that it would not

he met by the same incompatible objections, work, and that it would work too well; that Britons will not be bribed, and that they would be bribed incessantly under the cover of the ballot; that the voting classes are of too high an order to be insulted with such a protection, and that broad publicity was necessary to keep them up to their duty. Thus the question was met, from year to year, till, through a singular virtual coalition between two opposite classes, the popular demand for the ballot was overpowered. The aristocracy would not surrender their influence over the dependent class of voters; and that influence was known to be so powerful, through intimidation where bribery would not avail, that the vast multitude of non-electors took upon themselves to watch over its operation. The electors were their representatives; and this secondary representation they were resolved not to relinquish. They could send up an influence from below as powerful as that which brooded from above; and they would not, any more than the aristocracy, have it intercepted by the ballot. Such was the issue of the painful state of the question which lasted during this period, when those who declared in favor of this protection of voters would not act; and those who did, were insulted with pleas which were understood all round to be mere disguises of real reasons which no man had courage to avow. Something would have been gained to the heart and courage of the nation, and probably nothing lost to its reputation, if the annual debate had been cut short with the declaration, "We will not give up our power over the voting classes. By mere threats of ruin we can now make tools of our tradesmen and farmers, or keep them quiet; and no harm is done. If they were to be really free in the exercise of the franchise, there is no saying what confusion would ensue; and we only know that all control from us would be at an end." Such was the state of things after the passage of the Reform Bill; a state of things sickening to the hearts of many thousands of husbands and fathers, who would have dared any thing for themselves, but could not see that their political duty required them to bring ruin on their households. Such neglected to qualify, -setting a bad example therein, and in so far abrogating the Reform Act. And, in the midst of a representative system like this, a system which worked imperfectly where it did not work viciously, the ministers took occasion to say, on all fair opportunities, that they considered the Reform Act final. While it was scarcely possible to exaggerate its value, and the importance of the era which it formed, it was because it opened the way to the achievement hereafter of a real representation, and not because the largest classes of the British nation were actually and immediately represented much more truly than be

fore. As the ballot was not decreed in its own time, it only remains to be seen what stronger security for true representation will have to be accorded at a later day. That such an event is in store is an irresistible conclusion from reading the debates on the ballot during the period under review.

ging.

The question of military flogging was brought forward year Military flog- by year by Mr. Hume; and, by the session of 1833, it was clear that the debate was becoming more and more embarrassing to men who had always spoken with a natural horror of the flogging of soldiers, but who had lately become aware of the weight of military authority on the other side. After the summer of 1832, every one had perceived that the abolition of military flogging was only a question of time. In May of that year, a private of the Scots Greys had been flogged under circumstances which induced a universal belief that his real offence was not a breach of discipline in the riding-school, as alleged, but his having written a political letter to a newspaper. A court of inquiry was held in July, and a sort of reprimand was adjudged to the officer in command. The publicity given to the facts greatly aided the cause advocated by Mr. Hume; and, in the next division, there was a majority of only eleven votes in a House of 291 members in favor of the existing system of military punishment. The other fearful tyranny Impressment which occurs to all minds in connection with this, of seamen. the impressment of seamen, was now beginning to be treated in a tone of seriousness and humanity; and in August, 1833, a division took place less unworthy of the eighteenth year of peace, than some that had preceded. There was a majority of only five against Mr. Buckingham's motion, that it was the duty of the House to avail itself of the season of peace to inquire whether there was not some better method than that of impressment for manning ships in time of war.2

1 Hansard, xvii. p. 68.

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2 Hansard, xx. p. 694.

CHAPTER XII.

A GLIMPSE is afforded us at this period of that awful interior of the history of the time of which registers and reports Popular distell nothing. They tell nothing, because they know contents. nothing, of those movements in some corner of the national heart and mind which are of graver moment than any thing that is laid open to all eyes. Things were going on, in the year 1834, which disheartened the few of the upper classes who knew of them, and whose calculations had been too sanguine as to the social effects of nineteen years of peace, and of four of liberal government. The good effects of peace and liberal government were in fact shown, not in the absence of ignorance and guilt among the people, but in the small results of their guilt and ignorance. If Sidmouth and Castlereagh had been in power, the year 1834 would have been as black a one to remember as that of the Catostreet conspiracy.

unions.

