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Peterloo, Shelley and Reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In her note appended to Shelley's Mask of Anarchy, Mrs Shelley remarks on the attitude of her husband to the current political theories of the time:
Though Shelley's first eager desire to excite his countrymen to resist openly the oppressions existent during the “good old times” had faded with early youth, still his warmest sympathies were for the people. He was a republican and loved a democracy. He looked on all human beings as inheriting an equal right to possess the dearest privileges of our nature; the necessaries of life when fairly earned by labor, and intellectual instruction. His hatred of any despotism that looked upon the people as not to be consulted, or protected from want and ignorance, was intense … the news of the Manchester Massacre … roused in him violent emotions of indignation and compassion.
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References
1 Pp. 9-11.
2 I.e., Professor Walter E. Peck.
3 Edition of 1812. p. 8.
4 Prose Works. Edition of 1880, i. 329.
5 Ibid. p. 347.
6 W. E. A. Axon: The Annals of Manchester; a Chronological Record from the earliest times to the end of 1885. London, 1886. 8 vo. p. 127.
7 Ibid. 139.
8 Ibid. 140. In the course of evidence given before the House of Commons in support of a petition from the Manchester cotton workers, Mr. Hanson stated that there were in Manchester, in 1811, 9,000 spinners and 12,000 weavers, the former averaging 7/- a week and the latter 11/- a week when fully-employed (Ibid. 142).
9 Ibid. 143. Cf. Examiner, No. 224 of Sunday, April 12, 1812, pp. 233-234. This number also reports riots in Carlisle, and further outbreaks are noted in the issue No. 225 of Sunday, April 19, 1812, pp. 254-255.
10 Axon, op. cit., p. 150.
11 Ibid., p. 151.
12 Ibid. 154-155.
13 Ibid. 155.
14 Ibid. 156.
15 Interesting Proceedings and Important Speeches of the Liverymen at a Common Hall of the City of London, convened to take into consideration the extreme Distress of the Country, on Wednesday, August 21, 1816, and the Resolutions passed on the occasion. London. Printed for R. Harrild, 20, Great Eastcheap, 1816, Price Sixpence.
16 Ibid., pp. 19-20.
17 Ibid. p. 16.
18 Peterloo Massacre, containing A Faithful Narrative of the Events which preceded, accompanied, and followed the fatal Sixteenth of August, 1819, on the Area near St. Peter's Church, Manchester, & c.: Edited by an Observer. Manchester. Printed by James Wroe, at the Observer Office. 1819. No. 12. pp. 189 190.
19 Major Cartwright, born in 1740 and living until 1824, was a gentleman of means who spent a long and active life in the cause of Reform. He travelled England extensively, obtaining signatures to various petitions for a reform in the method of representation in the House of Commons and presented these to Parliament, though without any success. In general these petitions took the form of “Petitions of Right, claiming representation co-extensive with direct taxation, in annual Parliaments, according to the Constitution; and demanding that ‘justice be neither denied nor delayed’ according to Magna Carta.” (Life & Correspondence of Major Cartwright: edited by his niece, F. D. Cartwright. Two vols. London. Henry Colburn, 1826. Vol. ii. p. 34. The petition here referred to as “Major Cartwright's Bill” was probably that from Manchester presented by Lord Cochrane, in 1816, and containing nearly 40,000 signatures. (Ibid. 127).
20 Peterloo Massacre, cit. supra. No. 12, p. 190.
21 But it may be observed that the Reformers, in their own notice, were not too observant of the rules of syntax—“have so long, and do still, groan,” will serve for an example.
22 Peterloo Massacre, No. 12, p. 191.
23 Peterloo Massacre. No. 13, pp. 193-194.
24 Ibid. p. 195.
25 This broadside is 29¼ inches long by 19½ inches wide. It is in the Public Record Office, London. Home Office Papers. 42/122.
26 Salford is divided from Manchester only by the width of a street named Deansgate.
27 Peterloo Massacre, No. 13, pp. 196-197.
28 Hunt, speaking at the “Crown and Anchor,” Strand, London, after he was released on bail, estimated the number of women present at not less than 20,000 (Ibid. No. 6, p. 96). Cf. Axon, op. cit., 156.
29 Peterloo Massacre, No. 1, p. 3.
30 The inscriptions on the banners proved particularly irritating to the authorities and were adduced in the attempt to fix a charge of conspiracy on the Reformers. Among the devices used were: Equal Representation or Death: Unite and Be Free: Die like men, and not be sold like slaves: Hunt and Liberty: God armeth the Patriot: Annual Elections: Universal Suffrage: and Vote by Ballot, the last three foreshadowing certain of the demands of the later Chartists. (Ibid., No. 4, pp. 57-58) In the examination of Hunt at Manchester, before his commitment, the flag bearing the inscription Equal Representation or Death was alleged also to bear a bloody dagger on a black ground, from which it was solemnly argued that the Reformers “meant to overturn the Government” (Ibid., No. 3, p. 46).
