the window by the 
 savages, and he himself Avas kept in confinement for 
 several months, until at last some Russian superior 
 officers, hearing of the case, repaired to the prison and 
 forcibly released him. But poor Cimarosa did not 
 long survive the harsh treatment he had suffered. His 
 health was broken, and he died shortly after at Venice, 
 whither he had repaired for the purpose of composing 
 an opera for the theatre of that city. 
 
 The executions at Naples lasted several months. 
 The prisoners were divided into two classes, the guilty,
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 241 
 
 and the sedolti, or led astray. Of the latter some were 
 banished, others transported to the presiilj or rocks on 
 the coast of Sicily, such as Favignana, Maretimo, &c. 
 Numbers were detained a twelvemonth in prison before 
 they were acquitted. The Duchesses of Cassano and of 
 Montemiletto, ladies of high personal character, after 
 being paraded through the streets on a cart, were con- 
 fined in the house of correction with women of the lowest 
 description. 
 
 In the provinces the reaction was attended with cir- 
 cumstances, if possible, still worse. There personal 
 enmity and revenge had still greater opportunities for 
 gratification. The victims amounted to several thou- 
 sands. 
 
 I shall now make an end of mv narrative. I have 
 selected but a few facts among many, in order to give an 
 idea of the state of the country at the time ; were I in- 
 clined to indulge in descriptions of horrors, I can assure 
 my readers I should find matter enough yet in reserve. 
 
 One remark I must make. I do not remember hav- 
 ing heard at Naples, then or afterwards, any very great 
 stress laid upon the infraction of the capitulation. The 
 history of Naples, since the times of the Normans, ex- 
 hibits a succession of iron sceptres wielding power of the 
 most absolute nature, interrupted now and then by fero- 
 cious revolts, followed by dreadful reactions, and the 
 people were accustomed to the view of arbitrary power 
 as wholly irresponsible and accountable to no one for 
 its proceedings. But although principles may be extin- 
 guished in men by vicious institutions, feel/tigs remain, 
 and therefore I heard people of all parties loudly con- 
 demn the cruelty of the proscriptions, the injustice of 
 sending to the scaffold mere boys who had been seen a 
 few months before under the escort of their private
 
 242 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. III. 
 
 tutors, and the impropriety of treating ladies of rank 
 and estimable character as the vilest criminals. 
 
 Before I conclude, I will, for a short time, return to 
 our domestic history. A few days after the pillage of 
 our house, my father and I returned to Montemiletto. 
 There we used to spend the fine summer evenings in 
 company with the Calabrian priest in the avenue out- 
 side of the gate, looking at the castle of St. Elmo, 
 which was now closely invested by the English, Rus- 
 sians, Portuguese, and Calabrians. Their cannon 
 was battering its dark walls, and shells were thrown into 
 the fort, which passing high above our heads, shone at 
 night against the dark firmament like so many wandering 
 stars. I watched their progress, and as they fell inside 
 of the ramparts we heard the report of their explosion, 
 and the columns of dust and smoke which arose at- 
 tested the havoc the shells had effected. By degrees the 
 watch turrets on the ramparts were all carried off, and 
 sentries were no longer to be seen ; the walls began to 
 yawn in several places, and we could see the light 
 through the apertures the shots had made. This con- 
 tinued several nights ; at last the castle capitulated, the 
 tricoloured flag was taken down, and the Bourbon 
 standard hoisted ; everything resumed its former aspect, 
 except the walls, which long bore signs of the ravages 
 of the war. We heard about this time that poor mad 
 Michael, who was among the patriots given up by Me- 
 jeant, notwithstanding his French uniform, had been 
 cruelly murdered by the populace, his former asso- 
 ciates. 
 
 After this we lived quietly ; little was said in public 
 about past occurrences, but a settled gloom hung on every 
 one's countenance. The Neapolitan character, once so 
 boisterous and joyous, became sullen and distrustful.
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 243 
 
 Thousands of families were in mourning. The Cala- 
 brians and other insurgents returned by degrees to their 
 homes, not well satisfied with the royal government. 
 They had been promised an exemption from taxes for 
 ten years to come, but when their services were no 
 longer required, the promise was set aside. Money was 
 wanted, and taxes could not be spared. An adminis- 
 trator was placed in charge of the properties of the 
 republicans. The king's treasury did not derive much 
 wealth from this spoliation. Such is ever the result of 
 sweeping confiscations. 
 
 At last, in the month of November, my father 
 resolved to leave Naples. My own mind had been so 
 unhinged and scared by all I had witnessed and heard, 
 that I was overjoyed at the idea of leaving a country 
 against which I had conceived a real aversion. I shed 
 a few tears in parting from my mother, who could not 
 then accompany us, but I stepped lightly into the post- 
 chaise, when we cleared the gate of Montemiletto and 
 bade it adieu for ever. 
 
 On the road, which was now comparatively secure, 
 we traced the marks of the past warfare, in houses 
 half burnt, walls dilapidated, fields trodden down by 
 the insurgents. At Molo di Gaeta, where we slept, we 
 saw in the dining-room an officer of the insurgents, 
 who we were told in a whisper by the waiter was 
 the redoubtable Pronj, the Abruzzi chief. He was 
 taking his supper alone, eating with as much unconcern 
 as any private traveller. Next morning we ascended 
 the mountain of Itri. The villanous looking town o 
 that name, perched up among olive plantations, with its 
 wretched hovels of rough-hewn stones, its steep and ill- 
 paved streets, has always appeared to me a fit head- 
 quarters for banditti. And such it had been in reality 
 at that epoch, for the bands of Pronj and of Fra Diavolo 
 
 Y2
 
 244 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 had been there, and had left memorials of their stay. 
 We saw a number of private carriages and chaises 
 broken down and thrown aside in corners of the streets, 
 the owners of which, French or patriots, or indifferent, 
 as might be, had been plundered and murdered, as we 
 were informed at the inn. And as if to give us ample 
 leisure to meditate upon such mementos, the axletree 
 of our own chaise snapped in entering Itri, and it re- 
 quired several hours to repair it. We kept all the time 
 within doors, for my father was not without apprehen- 
 sions from the people of the place, who looked as much 
 like outlaws as the bands we had seen at Naples. At 
 last we were enabled to proceed, but owing to the delay 
 we were obliged to stop that night at Terracina, as it 
 would have been unsafe to travel by night. Next morn- 
 ing, as we were journeying along the fine level road of 
 the Pontine marshes, I often looked back at the re- 
 ceding purple-shaded mountains on the frontiers of 
 Naples, and as we moved farther away from them I felt, 
 and I still remember it well, as if a weight were taken 
 from off my breast. That evening we arrived at Rome. 
 There we found perfect tranquillity. No horrors like 
 those of Naples had taken place, though the inhabitants 
 suffered much distress, and complained ofthe overbear- 
 ing conduct of the Neapolitan troops who had occu- 
 pied, pro tempore, the Roman state. At Rome we 
 learnt that Cardinal Ruffo had left Naples for Venice, 
 where he was summoned to attend the conclave for 
 the election of a new pontiff, which ended in the no- 
 mination of Chiaramonti, the late Pius VII. 
 
 Thus ended Ruffo's expedition. After that time he 
 gradually disappeared from the political scene. Ferdi- 
 nand bestowed upon him the rich abbey of Santo Ste- 
 fano, where he passed great part of his time. When in 
 the beginning of 1806, in consequence of the wretched
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1*799. 245 
 
 policy and fresh miscalculations of the court of Naples, 
 the French invaded that kingdom a second time, Ruffo 
 was sounded about his disposition to put himself at the 
 head of another Calabrian insurrection. With a half- 
 suppressed smile he replied to the inquirer : " A man 
 does not play such mad pranks a second time ;" (" Queste 
 corbellerie non si fanno che una volta.") After the 
 establishment of Napoleon's dynasty on the throne of 
 Naples, Ruffo became rather a favourite with the new 
 government. Buonaparte saw in him perhaps a con- 
 genial mind. On the restoration of the Bourbons Ruffo 
 remained undisturbed, and he died a few years ago at 
 an advanced age. 
 
 Of the subordinate leaders of the insurrection, Pronj 
 and Sciarpa were ennobled and obtained pensions. The 
 horrible Mammone, the miller of Sora, whose cruelties 
 were too revolting even for an insurgent chief, was sent 
 to prison, where I believe he died. Michele Pezza, 
 alias Fra Diavolo, on the second invasion of the French 
 in 1806, resumed his old vocation by leading the insur- 
 rection in the mountains of Itri, whence he effected 
 a useful diversion in favour of the fortress of Gaeta, 
 which was then gallantly defended by the Neapolitan 
 garrison, under the command of the Prince of Hesse 
 Philipstadt. After the fall of Gaeta, Fra Diavolo 
 being closely pressed by the French gendarmes, and 
 having lost his companions, took his lonely way through 
 the, to him, well-known fastnesses of the Apennines, 
 with the intention of joining his countrymen in Cala- 
 bria, who were waging a war of extermination against 
 the French. One day he ventured into a village in the 
 province of Salerno to get some provisions. He was 
 recognized ; some say he was betrayed by an old ac- 
 quaintance to whom he applied for hospitality and he 
 was arrested by the gendarmes. Being taken to Naples
 
 246 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. III. 
 
 he was tried and put to death. Joseph Buonaparte, 
 who was then at Portici, having a fancy to see this 
 renowned insurgent, Fra Diavolo was taken from his 
 prison all the way to Portici to gratify the king's 
 curiosity. He was paraded under the balcony of the 
 palace, and then led back to the scaffold. Bad as Fra 
 Diavolo's character was, there was something unge- 
 nerous in this idle exhibition of a condemned man, 
 which I heard blamed at Naples by those who at the 
 same time approved of his sentence. 
 
 I have now completed the narrative of the memo- 
 rable events of 1799. I have spoken of persons and 
 parties with all the impartiality I can assume at this 
 distance of time, when the actors of that tragic drama 
 live no longer but in history. In speaking of the 
 republicans I have expressed the commiseration which 
 is naturally felt for their sad fate, and the dreadful 
 punishment inflicted on them for a conduct which, in 
 many and the better among them, could only be taxed 
 with imprudence and inexperience. Their hands were 
 pure of blood, for, with the exception of a few acknow- 
 ledged conspirators, there were no political executions in 
 the city of Naples during the five months that the re- 
 public lasted. Many of the leading characters were 
 actuated by noble though perhaps ill-digested notions of 
 the regeneration of their country ; the rest were desirous 
 of a change, chiefly through want of activity and the 
 feeling of being condemned to idleness in a country 
 where industry and trade were considered derogatory to 
 a gentleman. Nor must we imagine, on the other 
 hand, that all the royalists were men of blood. Many, 
 especially among the regular soldiers, were persons of 
 honour, who followed what they considered the path 
 of duty and loyalty, and who deplored the excesses 
 committed by the insurgents. Even among the latter,
 
 CH. I.] NAPLES IN 1799. 247 
 
 many a brave though rustic youth followed the ban- 
 ner of Ruffo from the farthest Calabria, through pain- 
 ful marches, privations, and dangers, from a spirit of 
 rude patriotism, to rid the country of foreign in- 
 vaders and their partisans. In civil war sincerity of 
 motives may be found on both sides, and this renders a 
 civil war the more to be deplored. It were likewise an 
 error to ascribe the insurrection mainly to religious 
 fanaticism and the interference of the priests. The im- 
 portance of the latter had been much reduced even under 
 the old government ; besides which, we have seen that 
 the clergy themselves were divided, and that many of 
 them supported republican principles, as Campanella, 
 Savonarola, and others had done before them. Others 
 took a part in the insurrection as effective auxiliaries. 
 But the spirit of the insurrection was essentially political. 
 Ruffo himself was much more a lay than a clerical 
 character. The political influence of the Italian clergy 
 in general, long before the French revolution, was insig- 
 nificant as compared to that of their brethren in Spain 
 and Portugal, the relations of society being quite dif- 
 ferent in the two peninsulas.
 
 248 
 
 SECTION IV. TUMULTS FOR RAISING THE RATE 
 OF WAGES. 
 
 INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS IN 1831 AND 1834. 
 
 IT would seem that any endeavour of bodies of artisans 
 to raise the rate of wages in their particular trade to 
 a height which would exclude their fabrics from the 
 markets of the world, and, the market being thus shut 
 up, to effect the destruction of the capital by which 
 labour is supported, is upon the face of it so glaring an 
 absurdity, that such an event could never occur except 
 in times of the most barbarous ignorance. Such events, 
 however, have occurred in France within a very few 
 years ; and the excesses arising out of these particular 
 tumults very nearly ruined the second city of that king- 
 dom. The story has been told by an eye-witness, 
 J. B. Monfalcon, a physician of Lyons, whose work 
 was published in that city in 1834. This book, of 
 which no translation has appeared, but which has been 
 reviewed at considerable length in a periodical work 
 issued by the publisher of this volume, will furnish the 
 facts contained in the following narrative which, in- 
 deed, will be little more than an adaptation of the re- 
 view*. Were there no other argument extant in favour 
 of education and popular enlightenment, the facts con- 
 tained in this book should convince the world; for 
 every one of these facts immense destruction of pro- 
 perty bloodshed savage fury and crimes of the 
 darkest dye sprung out of ignorance, and mere mis- 
 
 * See the " Printing Machine," No. XXVII., December, 1834.
 
 SKC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 249 
 
 takes in political economy. This ignorance, indeed, 
 was not peculiar to the populace. The merchants and 
 manufacturers were almost as ignorant of the matters 
 in debate as the workmen the workmen were not more 
 ignorant than the magistrates and local authorities, 
 whilst the most ignorant of all were the newspaper 
 writers. 
 
 The silk manufacture was introduced into France 
 from Italy. A number of Italian silk weavers settled at 
 Tours and improved the French in the practice of their 
 art. The first attempts to introduce this profitable 
 branch of industry into the happily situated city of 
 Lyons were made during the reign of Louis XL, in the 
 fifteenth century. Under the reign of Francis I., which 
 extended from 1515 to 1547, the manufacture was 
 much improved by Italians who settled at Lyons. In 
 the time of Francis's successor, Henry II., who reigned 
 from 1547 to 1559, the city contained 12,000 master 
 workmen (maitres ouvriers) who worked in gold, silver, 
 and silk, and enjoyed large privileges from the French 
 government. As early as the sixteenth century the 
 manufacturers of Lyons petitioned for the rigid prohi- 
 bition of all silks manufactured in foreign countries, that 
 so the productions of the national looms might be pro- 
 tected and increased. The idea was worthy of the ig- 
 norance of the times, nor did the refusal of this prohi- 
 bition (for, luckily for Lyons, it was refused) proceed 
 from any enlightenment on the part of government in 
 the science of political economy. But here neither 
 manufacturers nor ministers were much to blame. That 
 science which, properly understood and taken in its 
 enlarged sense, is the surest guide to general happiness, 
 had, as yet, to be born. The first uncertain whispers 
 from the cradle of political economy (in Italy) were 
 not heard till a century later. " In the sixteenth cen-
 
 250 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 tury," says M. Monfalcon, " the royal treasury depend- 
 ing considerably on custom-house duties levied on 
 foreign goods, the court had a direct interest in inviting 
 the merchants and manufacturers of Italy, Savoy, and 
 Flanders to the great fairs then held at Lyons. The 
 important question of free trade was not then under- 
 stood ; and though often called upon to resolve it, the 
 government never adopted any fixed rules. At times 
 foreign silks were loaded with duties, and privileges 
 and protections granted to the silk manufacturers of 
 Lyons ; at other times competition was authorized, and 
 the free entrance of the raw silk and the silk stuffs of 
 Savoy and Italy was permitted. Our silk manufac- 
 tories were peopled almost exclusively with foreign 
 workmen; our fairs received their movement arid life 
 from the merchants who came from Genoa, Milan, 
 Turin, and Reggio, and it was necessary to conciliate 
 all parties for the interest of our national industry and 
 our government treasury. The competition aroused 
 the efforts and emulation of the Lyonnese silk-weavers 
 the introduction of foreign goods in the market did 
 them infinitely more good than harm by degrees they 
 learned how to equal the Italians, and even to make 
 better silk goods than those with which Genoa had 
 been accustomed to supply Europe. They also acquired 
 the art of manufacturing velvets ; they rivalled the 
 weavers of Tours, and, finally, they carried their art to 
 an unequalled degree of perfection." 
 
