dear father, and secret fear for the apprentice who had gone so readily
to pilot him through that surging human sea, caused her to look forth
once more. Augusta and her friend, with blanched cheeks and lips, were
also at the window, fascinated as it were with that which chilled them.
Jabez turned the corner into Piccadilly, where one or two good houses
had been converted into shops without lowering the floors, or removing
the original palisades, which enclosed bold flights of steps leading
to doors with good shop-windows on each side. A confectioner of some
standing named Mabbott occupied the second of these. He and his
neighbour were hurriedly putting up their shutters as Jabez, crushing
his way through the thickening crowd, saw Molly and Mr. Chadwick jammed
up against the palisades, a young mounted yeomanry officer, in all his
pride of blue and silver, brandishing his sabre, urging his unwilling
steed upon them, and shouting—
“Move on, you rebels, move on! or I’ll cut you down!”
Strong of nerve and will, Jabez thrust the impending throng aside, and
grasped the horse’s reins to force it back, crying as he did so—
“Shame, you coward! to attack a woman and a paralysed man!”
“Come in here, quick, Mr. Chadwick!” cried Mr. Mabbott at that instant,
opening his closed gate and drawing the feeble gentleman and his
attendant within, as the sabre, raised either to terrify or strike
the old man, came down on the outstretched arm of Jabez, gashing it
frightfully.
Another of the corps riding past, with his eyes full upon them, stopped
his horse at the gallop as if to interpose, but he was too late.
“My God! Aspinall, what have you done?” he exclaimed, and throwing his
own reins over the palisades, he dismounted hastily, caught at Jabez,
who had staggered back, and drew him too within the iron screen, and
helped him also into the confectioner’s, as the other, with a derisive
laugh which ill-became his handsome face, turned at a hand-gallop up
Oldham Street, where he overtook a _confrere_, and with him sneered at
“that soft-hearted Ben Travis.”
Ellen and Augusta had not lost sight of Jabez many minutes when two of
the Manchester Yeomanry, their dripping sabres flashing in the August
sun, wheeled their panting chargers round, and rode (heedless of the
shrinking wretches beneath their hoofs) across the footway, and made
the brute beasts rear and plunge against the area-rails.
“Shut your windows, or we’ll fire upon you!” they shouted.
Nothing daunted, Ellen called back indignantly—
“John Walmsley, I’m ashamed of you!”
Not sober enough to distinguish friends from foes, again the pair
launched their threat, “Shut the window, or we fire!” and Ellen,
seeing pistols advanced, drew the window down, Mrs. Chadwick in much
trepidation closing the other.
“Who was that handsome officer with John?” asked Augusta, as they drew
back, “he’s a perfect Adonis.” (Augusta dipped surreptitiously into
Mrs. Edge’s novels at times, and a handsome man in uniform was, of
course, a hero in her eyes).
“Oh, Augusta, how can you talk of handsome officers at such a fearful
time?” remonstrated Ellen. “I think them hideous, every one!”
“But who is he? Do you know him?” she asked, even through the tears
drawn by the scenes she beheld.
“Oh, yes; know him? yes. He’s a friend of John Walmsley. He’s too wild
to please either Charlotte or me!—Oh, mother! I do wish father had come
home!” and Ellen turned a worried look towards Mrs. Chadwick, whose
rigid face and clasped hands betrayed the anxiety which kept her silent.
Augusta, though not naturally void of feeling, longed to know more of
the handsome yeomanry officer who had so captivated her young fancy;
but that was not the season for such inquiries, and she was conscious
of it.
“Hark! what is that?” burst from Mrs. Chadwick, some half-hour later,
as the sound of feet was heard from below; and Ellen, rushing to the
stairs, came back followed by her father leaning on the arm of a big
muscular man, in the blue and silver uniform of the yeomanry cavalry,
a red cord down his pantaloons, hessian boots, and, to make assurance
sure, M.Y.C. upon the shako which his height compelled him to doff ere
he entered the doorway.
“Where is Jabez Clegg?” faltered Ellen, as she pressed to her father’s
side, led him to his chair, and placed his cushions to his liking,
Augusta bringing a buffet on which to rest his foot.
The stalwart young fellow’s eyes followed the attentive daughter, as he
answered—
“We have left Jabez Clegg at Mr. Mabbott’s, Miss Chadwick,” with an
inclination of his head. “He was afraid you would be anxious for your
father’s safety, and I offered to see Mr. Chadwick home in his stead.”
Ellen’s black eyes expanded questioningly, and Mrs. Chadwick’s mild
voice, in accents indicative of some fear, asked—
“I hope not of necessity, sir?”
