Chapter 4

Present at the famous Peterloo meeting that was to have been addressed by Henry Hunt—-—the Parliamentary Reformer and brother of Leigh Hunt—-on 'Monday, August 15th, 1819, Carlile witnessed the massacre of defenseless women and children by the. Yeomanry and police. No less than 300,000 people——men, women, and children-—were assembled in and about the intended place of meeting, in a perfectly orderly and quiet manner. Mr. Hunt had began his discourse, and made some ironical observations upon the conduct of the magistrates in attempting to forbid the meeting, when, says Carlile:—

“a cart, which evidently took its direction from that part of the field where the police and magistrates were assembled in a house, was moved through the middle of the field, to the great annoyance and danger of the assembled people, who quietly endeavored to make way for its procedure. The cart had no sooner made its way through, than the Yeomanry Cavalry made their appearance from the same quarter as the cart had gone out. They galloped furiously round the field, and, after a moment's pause, they received the cheers of the police as a. signal for attack. . . . . The Yeomanry Cavalry made their charge with the most infuriate frenzy ; they cut down women and children indiscriminately, and appeared to have commenced a premeditated attack with the most insatiable thirst for blood and destruction. They merit a medallion on the one side of which should be inscribed ‘The Slaughtermen of Manchester,’ and a reverse, bearing a "description of their slaughter of defenseless men, women, and children. Every" stone was gathered from the ground on the Friday and Saturday previous to the meeting, by the scavengers sent there by the express command of the magistrates, that the populace might be. rendered more defenseless. . . . The police were as expert in applying their clubs to the heads and shoulders of the people as the cavalry their sabers. . . . One woman, who was near the spot where I stood and who held an infant in her arms, was sabered over the head, and her tender offspring drenched in its mother’s blood. Another was actually stabbed in the neck with the point of the saber, which must have been a deliberate attempt on the part of the military assassin. Some were sabered in the breast--so inhuman and fiendlike was the conduct of the Manchester cavalry."

This account of the Peterloo massacre was not published some years after the event, but it was immediately issued in the form of an open letter to Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, whom Carlile used as a medium for supplying the public with the account of an eye-witness, at the same time calling upon him

"to cause the magistrates of Manchester, and the Yeomanry and Cavalry acting under their directions, to be brought to the Bar of Public justice, for the unprovoked slaughter of the peaceable and distressed inhabitants of that place and neighborhood, whilst legally exercising their rights in public meeting assembled."

Carlile then proceeded to add with characteristic fearlessness, that

"in the event of the Government failing to give satisfaction to the full extent of their means and power to the mangled and suffering, and to the friends of the MURDERED INHABITANTS of Manchester, the people, not only of Manchester, but of the whole country, are in duty bound and by the laws of nature imperatively called upon to provide themselves against the attacks of similar assassins acting in the true Castlereaghan fashion."

Thus did he anticipate Spencer’s watchword, of revolt: “Resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable, but imperative." In so doing, he had drawn the teeth of the cowardly cur of despotism by rousing public opinion against it. It could not face his impeachment. It was afraid to prosecute him. It could only treasure, up its will-will, and——snarl! The cowardly hound!

Meanwhile, Carlile continued to circulate his indictments. Beyond the challenge to Lord Sidmouth, and the advice to the oppressed workers we have already quoted, he had some straight things to say to the magistrates, the Yeomanry, and the police. In saying them, he calmly informed the authorities that whoever else succumbed he would not desert his post or leave the emancipator’s task.

His attitude roused the authorities to action. His Open Letter was carefully considered by the Home Secretary, to whom it was addressed; Sir John Silvester, Recorder of London, and John Atkins, Lord Mayor. This Council of Three, studied it for several days, to see whether they could not base a charge of High Treason upon it: but they decided that the state of public feeling forbade such a course. They feared to kindle the smoldering fires of revolt their oppressive and massacring regimé had called into being. They decided to let Carlile’s vigorous impeachment go unanswered.