XXIII. 1831. 1 Martineau, CHAP. the same thing was not enjoined by the magistrates, the Reform Clubs took upon themselves to order it. All the windows of those who did not illuminate, and not a few who did, but were suspected of Tory principles, were ii. 41; Au- broken. "As dash," says a Radical, says a Radical, "went the stones, of a Work- smash fell the glass, and crash came the window-frames, 157, 158; from nine o'clock to near midnight. Reflection arose, and knowledge. asked seriously and severely what this meant. Is it reform is it popular liberty ?1 * tobiography ing Man, Personal 67. riots in The Lord Provost of Edinburgh was seized by the mob Dreadful on the day of the election, who tried to throw him over Scotland. the North Bridge, a height of ninety feet—a crime for which the ringleaders were afterwards convicted and punished by the Justiciary Court. The military were called out by the sheriff and magistrates, but withdrawn at the request of the Lord-Advocate (Jeffrey), who pledged himself, if this was done, the riots would cease. It was done, and they were immediately renewed, and continued the whole evening. At Ayr the violence of the populace was such that the Conservative voters had to take refuge in the town-hall, from whence they were escorted by a body of brave Whigs, who, much to their honour, flew to their rescue, to a steam-boat which conveyed them from the scene of danger. No person anywhere in Scotland could give his vote for the Conservative candidate without running the risk of being hooted, spit upon, or stoned by the mob. At Wigan, in Lancashire, a man was killed during the election riots. In London, the windows of the Duke of Wellington, Mr Baring, and other leading anti-Reformers, were all broken; and those memorable iron-shutters were forced upon Apsley House, which, till the Duke's death, continued to disgrace the The Author's windows in St Colme Street, Edinburgh, and those of his brother, Professor Alison, in the same city, whose life had been devoted to the relief of the poor, though illuminated, were utterly smashed in five minutes, as were those of above a thousand others of the most respectable citizens in that city. A friend of his, who was in the crowd that did the mischief, told him afterwards" the crash was glorious in St Colme Street !" CHAP. XXIII. 1831. 1Lockhart's 286, 287; 1831, 152, sonal know metropolis. At Lanark a dreadful riot occurred, which was only quelled by the interposition of the military, and the Conservative candidate was seriously wounded in the church where the election was going forward. At Dumbarton, the Tory candidate, Lord William Graham, only escaped death by being concealed in a garret, where he lay hidden the whole day. At Lauder, the election was carried by a counsellor in the opposite interest being forcibly abducted, and the ruffians who did so were rescued by the mob. Life of At Jedburgh, a band of ruffians hooted the dying Sir Walter Scott Scott. "I care for you no more," said he, "than for the Ann. Reg. hissing of geese." Genius, celebrity, probity, beneficence, 153; Perwere in those disastrous days the certain attraction of mob ledge. brutality, if not slavishly prostituted to their passions.1* One fact was conspicuous on this occasion, which points to an important conclusion in political science. This is, Results of that while in Scotland, where this appalling violence was exerted to intimidate the electors, who were almost entirely composed of the higher classes of society, twothirds of the members returned were in the Conservative interest, it was just the reverse in England, where nearly the whole members returned, either for counties or populous places, were of the Reform party. Yorkshire returned four Reformers, London the same. General Gascoigne was driven from Liverpool, Sir R. Vivian from Cornwall, Sir Edward Knatchbull from Kent, Mr Bankes from Dorsetshire; even the Duke of Newcastle's candidate was defeated at Grantham. Of eighty-two county members only six were opposed to the bill; so completely had the heartburnings consequent on neglected agricultural distress and Catholic emancipation alienated those who for * Sir Walter's diary of 18th May bears-" Went to Jedburgh greatly against the wishes of my daughter. The mob were exceedingly vociferous and brutal, as they usually are nowadays. The population gathered in formidable numbers; a thousand from Hawick also-sad blackguards. The day passed with much clamour and mischief. Henry Scott was re-elected for the last time, I suppose -Troja fuit. I left the burgh in the midst of abuse, and the gentle hint of 'burk Sir Walter.' Much obliged to the brave lads of Jeddart." LOCKHART'S Life of Scott, vol. vi. p. 257. VOL. IV. Y 68. the election. XXIII. 1831. CHAP. merly had been the firmest supporters of the constitution. In Ireland the whole Catholics threw their weight in favour of the Reformers, and secured a decided majority for the Government. Strange to say, the sturdy Protestants of England coalesced with the furious Catholics of Ireland to overturn the constitution! The conclusions to be drawn from these anomalous and unexpected facts are, that a long course of selfish legislation and unwise monetary laws had alienated the landed interest in Great Britain, and that on a social crisis, such as had now occurred, no reliance is to be placed on voters of the same class in society to resist the march of even the most perilous innovation commenced by their compeers. If it is to be checked at all, it must be by those belonging to a different sphere, and enfranchised by a different 1 An Beg suffrage. The gentlemen of Scotland, voting on their estates, or the parchment qualifications for which they had given £1000 or £1200 each, courageously withstood the tempest; the forty-shilling freeholders of England, with very few exceptions, were swept away by its fury !1 Ann. Reg. 1831, 154, 155; Roe 165; Mar buck, ii. tineau, ii. 41. 