“Well, yes, madam; and I must hasten back; he has received a sabre-cut
on—— Eh, dear!”
Ben Travis, for he it was, darted forward to catch Ellen Chadwick,
just as he had previously caught Jabez at Mabbott’s gate:—Aspinall’s
sabre had wounded two instead of one—Ellen Chadwick, who that day had
seen what sabre-cuts meant, had fainted. Ben Travis bore her to the
sofa, Mr. Chadwick pulled the bell-rope, Augusta ran for water, Mrs.
Chadwick called for vinegar and burnt feathers, and in the midst of the
commotion Mr. Ashton burst into the room in a state of excitement very
foreign to his nature, which was tolerably easy-going.
“Thank God, Augusta, you are here!” he exclaimed. “Your mother is
almost distracted about you—Why, what is the matter with Ellen? The
whole world seems gone mad to-day—or hell has set its demons loose.
I’ve just seen our friend Captain Hindley’s horse take fright in Mosley
Street at the firing, and dash with him against those half-built houses
at the corner of Tib Street. He was pitched off amongst the bricks and
scaffolding, and the horse dropped. Old Simon Clegg happened to be
there, and he helped me and another to raise Hindley, who had fared
better than his horse, for it was stone-dead, and he is only badly
hurt.”
He had gone on talking, though hardly anyone had listened to him.
Ellen’s fainting fit engrossed feminine attention, and the yeoman,
seeing her revive, was saying to Mr. Chadwick, “You will excuse me now,
sir. I must look after our poor friend Jabez.”
“Eh what! Jabez? You don’t mean to say anything has happened to Jabez
Clegg?” exclaimed Mr. Ashton, pausing in the act of drawing forth his
snuff-box.
Travis was gone, but Mr. Chadwick, whose tongue now was none of the
readiest, stammered out—
“Yes, William, w-we le-ft him at Mab-bott the confectioner’s. In
try-ying to-o save me he got b-badly w-wounded. I’m v-very s-sorry, for
he is a n-noble y-young man.”
“The wretches! I’d almost as soon they’d wounded me! Stay here,
Augusta;” and with that Mr. Ashton was off after Ben Travis. The
main streets were unsafe, so he also took the back way, and across
Back-Piccadilly to Mr. Mabbott’s, with a celerity scarcely to have been
expected, for he was not a young man. But his apprentice had won upon
him not only by his integrity and business qualifications, but by his
manifest interest in the family he served, especially the daughter.
Let me not be misunderstood. Augusta was the cynosure of Mr. Ashton’s
eyes; the homage of the apprentice to the school-girl, he estimated as
the homage of an apprentice merely, and was gratified thereby, but his
imagination never travelled beyond.
He found Jabez on a chintz-covered couch in Mr. Mabbott’s sitting-room,
his arm bound tightly with a towel, through which the blood would force
its way. He was pale and exhausted from excessive hæmorrhage, but
seemed more concerned about the fate of the multitude outside than for
his own.
Ben Travis, discovering that no one had dared to venture in quest of
a doctor, threw himself across his horse, which he found where he had
left it, and was off up Mosley Street and thence back to Piccadilly,
intent on bringing either Dr. Hull or Dr. Hardie. His uniform was a
protection, and so the doctors told him; Dr. Hardie plainly saying that
black cloth was not plate-armour, and that his friend, whosoever he
might be, must wait until the tumult had somewhat subsided.
But Jabez was only a few hours without attention. There were hundreds
wounded that day, who had to skulk into holes and corners to hide
themselves and their agony as best they might, afraid of seeking
surgical aid, lest Nadin and his myrmidons should pounce upon them, and
haul them to prison as rebels.
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH[18]
ACTION AND RE-ACTION.
The August sun had looked down in its noontide splendour when the
events I have attempted to describe took place; but the tide of terror
and destruction swept beyond the limits I have covered, and after
the first fierce onslaught, as if the carnage had been insufficient,
artillery went rattling and thundering through the streets, to awe the
peaceful and terrified inhabitants. As the flying crowd, dispersing,
left bare St. Peter’s Field, pressing outward and onwards through all
accessible ramifications, the main thoroughfares thinned, and the scene
of action took a wider radius.
Still the gallant hussars and yeomanry went prancing through these
thoroughfares, dashing hither and thither, slashing at stragglers,
shouting to the rebels, and to each other, to “clear the way”; driving
curious and anxious spectators from doors and windows, and firing at
refractory outstretched heads.
To clear the streets more effectually, cannon were planted at the
entrances of the leading outlets from the town, and, as if that were
not enough, the artillery had orders to fire.
