these severe measures were eventually passed with little change.1

In presence of a novel development of popular meetings in crowded districts, ministers sought to prevent Distrust of the assemblage of vast numbers from different the people. parts, and to localize political discussion. Nor can it be denied that the unsettled condition and ignorance of the manufacturing population justified apprehensions and precaution. The policy, however, which dictated these measures was not limited to the correction of a special danger; but was marked, as before, by settled distrust of the press and popular privileges. Ten years before it had been finely said by Mr. Brougham, "Let the public discuss! So much the better. Even uproar is wholesome in England, while a whisper is fatal in France." 2 But this truth had not yet been accepted by the rulers of that period. They had not yet learned to rely upon the loyalty and good sense of the people, and upon the support of the middle classes, in upholding order and repressing outrage. On the other hand, we cannot but recognize in the language of the Opposition leaders a bold confidence in their countrymen, and a prescient statesmanship, destined in a few years to be accepted as the policy of the state.

Disaffection, however, still prevailed; and the evil passions

1 60 Geo. III. c. 1; Geo. IV. c. 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9. All these were permanent, except the Seditious Meetings Act, which, introduced as a permanent measure, was afterwards limited to five years, and the Seizure of Arms Act, which expired on the 25th March, 1822.

2 In defence of the Stamford News.

3 Stringent as were the measures of the government, they fell short of the views of the old Tory party. Mr. Bankes wrote to Lord Colchester, Dec. 31st, 1819:-"My only doubt is whether we have gone far enough in our endeavor to restrain and correct the licentiousness and abuse of the press." Lord Colchester's Diary, iii. 104.

1

Lord Redesdale, another type of the same school, wrote:-"I doubt whether it would not have been fortunate for the country, if half Manchester had been burned, and Glasgow had endured a little singing." To Lord Colchester, Jan. 4th, 1820. — Ibid., iii. 107.

Cato Street conspiracy, Feb., 1820.

of this distempered period soon afterwards exploded in the atrocious conspiracy of Thistlewood and his miscreant gang. To the honor of Englishmen, few were guilty of plotting this bloody and insensate crime, the discovery of which filled all classes of men with horror and disgust.1

Trials of

C. Wolseley,

1820.

While the country was still excited by this startling event, Hunt and his associates were convicted, with five Hunt and Sir others, of unlawfully meeting together, with divers other persons unknown, for the purpose of creating discontent and disaffection, and of exciting the king's subjects to hatred of the government and constitution. Hunt was sentenced to two years and six months' imprisonment, and the others to one year's imprisonment. Sir Charles Wolseley and Harrison, a dissenting preacher, were also tried and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment for their participation in the Stockport meeting.

Review of the contest between authority

and liberty of opinion.

Let us now examine the general results of the long contest which had been maintained between the ill-regulated, mischievous, and often criminal struggles of the people for freedom, on the one hand, and the harsh policy of repression maintained by the government, on the other. The last twenty-eight years of the reign of George III. formed a period of perilous transition for liberty of opinion. While the right of free discussion had been discredited by factious license, by wild and dangerous theories, by turbulence and sedition, the government and legislature, in guarding against these excesses, had discountenanced and repressed legitimate agitation. The advocates of parliamentary reform had been confounded with Jacobins and fomenters of revolution. Men who boldly im

1 Ann. Reg., 1820, p. 84, and Chron. 29; St. Tr., xxxiii. 681; Lord Sidmouth's Life, iii. 311-325. Lord Sidmouth himself says (p. 320):-"Party feelings appeared to be absorbed in those of indignation, which the lower orders had also evinced very strikingly upon the occasion."

2 Ann. Reg., 1820; Chron. 41; Barn. and Ald. Rep., iii. 566; Bamford's Life of a Radical, ii. 56-103, 162.

peached the conduct of their rulers, had been punished for sedition. The discussion of grievances the highest privilege of freemen had been checked and menaced. The assertion of popular rights had been denounced by ministers and frowned upon by society, until low demagogues were able to supplant the natural leaders of the people in the confidence of those classes who most needed safe guidance. Authority was placed in constant antagonism to large masses of people, who had no voice in the government of their country. Mutual distrust and alienation grew up between them. The people lost confidence in rulers whom they knew only by oppressive taxes, and harsh laws severely administered. The govern ment, harassed by suspicions of disaffection, detected conspiracy and treason in every murmur of popular discontent.1

tion of

Hitherto the government had prevailed over every adverse influence. It had defied parliamentary opposition Final domina by never-failing majorities: it had trampled upon opinion over the press it had stifled public discussion. In authority. quelling sedition, it had forgotten to respect liberty. But henceforward, we shall find its supremacy gradually declining, and yielding to the advancing power and intelligence of the people. The working classes were making rapid ad vances in numbers, industrial resources, and knowledge. Commerce and manufactures, bringing them together in large masses, had given them coherence and force. Education had been widely extended; and discontent had quickened political inquiry. The press had contributed to the enlightenment of the people. Even demagogues who had misled hem, yet stirred up their minds to covet knowledge and to ove freedom. The numbers, wealth, and influence of the

