1816.]

THE SPENCEANS.

75

real friends." It would appear, however, that in Scotland, at a very early stage of the proceedings of Reform Clubs, that is in December, 1816, the mode in which large masses of men ordinarily look for the accomplishment of political changes was not so cautiously kept out of view.

Of the Hampden Club of London, sir Francis Burdett was the chairman. Vanity, as well as misery, "makes a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows." Bamford, at the beginning of 1817, came to London as a delegate from the Middleton Club, to attend a great meeting of delegates to be assembled in London. The Crown and Anchor Tavern was the scene of these deliberations. There, was Major Cartwright in the chair-a placid enthusiast, sincere in his belief that unmingled good would be the result of the great experiment which he had so long advocated. The chief supporters were Cobbett, with his shrewd self-possession and "bantering jollity;" and Hunt,-" Orator Hunt," as he was called,-the incarnation of an empty, blustering, restless, ignorant, and selfish demagogue. The great Baronet was absent, and his absence provoked no little comment. But he was accessible in his own mansion. Samuel Bamford was awe-struck by the passionate bellowing of Hunt, frozen by the proud condescension of sir Francis Burdett, but charmed by the unaffected cordiality of lord Cochrane. These were the chief actors in the procession scenes of the popular drama that was then under rehearsal. Other and more important parts were filled quite as appropriately.

The Middleton delegate was introduced, amidst the reeking tobaccofog of a low tavern, to the leading members of a society called the "Spencean Philanthropists." They derived their name from that of a Mr. Spence, a schoolmaster in Yorkshire, who had conceived a plan for making the nation happy, by causing all the lands of the country to become the property of the State, which State should divide all the produce for the support of the people. Socialism, in its extremest principles, is not a new doctrine. The schoolmaster was an honest enthusiast, who fearlessly submitted his plan to the consideration of all lovers of their species, and had the misfortune to be prosecuted for its promulgation in 1800. In 1816 "Spence's Plan" was revived, and the Society of Spencean Philanthropists was instituted, who held "sectional meetings," and discussed "subjects calculated to enlighten the human understanding." This great school of philosophy had its separate academies, as London was duly informed by various announcements, at "the Cock, in Grafton-street, Soho ;" and "the Mulberry Tree, Moorfields;" and "the Nag's Head, Carnaby Market;" and "No. 8, Lumber-street, Borough." At these temples of benevolence, where "every individual is admitted, free of expense, who will conduct himself with decorum," it is not unlikely that some esoteric doctrines were canvassed, such as, that "it was an easy matter to upset Government, if handled in a proper manner.” The Committee of the Spenceans openly meddled with sundry grave questions besides that of a community in land; and, amongst other notable projects, petitioned Parliament to do away with machinery. Amongst these fanatics some dangerous men had established themselves, such as Thistlewood, who subsequently paid the penalty of five years of maniacal plotting; and some, also, who were

"State Trials," vol. xxxii. pp. 215, 216; Watson's Trial.

76

ORATOR HUNT AND THE SPA-FIELDS MEETING.

[1816.

clearly in communication with the police, and hounded on the weak disciples. of the Cock in Grafton-street and the Mulberry Tree in Moorfields, to acts of more real danger to themselves than to the public safety. If we are to 'believe the chief evidence in these transactions, John Castle, a man of the most disreputable character, who became a witness against the leading Spencean philanthropists, they had murderous designs of sharp machines for destroying cavalry, and plans for suffocating quiet soldiers in their barracks, destroying them as boys burn wasps' nests; and schemes for taking the Tower, and barricading London Bridge, to prevent the artillery coming from Woolwich.* And there were to be five commanders to effect all these great movements of strategy,-Mr. Thistlewood, Mr. Watson the elder, and Mr. Watson the younger, Mr. Castle, and Mr. Preston, who came the last in dignity "because he was lame." And then there was to be a Committee of Public Safety, who were to be called together after the soldiers were subdued -twenty-four good and true men. And then they calculated at what amount of public expense they could buy the soldiers, by giving them each a hundred guineas; and, upon an accurate computation, it was found that the purchase-money would be somewhere about two millions, which would be nothing in comparison with the national debt, which would be wiped off. With this preparation, if we may believe the very questionable evidence of Mr. Castle, a meeting was held in Spa-fields on the 15th November.