At New Cross two of these guns (which went rattling up Oldham
Street, to the dismay of Augusta and the Chadwicks, as well as their
neighbours) were posted, one with its hard iron mouth directed up
Newton Lane, the other set to sweep Ancoats Lane, not then so wide as
at present.
Nathaniel Bradshaw’s butcher’s shop was situated at the narrowest part
of Ancoats Lane, a little beyond the canal bridge. The shutters had
been closed precipitately on the first alarm, but Martha Bradshaw and
her young brother Matthew opened the window of the room above, and had
their heads stretched out to watch and question the white-faced people
scurrying past in disorder, when Matt Cooper, who lived with his
genial son-in-law, came hurriedly home for dinner. His route from the
tannery lay in a straight line up Miller’s Lane, past Shude Hill Pits,
and the New Cross, into Ancoats Lane, which he crossed the Market to
reach only just before the cannon lumbered up.
His clogs had rattled as swiftly over the pavement as his stiffening,
hide-bound, long legs would carry them, and observing the heads of
Martha and Matthew advanced from the window he waved his hand in
gesticulation for them to withdraw from a post so fraught with peril.
But youth is wilful, and woman curious. They either did not understand,
or did not heed his warning. They did not know all he had seen at New
Cross, or how narrow an escape he had had from Aspinall’s flashing
sabre.
“Do goo in, childer!” he cried, as he drew near, “if yo’ wantn to kep
the yeads on yo’r shoulders. Wenches an’ lads shouldna look on sich
soights.”
“Han yo’ seen Nat?” the wife asked, anxiously.
“Nawe.”
“He’s gone t’ see what o’ th’ mob an’ feightin’s abeawt. Aw wish he wur
whoam.”
Matt wished the same, but went in at the unfastened door, and passed
on to the room beyond, where he found the untended lobscouse boiling
over into the fire. He took the lid off the pot; then went to the
stair-foot, and called “Martha!”
There being no answer, he strode back through the shop, saying as he
went—
“Dang it, hoo’ll not be content till hoo’s hurt!”
He stepped out on the rough pavement, and, looking up, called out—
“Do put yo’r yeads in; yo’ll——”
A musket-shot, splintering a corner of the stone window-sill on which
they leaned, was more effective than his adjuration. The cannon boomed
simultaneously—a shriek recalled the hastily-withdrawn heads; and
there, on the rough sun-baked ground before their eyes, lay weltering
in blood, a doubled-up form, which a minute before had been their
father, Matt Cooper, the tanner, the preserver of Jabez, the friend of
Simon and Bess.
This harrowing event was the last of the painful incidents of that
fatal day coming within the scope of this history, which isolated as
they are, the writer knows to be true, even though they may not be
chronicled elsewhere.
The streets grew silent and deserted, save by the military and medical
men, as the day and the night advanced: but within the houses of poor
and rich there were loud complaints and groans, and murmurings, which
did not sink to silence with the day that called them forth.
The town was, as it were, in a state of siege: and men of business,
whether Tories or Radicals, alike felt the stoppage of trade and
commerce in their pockets, whether they felt the cruelty and injustice
to the injured in their hearts or not.
But chiefly those who had friends wounded by design or accident in the
_melee_ were loud in their denunciation of the whole proceedings; and
of these neither Mr. Chadwick nor Mr. Ashton was the least prominent,
even though the one was paralysed, and they were of contrary shades of
politics, the former being what he himself called “a staunch and true
out-and-out Tory,” the latter having a leaning towards Liberal—not to
say Radical—opinions, and at county elections voting with the Whigs.
The stiff “Church and King” man, whose sons had distinguished
themselves in the Army and Navy, and whose son-in-law, Walmsley, might
also be said to have distinguished himself in the loyal Manchester
Yeomanry—he who had been a member of John Shaw’s Club in the Market
Place, and called for his P or his Q bowl of punch even before the
aroma of Jacobinism ceased to flavour the delectable compound, and
while yet John Shaw himself lived to draw his silver spoon from its
particular pocket to concoct the same, and (inexorable autocrat that
he was) could crack his whip in his poky bar-parlour in the ears of
even noble customers who lingered after his imperative “Eight o’clock
gentlemen; eight o’clock!” or summon his sturdy factotum, Molly, with
mop and pail, to drive thence with wetted feet those whom the whip had
failed to influence—he who had stuck to the club even after John Shaw,
Molly, and the punch-house itself had gone to the dust—he, Charles
Chadwick, whose Toryism had grown with his growth, was foremost in
condemning the proceedings of Peterloo.
