On the progress of illegal meetings, and the legal and prudential means of meeting them
It will be seen by the various accounts from different manufacturing districts that the unhappy spirit of seditious proceedings has not been subdued, and the counties still continue in a state menacing the public peace, and interrupting the quiet progress of manufacturing and agricultural industry.
Under these circumstances we conceive that we cannot direct our observations to a more useful end than that of assisting the local magistracy by our own humble efforts. It is the common cause of every party to rescue the country from such men as the itinerant reformers of the present day.
At the same time, we must express our hopes that the cause of real and necessary reform will not suffer from the discredit cast upon it by these excesses. …We do most sincerely hope that some respectable meetings will be convened for the purpose of sending up a respectful and moderate petition to the Prince Regent.
If country gentlemen would adopt this course, they would take the business out of the hands of the present incendiaries, and the populace would immediately desert their demagogues, and transfer their submission and confidence to those whom they know to be of more weight and respectability.
As things are at present, these incendiaries have the pretext of a good cause. The common sense, and let us add the common feelings, of the people at large, perceive that they are right, and as they have no other leaders, they make common cause with these brands of sedition.
It appears that about nine miles from Manchester, in the neighbourhood of Royton, two thousand or more of these deluded men mustered on a heath, and underwent a regular training. They were convoked before sunrise by a bugle, sounded from the top of a hill near Royton, upon which signal they assembled, and marched in regular military order to the place of meeting.
When we add to this account that this training occurs in a neighbourhood where, within a few miles, there are least fifty thousand stand of arms in private manufactories, everyone, we presume, will immediately recognise the danger of allowing this training to proceed.
We shall add no more as to the necessity of instantly stopping the military training … The main question is, by what means is it to be done? To this, we reply, by a vigorous and fearless execution of their duties by local magistrates.
Let them arrest upon the spot all persons whom they can ascertain not merely to be assisting in training, but attending any secret muster. …Let them not be eluded by meetings professedly convoked for one purpose, and when met, employed for another.
Magistrates in all these cases, not only may, but must act, upon their discretion; and if the circumstances are such as to justify them to act upon suspicion or reasonable apprehension, such circumstances will be amply sufficient to justify them in law.
Catalogue reference: HO 42/192, folio 235