 AVe may safely say, that if the French government, 
 actuated by the clamours of those who saw not their 
 own interest, had granted and enforced the observance 
 of the prohibitory system, this happy consummation, 
 or any part of it, would not have taken place. Had 
 the competition been stopped when the manufactories 
 of Lyons were avowedly inferior to those of Italy had
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 251 
 
 the Italian silks been driven from the market, and had 
 the French people, if they used silks at all, been obliged 
 to use such as French weavers could produce, the silk- 
 weavers of Lyons and Tours would long have continued 
 making the same homely and yet expensive articles 
 that had been fashioned by their grandfathers and great- 
 grandfathers, and their fathers before them. There 
 is nothing like privileges and monopolies for keeping 
 things in their immoveable statu quo. Our own silk 
 manufactures mude comparatively little progress from 
 1685, when the religious intolerance of Louis XIV. 
 drove thousands of French Protestants to seek a refuge 
 in Spitalfields, down to 1824 and 1826, when the ab- 
 surd Spitalfields Act, fixing the rate of wages which 
 masters must pay their men, was abolished, and when 
 French silks were admitted into the country. Since 
 then our weavers have been forced to exert themselves, 
 and X setting aside the inventions of machinery, which 
 were not their work) they have effected greater im- 
 provements than were made during the century and a 
 half that their art and industry were cockered up by 
 monopoly and the prohibitive system. M. Monfalcon 
 says that our silk-weavers now produce goods as beau- 
 tiful and lasting as those of Lyons. Other causes, it 
 is true, have contributed to this end ; but the most in- 
 fluential of all these causes has been the competition 
 we allude to. " I was a stunted tree," says the poplar, 
 in an eastern apologue, " but they planted a tall cypress 
 opposite to me, and in emulation I raised up my head 
 to the sky." 
 
 In the seventeenth century the silk manufacture of 
 France formed one of the principal sources of national 
 wealth ; and it is now the most important branch of 
 manufacturing industry that exists in the kingdom. 
 Our author observes " The exportation of silk is
 
 252 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sKC. IV. 
 
 greater by one-half than the exportation of all the other 
 manufactured productions of the whole of France put 
 together. More than twenty departments are interested 
 in the production of the silk, and the money turned at 
 Lyons in this trade alone is not less than 200,000,000 
 (of francs) a year. The works from our silk-looms 
 carry to every country on the globe a glorious proof 
 of the superiority of our arts : this branch of trade is 
 the fortune of France. Since the empire (the time of 
 Buonaparte) a powerful foreign rivalry threatens Lyons : 
 numerous silk manufactories have risen up in Switzer- 
 land and Prussia, which, though as yet they cannot 
 equal ours for pattern and fancy goods, produce plain 
 silks as good as the French. The men who work in 
 those establishments have fewer expenses to support 
 than the silk-weavers of Lyons; they are lodged, fed, 
 and dressed at a cheaper rate, and thus they are con- 
 tented and as well off with much lower wages. To 
 find buyers, the silks of Lyons must not be dearer than 
 the Swiss or Prussian silks. But at present our most 
 formidable rivals in the silk trade are the manufacturers 
 of Great Britain." 
 
 In spite of these facts, which of themselves should 
 have imposed prudence and the best possible employ- 
 ment of the means in their power, the workmen of 
 Lyons began to form the wildest of trades* unions 
 against their employers, and went on step by step 
 towards the entire destruction of the manufacturing 
 and commercial means of that great city. The history 
 of the lamentable and inevitable issue of such combina- 
 tions in England might have taught them wisdom, had 
 it been known to them ; but the least wise of our 
 leaders of strikes, or unionists, are great philosophers 
 and most moderate men, compared with the silk- weavers 
 of Lyons,
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 253 
 
 In former times, M . Monfalcon says, these weavers 
 were mild and obedient, but remarkably stupid, having 
 fewer ideas and less power of combination than the 
 natives of savage countries. When suffering from any 
 interruption of trade, they were accustomed to go beg- 
 ging and singing about the town, but not to commit 
 any violence or cause any disorder. During the revo- 
 lutionary horrors that befel the city in 1193 and 1194, 
 they, however, were not idle ; " but" (to use our au- 
 thor's own words) " it must be added that then they 
 showed themselves much less ferocious than eager for 
 plunder." 
 
 Though these men work hard during five days in the 
 week, they have always shown themselves incapable of 
 a prudent economy. On Sunday and Monday (for 
 these Frenchmen keep Saint Monday, like so many of 
 our artificers) they will spend nearly the gains of the 
 whole week in parties of pleasure of various kinds. 
 Owing to these indulgencies the other five days are 
 badly provided for ; and whenever the dullness of trade 
 throws them out of employment, they have nothing left 
 for it but to beg or starve. To use our author's words 
 in his own language, " La liberte des nweurs est trt-s 
 grande parmi cux" the proper equivalent for which 
 in English is, " Their morals are very depraved." 
 From some circumstances that befel Rousseau in his 
 youth, he was induced to say, " Hence an impression 
 has remained upon my mind, not very favourable to the 
 people of Lyons ; and I have always considered Lyons 
 as the city in Europe in which the most frightful cor- 
 ruption prevails." Rousseau, on account of his poverty 
 and other misfortunes, could then associate only with 
 the poorer orders of society, and he framed his notion 
 and prejudices on what he saw of the weavers. 
 
 These men, at the present day, inhabit the most un- 
 
 z
 
 254 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 healthy parts of an immense city, the streets of which 
 are much too narrow, if the extreme height of the 
 houses be considered. " Many individuals" (says M. 
 Monfalcon) " are crowded together in a small apart- 
 ment: a low garret, not more than ten feet square, often 
 receives the whole family z. <?., the father, mother, 
 two or three children, a workwoman and a workman ; 
 while they sleep thus, the column of air above their 
 heads does not exceed twenty-four inches in height. A 
 default of cleanliness in their houses adds still further 
 to so many bad influences. The atmosphere impri- 
 soned in those narrow streets, in those dark and deep 
 courts where the sun never penetrates, constantly ex- 
 hales a foul, acid, and unwholesome smell. * * * * 
 The food of the weavers on their working-days is coarse, 
 and often unwholesome." 
 
 In Lyons there are two principal classes of weavers : 
 
 1 . The chefs d? ateliers, or masters, who have several 
 silk-looms of their own (three or four, but seldom more 
 than six or eight), and a fixed residence. 
 
 2. The class called compagnons, who work some of 
 the looms of the chefs d'alelicrs, or master weavers, 
 with whom they live, having no house-rent to pay, and 
 no responsibility of any sort. These men and women 
 (for both sexes are included) receive half of the money 
 gained by the looms they work, the other half going to 
 the master for wear and tear of machinery, house-rent, 
 risk, &c. &c. " These compagnons in general" (says 
 M. Monfalcon) " have no activity and no spirit of 
 order; they compose a floating and very unequal popu- 
 lation. When there is plenty of work, the country in 
 the neighbourhood of Lyons furnishes many workmen ; 
 and formerly a great number used to come from Pied- 
 mont and Savoy. When the silk trade is dull, most 
 of hese compagnons leave the town to turn their hands
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 255 
 
 to something else. This compagnonage is the great 
 sore of our manufacturing system ; these workmen are, 
 in general, unintelligent or imprudent men, who, either 
 through want of ability in their trade, or through want 
 of economy, have never been able to get together the 
 very small capital necessary to buy a loom or two of 
 their own, and set them up as chefs d^ ateliers, or mas- 
 ters. They are the curse of the master weavers, who 
 have only a discretionary power over them, which is 
 always disputed." 
 
 But besides masters and compagnons, there is a class 
 of riotous, uneducated, and wilful youths and children, 
 who work with the weavers, and who took a most active 
 part in the disorders of the city these are the appren- 
 tices and the lancers, as they are technically called at 
 Lyons. The apprentices are generally youths from 
 fifteen to twenty years old, who are taught their busi- 
 ness by the master silk-weavers, with whom and for 
 whom they work. The lancers are mere children, 
 whose work is to throw (lancer) the shuttle in certain 
 pattern silks. " Generally speaking," says M. Mon- 
 falcon, " neither apprentices nor lancers have received 
 the least rudiment of education. They are turbulent 
 on days of riot and revolt, through a mere love of noise. 
 But these boys were seen during the three days of 
 November, 1831, creeping among the horses, and 
 aiming blows at the dragoons, which were so much the 
 more dangerous, as it was impossible to foresee them. 
 During the six days of April, 1834, many of them ex- 
 plored the streets of Lyons, armed with pistols or bad 
 guns. These unfortunate little wretches, during the 
 whole of our sad collisions, have shown the greatest 
 disregard of danger, andj at times, the most complete 
 contempt of life." 
 
 z2
 
 256 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 Large portions of the plain silks at Lyons are woven 
 by women, whose labours are a preserving principle to 
 that city ; for if the price of workmanship were at all 
 raised on plain silks, Lyons would be obliged to give 
 up that branch of its manufacture altogether. A con- 
 siderable number of men, however, work on plain goods, 
 being paid at the same rate as the women. M. Mon- 
 falcon adds " The weavers of fancy and pattern goods 
 earn a great deal more than the plain weavers ; yet 
 these men are always the loudest in their complaints. 
 The reason is this : with very few exceptions, there is 
 more order more economy and foresight among the 
 first than among the second. Those who earn least 
 money are also those whose habits are least expensive 
 and most tranquil, and whose constant employment 
 and means of subsistence are best secured : many of 
 this class enjoy a certain degree of comfort and prospe- 
 rity, particularly if their economy has enabled them to 
 set up looms." 
 
 The silk-weavers of Lyons are not subjected to their 
 employers or merchants, like men receiving daily wages. 
 Masters of their looms and workshops, they enjoy a 
 considerable degree of liberty. When they engage to 
 weave such or such articles, they take the material (the 
 silk) from the fabricant that employs them, carry it 
 home with them, and there convert it into stuffs accord- 
 ing to the instructions and designs they have received. 
 When the work, which is either done by their own 
 hands or by the hands of men and women employed 
 at their looms, is completed, they carry it back to the 
 fabricant, who pays them for it. " Thus," says our 
 author, " the workman and the fabricant stand in rela- 
 tions of independence towards one another. They are 
 attached to one another only by the tie of mutual con-
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 257 
 
 venience and advantage ; and when this tie ceases to 
 exist, the two parties settle their accounts, and separate 
 without discussion and without reproach." 
 
 The French revolution of July, 1830, undeniably ex- 
 ercised an evil influence on trade generally- The pro- 
 duction of articles of fashion and luxury, such as fancy 
 silks, &c., was naturally most affected. But these cir- 
 cumstances, common to all great and sudden political 
 changes, were only temporary, and had in fact almost 
 ceased to exist when Lyons rose in rebellion. M. Mon- 
 falcon says that " The distress of the weavers of 
 Lyons was most absurdly exaggerated. Before the 
 three days of November (1831), the silk trade had 
 recovered some life and activity ; and of all the manu- 
 facturing cities in France, Lyons was evidently the one 
 that suffered least. * * * Ten times, under Napo- 
 leon, Louis XVIII., and Charles X., Lyons had been 
 in a much worse position than it was then. So that 
 all that newspapers and pamphlets have said about the 
 misery of our artisans cheeks hollowed by famine 
 shrunken limbs and that despair that induced many 
 of them to throw themselves into the waters of the 
 Rhone, to put an end to their wretched lives is a lie ! 
 Nothing but the spirit of party could be capable of 
 inventing such absurd fables." 
 
 Our author adds " The political parties that traded 
 on the ignorance and prejudices of the working classes 
 never attempted to explain the causes which establish, 
 in certain circumstances, a real disproportion between 
 the expenses and the wages of the workmen ; they took 
 good care, indeed, to do no such thing ! What they 
 wanted for their desperate purposes was the misery, and 
 not the prosperity of the industrious classes. The con- 
 stant scope of their efforts was to separate society into 
 two hostile camps the rich and the poor." 
 
 z 3
 
 258 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 The following remarks, which we translate from 
 M. Monfalcon's work, may to some appear uncalled 
 for in this country ; but it must not be forgotten, that 
 here, as elsewhere, the people are too apt to listen to 
 demagogues who contend for a subversion of the rights 
 of property. Our author exposes this delusion with 
 force and clearness. " The last day of all society will 
 be that when theorists shall succeed in persuading men 
 that society is composed of two classes : those who 
 have something and those who have nothing. The 
 first of all rights is the right of property ; it is the legi- 
 timate possession which serves as the base of our social 
 organization. Take that corner-stone from the build- 
 ing, and its ruins will crush alike the imprudent men 
 who have given the advice, and their proselytes who 
 have been mad enough to follow it. If the aristocracy 
 of property be an evil, it is an evil that is inevitable. 
 Take house and land, money and wealth of every kind, 
 and give it all to the poor ; adopt the agrarian law 
 level all distinctions and all conditions let no man 
 have more than another to-day and to-morrow the 
 vices inseparable from our species carelessness, extra- 
 vagance, and incapacity will have again established 
 the inequality some now complain of. Make all men 
 equally sober, honest, economical, clever, and indus- 
 trious let them all be able to govern their passions in 
 an equal degree and then, but not till then, may you 
 be permitted to regulate the equal division of property 
 among them." 
 
 The weavers of Lyons were singularly dependent 
 upon their employers. The fabricants, or master 
 manufacturers, not only furnished the silk, fully pre- 
 pared by many preceding and expensive processes, but 
 they also gave the designs or patterns, thus reducing 
 the weavers' part of the operations to little more than
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 259 
 
 the labours of a mere machine. And be it remembered, 
 it was not from any superiority in the mere weaving 
 that the silks of Lyons were pre-eminent in the markets 
 of Europe. The Swiss, the Prussians, the Italians, 
 the English, could all weave just as well as the French ; 
 and in some instances, if not better, much cheaper. All 
 the superiority of French silks was in their more taste- 
 ful designs ; but the designers were not the weavers, 
 nor of the weavers ; they stood ranged on the side of 
 the fabricants ; capital and ingenuity were combined. 
 A manufacturing house at Lyons is ordinarily com- 
 posed of manufacturers (fabricants) properly so called, 
 and of designers, or pattern makers. The designers 
 are essentially the soul of the silk manufactory : their 
 talent gives beauty and life to the goods, the principal 
 value of which often lies in their pattern. They study 
 the taste of the day, and are indefatigable in search of 
 variety. An immense profit may depend on the design 
 of a shawl or a gown ; but never on the mere weaving. 
 But the fabricant, or master manufacturer, has also a 
 high and intellectual share in this division of labour. 
 The designer occupies himself entirely with his colours, 
 his pencil, and his pattern-book; leaving to the fabri- 
 cant the long and difficult study of the raw materials, 
 the art of combining silk with wool and cotton, and 
 the creation or invention of new and varied species of 
 stuffs. Placed at his loom and frame the weaver has 
 only to attend to operations all regulated and made 
 easy to his hands, and in good part merely mechanical. 
 Considered apart from the ingenious contrivances in 
 their manufactories, the fabricants of Lyons are ame- 
 nable to the charge of ignorance. Our author says 
 " The majority of these individuals have received but 
 a very incomplete and inefficient education. They 
 enter on business when very young, and give themselves
 
 260 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 entirely up to the details of the particular branch of 
 manufactures they have chosen, and, with a few excep- 
 tions, having concentrated their talent and intelligence 
 in the sphere of action prescribed by their operations, 
 they have neither the time nor the inclination for ac- 
 quiring that enlarged information and general know- 
 ledge, so common among the merchants of Havre, 
 Rouen, and Bordeaux, and that have almost raised 
 commerce to the rank of a science." After this it need 
 excite no surprise to hear M. Monfalcon accusing them 
 of apathy, egotism, a blind jealousy of one another, and 
 a want of prudence and foresight at the approach of 
 danger. These fabricants had no common and central 
 point round which to rally when their general interests 
 were attacked. They stood isolated, and every man, 
 or, at least, every house by itself, when the weavers 
 formed one condensed compact body. Several of them, 
 actuated, in all probability, as much by the avidity of 
 doing business while their brother manufacturers were 
 reduced to inactivity by the strike, as by the desire of 
 conciliating the workmen, submitted to the violently 
 imposed increase of wages, and flattered the weavers 
 with the idea that their right and might were alike 
 clear and irresistible. If any complaint or representa- 
 tion were laid before government, it was only by or in 
 the name of an isolated manufacturer. Had they sup- 
 ported one another had they learned from the canons 
 of political economy, or even from their own experience, 
 that their private interest was subordinate to the gene- 
 ral interest, then they would have acted with unanimity 
 and effect. " But," continues M. Monfalcon, " they 
 made mistakes, and were guilty of gross faults. The 
 first was, the never having any proper understanding 
 among themselves, and their committing the safety of 
 the whole trade by individual concessions. In recom-
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 261 
 
 mending union and an esprit de corps to the manufac- 
 turers, I am not inciting them to adopt a system of 
 oppression against the weavers : I reprobate any tyranny 
 of the master over the man with as much force as I do 
 the tyranny of the man over the master. Let there be 
 liberty for both absolute liberty in all their transac- 
 tions with one another an equal protection on the 
 part of the authorities of the state, to the two classes 
 of the great family. Their harmony is the prosperity 
 of our city ; their discord the ruin of Lyons, and the 
 loss of the most important manufacture of France. In 
 their horrible and unnatural conflict the conquerors 
 are the foes of their country's fortunes ; the conquered 
 are the public at large, comprising every class of citi- 
 zens, which all suffer in nearly an equal degree from the 
 decline of our most beautiful industry." 
 