In his own person he had witnessed how the actual breakers of the
peace were those commissioned to preserve it. In the wanton attack on
himself, an unarmed, defenceless, disabled old man, he recognised the
general characteristics of the whole affair, and entered his protest
against so lawless an exposition of the law. He was himself a peaceable
man, a loyal subject, going quietly about his own business when Jabez
intercepted to his own hurt, the sabre destined for his grey head.
Matthew Cooper, his tenant’s father-in-law, was as peaceable and
well-disposed; and if so, might not the bulk of the so-called rebels
have been the same? In his gratitude to Jabez he denounced the mounted
yeoman who had sabred him as “a drunken, blood-thirsty miscreant,”
though in the hurry, excitement, and agitation attending his own
withdrawal from the press by Mr. Mabbott, he had failed to identify his
pursuer with John Walmsley’s dashing friend, and the exclamation of Ben
Travis had not reached his ear in the confusion.
Easy-going Mr. Ashton also seemed transformed by the event. He had
certainly lost the valuable services of his apprentice for some time to
come; but that was the very least ingredient in the cup of his wrath.
By faithful intelligent service; by persevering industry, by a thousand
little actions which had shown his interest in his employers, and his
devotion to his old friends, Jabez had won a place in his master’s
esteem and affection no other apprentice of any grade had ever attained.
And now that Jabez had risked the dangers of the soldier-ridden
street to bear his beloved daughter to a place of safety, and had
braved the storm of foot and horse, and fire and steel, to rescue his
brother-in-law by endangering his own life or limbs, his admiration and
gratitude rose to their highest, and in proportion his denunciation
of an outrage which called for such a sacrifice was strong and
vehement—all the more that he sympathised with the objects of the
meeting.
When he and Simon Clegg (who had been drawn to the scene in his
dinner-hour with others, like moths to a candle) picked up his cavalry
friend, Robert Hindley, from amongst the building materials, and
disengaged him from his dead horse, he could not refrain from telling
the disabled warrior, with all a friend’s frankness, that “it served
him right!”
Open expression of private opinion on the conduct of rulers was
dangerous at that period, as may be supposed; but private opinion
became public opinion, too strong and too universal to be put in
fetters.
Mr. Tyas, the _Times_ reporter, had been taken prisoner on the
hustings, and it was imagined that only a one-sided account—forwarded
by the magistracy in justification of their conduct—would reach London.
But other intelligent reporters were at large, the garbled statements
sent to the Government press were confuted by the truth-telling
narratives of Messrs. Archibald Prentice and John Edward Taylor, which
appeared the following day, and roused the indignation of the realm.
These statements being more than substantiated by the _Times_ reporter
on his liberation, national indignation rose to a ferment.
This alarmed the Manchester magistrates; a meeting was hurriedly
arranged to take place on Thursday, the 19th (the third day from
Peterloo), at the Police Station; thence adjourned to the “Star Inn”
in Deansgate; and, as though the meeting had been a public one,
resolutions were passed thanking magistrates and soldiers for their
services on the previous Monday.
Then Manchester rose, as it were, _en masse_, to vindicate its own
honour, and reject participation in a disgraceful deed.
“A declaration,” says one historian, “was issued, protesting against
the ‘Star Inn’ resolutions, which in the course of two or three days
received close upon five thousand signatures,” in obtaining which
none were more active than Mr. Ashton and (despite his paralysis) Mr.
Chadwick. Old Mrs. Clowes talked her customers into signing, and Parson
Brookes was not idle. Mr. William Clough, whose old servant Matthew
Cooper had been shot down at his own door, gave the tanners a holiday,
that they might influence their fellows; and Simon Clegg, Tom Hulme,
and Nathaniel Bradshaw seemed ubiquitous, they went to work with such
determined zeal. _They_ did not feel “thankful” to the magistrates for
the blood shed on Peterloo Monday.
Neither did the bulk of the inhabitants: and an energetic protest
against the proceedings and representations of the magistracy was the
result.
To counteract this, the Prince Regent, through his mouth-piece Lord
Sidmouth, sent his thanks to the magistrates and the military leaders
for “their prompt, decisive, and efficient measures.” But this, instead
of calming, lashed the public mind to frenzy. Meetings to remonstrate
with the Regent and to petition for inquiry were held in all the large
towns, Sir Francis Burdett presiding at one held in Westminster.