The prevalence and power of trades-unions have been referred to; and the murder of a Manchester manufacturer was Tradesmentioned at its date. The power and tyranny of the unions went on increasing, till, in 1834, it became a serious question whether their existence was compatible with the organization of society in England. Half-a-dozen uneducated men sometimes one able but half-informed man - commanded an obedient host of tens of thousands; and, though the capitalists usually beat in the competition for victory set up by the laborers, the power of the latter over the production and commerce of the country was very great. At this time, a new combination gave an enormous increase of power into their hands. Hitherto, each body had struck for an advance of wages for itself. Now, the various trades combined for the purpose of supporting one another by turns. Some were to work, and maintain others who were contending for their objects; and, when these objects were gained, the good office was to be reciprocated. If the great body of laborers, or even the majority of their leaders, had been men of cultivated intelligence, and tempers disciplined accordingly, this year would probably have stood in our history as the date of a vast social revolution, wherein capital and labor would have

been brought into deadly conflict, or into some new and wonderful agreement. But though these bodies of laborers understood some momentous truths, and set some noble objects before them, -making sacrifices and arrangements for the education of their children, and the elevation of their own pursuits, they were not, yet instructed and disciplined enough for permanent concert, and, therefore, for success. The tailors of London broke away from their compact, and struck work without the sanction of bodies earning smaller wages than they; and these trades refused to support the tailors. Then, some office-bearers chosen unwisely absconded with money, and others mismanaged the funds; and, from one cause or another, continued co-operation appeared to be impossible.

Dorsetshire laborers.

In the midst of this confusion, which would have presently settled the fate of the unions for a time, some events occurred, the gravity of which was then, and is now, but little understood by any but a few who did not tell what they knew, because it would not have been believed. Hitherto, the unions had been universally spoken of as those of trades; but now it appeared that the extremely poor, ignorant, and depressed agricultural laborers of the southern counties were banded together in unions, like the trades. It was the expression of that resistance to supposed tyranny which is the glory or the disgrace—the safeguard or the peril of a State, according as it is enlightened by knowledge or darkened by passion. In this case, it was considered dangerous, and it was found to be inconvenient. These agricultural unions must be dissolved; and a method was used which brought after it endless mischief and shame. Six laboring-men were indicted at the spring assizes at Dorchester, not for any offence which they and others had ever thought of, but under an obsolete statute, enacted to meet the case of mutiny in the navy, and which made the administering of certain oaths a transportable offence. Ignorant as these men were, they knew that they were in fact charged with one offence and punished for another; and, rapidly as they were hurried out of the country, to undergo their sentence of seven years' transportation, they had time to become aware that public sympathy was with them. Public sympathy was with them, as with men punished by a stretch of law for a nominal offence, which did not repair the mischief of their example in that particular in which it was really wrong and dangerous. As for the unionists everywhere, they were exasperated; and they declared that the time was now come for them to rise, and overthrow the oppressors whose rule had hitherto disappointed their expectations, all the more bitterly for those expectations being in great part unreasonable.

By the unionists at large, it was agreed that a grand assem

blage of all the trades should take place in or near London in April, to procure the recall of the Dorsetshire labor

ers.

Day of the

The day fixed on was the 21st of April, and the trades. place Copenhagen Fields. This was all that the trades generally knew of the matter. Their leaders, however, agreed that the great unions could and should overawe the weak government of Lord Grey, now in its latter days, and obtain whatever they had set their minds upon. This was all that the leaders in general meditated; but there was a little knot of ferocious conspirators in the midst of them, who conducted a central movement, and resolved upon a violent seizure of the government, in the persons of the royal family and ministers.1 The trades were requested to carry their tools, those being specified which would best serve as weapons in the attack upon London. The "glorious band," as the handful of conspirators called themselves, were to carry arms. Accompanying the deputation to the Home Office, they were there to seize the Minister at the moment of reception, dispose of everybody else in the office, let in co-adjutors, seize the other offices, take the King and Queen prisoners, secure the Bank and the Tower, and so forth. Lord Melbourne had graciously consented to receive the deputation on the 21st; and this would make the first step easy. He was declared to be "done for." But he received warning, and attended to it; and the Duke of Wellington made ready for the occasion with his usual quietness and promptitude. The great day was a Monday. On Sunday night, twenty-nine pieces of artillery were brought in from Woolwich, and placed in the neighborhood of Whitehall, out of sight. Some light cannon were stationed on the roofs of the government offices, so as to command the streets. Large bodies of soldiery came into town during the night, and were kept ready for instant action, though under cover. The public offices were strongly guarded; the police stations were filled with their force, well armed; the magistrates were early at their posts; the park-gates were closed, and the citizens took the hints of the newspapers to stay at home; aides-de-camp were in the streets, in plain clothes, to reconnoitre; and five thousand householders were quickly sworn in as special constables at Guildhall. As for Lord Melbourne, he was not visible. The under-secretary, Mr. Phillips, received the deputation, and told them that a petition, however respectfully worded, could not be received by the Minister when brought in such a manner, nor could Lord Melbourne grant an interview to a deputation so accompanied; that is, by a procession of 30,000 men. So the petition was placed on its car, a car all blue and crimson, and carried away, to

VOL. III.

1 Autobiography of a Working-man, p. 409.

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