1 Op May 12th, 1817, Earl Grey truly said: "It is no longer the en croachments of power, of which we are jealous, but the too great extension of freedom. Every symptom of popular uneasiness, every ill-regulated effort of that spirit, without which liberty cannot exist, but which, whilst it exists, will break out into occasional excesses, affords a pretence which we seem emulous to seize, for imposing on it new restraints."- Hans. Deb. 1st Ser., xxxvi. 446.

middle classes had been extended, to a degree unknown at any former period. A new society had sprung up, outnum bering the limited class by whom the state was governed, and rapidly gaining upon them in enlightenment and social influence. Superior to the arts of demagogues, and with every incitement to loyalty and patriotism, their extended interests and important position led them to watch, with earnestness and sober judgment, the course of public affairs. Their views were represented by the best public writers of the time, whose cultivated taste and intellectual resources received encouragement from their patronage. Hence was formed a public opinion of greater moral force and authority. The middle classes were with ministers in quelling sedition; but against them when they menaced freedom. During the war they had generally sided with the government; but after the peace, the unconciliatory policy of ministers, a too rigorous repression of the press, and restraints upon public liberty, tended to estrange those who found their own temperate opinions expressed by the leaders of the Parliamentary Opposition. Their adhesion to the Whigs was the commencement of a new political era,1 fruitful of constitutional growth and renovation. Confidence was established between constitutional statesmen in Parliament and the most active and inquiring minds of the country. Agitation, no longer left to demagogues and operatives, but uniting the influence of all classes under eminent leaders, became an instrument for influencing the deliberations of Parliament,

it was powerful.

as legitimate as

From this time, public opinion became a power which ministers were unable to subdue, and to which statesmen of all parties learned, more and more, to defer. In the worst of times, it had never been without its influence; but from the accession of George IV. it gathered strength until it was able, as we shall see, to dominate over ministers and parliaments.

1 See supra, p. 60.

The press not

rigor.

Society, 1821

Meanwhile, the severities of the law failed to suppress libels, or to appease discontents. Complaints of both evils were as rife as ever. A portion of the purified by press still abounded in libels upon public and private character,, which the moral tone of its readers did not yet discourage. It was not in default of legal repression that such libels were published; but because they were acceptable to the vitiated taste of the lower classes of that day. If severity could have suppressed them, the unthankful efforts of the attorney-general, the secretary of state, and the magistrates, would have long since been crowned with success. But in 1821, the Constitutional The ConAssociation officiously tendered its intervention, stitutional in the execution of the law. The dangers of such a scheme had been exposed nearly thirty years before; 2 and were at once acknowledged in a more enlightened and dispassionate age. This association even ventured to address a circular to every justice of the peace, expounding the law of libel. An irresponsible combination, embracing magistrates and jurymen throughout the country, and almost exclusively of one political party, threatened the liberty of the press, and the impartial administration of justice. The Court of King's Bench, sensible of these dangers, allowed members of the association to be challenged as jurors; and discussions in Parliament, opportunely raised by Mr. Brougham and Mr. Whitbread, completed the discomfiture of those zealous gentlemen, whom the vigilance of Lord Sidmouth, the activity of the attorney-general, and the zeal of country justices had failed to satisfy. Had ministers needed any incitement

1 Mr. Fremantle, writing to the Marquess of Buckingham, Aug. 30th, 1820, says: "The press is completely open to treason, sedition, blasphemy, and falsehood, with impunity."... "I don't know whether you see Cobbett's Independent Whig, and many other papers now circulating most extensively, and which are dangerous much beyond anything I can describe. I have an opportunity of seeing them, and can speak, therefore, from knowledge."-Court and Cabinets of Geo. I V., i. 68; Cockburn's Mem., 308. 2 See supra, p. 144.

8 Ann. Reg., 1821, p. 205; Edinb. Rev., vol. xxxvii. (1821) 114–131; Hans. Deb., 2d Ser., v. 891, 1046, 1487–1491.