HC Deb 03 April 1827 vol 17 cc200-8
Sir James Graham

said, he was anxious to call the attention of the House to two petitions, which he held in his hand. The one was from Richard Pattinson, and the other from certain freemen and inhabitants of Carlisle, complaining of the unconstitutional introduction of a military force at the last general election for that city, by which some persons lost their lives, and others were severely wounded. He would admit that the ordinary squabbles which took place at elections were beneath the notice of that House; but, when the right of election was interfered with, and the free exercise of the elective franchise prevented by the interference of a military force, he thought he should not perform his duty if he allowed any personal feelings to prevent his bringing it before the House.—The hon. baronet then proceeded to give a detail of the circumstances attending the contest at the late general election, the particulars of which will be brought within the recollection of our readers by the following outline:—Soon after the arrival of the writ, there was a meeting; at which the hon. bàronet opposite (sir P. Musgrave) was questioned as to his opinions on several political points; and perhaps the system of "badgering" a candidate, which the chancellor of the Exchequer thought so wholesome on some occasions, was, in that instance, carried somewhat to excess. There was first some hooting, and afterwards some less equivocal symptoms of popular disapprobation, from which the hon. baronet found it expedient to retire, and from prudence or necessity, to shelter himself in a house in one of the suburbs. Thither the crowd followed, and beset the house. The mayor and two constables went to his assistance; but they were pelted, and not being more popular than the hon. baronet, were also obliged to seek for shelter. Soon after, one of the county magistrates, who had experienced the displeasure of the House for calling in the aid of the military in 1820, felt it necessary to swear in some three hundred special constables; but another magistrate went for military aid, and the two forces approached the place together. The former magistrate, remembering the rebuke which he got on another occasion, was unwilling to sanction such an interference by his presence, and withdrew. The force then went up to the place where the hon. baronet was under restraint, in the following order: First the artillery, then some companies of the 55th regiment, next the magistrate who had ordered them out, and who, on this occasion, did not choose to occupy the post of danger. The rear was brought up by the special constables. Some show of popular resistance was at first made, and some stones were thrown. The magistrate then gave orders that the soldiers should load and fix bayonets. The people retreated, but the soldiers charged them and fired, by which the lives of several unoffending persons were sacrificed.—The hon. baronet then went on to show, that the use of military force was unnecessary, and that the civil force would have been fully sufficient to quell the disturbance. On a recent occasion, a force of a hundred and fifty constables was found fully sufficient to take twelve culprits from the same part of the suburbs, without any resistance. The petitioner, Pattinson, who had a brother killed on this occasion, stated that he would not have brought the case before the House, if substantial justice had been done to him; but he complained of the partiality of the coroner, who, he observed, was an active partisan. of the hon. baronet's (sir P. Musgrave), and he offered to substantiate his allegations at the bar of that House, if necessary.—The hon. baronet then went on to state, from the petition, that a large body of cavalry had been brought on one occasion, by order of the mayor, during the election, near the hustings, by which the passions of the people were enflamed, and much danger might have ensued, if the mayor had not been prevailed upon to give an order for their removal to a proper distance; on which the confusion ceased, the people became quiet, and the harmony continued until the end of the election. That the mayor should have been a partisan, would not surprise the House, when they learnt that he was the accredited agent of the lord lieutenant of the county, and clerk of the peace. He was a practised attorney; and, in fact, his partner in that profession was the agent for the opposite party.—The hon. baronet then contended, that conduct such as that of the mayor was highly reprehensible, and that the House, on a former occasion, had severely reprimanded a returning officer for the introduction of a military force near the hustings during an election. The case he alluded to was that of the high bailiff of Westminster, who, in 1741, was rebuked by the House, for introducing a military force near Covent-garden during an election. He thought he should be justifiable in moving, that this case be referred to the committee of privileges, but he hoped the present notice of it would be sufficient to guard against the future recurrence of any such unconstitutional interference. He trusted that the bill now before the House for the regulation of the police of that city, would tend to prevent the recurrence of such events, and that the present case would be sufficient to show that something ought to be done to prevent the interference of the military in such elections. He moved that the petitions be brought up.