 We now pass to the ignorance and folly of the magis- 
 trates of Lyons and other high local authorities. As 
 we have already stated, the silk trade had suffered from 
 the shock of the revolution of July, 1830. The transi- 
 tory cloud, however, was almost passed from the disk of 
 prosperity, and business was rapidly improving in the 
 autumn of 1831, when the weavers resolved on a general 
 " turn out," and on the adoption of a tariff or unvary- 
 ing scale of prices for their work. That is to say, 
 whether the manufacturers gained much, or little, or 
 even lost by the sale of such a shawl, or such a gown- 
 piece, they (the weavers) were always to receive pre- 
 cisely the same sum for weaving it. As things then 
 were, this was an open declaration of war against the 
 rights of property. But considered prospectively, and 
 supposing the working men should hold themselves 
 bound by this irrevocable tariff, it was also an attack 
 on the rights of industry, for the prices of work might 
 rise, as in fact they did rise, considerably higher than
 
 262 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 those fixed by their own tariff, and that too in a short 
 time, or just before they began their second insurrection 
 in 1834. If the weavers contemplated rendering the 
 obligation binding on one side only, or that the tariff 
 should secure them against any decrease of wages with- 
 out securing their employers against any increase, why, 
 then we can only say that their honesty was on a par 
 with their ignorance. 
 
 Whatever may have been their notions the tariff 
 became the war-horse of the weavers, on which they 
 determined to vanquish or to fall. Early in October, 
 1831, they laid their plan before the mayor and the 
 municipal administration of Lyons, and then before 
 M. Bouvier Dumolart, the prefect of the Rhone (the 
 highest civil authority of the province). These gentle- 
 men opened a correspondence with the refractory work- 
 men, they formally received their delegates, and then 
 invited the manufacturers to come to an understanding 
 with the weavers as to the adoption of the tariff ! From 
 such a beginning we may easily guess the end. 
 
 The Mairie (or municipality) summoned the work- 
 ing men and the manufacturers to present themselves 
 at the Hotel de Ville, or town-hall and in equal 
 numbers .' The mayor was absent from Lyons, and his 
 representative, after having called this ill-assorted meet- 
 ing, would not take the chair or preside over it, but left 
 the opposing interests to their own violent collision. 
 There could be no freedom of opinion and debate. But 
 the question they met upon was one that admitted of 
 no rational discussion. The manufacturers trembled 
 before the number of the working men, who, though 
 not in the hall, were at hand in the streets and public 
 places. The president of the weavers made a long 
 speech, and the meeting broke up without anything being 
 either settled or promised. Our author continues :
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 263 
 
 " Being thus officially recognized as the representatives 
 of the weavers in the question of the tariff, the delegates 
 spread the idea that the principle of that pact or con- 
 vention (the tariff) was fully admitted, and that there 
 remained nothing to do but to regulate the prices to be 
 paid them for all their different kinds of work. M. 
 Dumolart, the prefect, called a new meeting at the 
 Prefecture, on Friday, the 2 1 st of October, 1 83 1 . There, 
 as at the Hotel de Ville, there was no free discussion 
 on the fundamental question whether they ought and 
 could fix the price for every article in silk weaved in 
 all the city of Lyons and its suburbs. Some of the 
 manufacturers proposed that the meeting should de- 
 clare itself incompetent to decide on the matter ; but 
 this opinion was rejected. The chefs d'ateliers, or 
 head weavers, neither discussed nor debated, nor gave 
 any opinion ; they only imposed conditions. A few 
 hours after the meeting separated, and at the approach 
 of night, the civil authorities stuck up a notice in the 
 streets, announcing that the manufacturers were con- 
 voked for the Monday following to name their dele- 
 gates, authorizing them to come to an understanding 
 with the delegates of the working men, and to adopt the 
 tariff which should be put into effect on the 1st of 
 November. Thus was the question cut short, and 
 thenceforward the weavers considered themselves in 
 possession of an acquired right. But the adhesion of 
 the manufacturers to the tariff was neither free nor 
 legal, it was besides incomplete and partial ; in fact, 
 very few of those capitalists had adopted the principle 
 of that measure : the consent of individuals can in no 
 case carry with it the consent of an entire body. 
 
 " The definitive convocation of the delegates of the 
 working men and of their employers took place in 
 M. Dumolart's drawing-rooms. While the opposing
 
 264 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 interests were engaged in debate, an immense multitude 
 of the workers in silk, organized in troops and cohorts, 
 advanced from the suburbs to the square of Bellevue 
 and the square of La Prefecture, immediately in front 
 of M. Dumolart's house. They were then without 
 arms, without sticks, and they marched in silence and 
 in perfect order. Their chiefs carried wands in their 
 hands as signs of their authority; and the multitude, 
 rallying round the tri-coloured flag, remained inoffen- 
 sive and mute. That day (the 25th of October) pre- 
 sented a singular spectacle : a perfect order reigned in 
 the disorder there were no tumultuous cries no pro- 
 vocations ; the working men satisfied themselves with 
 making a demonstration of their forces. A great num- 
 ber of them, Iwwevcr, penetrated into the court-yard of 
 the Prefecture, and stationed themselves immediately 
 under the apartment where the tariff was regulating. 
 At last one of their delegates left the assembly, walked 
 down to the square in front of the Prefecture, and, 
 commanding silence, said ' My friends, people are 
 busy up there about your interests all goes on well 
 retire!' At the instant all that host of working men 
 quietly retreated in the same order in which they had 
 advanced. At two o'clock in the afternoon the civil 
 authorities of Lyons announced that the tariff was 
 agreed upon and finally settled. This news was re- 
 ceived by the weavers with the most lively demonstra- 
 tions of joy; numerous groups collected in the streets, 
 along the quays by the rivers' sides, and in the square 
 Des Terreaux. 
 
 " And now that this grand measure is adopted, will 
 it be possible for the manufacturers to permit its exe- 
 cution ? 
 
 " If working men have the indisputable right of 
 accepting work from their employers only on such con-
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 265 
 
 ditions and prices as suit them, manufacturers, by the 
 same title, have the right of giving out work to those 
 they employ, only at such a price as they can afford to 
 give, or as suits them. The liberty is the same on 
 both sides. Neither of the contracting parties can im- 
 pose its will on the other, and their transactions with 
 one another imply a mutual consent. The weavers 
 acquired a tariff, which they thought as legal, as it 
 was, in reality, illegal ; the manufacturer, obliged to 
 submit to this tariff if he continues to give work to the 
 looms, is perfectly free to cease giving out work if he 
 cannot do so without losing, for no man can be bound 
 to his own ruin. 
 
 " Scarcely was the tariff promulgated in Lyons, 
 when many commercial houses, alarmed at the pros- 
 pect of the future, or finding it impossible to pay the 
 high prices demanded by the weavers, came to a deter- 
 mination, and suspended all their operations. The im- 
 mense fault of M. Dumolart had placed our capitalists 
 in a frightful position many thousand looms were at 
 once left without work. 
 
 " A dreadful fermentation agitated the working classes 
 during the first weeks of November. They demanded 
 the execution of the tariff, and showed the most deadly 
 animosity against the manufacturers. Mobs gathered 
 in the streets, squares, and suburbs ; La Croix Rousse 
 (a large dependent town, rather than a suburb) was up 
 in arms, and a hostile collision seemed inevitable. A 
 grand review of the national guard took place on Sun- 
 day, the 20th of November, for the installation of its 
 chief, old General Ordonrieau. Ten thousand men 
 were present beneath the national flag, and had these 
 men been decided in their wish of maintaining order, 
 no troubles could have happened. But it was easy to 
 see, by the alarming countenances of all the companies 
 
 2 A
 
 266 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 from the suburbs, and by the apathy of the majority of 
 that armed militia, that some great event was preparing. 
 The citizens of Lyons were left a prey to the most 
 acute anxiety, and people ran everywhere inquiring 
 what would be the probable result of this cruel situa^ 
 tion. They were not left long in this state of un- 
 certainty." 
 
 The result was a sanguinary conflict in the streets of 
 Lyons that lasted three days, during which hundreds of 
 lives were lost, and the blood of Frenchmen, shed by 
 Frenchmen, dyed the peaceful waters of the Saone and 
 Rhone, the two magnificent rivers that traverse and in 
 part surround the city : and to this must be added a 
 long series of crimes and calamities the destruction of 
 valuable property accumulated by many years of labour 
 and intelligence the complete overthrow, for a time, of 
 the social system that binds man to man in mutual 
 support, and mutual charity. 
 
 At seven o'clock on Monday morning, November 21, 
 the weavers in the suburbs of La Croix Rousse placed 
 themselves in an attitude of open rebellion, and began 
 raising barricades at the entrances of their principal 
 streets. Their emissaries ran round the different shops 
 where a few men were still at work ; they cut the pieces 
 of silks to tatters on the looms and frames of such as 
 refused to follow them ; and carried away, with threats 
 and violence, all those weavers who were not won over 
 by their solicitations. They raised a black standard, or 
 flag, on which was inscribed the words that have ^since 
 become so notorious " Vivre en travaillant, ou mourir 
 en combatant ;" (literally, " To live working, or to die 
 fighting.") From the first moment of their rising they 
 were provided with large stones, muskets, and two pieces 
 of artillery, which belonged to the national guard of 
 La Croix Rousse.
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 267 
 
 Both the civil and military authorities of Lyons were 
 advised beforehand that a movement was in preparation 
 that the weavers had been purchasing large quan- 
 tities of gunpowder, making cartridges, &c. nay, they 
 even knew the day and hour fixed for the rising. They 
 were then, no doubt, prepared ? and, as it was evident 
 little reliance could be placed on the national guard, 
 and as the garrison was very weak, they had, of course, 
 taken their measures with all due caution, wisdom, and 
 concert among themselves ? No such thing ! Monday 
 morning came the barricades rose before their eyes 
 and they had concluded nothing arranged no plan for 
 the preservation of the city. But even then with the 
 regular troops, consisting of the 66th regiment of the 
 line, a battalion of the 13th, the 12th dragoons, and 
 some companies of artillery and engineers, who were 
 all firm and determined to do their duty, by a sudden 
 deployment, or a concentrated attack, they might have 
 smothered the insurrection in its cradle at La Croix 
 Rousse, and prevented its extending through the city. 
 But no. At ten o'clock, three hours after, they ordered 
 sixty men of the national guard, armed with muskets, 
 but without ammunition, to march upon La Croix 
 Rousse, a strong suburb, or rather, as we have said, a 
 town of itself, which was intrenched and occupied by 
 4000 furious workmen. Our author says, " The sixty 
 men obeyed ; but what could they do against a multi- 
 tude already provided with the means of defence and 
 attack ? A shower of stones gave them their welcome ; 
 many of them were wounded, and the detachment was 
 compelled to make a hasty retreat. Then, indeed, some 
 attacks were made by the troops of the line, but with 
 feeble means, and not upon one, but different points : 
 thus they all failed. An officer was wounded in the 
 thigh a drummer shot : through the shoulder. These 
 
 2x2
 
 268 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 first successes encouraged the insurgents, an electric 
 spark shot through all the work-shops, and the working 
 part of the population then rose like one man." 
 
 The silk-weavers not only formed a most numerous 
 body in themselves, but by their marriages, friendships, 
 and other connexions, they had another host inclined to 
 take part with them. The tariff, moreover, was an 
 admirable rallying point to the thoughtless and igno- 
 rant. Carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, mechanics, and 
 labourers of all kinds, were willing enough that their 
 masters should pay them higher wages. 
 
 Circumstances were now most critical; and what 
 was the next step of M. Bouvier Dumolart, the prefect, 
 whose inconceivable want of sense had brought about 
 this awful crisis ? Why, with characteristic stupidity 
 he went with General Ordonneau, the commander of 
 the national guard, in grand uniform, but without a 
 force, if not sufficient to impose, at least to command 
 respect, without an escort of any kind, to parley with 
 the insurgents. At the unexpected apparition of the 
 first civil authority of the country, and a general of 
 rank at the pacific, honeyed words of Dumolart, the 
 men of La Croix Rousse naturally enough concluded 
 that the battle was as good as won. Instead of listen- 
 ing to his propositions, they surrounded him and the 
 general, with arms in their hands, loaded them with 
 abuse and threats, made them prisoners, and carried 
 them away to a place of safety, as hostages, whose lives 
 should be answerable for future events. 
 
 It would be a grossly unjust omission not to mention 
 that the commander-in-chief of the garrison, General 
 Roguet, a veteran soldier and skilful chief, deserves to 
 be excepted from this almost universal imputation of 
 imbecility. He was a sick old man, suffering at the 
 time under excruciating pains : he had taken the com-
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 269 
 
 mand only a short time before, and was wholly unac- 
 quainted with the complicated and every-way difficult 
 localities of Lyons and its environs. As soon, however, 
 as he was aware of the threatening aspect of things he 
 rose from his bed : he could not mount his horse, but 
 he caused himself to be carried to the Hotel de Ville. 
 In the mean time the drums had beat to call all the 
 national guards to arms. Out of 15,000 and more 
 men, only 1 200 obeyed the summons ; the rest had 
 skulked away, joined the insurgents, or at least given 
 them up their arms. General Roguet ordered a suc- 
 cession of attacks, which were valiantly attempted by 
 the troops of the line, and the fragment of the national 
 guard that remained true to its duty. This fragment 
 was chiefly composed of the most respectable citizens of 
 Lyons, many of whom had been on various occasions 
 the best friends of the working classes. But strong in 
 their elevated position, in their lofty firmly-built stone 
 houses, narrow crooked streets, and deep courts and 
 alleys strong by the time they had gained the insur- 
 gents repulsed every attack on La Croix Rousse. M. 
 Monfalcon continues : " M. Schirmer, the partner of 
 M. Charles Depouilly, was killed ; other citizens fell by 
 his side ; many more were wounded, and the citizens, 
 armed for the defence of the laws, were utterly unable 
 to return the shots of their invisible assailants. Many 
 officers and soldiers of the line received their death 
 wounds in the court or close called Casati. The square 
 of the Bernardines remained in possession of the na- 
 tional guard during all the afternoon, but in the even- 
 ing an order was given for its evacuation, and at the 
 approach of night the combat ceased. The working 
 men bivouacked in La Croix Rousse round fires which 
 they lighted ; they were, however, but little upon their 
 guard, and the authorities might yet have occupied that 
 
 2 A3
 
 270 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 fatal platform, by attacking it in front, or turning it by 
 La Boucle ; but this idea never presented itself, and, 
 like the insurgents, the troops awaited the events of the 
 morrow. The prefect and General Ordonneau were 
 made to pass the night in a room where the weavers 
 had laid out the bodies of two of their comrades that 
 had been shot by the troops of the line. The next day 
 the spirit of insurrection and anarchy took possession of 
 the populace en masse. A proclamation, issued by 
 General Roguet, was seized and trampled under foot. 
 Several weak outposts of the national guards were sur- 
 prised, disarmed, and massacred in cold blood. The 
 insurgents also began to set fire to several of the public 
 buildings. * * * The firing of musketry \vas heard from 
 a hundred different points at once, and kept drawing 
 closer and closer, from all the suburbs, towards the 
 centre of Lyons, which was inhabited by many thou- 
 sands of weavers ready to take part in the unnatural 
 warfare." But we turn from these horrible details of 
 slaughter and destruction, and shall only give a few 
 more sentences to render the story intelligible. 
 