Subscriptions were also got up for the relief of such wounded
and disabled persons as had crept into holes and corners to hide
themselves and their wounds from Nadin and his constabulary; and
here, too, William Ashton and William Clough worked hand-in-hand to
bring relief to sufferers not in the Infirmary; and Parson Brookes,
to the disgust of some of his clerical brethren, lent his aid in
ferreting out the miserables, if he did not ostentatiously flourish
his subscription in their service; and I rather think a certain “J.S.”
in the subscription-list represented the mite of the Grammar School
head-master, but I could not take an affidavit on the subject. But
when the wounded, as far as ascertained, amounted to six-hundred
irrespective of the killed, subscriptions had need to be many and ample.
Another token of the change in public sentiment was shown in the
satires and pasquinades which appeared on the walls, or were
distributed from hand to hand. Previously to Peterloo a set of
anonymous verses in ridicule of the popular leader had been
distributed. They began and were headed as follows:—
ORATOR HUNT.
I.
Blithe Harry Hunt was an orator bold—
Talked away bravely and blunt;
And Rome in her glory, and Athens of old,
With all their loud talkers, of whom we are told,
Couldn’t match Orator Hunt!
II.
Blithe Harry Hunt was a sightly man—
Something ’twixt giant and runt:
His paunch was a large one, his visage was wan,
And to hear his long speeches vast multitudes ran.
O rare Orator Hunt!
* * * * *
VI.
Orator Hunt was the man for a riot—
Bully in language and front—
And thought when a nation had troubles to sigh at,
’Twas quite unbecoming to sit cool and quiet.
O rare Orator Hunt!
* * * * *
VIII.
How Orator Hunt’s many speeches will close—
Tedious, bombastic, and blunt—
In a _halter_ or _diadem_, God only knows:
The sequel might well an arch-conjurer pose.
O rare Orator Hunt!
Sufficient has been given to show the nature of the lampoon without
repeating its scurrility. The following, of which we only quote the two
first stanzas, is of pretty much the same order, though emanating from
the other side, and after terrible provocation had been given:—
THE RENOWNED ACHIEVEMENTS OF PETERLOO,
ON THE GLORIOUS 16TH OF AUGUST, 1819.
BY SIR HUGO BURLO FURIOSO DI MULO SPINNISSIMO, BART., M.Y.C. AND
A.S.S.
_The music by the celebrated_ DR. HORSEFOOD; _to be had at
the “Cat and Bagpipes,” St. Mary’s Gate, Manchester_.
RECITATIVE.
When fell sedition’s stalking through the land,
It then behoves each patriotic band
OF NOBLE-MINDED YEOMAN CAVALIERS
To sally forth and rush upon the mob,
And execute the MAGISTERIAL JOB
Of cutting off the ragamuffins’ ears.
ARIA BRAVURA.
=_Forte._=
How valiantly we met that crew
Of infants, men and women too
Upon the plain of Peterloo:
And gloriously did hack and hew
The d——d reforming gang.
Our swords were sharp, you may suppose:
Some lost their ears—some lost a nose;
Our horses trod upon their toes
Ere they could run t’ escape our blows:
With shouts the welkin rang.
=_Andante._=
So keen were we to rout these swine,
Whole shoals of constables in line
We galloped o’er in style so fine,
By orders of the SAPIENT NINE—
First friends, then foes, laid flat.
By Richardson’s best grinding skill
Our blades were set with right good will,
That we these rogues might bleed or kill,
And “give them of Reform their fill!”
And what d’ye think of that?
And so on the satire ran, in mock-bravura style, through the whole
course of _piano_, _sotto voce_, _pianissima-mento_, and _con
baldanza_, with foot-notes to strengthen or elucidate the text. And
that the writer remained undiscovered and unprosecuted spoke loudly for
the re-action which had taken place in men’s minds.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.
WOUNDED.
At the extreme end of Mr. Mabbott’s long double-countered shop was an
expansive archway, closed in general by folding doors, through which
entrance was afforded to a narrow sitting-room, the length of which
was just by so much less than the width of the shop as was required
for a passage and staircase. Once a year the open archway revealed a
shimmering mass of snowy sugar-work, the towers and turrets of a castle
on a rock, or the illuminated windows of a magnificent palace, fit for
any princess of fairyland, with pleasure-gardens and lake, or fountain
and pond, wherein stately swans floated, and were overlooked by dames
and cavaliers created by the confectioner and his satellites.
For the fifty other weeks it was simply a snug parlour, comfortably
furnished according to the fashion of the time.
And it was in this room we left Jabez, whilst good-natured Ben Travis,
leaving his more patriotic comrades to “hack and hew” at their
pleasure, galloped hither and thither in search of a surgeon to dress
the wounded arm.