HC Deb 19 February 1817 vol 35 cc438-47

THE COMMITTEE OF SECRECY, to whom the several Papers, which were presented (sealed up) to the House, by lord viscount Castlereagh, on the 4th day of February, by command of his royal highness the Prince Regent, were referred, and who were directed to examine the matters thereof, and report the same, as they should appear to them, to the House;—have unanimously agreed to the following REPORT:

It appears to your Committee, from the most attentive consideration of the several documents referred to them, that attempts have been made, in various parts of the country, as well as in the metropolis, to take advantage of the distress in which the labouring and manufacturing classes of the community are at present involved, to induce them to look for immediate relief, not only in a reform of parliament on the plan of universal suffrage and annual election, but in a total overthrow of all existing establishments, and in a division of the landed, and extinction of the funded property of the country.

This hope and prospect of spoliation have been actively and industriously propagated by several societies, openly existing in the metropolis, distinguished by the name of Spenceans; a title which they have assumed in consequence of having revived the principles, with some variation, of a visionary writer of the name of Spence, which first appeared in a publication of his near twenty years ago.

It appears that at some of these societies, held during the last month, the question was discussed, whether the meetings for parliamentary reform are calculated to mislead or enlighten the public. In the course of the debates upon which question, it was strongly urged "that parliamentary reform was only a half measure, that they must look to the land, for nothing short of that would ever avail them: that we had no constitution, there being no book in which it could be found, nor any man that could tell what it was." In another discussion upon the question, "whether the practical establishment of Spence's plan be an effectual remedy for the present distresses," one of the doctrines maintained was, that "the landholder was a monster to be hunted down; but that they should not suffer themselves to be amused; that there was a greater evil, namely, the fundholder; that these were the rapacious wretches, that took fifteen pence out of every quartern loaf."

It further appears, that in these meetings the most blasphemous expressions and doctrines are openly and repeatedly advanced; that as the meetings are professed to be of a convivial nature, the political debates and readings are usually followed by songs, in many of which the most inflammatory topics are introduced, some of a seditious and treasonable nature, and others under the form of profane and indecent parodies of the liturgy and of the holy scriptures.

These societies appear to have extended themselves; and there are traces of the existence of a committee called conservative, directing the operations of the whole. The doctrines above mentioned have been systematically and industriously disseminated amongst mechanics and manufacturers, discharged soldiers and sailors, and labourers of all descriptions: they have been inculcated at frequent appointed meetings, and at various places, by speakers, who have made the distresses of the times topics of excitement and inflammation; and they have been circulated, with incredible activity and perseverance, in cheap arid often gratuitous publications. It has been proved, to the entire satisfaction of your committee, that some members of these societies, acting by delegated or assumed authority, as an exe- cutive committee of the whole, conceived the project, and endeavoured to prepare the means of raising an insurrection, so formidable from numbers, as by dint of physical strength to overpower all resistance.

The first step towards the accomplishment of this object was, by the individual exertion of the members of the committee, to discover and foment the prevalent distresses and discontents in the metropolis and its vicinity. Returns were made of those who they thought were to be relied upon for daring and hazardous enterprises.

The design was by a sudden rising in the dead of the night, to surprise and overpower the soldiers in their different barracks, which were to be set on fire; at the same time (plans having been arranged, and some steps taken with a view to the accomplishment of that object) to possess themselves of the artillery, to seize or destroy the bridges, and to take possession of the Tower and the Bank. In furtherance of this design, a machine was projected for clearing the streets of cavalry. A drawing of this machine, fully authenticated, and also a manuscript sketch or plan of various important parts of the Tower, found with the drawing of the machine, have been laid before your committee.