Sir P. Musgrave

said, the hon. baronet had exercised a sound discretion in not referring this case to the committee of privileges. The interference of the military was, he contended, called for by the circumstances of the case. The hon. member then detailed the occurrences of the day in question, and observed, that he had felt it necessary to take shelter, confident that, if he had not done so, his life would have been endangered. He denied that there was, at first, a sufficient force of constables to assist. There were, afterwards, about two hundred and forty special constables sworn in; but they were weavers of the very lowest class, and such as could not be relied upon for rendering any effectual resistance. In fact, it could be proved, that several of them had joined the rioters, and were identified as encouraging the disturbance. It was agreed between Mr. Ferguson and the mayor, that it would not be safe for them to proceed amidst a crowd so riotously disposed, with such a body of special constables, as they would, by so doing, be placing themselves between two fires. They, therefore, declined proceeding with the special constables sworn in by Dr. Heysham. They went down, however, with the usual civil power of the town, to the place where the rioters were assembled. They read the Riot act to them, and had no sooner done so, than they were pelted by the crowd, and obliged to take refuge in a house near to that in which he himself was shut up. Mr. Ferguson shortly afterwards made his escape into the city of Carlisle, and having tried in vain to get the assistance of a civil force sufficient to quell the riot in Canongate, applied at last for the assistance of the military. He applied for it at the castle, and having obtained it, marched down to the place where he (sir P. Musgrave) was shut up. He would now tell the House how the military were received by the populace. When they came in front of the crowd, they were received with a volley of stones. He could speak to that circumstance with some precision, as he had been an eye-witness of it. A gentleman who had seen more of it than himself, through a crevice of a shutter in the house in which they had taken refuge, described the resistance which the people made to the military as being very great. Several of the soldiers were wounded by the stones, and the danger to which they were exposed was so great, that the officer who commanded them told Mr. Ferguson, that his men could stand it no longer. Mr. Ferguson then gave the order for the military to act on the defensive. In consequence, they drew up behind a wall, loaded their pieces, and then came forward and fired upon the people. One of the petitions which the hon. baronet had that night presented, stated that the soldiers had fired precipitately. He believed the fact to be quite the reverse of that statement. After the crowd was dispersed, the sergeant came to take him out of the house in which he was shut up. The sergeant was covered with blood, and had received a severe cut on the forehead from a stone—a clear proof that his party must have been previously ill-treated by the crowd. He lamented the consequences which had followed from the firing of the military—indeed, every man of common humanity must do so—but he believed that the magistrate who directed it, did so from a sense of its necessity to the preservation of the public peace, and not from any wish to obstruct the freedom of election. With regard to the alleged misconduct of the returning officer in stopping the polling on the 9th of June, he begged leave to say, that the polling was completely obstructed by the conduct of the party who opposed his election. Many individuals, in consequence of that obstruction, dared not attempt to vote for him at all; whilst others who made the attempt, were insulted and spitten upon, and treated with every species of indignity. The riot in the streets was so great, that the shopkeepers closed the windows of their shops; the pavement was torn up to supply ammunition for the rioters; his friends were driven from the streets, and then, when there was nothing more to destroy, a stern tranquillity prevailed in Carlisle. The mayor stopped the polling at two o'clock on the Friday, because he received from the freemen in his (sir P. Musgrave's) interest a representation, that they could not make their way up to the poll. There must have been some riot to make such a representation credible. Under these circumstances, hearing that a legal gentleman of great eminence, Mr. Holt, was in the neighbourhood, the mayor sent to him for assistance and advice; and, by Mr. Holt's recommendation, the mayor again sent for a military force. He admitted that Mr. Holt first advised the trial of the civil force; but the fact was, that at Carlisle there was no civil force; no respectable man being willing to act there as a special constable. Such being the case, the mayor sent an order to the cavalry, desiring them to come to the precincts of the city, and to hold themselves in readiness to act, in case circumstances rendered their interference necessary to preserve the freedom of election. With respect to the circumstances which led the people to know that the cavalry was in the neighbourhood, he believed it was occasioned by the officer's riding in uniform into the city, How the officer came to do so, he did not know; but the fact was, that the vicinity of the cavalry soon became notorious. The people then became so uproarious, and so incensed against the mayor, that he believed they would have sacrificed the life of that functionary, if he had not signed an order, commanding the military to retire to a distance of four miles from Carlisle. Indeed, the mayor was so agitated by the proceedings of that day, that he fell down in a fit of apoplexy in a house in which he took shelter not more than a few yards from the polling booths. Under these circumstances, he trusted the House would be of opinion, that the mayor, in acting as he had done, had not transgressed the line of public duty. There was a wide difference between the present case and that which, in 1820, was submitted to the investigation of a committee above stairs. In that case the gravamen of the charge was, that the magistrates had called in the military without a requisition from the returning offi cer: here, it was the returning officer who had absolutely called them in. The hon. baronet concluded by thanking the House for the attention with which they had listened to the statement into which he had felt it his duty to enter.