 Among the almost innumerable disadvantages under 
 which General Roguet had to maintain this foul, cooped- 
 up, town warfare, was this. Whilst the insurgents cared 
 not how they attacked, or what damage they did, he 
 was laudably solicitous not to confound the innocent 
 with the guilty, and to do as little damage to the city 
 as possible. Had he blown a house or two into the air, 
 at three or four points, or battered the-m down with his 
 artillery, in the beginning of this, the second day of 
 fighting, he might yet have been able to prevent the 
 junction of the insurgents and strike them with terror. 
 " During this day," says our author, "the greater part 
 of the soldiers of the garrison had nothing to cat. A 
 battalion of the 40th regiment, tha,t marched into Lvons.
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 2*71 
 
 from Trevoux, as a reinforcement, came without car- 
 tridges. The sight of the dead and wounded the un- 
 equal danger of a struggle in which the soldiers were 
 picked out and hit by enemies they could not hit again, 
 for the insurgents all fired under cover, from behind 
 barricades or strong walls, or from the roofs of houses, 
 induced, towards the close of the day, a general retreat 
 on the side of the military. * * * The dragoons had 
 resisted with the greatest courage ; but what could 
 cavalry do in a war of streets, under the fire of enemies 
 that were carefully concealed behind gates and chimneys ? 
 Many of them were dismounted, wounded, or killed, and 
 several, who were thrown or fell from their horses, were 
 massacred by the women and children of the weavers. 
 Never was warfare of the Bedouin savages more atro- 
 cious than this !" 
 
 M. Dumolart, the prefect, was set at liberty with his 
 companion General Ordonneau, when the insurgents 
 saw their victory almost secured. After his liberation, 
 the prefect sent out a flag of truce to prevent further 
 effusion of blood, but the insurgents in ignorance, or 
 defiance of the established rules of civilized warfare, 
 fired upon it, as they did upon two or three other flags 
 of truce despatched to them during the day. At the 
 fall of night the working men remained masters of all 
 the suburbs and of the whole of the city, except a con- 
 fined oblong square on which the troops stood. Thus 
 ended the second day. 
 
 " At two hours after midnight," says our author, 
 " on the morning of the 23rd of November, General 
 Roguet yielded to the representations of the civil autho- 
 rities, and resolved to quit the town with the remainder 
 of the troops he commanded. * * * He was followed 
 and assisted by a few men of the national guard ! But 
 the insurgents were aware of his movements, and esta-
 
 272 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 blished a strong post at the barrier of St. Clair, with 
 the view of intercepting his retreat. A single piece of 
 artillery, and a general fire from the troops of the line, 
 presently forced a passage there. The soldiers, formed 
 in close columns, then cleared with courage and rapidity 
 three barricades that had been raised between St. Clair 
 and La Boucle, and beat, and threw into perfect disorder 
 the posts of working men that guarded them ; and in 
 spite of a running fire of musketry, and stones and tiles 
 that rained upon them from the houses, they made 
 good their retreat to Montessuy, Caluire, and La 
 Pape, after having lost a number of men. The dra- 
 goons, who executed several brilliant charges, suffered 
 the most. A battalion of the 40th closed the retreat, 
 and fought with courage for its protection. But the 
 unfortunate wounded soldiers left behind were stripped, 
 despatched, arid thrpwn into the Rhone, by a set of 
 miserable weavers, whose fury had obliterated every 
 feeling of humanity. General Fleury was wounded and 
 dismounted in the fatal retreat, and one of his aides-de- 
 camp was killed by his side." 
 
 For some time the insurgents could scarcely believe 
 the victory they had gained ; but when they saw that 
 not so much as a detachment of troops was left in 
 the place, they gave themselves up to convivial en- 
 joyments, and then, half drunk, they went about the 
 town, bathed in the blood of their countrymen, hugging 
 and kissing, and calling one another " Les Braves" 
 the heroes ! But the fighting in the streets was scarcely 
 over when the insurgents discovered they did not know 
 what they had been fighting about. After breaking 
 open the dwelling-houses and warehouses of some of the 
 principal merchants and manufacturers, and burning 
 their furniture and valuable goods in a fire lit for the 
 purpose, on the Quai de Retz, they came to a stand-still,
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 273 
 
 and stared stupidly in each other's faces to know what 
 should be done next. They were precisely in the posi- 
 tion of a mutinous crew at sea, who, having murdered 
 or otherwise disposed of all their officers, know not how 
 to take charge of the ship and steer it into port. 
 
 Fortunately their instinct told them in time that to 
 pursue their destruction of property, or to wreak their 
 bloody vengeance on the capitalists and manufacturers, 
 would be condemning themselves to starvation and 
 annihilation would be positively a digging of their 
 own graves. So they stood still, completely at their 
 wits' end, and left the civil authorities and those of the 
 national guards who had anything to lose, gradually 
 to win them over or calm them, and restore order to 
 the distracted city. The prefect, M. Dumolard, issued 
 some proclamations, in which he called himself " The 
 Father of the People;" but the weavers were ungrate- 
 ful children, and kept him and certain of his subordi- 
 nates under a rigid surveillance for a day or two. 
 
 Hoping to float on the troubled waters that had been 
 raised, a republican coterie, contemptible in numbers, 
 and of no respectability, attempted to rally the work- 
 men round them. Aided by some half-starved jour- 
 nalists, they contrived to indite, and even to publish, 
 an absurd proclamation, to which the weavers and the 
 rest of the populace of Lyons listened with vacant as- 
 tonishment or indifference. The game for these despe- 
 rate gamblers was not yet made up. The tariff was 
 madness enough for Lyons in 1831 ; the other mania 
 deserved a year of its own, and they were obliged to 
 wait till 1834 to play off their republican stakes. It 
 must be said, however, that during this interval they 
 were indefatigable in preparing the game. 
 
 The wealthy and respectable citizens of Lyons by 
 rapid degrees gained a complete ascendancy over the
 
 274 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 insurgents. The weavers retired from the streets and 
 public places (they would have been happy to go to 
 work again, if work could have been obtained) and 
 left the city to the mayor, the municipality, and the 
 friends of order. On the 27th of December, four days 
 after the retreat of the troops, the mayor, at the head 
 of a deputation, waited upon General Roguet to press 
 the return of himself and the garrison to Lyons. With 
 the reinforcements he had received from all parts, and 
 a squadron of artillery, with four batteries that had 
 joined him from Grenoble, he might instantly haVe 
 taken a sanguinary vengeance on the insurgents ; but 
 fortunately for the weavers his orders or wishes did 
 not lead him that way. Louis Philippe's eldest son, 
 the Duke of Orleans, was expected in a day or two, 
 with Marshal Soult, the minister of war ; and General 
 Roguet determined to wait their arrival before making 
 any movement. 
 
 The population of the surrounding country showed 
 no sort of sympathy for the insurrection of Lyons ; the 
 national guards and the police were steady and decided 
 everywhere beyond that city. Great numbers of the 
 weavers, by this time mild and humble, were begging 
 for work, and protesting they had taken no part irt the 
 insurrection. Many of their leaders, however, had fled 
 for their livesj leaving their wives and children to 
 starve ! 
 
 On Saturday, the 3rd of December, the Duke of 
 Orleans, Marshal SoUlt, and General Roguet entered 
 Lyons, at the head of a powerful army, and were re- 
 ceived with acclamations of joy. Not a shadow of re- 
 sistance was offered scarcely a single weaver was to 
 be seen ; and even La Croix Rousse was as tranquil 
 as a nunnery. " And thus," says M. Moiifalcon, 
 " finished the history of the three days of November,
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 275 
 
 and such was the winding up of the working men's 
 victory. A deal of blood was shed ; brave French sol- 
 diers received their death ; the first manufacturing city 
 in France was a prey to the most frightful disorder : 
 and for what end ? Has the condition of the working 
 classes been improved ? Have they succeeded in 
 forcing their employers to adopt the tariff ? No. The 
 principle of that scheme was absurd, and could never 
 be acknowledged by the government. Have they 
 succeeded in raising the price of their labour? No. 
 Trade can flourish only when no blows are aimed at 
 the liberty and tranquillity of its transactions; and 
 their revolt has paralyzed it, and condemned the silk 
 manufacture to a long period of inactivity. Has 
 their easy and short triumph attracted the public in- 
 terest to their cause ? is their country indebted to them 
 for what they have done? Alas! no. They have 
 attacked with an armed hand the institutions of their 
 country trodden her laws under foot, expelled the 
 legitimate authorities, and thrown our city into an 
 abyss of misery. The brutal employment of force to 
 resolve a question of trade and industry is equally ab- 
 surd and criminal, whether it proceed from the working 
 man, his employer, or the government. But some 
 will say the insurgents did not abuse their victory. 
 Yes; we must, without doubt, to a certain point, be 
 grateful to them for not having proceeded to extremes 
 and the most horrid excesses, which, however, would 
 have brought down a fearful and inevitable vengeance 
 on their own heads. They have not done to Lyons, 
 and to the capitalists and manufacturers of Lyons, all 
 the mischief that they might have done ; but ought 
 this negative merit to make us forget the crime of their 
 impious aggression, the horrors of a civil and civic war 
 of three days, and the deplorable consequences that 
 have resulted therefrom ?" ~ . j
 
 276 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 After the sad events of November, 1831, all the fac- 
 tions of France threw themselves upon the city of 
 Lyons, to keep alive the spirit of disorder, and turn it 
 to their own several purposes. " All these parties," 
 says M. Monfalcon, " with indefatigable activity, set 
 about widening and empoisoning the great sore of 
 Lyons, and deluding the working classes by complai- 
 sance and flattery, to make tools of them when the 
 moment for acting should arrive. The Saint Simonians 
 came to preach their dangerous abstractions in our 
 manufactories, and apply new fuel to a fire that was 
 scarcely extinguished. These wild sectaries, addressing 
 the most violent and least enlightened class of ivorking 
 men in Europe, could find nothing better to teach 
 them, on the morrow of a dreadful insurrection, when 
 the blood that covered the streets of Lyons still smoked, 
 than a disgust of their condition and calling a hatred 
 for the rich, and their own unalienable right to a larger 
 share in the property of the country. Pamphlets, radi- 
 cal and Carlist newspapers, came pell-mell among us, 
 addressing themselves to all the passions and all the 
 prejudices of the working men. Influential members 
 of the ' Society of the Rights of Man' came from Paris 
 to Lyons expressly to give to the trades' unions and 
 coalitions of the weavers a systematic plan of organiza- 
 tion, which was, in appearance, confined to the rights 
 of industry, but, in reality, eminently political. During 
 the thirty months which separated the insurrection of 
 November, 1831, from the revolt of April, 1834, Lyons 
 never enjoyed fifteen days of tranquillity ; and every 
 week, and almost every day, the factions, emboldened 
 by impunity and the mildness of government, preluded 
 by skirmishes for a general action." 
 
 The government, instructed by the past, and well 
 informed of what was preparing, resolved to fortify the 
 city a measure rendered prudent by another considera-
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 277 
 
 tion ; for Lyons is scarcely a day's march from the 
 frontiers. A number of detached forts, near enough 
 to support and assist each other, were commenced soon 
 after the days of November. General Fleury, an officer 
 of great talent, conducted the works with rapidity. In 
 less than two years there rose, on the left bank of the 
 Rhone, Fort Lamothe at La Guilotiere, and Fort de 
 la Mouche at the Brotteaux ; these were, to a certain 
 degree, connected by entrenchments. Another very 
 considerable fort was erected on the heights of Mori- 
 tessuy, which commanded the course of the Rhone, 
 the Brotteaux, the Quay St. Clair, and La Croix 
 Rousse. Moreover, a strong barrack, which was 
 almost a citadel, was built in the square of the Ber- 
 nardines, and answered for the military possession of 
 that platform, and the central streets of the always tur- 
 bulent Croix Rousse. While these checks and bridles 
 were preparing before their eyes, the people were em- 
 ployed in listening to speeches in republican clubs, and 
 in devising impracticable plans by which they might 
 impose their own conditions on their employers. The 
 miserable tariff, which had caused so much bloodshed, 
 was given up for the time with perfect indifference, as 
 a bit of waste paper ; but they proposed a tribunal, to 
 be called " L" Institution des Prud'hommes," and to 
 consist of an equal number of master manufacturers 
 and workmen, who should amicably arrange between 
 them the rate of wages, &c. &c. The members or dele- 
 gates of the workmen were to receive a salary ; the 
 manufacturers to do their part of the duty for nothing. 
 But when this council of peace was created, and actually 
 met, it soon turned out to be a very pandemonium of 
 confusion and anarchy. The working men carried 
 their passions and prejudices with them ; they acted 
 not as the colleagues, but as the deadly rivals of the 
 
 2i
 
 2*78 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 individuals deputed by the master manufacturers, inter- 
 rupting their debates, and annulling their decisions, as 
 they thought fit. A mob admitted into their place of 
 meeting hissed, hooted, and threatened with personal 
 violence every member that displeased them. Nor was 
 this all. One of the parties interested that is, the 
 working men must have a newspaper of their own ; 
 and this journal, called ' L'Echo de la Fabrique,' had 
 for its auxiliaries other papers, which openly preached 
 a revolution and a republic. These wretched adven- 
 turers at Lyons worked the uninstructed weavers into 
 frenzy, and kept them in a permanent state of madness. 
 Their great weapons of course were calumny and per- 
 sonal defamation. Whatsoever manufacturer or mer- 
 chant did, or even said, anything considered unfavour- 
 able to the cause of the people, was at once accused of 
 every vice and crime, and held up, as a monster, to 
 popular execration and hatred. 
 
 Until the insurrection of November and the appari- 
 tion of this cloud of scribblers there were but few parti- 
 zans of the republic to be found in the workshops of 
 Lyons. The weavers, indeed, had been remarkably 
 indifferent to all sorts of politics and political discus- 
 sions. " A few months, however," proceeds our author, 
 " sufficed these advocates of republican opinions to ob- 
 tain numerous converts among the working men. Re- 
 jected by the middling classes, by the manufacturing 
 and trading interests, and by the vast majority of persons 
 of capacity, the doctrine chose her abode in the work- 
 shops of the weavers, who understood nothing about the 
 matter except a promise that the tariff (for the tariff 
 was dug from its grave) should be secured to them, and 
 that the existing unequal division of property should 
 be reformed. The success of the doctrine was not be- 
 neath its hopes ; it increased with rapidity."
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 279 
 
 Numerous associations were formed among the work- 
 ing men, the object of all of which seems to have been 
 at first little more than the creating of a common fund 
 to feed such of them as should strike or be out of work. 
 But when the propagandists of the Society of the 
 Rights of Man arrived from Paris, matters presently 
 took a more systematic and decided turn. These 
 worthies drew up the laws and by-laws of their clubs 
 and unions, and mainly infused the political spirit into 
 them. 
 
 Under these auspices the different unions formed 
 themselves into two great associations the " Mutuel- 
 lisles," composed of the Chefs d' Atelier, or weavers 
 who had looms of their own; and the " Fcrrandi- 
 niers," composed of Compaynons, or men who worked 
 at the looms of others. Both associations were esta- 
 blished on the same principles, and in their scope and 
 object constituted one corporation. The Mutuellistes 
 were divided into 122 lodges, each lodge consisting of 
 twenty members, one of whom was president; from 
 the united body of 122 presidents there were formed 
 twelve central lodges, each of which named from their 
 own number three workmen to constitute an executive 
 commission, which was thus formed of thirty-six 
 weavers. This executive commission again resolved 
 itself into a permanent directory of only three members. 
 Those who concocted this scheme for the weavers had 
 evidently studied the club-making and constitution- 
 making of the first French revolution. Every new 
 member of this union paid five francs on the day of his 
 admission, and agreed to pay a subscription of one 
 franc per month. The funds, besides administering to 
 men out of work, were charged with the publishing 
 expenses of ' L'Echo de la Fabrique,' the official 
 journal of the society. The society had no fixed, 
 
 2s2
 
 280 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 regular meetings, except on the first Sunday of every 
 month. The other meetings took place according to 
 circumstances. When a proposition was made to the 
 association by one of its members, it was first debated 
 in the inferior or lower lodges, and then carried to the 
 higher lodges ; the executive commission of thirty-six 
 scrutinized the votes. " However," says M. Monfalcon, 
 " this lawless, tyrannic association carried within itself 
 the seeds of inevitable disorganization. Serious dissen- 
 sions arose between lodge and lodge between workshop 
 and workshop between one weaver and another ; the 
 Mutuellistes and Ferrandiniers were soon divided in 
 opinions and interests ; ' L'Echo des Travailleurs' (an- 
 other newspaper in the field!) constituted itself the 
 rival and adversary of ' L'Echo de la Fabrique;' and 
 many working men protested against the spirit of the 
 Weavers' Society. But how was it possible to suppose 
 that harmony and a unity of views could exist for any 
 length of time in an association that abounded with so 
 much prejudice, so much ignorance of the true interests 
 of industry, so many bad passions, and such powerful 
 elements of disorder." 
 