The district known as Spa-fields, now covered with dwellings of industry and comfortable residences of the middle classes, was, at the beginning of the present century, and for some years afterwards, a large unenclosed space, utterly neglected and useless. A public-house was there, called by the mysterious name of Merlin's Cave; and thither Mr. Hunt came in a chariot with the Watsons and harangued a mob from the chariot roof, attended with a flag and cockades, and "everything handsome." After adjourning the meeting for a fortnight, Mr. Hunt and the chariot went away, drawn by the mob; and the mob running the chariot against a wall, they all got out and walked. So innocently passed the first Spa-fields meeting-innocently, save that at a dinner at Mr. Hunt's hotel in Bouverie-street, where, as he represented the matter, the philanthropists having thrust themselves upon him very much. against his will, the betrayer, Castle, gave a toast, which is too infamous to be repeated here, and was threatened to be turned out of the room, but quietly remained, and went into what was described as "a fox-sleep." But the 2nd of December, the day to which the first meeting was adjourned, closed not so peaceably. Mr. Hunt came to town from Essex in his tandem, and, as he passed along Cheapside, at "twenty minutes to one o'clock," he was stopped by Mr. Castle, who was moving along with a considerable crowd; and the worthy man told him that the meeting had been broken up two hours, and that they were going to the Tower, which had been in their possession for an hour. The country squire, to whom "the boisterous hallooing of multitudes was more pleasing than the chinkling of the plough-traces, the bleating of lambs, or the song of the nightingale,"-(in these terms Cobbett

*State Trials," vol. xxxii. p. 218, &c.

Ibid., pp. 233, 234.

1816.]

arms.

defended his friend for his aspirations after mob popularity)—was not weak enough to believe the tempter; and his tandem went on to Spa-fields, where the greatest number of people were collected together that he had ever beheld. But more active Reformers were in Spa-fields before Mr. Hunt. The Spencean philanthropists had provided a waggon for their own operations, and arrived on the ground considerably before the appointed hour of meeting, with banners and inscriptions, one of which was, "The brave Soldiers are our Friends!" These men also brought arms and ammunition, which they deposited in their waggon. Mr. Watson the elder commenced a sufficiently violent address, and then his son followed him. The young madman, after declaiming against the uselessness of petition, cried out, "If they will not give us what we want, shall we not take it? Are you willing to take it? Will you go and take it? If I jump down amongst you, will you come and take it? Will you follow me?" And as at every question the encouraging "Yes" became louder and louder, and put down the dissentient "No," he jumped from the waggon, seized a tri-coloured flag, and away rushed the mob to take the Tower. Two resolute men, the chief clerk of Bow-street and a Bow-street officer, had the boldness to attack this mob, and destroyed one of their banners, without any injury to themselves. The work of mischief necessarily went on. The young fanatic led his followers to the shop of Mr. Beckwith, a gunsmith on Snow-hill; and, rushing in, demanded A gentleman in the shop remonstrated with him, and, without any pause, was immediately shot by him. Instantly some compunction seems to have come over this furious leader, and he offered to examine the wounded man, saying he was himself a surgeon. The assassin was secured; but the mob, who destroyed and plundered the shop, soon released him, and proceeded along Cheapside, where they fired their recently-acquired arms, like children with a new plaything. They marched through the Royal Exchange, where they were met by the Lord Mayor, and several were secured. The City Magistrates on this occasion behaved with a firmness which admirably contrasted with the pusillanimity of their predecessors in the riots of 1780. The courage of the Lord Mayor, Alderman Wood, and of Sir James Shaw, is worthy of honourable record; and it shows, not only the insignificancy of the so-called conspiracy, its want of coherence and of plan, but the real power of virtue in action to put down ordinary tumult. Sir James Shaw says, "On the 2nd of December last I was at the Royal Exchange at halfpast twelve; I saw the mob first in Cornhill; the Lord Mayor and I went in pursuit of them; they crossed the front of the Royal Exchange; we rushed through the Royal Exchange to take them in front on the other side; the Lord Mayor and I having received information of prior occurrences, determined on putting them down. I seized several of them, and one flag of three colours, extended on a very long pole. I did not then perceive any arms. . . The Lord Mayor and I went to meet the mob with Mr. White and two constables; we got five constables in all; the whole party consisted of eight."

Such is the way in which the beginnings of seditions ought to be met. Firmness such as this would have saved Bristol in 1832. After a further plunder of gunsmiths' shops in the Minories, and the summoning of the Tower by some redoubted and unknown champion, who Bamford tells us was

78

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT OUTRAGE ON THE REGENT.

[1817.

Preston, the insurrection fell to pieces, altogether from the want of cohesion. in the materials of which it was composed. The only blood shed was that of the gentleman in Mr. Beckwith's shop, who eventually recovered. A wretched sailor was convicted of the offence of plunder at the shop on Snow Hill, and was hanged. The younger Watson escaped from his pursuers. The elder Watson was tried for high-treason on the 9th of June. The trial lasted seven days. It was memorable from "the eccentric exuberance of sir Charles Wetherell, and the luminous energy of Serjeant Copley,"* who were assigned as counsel for the prisoner. The exposure of Castle, the spy, was so complete, that the jury, without hesitation, returned a verdict of Not Guilty. Four other prisoners, who were to have been tried upon the same evidence, were at once acquitted.