This design was however relinquished a short time before its intended execution. It was thought more prudent previously to ascertain what force the conspirators could actually call together, and this it was agreed could best be done by convening a public meeting, for the ostensible purpose of obtaining a redress of grievances in a legal way. The map of London was inspected, and Spa-Fields were selected as the most eligible spot, from their vicinity to the Bank and the Tower. Advertisements were accordingly prepared, and written placards circulated, of the most dangerous and inflammatory nature; of one of which the following is a copy: BRITONS TO ARMS! The whole country waits the signal "from London to fly to arms! haste, break "open gunsmiths and other likely places "to find arms! run all constables who touch "a man of us; no rise of bread; no Regent; no Castlereagh, off with their "heads; no placemen, tythes, or enclosures; no taxes; no bishops, only useless "lumber! stand true, or be slaves for ever. N. B. —Five thousand of these bills "are up in the town, and printed ones, "with further particulars, will appear in "due time.

At this time, if not before, the intended insurrection assumed the symbols of the French revolution; a committee of public safety, consisting of 24, was agreed upon, including the names of several persons, extremely unlikely to lend themselves to such a cause. A tri-color flag and cockades were actually prepared; the flag was openly carried and displayed at the first meeting which took place in Spa-Fields, on the 15th of November. No acts of violence were however encouraged on that day, though some few instances of plunder occurred after the assembly dispersed, but care was taken to adjourn the meeting to the 2d of December, by which time it was hoped that the preparations for insurrection would be fully matured. Not a moment was lost in advertising the next meeting, and great assiduity was employed in circulating the intelligence through all the great manufacturing towns in the country, by means of placards and handbills; endeavours were used to raise subscriptions; the expense hitherto incurred in forwarding the object of the conspiracy, and in supporting such inferior members of it as had relinquished their trades and occupations in order to devote their whole time to the furtherance of the cause, having been hitherto principally defrayed by one individual of the committee. Plans for the seduction of the soldiers were now adopted and pursued with unremitting activity; appeals were made to excite their sympathy, and induce them not to act against the insurgents; attempts were made to inflame their hopes by promises of rank and reward, and to alarm their jealousy by the absurd fiction of the actual landing of a considerable foreign army, for the purpose of controlling them.

The barracks were again reconnoitered with a view to attack. The manufacture of tricolor-ribbon was encouraged, with a view of rendering it familiar to the eyes of the public.

Visits were repeated to those quarters of the town, where the distress was considered as the most prevalent; and warehouses along the river, as well as shops in other places, which were known to contain arms, combustibles, and clothing, were examined and noted down, with the view of seizing those articles on the proper occasion. Plans were also formed for seducing the sailors on the river, by offers of advancement to high rank under the new government, and for seizing and equipping such ships as were accessible. Immediately previous to the day of meeting, arms were provided for the immediate use of some of the persons most actively engaged. This provision was deemed sufficient for the beginning of the insurrection, as they felt confident that if it should be successful for two hours, as many arms might be procured as would be necessary, from the depots and gunsmiths shops, which had been reconnoitred with that view.

Your Committee have further received undoubted information that a large quantity of pike heads had been ordered of one individual, and 250 actually made by him, and delivered and paid for. It was also undoubtedly intended to liberate the prisoners in the principle gaols in or about the metropolis, in the hope of their concurrence and assistance in the intended insurrection. Addresses were introduced into some of those prisons, and recommended to be communicated to others, in which the persons confined were invited, in the name of the tri-colored committee, to rally round the tri-colored standard, which would be erected on Monday, December the 2d, and to wear tri-colored cockades themselves. It was promised that the prisoners should be liberated by force, and arms were stated to be provided for them, and they were directed to be ready to assist in overpowering the turnkeys. A waggon was hired for the business of the day, in which the flags and banner or standard, which had been previously prepared, together with some ammunition, were secretly conveyed to the place of meeting. From this waggon, before the ostensible business of the day commenced, in the other part of the field, the most inflammatory speeches were delivered, tending directly to excite insurrection, concluded by an appeal to the multitude assembled, whether they were prepared to redress their own grievances. A tri-color cockade was then exhibited, and the tri-color flag was displayed, and a number of persons followed it out of the field.