69. Preparations for insurrec While the elections were in preparation or going forward, the political unions throughout the country were exerting themselves to the uttermost, not merely to intition by the midate their opponents by the threat of rebellion, but by political unions. organising the means of rebellion itself. The following account of their proceedings is taken from an unsuspected source, the able liberal historian of the period: "In March and April 1831, the great middle class, by whose intelligence the bill must be carried, believed that occasions might arise for their refusing to pay taxes, and for their marching upon London, to support the King, the Administration, and the bulk of the nation, against a small knot of unyielding and interested persons. The political unions made known the numbers they could muster the chairman of the Birmingham union declaring that they could send forth two armies, each fully worth that which had won Waterloo. On the coast of Sussex XXIII. 1831. ten thousand men declared themselves ready to march at CHAP. any moment; Northumberland was prepared in like manner; Yorkshire was up and awake; and, in short, it might be said the nation was ready to go to London if wanted. When the mighty procession of the unions marched to their union ground, the anti-reformers observed with a shudder that the towns were at the mercy of these mobs. The cry was vehement that the measure was to be carried by intimidation, and this was true: the ques- 1Martineau, tion was, whether, in this singular case, the intimidation ii. 32, 33. was wrong."1 delusions vailed among the Future ages will scarcely be able to credit the gene- 70. rality of the delusions which pervaded the minds of the Universal middle and working classes at this eventful crisis. The which preformer flattered themselves that rent and taxes would be abolished, and the sales of their shop goods at least people. tripled, from the universal prosperity which would prevail among their customers. The latter believed, almost to a man, that the wages of labour would be doubled, and the price of provisions halved, the moment the bill passed.* The Anglo-Saxon mind, eminently practical, did not, in these moments of extreme excitement, follow the ignis fatuus of "liberty and equality," like the French in 1789, but sought vent in the realisation of real advantages, or the eschewing of experienced evils. It was this which constituted the strength of the reform passion; it visited every fireside with the expectant sunshine of domestic bliss. There was as much truth as humour in the picture which a sagacious and able Reformer drew of the expectations of his party at this period : "All young ladies imagine that, as soon as this bill is carried, they will be instantly married; schoolboys believe that gerunds and supines will be abolished, and that currant-tarts must Smith's ultimately come down in price; the corporal and ser- iii. 133. geant are sure of double pay;2 bad poets expect a demand * The Author often heard these opinions from the working classes at this period. 2 Sidney Works, CHAP. for their epics; and fools will be disappointed, as they always are." XXIII. 1831. 71. Rare ex amples of ral cry. Amidst the general turning of heads there were some examples of courageous and resolute resistance on the resistance part of the Conservatives, which, as they were prompted. to the gene- by a sense of duty in a case which was obviously hopeless, must command the respect even of those who are most strongly convinced that that sense of duty was mistaken. A petition against the bill was prepared and extensively signed by the bankers and merchants of Bristol, which ably and firmly, but temperately, stated the leading objections to the measure.* At Edinburgh, a great public meeting was held of those opposed to the bill, at which the late lamented Professor Wilson and the present able Lord Justice General (M'Neill), then an advocate at the bar, distinguished themselves on the platform. The higher part of the press also began now to meet their able and indefatigable opponents with a sturdy array of facts and arguments. In this warfare of the pen, the Edinburgh Review, the Examiner, and the Spectator, on the one side, took the lead, and the Quarterly Review, Blackwood's Magazine, and Fraser's Magazine, on the other; and in some of their essays, composed during the heat of the conflict, and in the most violent state of general excitement, the consequences of the measure were predicted with a truth which subsequent experience has verified to the letter. + "This declaration, though proved to be mistaken in its view, was in its diction and manner calm, loyal, and courageous. If the opposition of the anti-reformers had been more generally of this character, there would have been less marshalling of the political unions."-MARTINEAU, vol. ii. p. 33. "The fundamental and irremediable defect of the proposed constitution .is, that it vests an overwhelming majority in the populace of the island, to the exclusion of all the other great and weighty interests of the British empire. By vesting the right of returning members to Parliament in forty-shilling and ultimately £10 freeholders in counties, and £10 house or shop holders in towns, the command of the legislature will be placed in hands inaccessible, save by actual bribery, to the approach of the commercial, colonial, or shipping interests. If such a change does not soon produce a revolution, it will in the end infallibly lead to the dismemberment of the empire. The Indian and Canadian dependencies will not long submit to the rule of the populace in the dominant |