On the 28th of January, 1817, the Prince Regent opened the fifth session of the existing Parliament. The speech from the Throne contained the following passage: "In considering our internal situation you will, I doubt not, feel a just indignation at the attempts which have been made to take advantage of the distresses of the country, for the purpose of exciting a spirit of sedition and violence. I am too well convinced of the loyalty and good sense of the great body of his Majesty's subjects, to believe them capable of being perverted by the arts which are employed to seduce them; but I am determined to omit no precautions for preserving the public peace, and for counteracting the designs of the disaffected." It would have been difficult to infer from this language that the Government believed that a formidable and widely-organized insurrection was threatening the country, and that the only remedy was a violation of the constitutional safeguards of the liberties of the nation. Attempts to excite a spirit of sedition, amongst a people incapable" of being perverted by the arts employed to seduce them," were subjects for vigilance towards the few, without infringement of the rights of the many. The seconder of the Address in the Commons asserted that the demagogues and their acts would die of themselves. The debate in the Lower House was suddenly interrupted by a message from the Lords. An outrage had been offered to the Prince Regent on his return from opening the Parliament. The windows of the state-carriage had been broken by some missile. The two Houses, after agreeing upon an Address to the Prince Regent on this event, adjourned. Upon the resumption of the debate the next day in the Commons, and upon its commencement in the Lords, the insult to the representative of the sovereign, which was at first asserted to be an attempt upon his life, gave a decided tone to the proceedings of both Houses. In both assemblies the Opposition loudly proclaimed the necessity of a rigid and unsparing economy, and the proposed amendment upon the Address went directly to pledge the most severe reduction of every possible expense. The practical answer to these abortive proposals was the intimation of lord Sidmouth, that in three days he should present a message from the Prince Regent on the subject of the alleged disaffection of large bodies of the people.

On the second night of the debate on the Address, Mr. Canning took a leading part in the proceedings. He had returned from the embassy to

*Lord Campbell's "Chief Justices," vol. iii. p. 220.

1817.] SECRET COMMITTEES-HABEAS CORPUS ACT SUSPENDED.

79

Lisbon. An office so below the proper ambition of such a man was to him a degradation. He had been excluded from power for three years. The Government opened the Session of 1816 in the confidence that they could do without "the greatest speaker in either House of Parliament. . . . They wondered what use he could be of."* The ministerial inefficiency in that session was the cause of Canning's recall to jealous colleagues. He became President of the Board of Control. He was now put forward as the eloquent anti-reformer, to deny that the existing state of the representation was a grievance; to confound the most moderate projects of reform with the doctrines of universal suffrage and annual parliaments. It would seem that Reformers of all grades had, in his mind, a family resemblance to the Spenceans. He chose to forget what had been the opinions of his great master, Pitt; maintaining that our representative system "satisfies the wants, the opinions, and the feelings of the great bulk and body of the nation." He asked the moderate reformers in that House if they hoped to guide the whirlwind which they might raise? "Are they not aware that mightier spirits are abroad, who will take that task out of their hands?" It scarcely needed eloquence like his to call up the ghosts of the French Revolution. The day had dawned; the shadows had lost their midnight terrors.

The message of the 3rd of February announced that the Prince Regent had given orders that there be laid before the Houses," Papers containing information respecting certain practices, meetings, and combinations in the metropolis, and in different parts of the kingdom, evidently calculated to endanger the public tranquillity, to alienate the affections of his Majesty's subjects from his Majesty's person and government, and to bring into hatred and contempt the whole system of our laws and institutions." In moving the order of the day for the consideration of this message, lord Sidmouth, in the House of Lords, affirmed that the communication was in no degree founded on, or connected with, the outrage upon the Prince Regent on the first day of the Session. The message of the Prince Regent was referred to a Secret Committee in each House, and these Committees made their Reports on the 18th and 19th of the same month. The Spencean Societies, the Hampden Clubs, the Spa-fields Riot, now called conspiracy, formed the staple of these Reports. The objects of the conspirators are described not only to be "the overthrow of all the political institutions of the kingdom, but also such a subversion of the rights and principles of property as must necessarily lead to general confusion, plunder, and bloodshed." Under the influence of these Reports, it would have been impossible to have made such a resistance to the Government as would have prevented the enactment of stringent measures, one of which was decidedly unconstitutional. Bills were brought in and passed by large majorities, to guard against and avert the dangers which had been so alarmingly proclaimed. The first of these renewed the Act for the prevention and punishment of attempts to seduce soldiers and sailors from their allegiance; the second extended to the Prince Regent all the safeguards against treasonable attempts which secure the actual sovereign; the third was for the prevention of seditious meetings; Hansard, vol. xxxv. col. 131.

* Lord Dudley's "Letters," p. 137.