 We have seen that from the month of November, 
 1831, to April, 1834, Lyons never enjoyed fifteen days 
 of tranquillity ; but, from the middle of 1832, a month 
 never passed without an attempt at an open insurrection. 
 We shall pass hastily over these disgusting overtures to 
 a frightful drama, leaving some of them altogether un- 
 mentioned. There is a mixture of farce and atrocity in 
 some that is in the highest degree loathsome. 
 
 During the first days of August, 1832, riotous mobs 
 met in the courts or closes of Casati and Bondin, sing- 
 ing seditious songs and uttering threats against the 
 merchants and manufacturers. They hissed and hooted 
 a patrol of soldiers that chanced to pass, and followed
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 281 
 
 it to the barracks. They evacuated the courts on the 
 arrival of a strong detachment of troops of the line, but 
 the very next morning they assembled again, shouting 
 republican songs, insulting the military at their posts, 
 and keeping a great part of the city in anxiety and 
 alarm. Unfortunately, when any of these disturbers of 
 the public peace were arrested and brought to trial, 
 they were acquitted through the over-indulgence or the 
 timidity of the jury. The jurymen already trembled at 
 the prospect of such fierce and numerous associations. 
 " In the meanwhile," says M. Monfalcon, " the spirit 
 of disorder gained more and more consistence, and the 
 mutiny of to-day became always more serious than that 
 of the preceding evening. It had no longer, exclusively, 
 the colour of trades' unions men spoke in a loud voice 
 about the republic, and the mobs no longer consisted 
 exclusively of working men ; some students were seen 
 among them (beardless youths), certain foreigners, and 
 many members of political clubs. 
 
 " The magistrates had passed a sentence of cor- 
 rectional punishment against some miserable ballad- 
 mongers who had been singing republican hymns in 
 the coffee-houses and public squares. Crowds began to 
 collect in the evening (27th of April, 1833), and pre- 
 sently assumed a seditious character. . Furious cries 
 were heard of ' Long live the Republic,' ' Down with 
 Louis Philippe,' ' Long live the Guillotine,' ' Down 
 with the Aristocrats,' ' Down with the rich,' ' Long 
 live the bonnet-rouge !'* Certain passages of the songs 
 they vociferated sufficiently proved that the sans culottes 
 of 1833 were by no means, in grossness and indecency, 
 behind the sans culottes of 1793. f A dragoon carrying 
 
 * The red-cap the favourite ensign of Robespierre and his party, 
 f Sansculottes literally, " men without breeches." The jaco- 
 bins of the first revolution gloried in this unseemly title. 
 
 2 B3
 
 282 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 a message happened to cross the square of the Celes- 
 tines ; he was immediately saluted by the Lyons cry 
 To the water ! to the Rhone with him !' Some furi- 
 ous fellows even threw themselves upon the dragoon, 
 while others, detaching themselves from the crowds, 
 insulted and shook their fists at a piquet of infantry that 
 was stationed in the square. An individual, who was 
 not a working man, harangued the multitude, and 
 several times repeated to them these words ' Citizens ! 
 we don't wish for a riot it is a revolution we want.' ' : 
 
 For this time the riot soon ceased ; but it was only to 
 begin again on the morrow, when the same war-cries 
 were heard, and a proclamation in the name of the 
 republicans of Lyons was printed and distributed. 
 
 The audacity of the weavers systematically increased; 
 they sang republican hymns and psalms about the tariff, 
 in the same breath. They wrote threatening letters to 
 such of the manufacturers as incurred their displeasure, 
 visited and bullied others in person, and laid not a few 
 of them under an excommunication or interdict. It 
 must be remarked, and ought to be well remembered, 
 that the men acting thus were positively gaining one- 
 third more than they would have done at the prices 
 fixed by themselves in the tariff they had so ardently 
 desired in 1831. 
 
 Chiefly, if not entirely, owing to these mad dissen- 
 sions, the silk-trade began to languish again in Fe- 
 bruary, 1834 ; and this circumstance put it out of the 
 power of the manufacturers to continue such wages as 
 they had been paying. On the 12th of February, the 
 Mutuellistes, by a majority of 2341 over 1290, voted a 
 general strike. The next day riot a loom in Lyons was 
 at work, and many men who had voted in the minority 
 or been anxious to continue their labours in peace, ran 
 away and hid themselves in the country, The next day
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 283 
 
 the funeral of a working man, a member of the asss- 
 elation, which was followed by 1200 artisans regularly 
 marshalled and furnished with flags and other insignia 
 of the societies, occasioned further disturbances and 
 alarms. Our author says " A great number of families 
 left the town, and terror became general among the 
 manufacturers. M^ost of them concealed their goods or 
 packed them up and exported them ; and then, getting 
 their own passports, hurried from Lyons as fast as they 
 could. Considerable amounts of capital thus left our city. 
 Some of our first houses were shut up and abandoned." 
 
 The working men kept the quiet citizens in the 
 anguish of alarm for a week longer. In their incurable 
 ignorance they sent a deputation to the prefect request- 
 ing he would interfere and arbitrate between them and 
 the manufacturers. M. Gasparin gave a flat refusal ; 
 he declared to the delegates that the administration had 
 nothing to do in the matter ; that the weavers were at 
 liberty to work, or not to work, just as they thought fit, 
 and that so long as they attempted no disorder and 
 committed no crime, he had no right to interfere with 
 them. " If," said he, " the laws are violated, the au- 
 thorities must do their duty !" 
 
 As thousands of the weavers were known to be dis- 
 gusted at the tyranny exercised by the unions, and to 
 be eager to return to their work, that they might gain 
 bread for their families, the authorities announced that 
 piquets of infantry would be sent to protect them and 
 their looms. But the very men who had asked for 
 protection, were afraid to avail themselves of it. The 
 executive commission of the Mutuellistes inspired more 
 terror than government inspired confidence. " At last, 
 on the 21st of February, there was some appearance 
 that the problem was approaching its solution. A good 
 many weavers returned to their work ; but the elevated
 
 284 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 Croix Rousse, the true head-quarters of the working 
 population, persisted in its inaction. Even there, how- 
 eVer, a few looms began to move in the course of the 
 morning, but stones were immediately thrown at the 
 windows, and the work ceased." During the day, those 
 who were resolved to hold out quarrelled and fought in 
 the streets with those who Wished to return to work. 
 " The most complete misunderstanding now existed be- 
 tween the associations. The Mutuellistes who had pro- 
 nounced the interdict against the manufacturers, and 
 ordered the general strike, were now the men that wished 
 to resume their work. Those who opposed the measure 
 of returning to work were the Ferrandiniers, or Com- 
 pagnons they demanded from the Mutuellistes, at 
 whose looms they worked, an indemnity for the days 
 they had lost by the turn-out. They even threatened 
 to bring an action for damages. In the evening a very 
 stormy discussion took place in the bosom of the execu- 
 tive council of the Mutuellistes. The president was 
 accused of having sold himself to the Carlists or to the 
 republicans, and of having betrayed the cause of the 
 working classes. A motion was made to arraign him, 
 but Monsieur le President treated the assembly in a 
 cool, off-hand manner, and gave in his resignation. On 
 the 22nd of February work was almost generally re- 
 newed, and on the following day, without any arrange- 
 ments with the manufacturers, without any concessions 
 made to any of the weavers, all the looms were once 
 more in activity." The working men thus gained no- 
 thing ; but, according to M. Charles Dupin, one million 
 of francs was lost to Lyons during the eight days that 
 their strike lasted. 
 
 Soon after these events the French Chambers, by 
 large majorities, voted the law against the unions and 
 associations. " The application of this law was inevi-
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 285 
 
 table : it was destined to strike our coalition in the 
 heart. In no other place did the moral disorder exist 
 in so high a degree as at Lyons. There, there was in- 
 deed a state within a state, and an illegal power bold 
 enough to put itself in open and declared rebellion 
 against the law, and to defy the national power. A 
 republican journal audaciously called the coalition to 
 the combat. * * * * The Society of Mutuellistes de- 
 clared their sitting to be permanent, and opened a 
 debate on the question, whether the law, passed by 
 king, peers, and commons, should be obeyed or not. 
 This was equivalent to a declaration that they were 
 pre-determined not to submit to the law. Accordingly 
 the assembly came to the resolution that they would 
 resist, and drew up a protest, which was a model of non- 
 sense and impertinence." 
 
 On Saturday, the 5th of April, 1834, six men belong- 
 ing to the Mutuelliste Society were to be brought to 
 trial for riots and misdeameanors. A rising of the 
 people and an attack on the court were fully expected 
 by every one; but, notwithstanding, M. Pic, the presi- 
 dent of the tribunal, the judges, and advocates, were 
 averse to surrounding the trial of the Mutuellistes with 
 an unconstitutional display of military force, and re- 
 solved to rely on the usual four gens d'armes at the bar, 
 and on the sacred respect due to justice, for their safety. 
 The Mutuellistes made their arrangements. By an 
 order of the executive commission so many working 
 men were to place themselves in court, so many in the 
 neighbouring square or streets, whilst a certain number 
 were to remain in their lodges waiting for instructions. 
 
 At the hour appointed the trial began. An enormous 
 multitude crowded the court-room, the square, and all 
 the points near at hand. The most violent agitation 
 prevailed. Interrupted and deafened by the noise made
 
 286 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 in the hall of justice, the president said that unless it 
 ceased he must have the court cleared, and proceed on 
 the trial with closed doors. On this groans and shouts 
 of " To the sentence immediately ! no closed doors ! 
 set our brothers at liberty!" rose on all sides. The 
 judges were, obliged to quit their seats. The trial 
 stopped. A witness for the prosecution at that moment 
 left the court. He had deposed with great moderation 
 that the societies had threatened him with violence if 
 he did not leave his work and join them. No sooner 
 was he beyond the door of the court than he was at- 
 tacked by a furious group, who loaded him with abuse 
 and blows, and put his life in imminent danger. Some 
 lawyers with their gowns on ran to rescue the poor 
 fellow; and M. Chegaray, the Procureur de Roi, or 
 attorney-general, disengaged his witness, and seized 
 one of the rioters with his own hands, saying at the 
 same time " I am the Procureur du Roi : I arrest 
 you in the name of the law." The mob gathered round 
 that high legal authority, insulted, threatened, and 
 struck him ; and it was with extreme difficulty some 
 gentlemen succeeded in rescuing him from the weavers. 
 Matters were in this state when sixty foot soldiers 
 marched to the spot. At the sight of this weak detach- 
 ment the fury of the mob increased. The working men 
 threw themselves upon it, and disarmed some of the 
 soldiers, who, hemmed and pressed in on all sides by 
 hundreds of weavers, could scarcely move hand or foot. 
 The commander of the detachment (Captain Paquette) 
 boldly recovered some of the muskets. The riot act 
 was read. " The soldiers then attempted to clear the 
 court-yard and the hall of justice of rioters ; but, 
 crowded and almost smothered by an enormous mass, 
 what could their small number do ? They halted; the 
 working men menaced them, and insisted on knowing
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 287 
 
 whether their muskets were loaded. Some soldiers 
 obeyed, and the sharp ringing sound of their ramrods 
 as they let them drop into their gun-barrels, announced 
 that they were not loaded, and that the multitude had 
 nothing to fear from them. ' Remove your bayonets ! 
 Down with your bayonets !' shouted the rioters. The 
 detachment obeyed the command. Some of the soldiers 
 even drank wine with the Mutuellistes in the court-yard 
 and the square of St. Jean." From these circum- 
 stances the people rashly concluded that, let them do 
 what they might, the garrison was determined not to 
 make use of their arms against them. The judges, the 
 attorney-general, and the commissaries of police ran 
 great risks ; but they escaped, some through a con- 
 cealed door, and others through a window that gave 
 access to a hay-loft. M. Arnaud, one of the chief 
 police-officers, was cut through the palm of the hand 
 by a poniard or knife. 
 
 On the next day, another funeral of a Mutuelliste 
 gave the association an opportunity of deploying its 
 forces. Eight thousand weavers, among whom was a 
 certain number of members of the Paris Society of the 
 Rights of Man, followed the body to the grave in com- 
 pact military order. In the evening numerous bands 
 marched through the principal streets, singing " La 
 Marseillaise," and shouting, " Down with the tyrants !" 
 " Long live the republic !" " Death to the juste, 
 milieu /" On the morrow a greater number of manu- 
 facturers and capitalists than ever sent off what pro- 
 perty they could, and fled from Lyons with their families. 
 It was evident that the city was clearing, to become 
 once more a field of battle. 
 
 After the scene at the courts of justice, the most 
 violent of the republicans and weavers proposed that 
 the blow should be struck immediately. The question
 
 288 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 was debated in their lodges and general assemblies, 
 and though, as usual, there was a wide and angry dif- 
 ference of opinion, the majority voted that the standard 
 of revolt should be raised on the 9th of April, the day 
 on which the trial of the six Mutuellistes was to be 
 resumed. They were confident of being victorious, as 
 they had been in November, 1831. But forts and 
 strong barracks had been raised since then, and the 
 government was in other respects well prepared. The 
 garrison, including troops of all kinds, amounted this 
 time to 10,500 men ; and so far from being mutinous or 
 ill-disposed, as the anarchists fancied, they were resolved 
 to a man to stand by the government and the cause of 
 social order, and to do their duty. 
 
 " On Wednesday, the 9th of April, at seven o'clock 
 in the morning, the soldiers were at their posts with 
 loaded muskets, cartridge-boxes filled, their knapsacks 
 on their shoulders, and with rations for two days. * * * 
 They were disposed in four separate divisions : General 
 Fleury was at La Croix Rousse ; Colonel Diettman 
 at the Hotel de Ville ; General Buchet at the Arch- 
 bishop's Palace ; Lieutenant-general Aymard, the 
 commander-in-chief, at the square of Bellecour. * * * * 
 
 At eight o'clock, M. B informed M. Gasparin, 
 
 the prefect, that the chiefs of the section of the Society 
 of the Rights of Man were assembled at a house close 
 by. He moreover brought a heap of republican pro- 
 clamations wet from the press. A member of the 
 municipality proposed the immediate arrest of men 
 whose intentions were no longer doubtful to any one ; 
 but another member of the same body showed the dis- 
 advantage there would be in exercising such an act of 
 authority before the commencement of hostilities by 
 the insurgents in the public streets. * * * It was there- 
 fore agreed that the republicans should be left to act.
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 289 
 
 " At half-past nine o'clock the mob began to fill 
 the streets and squares. * * * The authorities were 
 again asked to order the arrest of some of the chiefs of 
 the associations who were abroad with the crowd. The 
 answer was, No ! as yet they have committed no dis- 
 order, and the authorities ought to avoid even the 
 appearance of aggression. they must be struck before 
 they strike. * * * A man placed himself in the midst 
 of the square of St. Jean, and read a republican pro- 
 clamation, addressed to the soldiers and the working- 
 classes. The colonel of the gens-d'armes, passing at 
 the moment, tore the proclamation from his hands, 
 and arrested the reader. Shortly after, the crowded 
 square of St. Jean was suddenly arid completely evacu- 
 ated ; not a republican, not a single weaver was to be 
 seen : the most absolute solitude and perfect silence 
 reigned there. 
 
 " But the insurgents had begun to raise their barri- 
 cades in the street St. Jean, and in all the streets and 
 lanes that opened upon the square. The scaffolding 
 and materials of some houses that were building 
 beams, planks, stones, carts, and overturned carriages 
 served to form these lines of defence, and the pavement 
 was taken from the streets to be thrown at the soldiers. 
 * * * When informed that a second, a third, a fourth 
 barricade was thus rising, General Buchet ordered half 
 a battalion of infantry and a platoon of gens-d'armes 
 to clear the public way, but to refrain from firing until 
 an open act of hostility was committed. * A few 
 
 soldiers and some policemen rushed against the first 
 barricade, and attempted to overturn it ; they were 
 instantly assailed by heavy enormous stones, thrown 
 by the insurgents from the gates, windows, house-tops, 
 &c. Here, then, was not only a resistance, but an 
 
 2c
 
 290 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 aggression a carbine was discharged from the detach- 
 ment of troops the gens-d'armes commenced the fire. 
 