Mr. Secretary Peel

deprecated, in the strongest terms, any unnecessary calling in of the military, to assist the civil power. At the same time, he felt himself compelled to say, that so long as the city of Carlisle remained as it did at present, without any efficient civil force, the military must occasionally be called in, to preserve the public peace. The whole civic force of Carlisle at present was two constables. It was not surprising, therefore, that the law was not properly administered, considering that these two men had to superintend and to check all the offences committed by a population of thirty or forty thousand persons. He knew that a bill was now before the House for the specific purpose of giving an efficient police to the city of Carlisle; and he made no hesitation in saying that some pecuniary sacrifice must be made by the inhabitants to carry it into execution. It might be a good system, four or five hundred years ago, to trust to the exertions of a party of shopkeepers and special constables; but now, when the population was so much greater than it was, and so many artificial wants were introduced among them, he thought they ought not to trust to a corps of volunteer constables, but to a well-paid and united police. He did not know whether he should have taken any share in the present discussion, had it not been for the charge of remissness which the hon. baronet who presented the petition had brought against himself. He thought that he could satisfy even the hon. baronet himself, that the charge was totally without foundation, The first riot took place at Carlisle on the 6th of June. On the 7th the mayor wrote to him informing him of it, saying that he had called in the military, and hoping that he would sanction, not merely their being called in, but also their being retained in the town. He received that letter on the 9th of June. On the same day he wrote an answer to the mayor, saying, that he could not approve retaining the military force in the town during the time of the election, unless there was a clear and undeniable necessity for it; and that the sex of the two persons who were killed by the military, made him pause before he ventured an opinion in approbation of the mayor's conduct. He likewise added, that as to the propriety of retaining the military in Carlisle, he was not then in a situation to decide; and that he must have more facts within his knowledge before he gave to such a measure his approval. He thought that the hon. baronet would, upon this statement alone, acquit him of the charge of remissness. But he could carry his defence much further. He had written immediately to sir J. Byng, the commander of the district, and had requested that excellent officer to send him all the particulars which he could collect, relating to the unfortunate transaction. He had received such a report from sir John Byng; and he owned that the impression on his mind was, that there was no intention on the part of the mayor to interfere with the freedom of election when he called in the military on the 5th of June. Carlisle was a garrison town; and therefore it was that a party of soldiers were left in it during the election to take care of the garrison. It was in consequence of Carlisle's being a garrison town that it had been so long without an efficient police. The people of Carlisle had hitherto relied on the presence of the military in case of any disturbance: but he must now tell them that that reliance must be at an end; for he would not lend his assistance to calling in the military on every trifling breach of the public tranquillity. He then entered into a statement of the circumstances of the riot of the 5th of June, which corroborated that previously given by sir P. Musgrave. He contended, that the military had not fired until they were compelled to do so in self-defence; and he believed that it was owing to their desire to avoid mischief by firing over the heads of the people, that one of the women, who was killed at her window, met her death. He then entered into a similar history of the riot of the 9th of June, and said, that the information which he had received, convinced him, that on that day the mayor had been grievously assaulted by the rioters, and, indeed, had been confined to his bed in consequence of bruises he had then received. He therefore thought, that it was possible, that the mayor, having been himself captured on the 5th, and seriously assaulted on the 9th, by the rioters, had conceived that a necessity existed for calling in the military. It had been asked, why he had not called in the infantry, instead of the cavalry? It appeared to him that the mayor's reason for calling in the cavalry instead of the infantry was, that he did not wish to aggravate the feelings of animosity which already existed between the working population of Carlisle and the military stationed in the garrison. He had now stated the case as fairly as he could, for he had no triumph to gain, being unconnected with either of the parties in the city of Carlisle. He thought the hon. baronet had done wisely in not founding any motion on the petition which he had presented, but in merely stating it as a reason for securing to Carlisle the benefit of a sufficient civil force.

Sir J. Graham

said, that the opposition to the bill, to which the right hon. gentleman had alluded, did not come from his friends at Carlisle, but from the members of the corporation; who were the very parties who had acted in the improper manner of which the petitioners complained. If the hon. baronet on the other side of the House would move for a committee of inquiry into the subject of these riots, he would be prepared to substantiate before it all the allegations contained in the petition. The hon. baronet had said, that it was impossible to find a single respectable special constable among the seventeen thousand persons who constituted the population of Carlisle. Now, it was quite impossible to believe that to be the fact. The hon. member then proceeded to recount the circumstances of the riots on the 5th and on the 9th of June. With regard to the events of the last day, he had himself been an eye-witness, and therefore could speak with some degree of authority. Never did any election proceed more quietly than did the election on that day, up to the time when the people discovered that the military were called in. On the knowledge of that circumstance reaching them, he admitted that a scene of riot and confusion did ensue. Chaos appeared to be let loose; but then the tumult originated from the indignation which British electors naturally felt at seeing the freedom of election violated. As soon as it was known that the troops were to be withdrawn to their former cantonments, the riot subsided, and the town became quiet. He had not blamed the mayor for calling in the cavalry instead of the infantry. He blamed the mayor on two distinct grounds; first, that on the 5th of June he had not used any of the three hundred special constables who had been sworn in, to quell the riot; and secondly, that apprehending a riot on the 9th, he had created it by the means he took to prevent it.

Ordered to lie on the table.