The direction which they took was towards that part of the town previously designed; gunsmiths shops were broken open, addresses and offers were made to the soldiers at the Tower to induce them to open the gates; but from the failure of the numbers expected to join the insur- gents, do attempt was made to force the gates. An attack was however made upon the city magistrates assembled in the Royal Exchange, a shot fired, and a tricolor flag and cockade openly displayed and seized on the offender.

In reviewing the whole of the transactions of the 2d of December, your Committee are firmly persuaded, that, however improbable the success of such a plan may appear, it yet was deliberately premeditated by desperate men, who calculated without reasonable ground upon defection in their opposers, and upon active support from those multitudes, whose distress they had witnessed, and whom they had vainly instigated to revolt. That consequently it was not merely the sudden ebullition of the moment, or the unauthorized attempt of any unconnected individual.

Your Committee are further convinced, that notwithstanding the failure on the 2d of December, the same designs still continue to be prosecuted with sanguine hopes of success.

Your Committee having thus stated the general result of the evidence which has been laid before them, respecting the state of the metropolis, have now the no less painful duty of calling the attention of the House to what has been passing during the same period in different parts of the country, a subject of equally momentous consideration. The first thing which has here forced itself upon their observation, is the widely diffused ramification of a system of clubs, associated professedly for the purpose of parliamentary reform, upon the most extended principle of universal suffrage and annual parliaments. These clubs in general designate themselves by the same name of Hampden clubs. On the professed object of their institution, they appear to be in communication and connexion with the club of that name in London.

It appears to be part of the system of these clubs, to promote an extension of clubs of the same name and nature, so widely as, if possible, to include every village in the kingdom. The leading members are active in the circulation of publications likely to promote their object. Petitions, ready prepared, have been sent down from the metropolis to all societies in the country disposed to receive them. The communication between these clubs takes place by the mission of delegates; delegates from these clubs in the country, have assembled in London, and are ex- pected to assemble again early in March. Whatever may be the real object of these clubs in general, your Committee have no hesitation in stating, from information on which they place full reliance, that in far the greater number of them, and particularly in those which are established in the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire, and which are composed of the lower order of artizans, nothing short of a revolution is the object expected and avowed.

Your Committee find, from equally undoubted information, that the doctrines of the Spencean clubs have been widely diffused through the country, either by the extension of similar societies, or more frequently by the intervention of missionaries or delegates, whose business it is to propagate those doctrines throughout every society to which they have access: it is the universal practice of these societies, to require from the members a small weekly subscription, which provides a fund for the expenses of these missionaries, and also for the purchase of seditious tracts, which are read and commented on at their meetings. Some of these tracts, now before your committee, inculcate in the most artful manner, the necessity of overturning what they call "the privileged class," as distinguished from the people, who are described as consisting of labourers, artizans, tradesmen, and every profession useful to society. A new order is declared to be the will of the people; rebellion is justified by the assertion that a nation cannot be a rebel; and all religion is disavowed, as well as loyalty, by the assertion, in answer to the question, "would you live without gods or kings,"—"we abjure tyranny of every kind."

It seems, indeed, to be a part of the system adopted by these societies, to prepare the minds of the people for the destruction of the present frame of society, by undermining not only their habits of decent and regular subordination, but all the principles of morality and religion. Your Committee find, that there is scarcely any very numerous society, in the parts above referred to, of whose proceedings they have obtained an account, in which some of the leading speakers do not openly avow the most seditious opinions, and do not excite their hearers to be prepared for actual insurrection. Topics for discussion are selected with this view: amongst others, the question, whether the jacob in or the loyalist was the best friend to his country? Even where petitioning is recommended, it is proposed to be conducted in such a manner, by an immense number of delegates attending in London at the same time, in several parties, attached to each petition, as might induce an effort to obtain by force whatever they demanded. A general idea seems prevalent among those who compose these societies, that some fixed day, at no very great distance, is to be appointed for a general rising. They have been taught to look to the meetings in London as the signal for their operations, and have been in the habit of adjourning their own assemblies simultaneously to the same day; and it is a lamentable instance of the common interest which they feel, if not of the connexion which is formed with those most implicated in the outrages committed in the metropolis, that about Manchester and some other places, the greatest exultation was manifested previous to the meeting in Spa-Fields on the 2nd of December; and the taking of the Tower, and the ruin of the Bank, were publicly and confidently predicted. The news of the result was impatiently expected, the roads were crowded during the night with a number of persons, many of them delegates from the different societies in the country, waiting for the arrival of the mail coach, and the disappointment was not concealed, when it was ascertained that the riot had been quelled without much serious or extensive mischief.