 " During this time the trial of the six Mutuellistes 
 had begun. At the report of the first shot, the advo- 
 cate for the accused, M. Jules Favre, stopped short 
 he could not, he said, continue to plead whilst the 
 citizens were slaughtered in the streets. The whole 
 audience was violently excited. M. Pic, the president, 
 broke up the court. The next moment judges, magis- 
 trates, advocates, officers, and all, rushed pell-mell out 
 of court, and endeavoured to gain their different homes 
 before the scene of warfare should have time to extend 
 itself." 
 
 Once begun, the combat soon thickened. The in- 
 surgents were nearly everywhere, plentifully provided 
 with arms and ammunition barricades rose at the 
 same time in all directions the church-bells rang the 
 fearful tocsin, to which the artillery of the troops soon 
 roared a reply. The civil authorities, with M. Gas- 
 parin, the prefect, at their head, fought on foot in the 
 streets with the common soldiers. AVhilst the troops 
 Avere exposed, the working men were covered and pro- 
 tected, as in 1831 ; but after some heavy losses fi'om 
 their unseen enemies, the soldiers began to employ 
 petards against the houses in which the insurgents were 
 crowded. One house had particularly annoyed the 
 troops with a sustained fire of musketry and discharge 
 of stones, bricks, and tiles. The soldiers blew the 
 doors down with a petard, and rushed into the house, 
 where the insurgents threw down their arms, and on 
 their knees begged for their lives. They were made 
 prisoners. Later in the day the soldiers forced their 
 way into another house in the same manner ; but here 
 the petard not only blew down the door, but set fire
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTION'S AT LYONS. 291 
 
 to the house. The flames communicated to the edi- 
 fices on either side, and, fed and driven by a violent 
 north wind, soon threatened the whole of a very popu- 
 lous district. The soldiers and the police were too 
 busily engaged fighting at all points to be able to at- 
 tend to the conflagration. Twenty families were burnt 
 out of house and home. This was only one trifling 
 episode in the history of horrors. Hundreds of peace- 
 ful, well-disposed citizens suffered in their lives, limbs, 
 or property. Many innocent children fell mothers 
 were killed with their infants in their arms the aged 
 and the bedridden were sent to a bloody grave. 
 Wherever there was a house that afforded a good 
 position, the insurgents, without caring for its occu- 
 pants or proprietors, took possession of it, to fire upon 
 the troops and keep themselves under cover. Then, 
 came the attack of the troops, the petards, and, at 
 times, the artillery. The innocent, cooped up with the 
 guilty, fell with them. Shots and balls could not, and 
 the bayonets of the infuriated soldiery iconld not, 
 always distinguish between them. At the end of this, 
 the first day's fighting, the determination of the soldiers 
 had triumphed over the obstinacy of the insurgents at 
 every point where they had been ordered to attack 
 them. The communications of the republicans were 
 cut off; they were driven into the long narrow streets 
 in the interior of the town, and placed in the absolute 
 impossibility either of receiving succour from without, 
 or of communicating and concerting measures with 
 one another. 
 
 " On the second day (April 10th) the insurgents 
 challenged a renewal of the combat at six A. M., by 
 ringing the tocsin from St. Bonaventure and other 
 churches. The firing, however, did not begin till eight 
 o'clock. The street warfare presented much the same 
 
 2c2
 
 292 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 character as the preceding clay : but at La Guillotiere 
 the battle became still more furious. A multitude of 
 working men, placed on the roof-tops and behind 
 chimneys, fired incessantly on the troops ; consequently 
 whole batteries of artillery thundered on that populous 
 suburb, and soon wrapped many houses in flames. The 
 main street was literally swept by the cannon : a large 
 and beautiful house situated at one corner was set on 
 fire the flames rapidly spread from house to house, and 
 in a short time all that part of La Guillotiere was 
 nothing but a heap of smoking ruins. * * * At another 
 point near the hospital the troops kept up a tremendous 
 fire of musketry against a party of working men who 
 lay there in ambush behind a barricade. The balls 
 rebounding (par ricochet) entered in at the windows of 
 the houses and wounded many females. * * * The 
 tactics of the combating parties continued to be these 
 1. The insurgents took good care not to expose them- 
 selves on the quays, in the squares, or wide streets 
 much less in a fair, open field ; they limited their opera- 
 tions to ringing the tocsin and firing on the soldiery 
 as riflemen. * * * 2. On their side the troops 
 occupied the forts, the bridges, the quays, the squares, 
 the gates, and all the avenues of exterior and in- 
 terior communication, and took good care not to pene- 
 trate into the long, narrow streets of the town, by 
 doing which they had suffered so severely in 1831." 
 This prudent system may account for the soldiers 
 having been six days in suppressing the insurrection ; 
 but had a more hazardous plan been adopted, from 
 the numbers and fury of the enemy, Lyons might 
 have been lost and ruined in one or two days. Our 
 readers will also have perceived that on the present 
 occasion the commanders of the troops were far from 
 showing so scrupulous an attention to the preservation
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 293 
 
 of houses and property as had been observed by General 
 Roguet during the days of November. 
 
 The colour adopted by the insurgents was black. 
 " At noon, the black flag floated over the church of 
 Saint Polycarpe, at L'Antiquaille, at Fourvieres, at 
 Saint Nizier, and at the Cordeliers. The stunning 
 tocsin resounded on all sides ! * * * Colonel Mounier, 
 at the head of some grenadiers, ordered the destruction 
 of a barricade in the street of St. Marcel. The colonel 
 directed the attack in person : he wanted to show his 
 men how easy it was to carry such a defence ; he jumped 
 upon the barricade, and was shot dead by a musket, 
 fired point-blank. The death of that brave officer in- 
 furiated the grenadiers ; they threw themselves upon 
 the barricade, scaled it, beat it to the ground, and 
 pursued the insurgents, who fled in all directions. A 
 few of the soldiers saw some of the republicans seek 
 refuge in a corner house] it was from that direction 
 that the fatal shot which killed poor Mounier was fired. 
 AVith blind fury the grenadiers rushed into the house, 
 ran up the stairs, forced open the room doors, and, dis- 
 charging their pieces, killed, among others, one of the 
 most honourable and esteemed citizens of Lyons M. 
 Joseph Remond. Thus, the death of the brave Colonel 
 Mounier was followed by a not less deplorable accident ! 
 Mournful results of civil wars like these, where the lives 
 of so many innocent persons expiate the offences of the 
 factious, who themselves too often escape unpunished ! 
 * * * During this day, the buildings of the College 
 were set on fire three times, and three times the fire 
 was extinguished ; the library was threatened with de- 
 struction, but fortunately that rich literary treasure did 
 not sustain the least injury. * At the end of 
 
 this day, if the garrison had obtained no decisive suc- 
 
 2c3
 
 294 POPULAR TUMULTS. [SEC. IV. 
 
 cess, it had at least lost none of its advantages. The 
 insurgents had nowhere gained ground, though they 
 had fought with more obstinacy than had been expected. 
 * * * It was seen that the populace of Lyons would 
 not rise to join them en masse, as they had done in 
 1831." 
 
 We cannot follow the details of the deplorable con- 
 test day by day. After some vicissitudes, but no very 
 serious check or loss, the troops of the line had cleared 
 the suburbs, and triumphed everywhere, by the evening 
 of Saturday, the 12th of April, the fourth day of the 
 conflict. Peaceful and respectable citizens of all classes, 
 who had been shut up in their houses many of them 
 without provisions, and not a few with the dead bodies 
 of their friends, which they were unable to bury began 
 this evening freely to move about through most of the 
 streets. Physicians were again able to visit the sick 
 surgeons to attend the wounded. How much of recent 
 human misery is implied by this short sentence ! There 
 was a little fighting on Sunday, the 13th, but it pro- 
 ceeded only from the obstinacy of a few of the insur- 
 gents, and ended in their destruction, with the death 
 of a few soldiers. On Monday, the 14th, in the last 
 strong lanes and houses that held out in La Croix 
 Rousse, nearly every insurgent was shot or run through 
 by the bayonets of the troops. It was only towards 
 the end of the struggle that the weavers' and repub- 
 licans' lives were much exposed. 
 
 We conclude this mournful story with a few detached 
 passages from M. Monfalcon's volume : " The result 
 of the conflict could not be a matter of doubt for a mo- 
 ment. But what a triumph ! Great God ! Another 
 victory like this, and Lyons will no longer exist. What 
 congratulations are possible in the presence of such dis-
 
 SEC. IV.] INSURRECTIONS AT LYONS. 295 
 
 asters, and to whom can we offer them ? * * * The 
 appearance of Lyons is dreadful ruined houses and 
 public edifices desolation ruins in all directions ! * * * 
 The insurrection of 1831 lasted only three days, but the 
 war was more serious, obstinate, and furious ; there was 
 less destruction of property, but the number of deaths 
 was greater. The insurrection of 1 834 dragged on for 
 six days ; there were fewer engagements, fewer killed 
 and wounded, but the destruction of property was 
 enormous. 
 
 " But if the political question has been settled, if 
 public order, and the constitutional monarchy have 
 triumphed, industry and trade have received a shock 
 from which they can never entirely recover ! This 
 second insurrection, after so many riots and the days 
 of November, has struck the silk manufacture with 
 a fatal blow; it may not wholly perish, but it must 
 evidently be grievously injured. Already enormous 
 amounts of capital have abandoned a place become 
 so turbulent and dangerous; already a multitude 
 of weavers have quitted the city for ever; already 
 many manufacturing houses have begun to trans- 
 fer their business to the departments of Isere, L'Ain, 
 Saone and Loire, and L'Ailier. Looms are rising in 
 all the rural districts in our neighbourhood; yet a 
 few years, and not a single piece of plain silk will be 
 woven in Lyons or its suburbs. The manufacture of 
 fancy silks may remain it cannot emigrate so easily ; 
 but the number of looms will be reduced by two-thirds, 
 and the consequence of this commercial revolution will 
 be most deplorable. A considerable and continually 
 increasing depreciation of such property as houses, 
 shops, &c. is now felt ; all the families that are not at- 
 tached to Lyons by the most binding interests, hasten to
 
 296 POPULAR TUMULTS. [sEC. IV. 
 
 quit a city, where, for three years, they have, every day, 
 had to dread a riot or a state of siege. Many manu- 
 facturers have wholly given up business, since they 
 could not exercise it without so much danger. * * * 
 Such are the results of unions and coalitions such the 
 effects of the sad counsels given to the working classes, 
 by men who called themselves their friends." 
 
 The preceding narrative shows what must always be 
 the result, in the social as well as in the physical world, 
 of any attempt to fight against the laws of nature. The 
 project of permanently keeping up wages at a certain 
 point by means of regulations and compacts, of tariffs 
 and trades unions, is just as vain and preposterous as 
 would be the attempt to erect a building with its 
 foundations in the air instead of on the ground. As 
 the principle of gravitation would forbid the success of 
 the latter scheme, so a principle as strong as that of 
 gravitation forbids the success of the former. The 
 wages in any employment are, and only can be, paid 
 from that portion of the returns of the capitalist which 
 remain to him after he has obtained for himself the 
 ordinary rate of profit upon his capital. Unless you 
 can compel capitalists to employ their capital in certain 
 departments of industry with less profit or advantage 
 to themselves than they might derive from employing 
 the same capital in other businesses, nothing can keep 
 up wages beyond the point determined by this natural 
 law. For if the capitalist is to have his fair profit, and 
 the workmen will not be satisfied with the whole re- 
 mainder of the returns yielded by the trade or manufac- 
 ture, from what fund are the higher wages to be paid ? 
 The question is clearly one to which no answer can be
 
 CONCLUSION. 29*7 
 
 given; and it settles the controversy. It is evident 
 that, in the circumstances supposed, nothing but a rise 
 of prices can afford the means of paying higher wages. 
 But how is this result, a rise of prices, ever to be pro- 
 duced either by the empty proclamation of a scale of 
 wages, or by the application of force and violence to 
 compel its adoption ? Prices are determined solely by 
 the balance between the supply and the demand. It 
 is only by changing that relation that prices can be 
 affected ; and that relation can be changed only in two 
 ways : either by an alteration in the quantity of the 
 demand, or by an alteration in the quantity of the 
 supply. Nobody will pretend that any agreement be- 
 tween the workman and his employer, or any compul- 
 sion exercised by the one upon the other, can alter the 
 public demand for the goods produced by the combina- 
 tion of the capital of the one and the labour of the 
 other. But as little can any alteration be so effected 
 in the supply of the said goods. To be sure, if there 
 were only one set of masters and one set of workmen 
 from whom the goods could be obtained, they might 
 make the supply anything they chose ; but this is not 
 and cannot be the case except in very extraordinary 
 circumstances ; no such monopoly exists generally, or 
 could by any contrivance be generally established. It 
 would be as ruinous to the interests of industry as it 
 would be unjust and oppressive to all other social inter- 
 ests, if it could be established. No political or other ar- 
 rangement, for instance, could confine the manufacture 
 of silk for the whole world to the city of Lyons. If, then, 
 there were no monopoly, how could the supply of the 
 commodity be permanently kept down to any particular 
 point by the efforts either of the workmen or of the 
 masters, or of both together ? The existing workmen 
 cannot prevent other workmen, in the same town or
 
 298 POPULAR, TUMULTS. 
 
 elsewhere, from producing what they themselves refuse 
 to produce ; the capitalists already engaged in the trade 
 cannot prevent other capitalists from engaging in it 
 also, should other capitalists see good to do so. And 
 new workmen and new capitalists will or will not resort 
 to the business just according to what the wages and 
 profits to be made in it are as compared with the wages 
 and profits to be made in other businesses ; that is to 
 say, when the wages or profits to be made in it are 
 comparatively high, new adventurers will crowd into 
 it; when otherwise, nothing of this kind will take 
 place. This is the law that governs the distribution 
 of labour and capital, when both are left free, just as 
 much as it is the law regulating the distribution of 
 water, that it will not settle upon a height when there 
 is any unoccupied hollow to which it has access. The 
 private arrangements, therefore, of the masters and 
 workmen actually engaged in the business, entered into 
 with the object of keeping wages at a certain point, can 
 have no effect whatever ; such attempts are as vain as 
 would be a combination of the same or any other classes 
 of persons to keep the barometer at a certain point ; 
 for the rate of wages, as well as that of profits, is, we 
 have seen, unquestionably and inevitably determined 
 by causes just as far removed beyond the control of any 
 particular set of workmen or masters as are the causes 
 that influence the blowing of the winds and the motion 
 of the clouds. If wages are low in consequence of 
 prices being low, and if that low rate of prices is occa- 
 sioned by over-production, to raise wages, if that could 
 be done, would not check over-production, but the con- 
 trary ; for the high wages would only bring more work- 
 men and more produce. Wages are the price of labour, 
 as other prices are of other commodities. Raise prices 
 in any particular market, in the market of labour as in
 
 299 
 
 any other, and you immediately bring up an additional 
 supply of commodities to that market. The attempt, 
 therefore, to bolster up wages artificially and against 
 the law of nature, if it could have any effect at all, 
 would have the directly opposite tendency to that con- 
 templated by its authors. But, in truth, the endeavour 
 is as idle and inefficient in every way as it would be to 
 try to lay the waves of the sea by scourging them, or 
 to fetter the flowing of the tide. 
 
 But no vain attempt like this can be made, and the 
 strength and energies of men exerted upon it, without 
 much loss and much mischief. There is, in the first 
 place, power thrown away force, and knowledge, and 
 ingenuity wasted, and worse than wasted much pre- 
 cious time misspent and gone. But this is not all, nor 
 the worst of all. In these struggles the calm reason 
 of men does not long retain its ascendency; the pas- 
 sions are immediately called up, in all their fierceness 
 and bitterness, by the opposition of interests, of opi- 
 nions, and of efforts ; above all, the disappointment 
 and mortification of the baffled aspirants after an im- 
 possibility speedily renders them furious and reckless. 
 From debate to menaces, from menaces to actual vio- 
 lence that is the short course which the contest runs 
 till, as in these sad events at Lyons, all things are 
 enveloped in a tempest of anarchy and blood. Then 
 none can tell what may befall what ruin and misery, 
 how wide-spread and long in passing away, may be the 
 issue of what was originally, as we have said, nothing 
 more than a mistake in political economy. 
 
