Peterloo by Robert Poole

Author:Robert Poole
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780191086212
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

That any laws which may hereafter be enacted, or any taxes which may be imposed by the present British House of Commons, ought not in equity to be considered obligatory upon those who are un-justly excluded from giving their voices or votes in the choice of representatives.

That from and after the first day of January, 1820, we cannot conscientiously consider ourselves as bound in equity by any future enactments which may be made by any persons, styling themselves our representatives, other than those who shall be fully, freely, and fairly chosen, by the voices or votes of the largest proportion, of the members of the State.

As the wind was against Hunt only a fraction of the crowd could hear, but the deed had been done. The principle that governments which acted unconstitutionally would forfeit the allegiance of their people had been asserted at Palace Yard in September 1818, and in Manchester the following January; now the Smithfield meeting put a date on it and appealed to Irish catholics for support. A month later, on the day of the Manchester meeting, the Home Office warned Dublin castle that an Irish priest was on his way via Manchester with a parcel of printed copies of Hunt’s address.73

Harrison had been tracked to London by Constable Birch of Stockport, with his colleague Pass of Altrincham, both involved in the failed attempt to seize the cap of liberty in Stockport the previous February. Harrison was arrested on the hustings at Smithfield by two City of London marshals backed by thirty constables. This was a tricky moment. Although Hunt had begun the meeting by urging the crowd to avoid being provoked, he added: ‘If I hear the same provocation to day, that Wat Tyler did on a former occasion, I would put myself at the head of the people to obtain redress (bravo).’ Harrison’s arrest was met by a cry of ‘rescue!’ and the crowd began to press towards the officers, but Hunt called for calm and allowed Harrison to be taken. For all the rhetoric about civil disobedience, the meeting concluded peacefully. ‘Their speakers were flat’, Hobhouse noted with satisfaction, ‘and their suffering Harrison to be arrested on the hustings, evinced a want of confidence in their own strength.’74 Harrison was quickly whisked off to Chester by Birch on the night mail coach before Hunt could intervene. Harrison afterwards wrote proudly: ‘I was arrested in the same place where many martyrs have suffered death and where Wat Tyler was assassinated.’75

The Smithfield resolutions were later used against Hunt at his trial for his role at Manchester, presented as evidence for his seditious intentions as chair of both meetings. Hunt in his memoirs claimed that he had been bounced into accepting them by the Spenceans. The previous night Watson, the leading figure of the London ultras, ‘had only a few very vague and imperfect resolutions drawn up’. Instead he produced a letter from Johnson proposing that Hunt should be elected legislatorial attorney for London and that Manchester should follow suit.

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