It appears, that the confidence of the disaffected is such, that they represent the numbers enrolled as amounting to several hundred thousand, and that their societies are daily increasing; that in their lists they distinguish by particular marks those among their subscribers who are able bodied men, and ready to act when required; and that they also keep a list of those who refuse to join them in what they call a "black book," and threaten vengeance against these persons when the general insurrection shall take place. In some parts of one populous county, where nearly every village has already its Hampden club, the members make it no secret that they consider themselves as of no other use than as being ready to act whenever they are called upon; on their admission they are said to be listed, and receive a secret card with the words "Be Ready, Be Steady."

The habits and manners of these persons seem entirely changed; they already calculate upon the share of land which each is to possess, and point out the destruction of the churches, as the necessary consequence of their success. It appears that preparations are in progress, in several places, for providing arms; the demand upon gunsmiths, for every species of fire arms, has been beyond all former example; the intention is professed, of having recourse for a still larger supply to those towns where arms are manufactured, and where they are to be obtained at a very low rate, from the general cheapness of labour at this time; or in case of necessity they are to be seized by force. The facility of converting implements of husbandry into offensive weapons, has been suggested; and persons have been sent to observe the state of particular places, where depots of arms for the public service were supposed to have been formed.

Your Committee, find that a system of secret association has been extended to the manufacturing population of Glasgow, and some other populous towns of Scotland; and although these societies have availed themselves of the same pretext, of parliamentary reform on the broadest basis, your Committee are firmly persuaded, from the information which has been laid before them, that their ultimate object is the overthrow by force of the existing form of government. That the time for attempting this enterprise was to depend on the simultaneous rising of the disaffected in England; with some emissaries from, whom occasional intercourse appears to have taken place, and that some provision of weapons has been made by this association.

Your Committee have now submitted to the House, what they conceive to be a fair, and not exaggerated statement of the result of their investigation. They have thought themselves precluded from inserting, in an Appendix, the information from which it is drawn, by the consideration, that unless it were extremely partial and incomplete, they could not make it public without hazarding the personal safety of many useful and many respectable individuals, and in some instances without prejudicing the due administration of public justice.

On a review of the whole, it is a great satisfaction to your Committee to observe, that, notwithstanding the alarming progress which has been made in the system of extending disaffection and secret societies, its success has been confined to the principle manufacturing districts, where the distress is more prevalent, and numbers more easily collected; and that even in many of these districts, privations have been borne with exemplary patience and resignation, and the attempts of the disaffected have been disappointed; that few if any of the higher orders or even of the middle class of society, and scarcely any of the agricultural population, have lent themselves to the more violent of these projects. Great allowance must be made for those who, under the pressure of urgent distress, have been led to listen to plausible and confident demagogues, in the expectation of immediate relief. It is to be hoped, that many of those who have engaged, to a certain extent, in the projects of the disaffected, but in whom the principles of moral and religious duty have not been extinguished or perverted by the most profane and miserable sophistry, would withdraw themselves before those projects were pushed to actual insurrection.

But, with all these allowances, your Committee cannot contemplate the activity and arts of the leaders in this conspiracy, and the numbers whom they have already seduced, and may seduce; the oaths by which many of them are bound together; the means suggested and prepared for the forcible attainment of their objects; the nature of the objects themselves, which are not only 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; without submitting, to the most serious attention of the House, the dangers which exist, and which the utmost vigilance of government, under the existing laws, has been found inadequate to prevent.

19th February, 1817.

The Report was ordered to be printed, and taken into consideration on Monday.