 There is another view in which the attempt to keep 
 up wages by a fixed tariff may be looked at. It is 
 fraught with injustice and cruelty to many of the work- 
 men themselves. If A, B, and C are three workmen, 
 although A and B may find it convenient or for their
 
 300 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 advantage to refuse to take employment under a certain 
 rate of wages, why should C, to whom it may bring 
 the highest degree of inconvenience and distress so to 
 stand out at that particular moment, be compelled to 
 act as they do ? Why should he be deprived of work 
 which he is willing and would be glad to take, merely 
 because it is work which the others would not take ? 
 This is the spirit and substance of the most tyrannical 
 oppression. It is also the grossest injustice. To show 
 this the more clearly, let us adopt for a moment a 
 phraseology which may be somewhat novel in form, 
 but is perfectly correct in fact. Let us call money a 
 commodity, and that which is exchanged for it its 
 price. A man may want to buy money as he may 
 want to buy anything else ; and as he pays for most 
 other things in money, so he may pay for money with 
 something else. Here, let us suppose, are a number 
 of workmen on the one hand, and a capitalist or em- 
 ployer of workmen on the other. As the capitalist 
 may be said to want to buy labour with his money, so 
 the workmen may be said to want to buy money with 
 their labour. Each workman wants a certain sum of 
 money, and he comes to offer a certain amount of 
 labour in exchange for it. Who best deserves the sum 
 of money in question ? The workman who will only 
 give three days' labour, or he who is willing to give 
 four days' labour for it ? The latter, undoubtedly. It 
 is he whose anxiety to procure the money is the 
 strongest, and whose necessities also, it may fairly be 
 presumed, are the most pressing. Very likely he has 
 a wife and family dependent upon him for their bread, 
 while the other has no one but himself to maintain, 
 and therefore will suffer much less if he should remain 
 idle. On every principle of fairness, therefore, and of 
 regard to the rights of labour itself, the man who is
 
 CONCLUSION. 301 
 
 willing to work at the lowest wages should have the 
 employment; for, in exchange for the thing he wishes 
 to purchase, which is here a certain amount of money, 
 he offers the highest price. Yet the scheme of a fixed 
 rate of wages would give the desired commodity not to 
 him, but, in preference, to another who offers less for it, 
 and whose need for it is probably as much less as his 
 offer. 
 
 And this leads us to say a few words before we 
 conclude upon another case in which the labour- 
 ing classes have sometimes resorted to tumult and 
 violence as a mode of remedying an evil to which 
 the community is occasionally subjected. The poor 
 have often suffered dreadfully from a deficiency in the 
 usual supply of food ; and in these circumstances they 
 have sometimes broken out into rioting, with the view 
 both of obtaining wherewithal to satisfy their immediate 
 wants, and of also setting to rights what they conceive 
 to be some wrong order of things, out of which their 
 misery has arisen. What acts of illegal violence are 
 committed on such occasions many persons, among the 
 perpetrators and others, will defend on the ground that, 
 although legally wrong, they are stiil morally right. 
 They may not, for instance, conceive themselves en- 
 titled to break into a store of wheat or flour, into the 
 farmer's barn, or the corn-factor's granary, or the 
 baker's shop, and to take thence what they want with- 
 out paying anything for it at all; but they will yet 
 hold themselves quite justified in compelling those who 
 are known to have agricultural produce in their posses- 
 sion to bring it to market and dispose of it at a lower 
 than the current price at any price, in fact, fixed by 
 themselves. Many persons, so far from thinking that 
 there is any unfairness in such a use of force as this, 
 look upon the transaction as particularly marked by 
 
 2D
 
 302 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 the opposite quality. The man, they say, is only made 
 to part with his grain at a just and reasonable price, 
 instead of being allowed to keep it till he can get more 
 for it than it is worth. Such reasoning as this is often 
 to be heard from persons much above the class of whom 
 mobs are generally composed ; but it is very loose and 
 very false reasoning for all that. 
 
 The persons who talk or think in this manner must 
 have very confused and inaccurate notions as to what 
 ought to determine the price of a commodity. What, 
 for example, is it which they call a fair price for corn ? 
 Probably most of them, if asked this question, would 
 be a little puzzled how to answer it ; and they would 
 not at last all answer it in the same way. One would 
 perhaps say that a fair price is such a price as the rate 
 of wages at the time enables the labourer to afford ; 
 another, that it is such a price as will pay the seller 
 the expenses of production, with the ordinary profits 
 upon capital ; while a third would be found to have no 
 other notion of a fair price than that it is the price for 
 which the commodity is usually sold. Upon some one 
 or other of these principles, indeed, the conduct of the 
 mob in the case we are considering might possibly be 
 defended as dictated by something like justice, although 
 it would be necessary to decide which of the several 
 doctrines was really the correct one ; for they would 
 not generally all lead to the same conclusion. The 
 truth is, however, that none of them is correct. 
 
 The fair price of any commodity is nothing else than 
 the highest price which, under a system of free compe- 
 tition, the person who has it to sell can get for it. This 
 statement may sound a little startling at first to those 
 who have not been in the habit of considering such 
 subjects ; but a very few words will make its truth evi- 
 dent to every reader. Let us take, for example, the
 
 CONCLUSION. 303 
 
 case of corn in a year of scarcity. The price is much 
 higher than usual : what is really the cause of this ? Is 
 it, as many would seem to imagine, that the farmers 
 have entered into a combination to keep the corn from 
 the markets ? Not at all. If there be any combina- 
 tion, it is all on the part of the public s of the pur- 
 chasers, of the poorer classes themselves among the 
 rest. It is they who combine to force the farmer to 
 act as he is doing. For what is really the state of the 
 case? There is, in fact, not a sufficient supply to 
 satisfy the demand ; that is to say, some at least, if not 
 all, must diminish their usual rate of consumption. It 
 is impossible to make a smaller quantity of wheat, or 
 of anything else, go as far as a larger ; the number of 
 consumers, therefore, remaining the same, while the 
 amount of the produce to be divided among them is 
 lessened, it is perfectly clear that all cannot have the 
 same share they used to have. Now we say that the 
 consequence of this state of things is, strange as it may 
 appear, a combination or general effort on the part of 
 the public to raise the price of corn. The farmer is 
 perfectly passive. Of two prices which are offered to 
 him, he merely takes the highest. In so choosing he 
 no doubt consults his own interest, as, like every other 
 man, he has a right to do ; but it is not the less true 
 that he adopts at the same time the only conduct which 
 could be considered fair to others. To proceed upon 
 an opposite principle to take the lower of the two 
 prices in preference to the higher would not be more 
 unjust to himself than it would be to his customers. 
 For suppose those customers to be two or more poor 
 men, who come to purchase each a bushel of flour. 
 Each names a price lie is willing or able to give. What 
 would the man who has offered most think of the jus- 
 tice with which he was treated if his money should be
 
 304 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 refused and one of the others should obtain the flour? 
 AVould he not say that nothing could be more unfair 
 than such treatment ? He wanted the food, perhaps, 
 for his famishing family, and he had been enabled to 
 offer a greater price for it than any of the others, either 
 by working harder than they had done to obtain the 
 money, or by submitting to greater privations in some 
 other way, possibly in some of his own enjoyments or 
 comforts, that he might secure this bread for his wife 
 and children. And yet another has got it for less 
 money, having had less to give, probably only because 
 he had not toiled so long as he has done, or made such 
 prudent and painful savings in times of greater abund- 
 ance, or because he has spent part of his earnings or 
 means to spend it in the purchase of something else, 
 it may be of some useless or pernicious indulgence, 
 which the other is contented to go without. But you 
 will perhaps say, why not let them all have the article 
 at the low price ? A very good proposition, certainly, 
 for removing the scarcity, only that it happens to be 
 impracticable. It is forgotten that the very reason 
 why one man offers a higher price than another for the 
 article is, that there is not enough of it for all. In the 
 case we have supposed, every man wants a bushel ; but, 
 in point of fact, only the person who offers the high 
 price obtains the whole of that quantity ; each of 'the 
 others must be contented to receive just so much of it 
 as the money which he has to give will purchase at 
 the same rate of payment. It is in this way, and in 
 this way alone, that the diminished supply is accom- 
 modated to the undiminished demand. Every man 
 must suffer some inconvenience from the general pres- 
 sure. Either he must reduce his usual consumption of 
 bread, or he must save upon some other article in order 
 to obtain the same quantity as formerly of this.
 
 CONCLUSION. 305 
 
 It must now be clearly perceived how little the seller 
 of corn ever has to do in occasioning any rise which 
 may take place in its price. In fact, he has nothing 
 to do with the matter whatever. That the price of the 
 commodity should rise when its supply is diminished, 
 the demand continuing the same, is not only a conse- 
 quence which follows of necessity, but one without 
 which a season of scarcity would be an infinitely greater 
 calamity even than it is. If in such a season the far- 
 mers were to be in some way or other universally com- 
 pelled to sell the produce of their fields for the ordinary 
 prices, the distribution of food throughout the commu- 
 nity could only be effected by a general scramble, or a 
 large portion of the population would be left without 
 even a mouthful, and would altogether perish. 
 
 What injustice, then, and what folly, too, is it not 
 to cry out, as many do in such circumstances, against 
 the holders of grain for not bringing the article to mar- 
 ket until they themselves think fit to do so, or for re- 
 fusing to dispose of it at what some other people choose 
 to call a fair price ! The only fair price, we repeat, is 
 the highest price that can be got ; and to compel the 
 dealer to give away his commodity for any lower would 
 be the height of unfairness both to him and to the pub- 
 lic at large. Yet this, as we have said, is what mobs 
 sometimes take it into their heads to do, and to main- 
 tain at the same time that, in so acting, they are not 
 only committing no injustice, but are performing a very 
 proper arid a very useful part. People may sometimes 
 be excited by hunger to plunge into such excesses ; but 
 it is right they should understand the true character of 
 the proceedings in whicli they engage. The man 
 whose corn they drive to market without his consent, 
 and dispose of at their own price, is just as truly plun- 
 dered by them as if they were to enter his house and 
 
 2n3
 
 306 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 carry away his money or his goods. Nor have the 
 perpetrators of such acts of violence any pretensions 
 whatever to be regarded as public benefactors. They 
 are, in fact, robbing the public, as well as the owner 
 of the corn; for every sack which is thus undersold 
 tends to keep up or to advance the price of what still 
 remains in the granaries. The effect may be imper- 
 ceptible enough when only a few such riotous seizures 
 take place ; but if they were very common, it would be 
 heavily felt. If anything like half the corn in the 
 country, for instance, in a year of scarcity, were to be 
 thus disposed of for less than its value, the rise thereby 
 occasioned in the price of the remainder would be im- 
 mense. 
 
 A farmer, it is true, may sometimes decline bringing 
 his grain to market even when the demand for it is so 
 keen that a very considerable advance on the usual 
 prices would be willingly given. " In such a case as 
 this," some will say, " where would be the harm of 
 compelling him to sell ? The price which he will re- 
 ceive is much more than a remunerating one ; he can- 
 not therefore be wronged in being forced to be satisfied 
 with it. Perhaps, if he wait longer, he will not get so 
 much." Yes, it certainly is possible that he may put 
 off selling too long for his own interest ; but until it 
 is found that he has done so until the fall of prices 
 has come, and it is seen that his corn still remains un- 
 sold who can say whether this will happen or not ? 
 A rise instead of a fall of prices may take place after 
 the mob have taken into their hands the business of 
 disposing in their own way of the contents of his barns; 
 and then he clearly has been wronged, and the case is 
 precisely the same with that which has been already 
 considered. He has been plundered, by his property 
 having been sold without his consent for less than its
 
 CONCLUSION. 307 
 
 value. This, indeed, it is obvious, is the case that will 
 commonly happen ; for although a few individuals may 
 allow the market to turn before they come forward to 
 sell, it is not to be supposed that the generality of spe- 
 culators will fall into that blunder. 
 
 It remains only to notice another false and mis- 
 chievous notion which the labouring classes in this 
 country, both agricultural and manufacturing, have 
 sometimes taken up and acted upon in times of low 
 wages or scarcity of employment ; namely, that ma- 
 chinery has been the cause of their sufferings. In this 
 belief they have set themselves to destroy the various 
 contrivances which come under that name, in the hope 
 of thereby invigorating their depressed industry. Now 
 we are not going to take the trouble of arguing the 
 question of the propriety of destroying machinery with 
 those persons who do not care whether the act be right 
 or wrong, provided it be one by which they may give 
 themselves some chance of bettering their condition for 
 the moment. Such persons engage in the breaking of 
 machines and in other riotous outrages on the same 
 principle on which other desperate characters go to rob 
 on the highway. With such it would be quite absurd 
 to reason. If we were even to attempt to make some 
 impression upon them by entering calmly upon an ex- 
 amination of the risks to which they expose themselves 
 as compared with the value of what they may possibly 
 gain by their lawless proceedings, in the design of 
 proving that, looking no farther than to the proba- 
 bilities of profit and loss, their speculation is a 
 wretchedly bad one, they would, in all likelihood, be 
 very little swayed by any conclusions of ours in regard 
 to a matter of which they would naturally conceive 
 themselves to be so much better judges ; or, at any 
 rate, they certainly would not be deterred from the ven-
 
 308 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 ture, although ever so well convinced of its folly on 
 such general considerations. To persons of this de- 
 scription, therefore, we have nothing to say. But of 
 those who join mobs to break machinery, or who, if 
 they do not actually take part in what they know to be 
 an illegal proceeding, are at least with the rioters in 
 their hearts, we believe the vast majority are persons 
 whose honest impression is, that the act in question, 
 although condemned by the law, is not morally or really 
 wrong, and who are led to aid or countenance the cause 
 of'disorder solely by that conviction. We believe that 
 if we could succeed in making such persons perceive 
 that the breaking of machines is as unjust as it is un- 
 lawful, they would for the future withhold themselves 
 from all participation in such outrage. 
 
 We say this with the more confidence, when we con- 
 sider what the feelings and motives really are which 
 sometimes drive the labouring classes thus to rise and 
 destroy machinery. It is impossible not to sympathize in 
 some degree with men who, if they go forth to injure the 
 property of their neighbours, do so merely with the view 
 of thereby making room, as they conceive, for their own 
 labour. They do not wish to live either by plunder or 
 in idleness. All that they desire is daily bread for their 
 daily toil, the liberty of working hard for enough to 
 sustain life in themselves and their children. There 
 is everything, we say, in such a feeling as this, to com- 
 mand our sympathy and even our respect. And those 
 whom it actuates, we are quite sure, cannot be insen- 
 sible to the claims of reason and justice on this or any 
 other subject, if fairly brought under their notice. 
 
 In the first place, then, it will be acknowledged even 
 by those who approve of such proceedings as we are 
 now considering, that they never can have the effect 
 of relieving the labouring classes by a reduction of
 
 CONCLUSION. 309 
 
 prices. It will not be pretended by anybody that this 
 is one of the benefits which would be produced even by 
 the destruction of every piece of machinery in the king- 
 dom. On the contrary, it must be obvious to all that 
 in that case there would follow inevitably an enhance- 
 ment in the price of almost every article of consump- 
 tion. In respect to certain articles the rise of price 
 would be so great as to compel the poorer classes to 
 cease from their use altogether ; some of these, such as 
 cotton cloths, for instance, being now used by them in 
 great quantities, and ranking among the most indis- 
 pensable of their comforts. So, if all the machines 
 used in any one branch of industry only were destroyed, 
 a rise would infallibly take place in the price of the 
 produce of that species of labour, whatever it might be. 
 If even thrashing-machines, for example, were to be 
 put an end to, although they are not among those con- 
 trivances which most diminish the cost of production, 
 still there can be no doubt that their abolition would 
 raise the price of corn and of bread. Let it then, we 
 repeat, be recollected by those who would allow no 
 labour but that of the hand, that whatever other advan- 
 tages their scheme might have if introduced, it cer- 
 tainly would not bring us either cheaper bread or 
 cheaper clothing, or indeed anything but a rise in the 
 price of whatever even the poorest of us consumes. 
 
 The relief, therefore, which is sought by the destruc- 
 tion of machinery can only be expected to come in the 
 other shape, of more abundant employment and a 
 higher rate of wages. Would it indeed bring this 
 benefit ? There can be no doubt whatever that it 
 would do the very reverse. To prove this it is hardly 
 necessary for us to consider the extreme case of the 
 abolition of machinery universally, in all manufactures 
 and departments of industry whatever ; although this,
 
 310 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 we may observe, is really the state of things which the 
 proceedings, whether of frame -breakers or of thrashing- 
 machine-breakers, have a natural tendency to bring 
 about, and the only state of things, indeed, which they 
 and their defenders can in consistency wish for. One 
 consequence of this direct move backwards to barbarism, 
 whether it were taken at once or gradually, would in- 
 controvertibly be the throwing hundreds on hundreds 
 of thousands of our population out of employment, 
 whose hands machinery alone now occupies, and whose 
 mouths it alone provides with bread. Many of our 
 manufactures could not exist, and none of them could 
 be carried on to the same extent to which they now 
 are, were it not for that low cost of production and con- 
 sequent extent of sale, for whioh they are indebted to 
 the aid of mechanical power. Every man, in every 
 rank of society, would have to go without many com- 
 forts and accommodations he now enjoys ; and all those 
 multitudes now employed, even with the assistance of 
 machinery, in the preparation of the various articles of 
 consumption that would then be of necessity dispensed 
 with, would be reduced to utter idleness and beggary ; 
 and indeed, if they did not retire to some other country, 
 would inevitably and rapidly perish. Nearly the whole 
 population of some of the largest to\vns in the empire 
 would thus be swept away. Even in those departments 
 of labour in which production does not seem at present 
 to depend immediately on the employment of what is 
 commonly called machinery, industry would also under 
 this change suffer and languish. The farmer, for in- 
 stance, would be deprived of his chief market by the 
 extinction of the manufacturing population, and could 
 no longer raise his present crops or employ his present 
 number of labourers. Even of the other classes of the 
 community who would still remain to be his customers,
 
 CONCLUSION. 311" 
 
 few or none would have the same means to expend 
 which they now have. The wealthiest, obliged to en- 
 large their outgivings in one direction by the greatly 
 increased cost of all manufactured goods, would have 
 to contract them in every other. The poorest would 
 have less to spare for bread, in consequence of having 
 more to give for clothes and other necessaries. Add to 
 all this, that no wealth accumulated by manufactures 
 would ever and anon, as now, be expended in agricul- 
 tural improvements, and that thus one of the most fer- 
 tilizing streams by which at present the soil is rendered 
 productive and capable of sustaining many labourers, 
 would be entirely dried up. Would this state of things 
 make work more abundant or wages higher ? 
 
 But you would have machinery put down only where 
 it comes directly into competition with your own labour, 
 and would have no objection to its employment every- 
 where else. You are, we shall suppose, for example, 
 an agricultural labourer, and feel no inclination to have 
 your shirt, and your stockings, and your working jacket, 
 and your wife's gown, and 'the clothes of your children 
 made ten or twenty times dearer than they now are, by 
 the destruction of all spinning-mills and power-looms ; 
 but you would refuse to allow the employment of a 
 thrashing-machine by the farmer, because, as you say, 
 it throAvs men out of work. Your plan has evidently 
 not much to recommend it on the score of fairness, and 
 is indeed so manifestly partial and unjust that it is quite 
 plain it never could be tolerated in pi'actice ; but let 
 that pass. "We will suppose it in operation. Its effect 
 would certainly be, in the first instance, to occasion a 
 somewhat greater demand for a certain description of 
 country labour. There would be more men hired to 
 thrash corn. But the advantage thus gained by the 
 labouring classes would not be long felt for eventually,
 
 312 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 the demand for agricultural labour upon the whole 
 would be diminished. If the farmer saved anything 
 by the use of his thrashing-machine (and we must sup- 
 pose that he did, or he would not-foave made use of it), 
 the profits of farming generally must be lowered by the 
 abolition of these machines. Now it is a law, that is 
 to say, it is a principle founded in the very nature of 
 things, that in whatever branch of industry profits un- 
 dergo a depression, from that capital immediately be- 
 gins to flow, and labour along with it, which cannot 
 exist without capital. Many of you may have remarked 
 instances of this in the decay of trades, which in your 
 own recollection or in that of older men with whom 
 you have conversed, used to be among the most flou- 
 rishing of the places where they were carried on. The 
 profits, from some cause or other, have diminished, and 
 the consequence is, that the trade does not now, per- 
 haps, employ one workman for three or four to whom 
 it formerly gave occupation and bread. The mere abo- 
 lition of thrashing-machines certainly would not affect 
 the business of farming in anything like this degree, 
 but still it would produce the same consequence 
 to a smaller extent. The average profits of capital 
 are nearly the same in all the great departments of 
 national industry, and cannot but be so, seeing that 
 capital is free to diffuse itself where it chooses, and 
 will, therefore, to repeat our former illustration, just as 
 naturally and inevitably preserve, as it were, the same 
 level wherever it spreads, as water does when poured 
 out into a lake. Take from agriculture, therefore, any 
 portion of its ordinary gains, and you withdraw from it 
 infallibly a corresponding portion of the capital at pre- 
 sent invested in it. Diminished profits must be followed 
 by diminished cultivation, or, in other words, by dimi- 
 nished employment of labourers. The only way in
 
 CONCLUSION. 313 
 
 which this consequence could be prevented would be by 
 preventing its immediate cause the fall of profits ; 
 and this, no doubt, the present corn-law would in some 
 measure do, if it were to be maintained in the circum- 
 stances we are supposing ; for it would compel the 
 public, who cannot want bread, and are not permitted 
 by the law in question to purchase that first necessary 
 of life in any other than the home-market, to compen- 
 sate the farmer for the additional costs of production to 
 which the abolition of machinery had subjected him by 
 a higher price for his produce. That is to say, in order 
 to give employment to a number of more thrashers, a 
 tax must be laid upon every individual, rich and poor, 
 throughout the kingdom. There can be no question 
 at all that anything so absurd and iniquitous as this 
 never would be submitted to ; nor could such a piece 
 of injustice be decently proposed. It is surely enough 
 that the proprietors and cultivators of the soil are pro- 
 tected by the law to the extent they are against the 
 competition of foreigners ; in return for this protection 
 they must at least be considered bound to provide the 
 community with bread at the lowest rate they can 
 afford, by taking advantage of all the best means for 
 the economizing of production which may be within 
 their reach ; it would be altogether monstrous for them 
 to demand that they should be permitted still farther 
 to aggravate the pressure of their monopoly by delibe- 
 rately adopting a dear mode of production in preference 
 to a cheaper one, of which they had it equally in their 
 power to avail themselves. 
 
 Let the persons who would abolish all thrashing- 
 machines just consider for one moment what it really 
 is which they ask to be allowed to do. It is in prin- 
 ciple exactly the same thing which a demand on the 
 part of the cotton-spiuners would be that all cotton 
 
 2 E
 
 314 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 should henceforward be spun and woven by the hand, 
 coupled with the condition that the country should still 
 continue to purchase as much of that manufacture as 
 it now does. In this case, indeed, it would certainly 
 be found impossible to carry the abolition of machinery 
 into effect to the extent demanded ; for if the labour of 
 half the hands in the country could fabricate the cotton 
 cloth that would be wanted, the gains of the remaining 
 half in other branches of industry would be insufficient 
 'to purchase it after it had been wrought. But the 
 scheme might be carried into operation in part ; when- 
 ever wages were low, for instance, or any number of 
 spinners or weavers out of employment, a certain num- 
 ber of machines might be stopped by law, and hand- 
 labour substituted in their place. Under the condition 
 supposed, namely, that the usual quantity of goods 
 should continue to be demanded and taken off, this 
 would answer the purposes of the manufacturing popu- 
 lation well enough ; all hands would be employed, and 
 the additional cost of production would be just made 
 up to the masters by the higher prices which they would 
 receive from the public. But would the public submit 
 to be so taxed ? Would not the agricultural labourers 
 themselves be the loudest in calling out against being 
 subjected to such an imposition ? 
 
 It is fit that the inveighers against thrashing-ma- 
 chines should be aware of all this, and should clearly 
 understand what the community in general must think 
 of the selfishness and injustice of what they urge. The 
 prohibition of machinery which they would enforce, for 
 the sake of affording more employment to labourers, is 
 neither more nor less than a scheme for supporting 
 this additional employment, or higher rate of wages, 
 out of the pockets of the public. 
 
 But what except the very height of injustice is there,
 
 CONCLUSION. 315 
 
 besides, even laying aside all these considerations, in 
 any body of men attacking and destroying the property 
 of others, as these machine-breakers do ? What reason 
 is there why the owner of a thrashing-machine, as well 
 as every other man, should not be permitted to do what 
 he chooses with his own, so long as he does not en- 
 croach upon the rights of others ? Is this liberty, or 
 is it anything else than the most insufferable tyranny ? 
 The poor, you say, haA r e a right to employment. If 
 they have, the right is certainly not one which they 
 are entitled to exercise in this way against the property 
 of an individual, or of a particular class of individuals. 
 Are they entitled upon this plea to go to any rich man 
 in their neighbourhood, and insist that he shall expend 
 what portion of his income they may please to name in 
 giving them work ? Has any person ever taken it into 
 his head to preach such a doctrine as this ? Yet it is 
 in reality only the same thing, in other words, with 
 what is asserted by those who contend that the putting 
 down of machinery is justifiable. In the one case, just 
 as much as in the other, there is the employment of 
 compulsion against an individual in regard to a matter 
 with which nobody but himself has anything to do. It 
 might, in fact, be maintained, upon exactly the same 
 principle, that a body of men out of work, or in want 
 of higher wages, had a right to arrest any rich man 
 upon the highway, and compel him to undertake the 
 expenses of their support. 
 
 So much, then, for the fairness and good sense of 
 this plan for putting down machinery. It is manifestly 
 conceived in injustice, and would be worse than useless, 
 even to the laboui'ers themselves, if it could be carried 
 into effect. But, to crown the absurdity, how is it pro- 
 posed that it should be carried into effect? By the 
 lawless violence of mobs ! We have already said enough 
 
 2 E 2
 
 316 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 to point out the true character of this method of redress 
 applied even to real grievances. Its utter inefficiency 
 is its least evil. In addition to holding out no chance 
 of accomplishing the end aimed at, be that what it 
 may, it cannot be tried without producing almost all 
 sorts of mischief and misery. Let the scenes which 
 took place only a few summers ago in certain of our 
 agricultural districts remind the reader of what the 
 labouring population are sure to draw upon themselves 
 by engaging in such wild attempts. The demolition 
 of a thrashing-machine sounds, perhaps, when first 
 proposed, little more than a frolic ; but it may be the 
 beginning of many crimes and many sorrows. The 
 thoughtless multitude, who go forth to the commission 
 of this act of violence with perhaps the same light and 
 buoyant hearts as to a piece of sport, are not destined 
 long to tread the fatal path upon which they have 
 entered, either with spirits so gay or consciences so 
 unburdened. A change is sure to come over their whole 
 feelings, tempers, and purposes as they pursue their 
 career of outrage,, and that with a rapidity which must 
 often be startling even to themselves. Their first ex- 
 ploit may be successfully accomplished ; but no sooner 
 have they celebrated the finished work with their huz- 
 zahs of triumph, than a consciousness strikes every 
 bosom that they have placed themselves by what they 
 have done under the ban of the law, and that its in- 
 sulted power will not fail to pursue them with its ven- 
 geance. From this moment they are no longer a mere 
 band of thoughtless revellers. Something of the stern- 
 ness and determination of desperate men nerves them 
 and spurs them forward, and they are ready, at the first 
 cry that may thrill upon their excited senses, to plunge 
 into excesses which but a little before the boldest of 
 them had scarcely contemplated. Daring and reckless
 
 CONCLUSION. 317 
 
 spirits are not long in starting forth to place themselves 
 at their head and to halloo them on. Perhaps at the 
 next move they make they encounter some force which 
 has been mustered to stop their ravages. Whether a 
 conflict ensues or not, the circumstance fixes the feeling 
 still deeper in their hearts that they and society are 
 now fairly at war, and that only the complete defeat 
 of the one party or the other can end the strife. Hence, 
 if the mob are not effectually put down at this stage, a 
 demeanour of still fiercer defiance against the law than 
 they have yet shown. Separated, as they seem to 
 themselves to be, and cast forth from the rest of the 
 community, they now scarcely care what existing insti- 
 tutions they disregard or trample under foot. Their 
 career is almost one of open rebellion against all the 
 establishments of the state. The simple and honest, 
 though mistaken peasants, who a short time before had 
 left their homes with no farther purpose than to rid 
 themselves of what they conceived to be an unfair im- 
 pediment thrown in the way of their labour and the 
 winning of their daily bread, are now so corrupted and 
 sunk from what they once were, as to be perhaps busy 
 in stopping and robbing every man they meet, and 
 breaking into every house where they conceive there is 
 any money for them to plunder. But this does not 
 last long. The mad rioters are soon stopped in the 
 midst of their excesses and crimes by a force, which 
 they may be insolent, and insane enough to meet, but 
 which they are utterly powerless to cope with. Much 
 devastation has been committed even already per- 
 haps blood has been shed; but the tragedy is not yet 
 closed. The law now asserts its authority with a high 
 hand. Where of late all was turbulence and insurrec- 
 tion, amidst the quiet of universal obedience are now 
 heard only the solemn accents of avenging justice. And
 
 318 POPULAR TUMULTS. 
 
 then comes the" last sad scene, to crush and break many 
 hearts, and blight for ever the happiness of many 
 homes. The prisons render up their captives, some, 
 indeed, to breathe again the sweet air of liberty, but 
 others to meet a very different doom to be sent, per- 
 haps, for life, or a lingering term of years, into harder 
 bondage in a distant land, or, after only a few hours 
 shall have passed, to die a death of violence and shame 
 amid the dwellings of their acquaintances and their 
 kindred. Condemnation such as this comes indeed 
 like something bewilderingly strange and unexpected 
 to these unhappy men ; their natures are not tempered 
 to the hardness of ordinary convicts ; the fathers and 
 mothers, the brothers and sisters, the wives and chil- 
 dren, that hang about their necks, have been wont to 
 see them engaged only in the toils of a hard and a 
 humble, but yet an honest industry; their days have 
 been spent together under lowly roofs perhaps, and on 
 scanty fare, but still without ever a thought of endea- 
 vouring to mend their condition by any trade of crime; 
 and they have never been accustomed to look forward 
 to any other termination of their earthly companionship 
 except the peace of an unmarked, it might be, but at 
 any rate an undishonoured grave, in the churchyard of 
 their native village. How terribly is all this peace dis- 
 turbed and scattered now ! and what must they and 
 theirs feel when they compare what once might have 
 been with what must now be ! Such is the melancholy 
 end of rioting ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 whole; and the rate at which it is now issued namely, Three Volumes annu- 
 ally will bring the Work to a conclusion in Four Years. 
 
 " The great anxiety of the Committee and of the Editor has been to produce 
 a Cyclopaedia which, in accuracy, completeness, and originality should not be 
 surpassed by any similar publication of this or any other country; and the 
 Publishers have not hesitated to incur the large expenses which are necessary 
 for the attainment of this excellence* although the work is sold at a price not 
 amounting to a fourth of the cost of any other Cyclopaedia of established 
 reputation. The articles in this work have been drawn up with the greatest 
 care from the best and most recent authorities. It will be found, on making 
 a comparison, that the essential differences between the articles in the " Penny 
 Cyclopaedia" and those in other Cyclopaedias or Dictionaries are sufficient to 
 prove that original sources of information only, and not previous compilations, 
 have been consulted by the writers for this work. Independently of this, the 
 numerous references given in all the more important articles show distinctly 
 what are the authorities that have been used; they indicate to the careful 
 reader the means of extending his knowledge on any particular subject, and 
 at the same time give him the power of testing the general accuracy of the 
 work by consulting the same sources of information that have been used by 
 the writers." Extract from the Preface to the Sixth Volume. 
 
 THE PENNY MAGAZINE 
 
 OFTHI SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 
 Published in WEEKLY NUMBERS, price One Penny, and in MONTHLY PARTS, 
 price Sixpence. Five Volumes have been completed, containing upwards of 
 ONE THOUSAND WOOD-CUTS, illustrative of subjects of Natural History, Anti- 
 quities, and Views, Foreign and Domestic, &c. &c., derived chiefly from Origi- 
 nal Drawings by Artists of ability. 
 
 The price of the First Volume (which closed with the Supplement of De- 
 cember, 1832) is 6s., bound in cloth ; the other Volumes, uniformly bound, 
 are 7s. Gd. each. 
 
 Just published, in 2 vols. 8vo., price 28s., with a Portrait, 
 THE LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, Third President 
 of the United States. With parts of his Correspondence never before pub- 
 lished, and Notices of his Opinions o v i Questions of Civil Government, National 
 Policy, and Constitutional Law. I3y GEORGE TUCKER, Professor of 
 Moral Philosophy in the University of Virginia.
 
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