31 Ibid., No. 1, p. 3.
32 Ibid., No. 4, p. 58, being part of the suppressed account of the reporter of the Manchester Courier.
33 Ibid., No. 1, p. 3.
34 Axon, op. cit., p. 156.
35 Peterloo Massacre, No. 1, p. 4, being part of the report of Mr. Tyas, correspondent of the London Times.
36 Ibid. At least one special constable was killed, many more being injured Ibid., p. 11.
37 Ibid., Nos. 13 and 14. Casualty lists, pp. 199-214.
38 Ibid., No. 2, p. 17. Letter of August 21, 1819. Cf. a reference to the same in a letter of the twenty-third from Stamford L. Warrington of Dunham Massey, to Sidmouth, Public Record Office; Home Office Papers.
39 Public Record Office: Home Office Papers.
40 “A baker of Withy Grove,” according to The Manchester Herald of August 17, 1819, p. 260, col. 3. He is scornfully termed “the ginger-bread baker” in Peterloo Massacre, No. 1, p. 13.
41 Public Record Office: Home Office Papers.
42 Peterloo Massacre, No. 2, p. 31; No. 3, pp. 33-34.
43 A place about five miles from Manchester; Ibid., No. 1, p. 13.
44 Substance of the Speech of the Rt. Hon. George Canning in the House of Commons on Wednesday, November 24, 1819, on the Address to the Throne, London, John Murray, 1920, p. 51.
45 Ibid., pp. 53-54.
46 Substance of the Speech of the Rt. Hon. W. C. Plunket in the House of Commons on Tuesday the 33rd. of November 1819, Manchester, Printed and sold by Banks and Co., 1819, pp. 9-10.
47 Substance of the Speech of the Rt. Hon. George Canning. cit. supra, pp. 12-13
48 Ibid., pp. 8-11.
49 Ibid., pp. 30-31.
50 I.e., 1817. But it has already been noted supra that certainly as early as 1816 meetings advocating Reform had been held both in London and Manchester.
51 Sir Francis Burdett, M. P. for Westminster.
52 Speech of Canning, cit. supra, pp. 44-45.
53 Substance of the Speech of the Rt. Hon. Lord Grenville, in the House of Lords, November 30, 1819, on the Marquis of Lansdowne's Motion, London, John Murray, 1820, p. 1.
54 Ibid., p. 22.
55 Ibid., pp. 24-25.
56 Ibid., p. 34.
57 Ibid., pp. 41 and 45.
58 Page 261, col. 1.
59 Peterloo Massacre, No. 2, p. 24.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid., p. 23.
62 Ibid., p. 24.
63 Extract from letter of Jeremiah Garnett, written for Mr. Wright, to Henry Hobhouse, Esq.; Manchester, 9:00 o'clock, August 16. In the Public Record Office among the Home Office Papers of this date.
64 This is something over half-a-mile from St. Peter's.
65 Peterloo Massacre, No. 2, p. 27. The crowd was under the impression that Tate had been one of the special constables, and that he had been instrumental in capturing a much-prized flag of the Reformers. Ibid., p. 22.
66 Reports given in Peterloo Massacre, No. 2, p. 29.
67 Ibid., Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 passim for report of the Lees case.
68 Ibid., No. 8, pp. 115-117.
69 Peterloo Massacre, No. 14, pp. 215-216.
70 Letter of Mr. Charles Pearson of September 5, 1819, in Peterloo Massacre, No. 6, pp. 82-87.
71 For account of the trial see Peterloo Massacre, No. 2, pp. 28-32; No. 3, pp. 33-46; No. 4, pp. 62-64; No. 5, pp. 65-70.
72 Hunt and his friends were let out on bail on September 7. On March 16. 1820 Hunt was sentenced to two years six months imprisonment; Joseph Johnson, Joseph Healey and Samuel Bamford to one year. Cf. Axon, op. cit., p. 158.
73 Westminster was a constituency which, because it was entirely free from the influence of local landowners, was consistently most democratic. Its elections were absolutely free and uncontrolled.
74 Peterloo Massacre, No. 4, p. 52.
75 Ibid., pp. 54.55.
76 See broadside headed “Universal, Civil and Religious Liberty,” in Public Record Office: Home Office Papers.
77 Broadside in Public Record Office: Home Office Papers.
78 Peterloo Massacre, No. 6, p. 87.
79 See account of the meeting, ibidem, No. 6, pp. 87-96; No. 7, pp. 98-103.
80 The badge of the Reformers.
81 Lord Sidmouth—Home Secretary.
82 Pamphlet entitled The Acts of Adonis the Great, King of Bull, printed and published by J. Turner, Aldersgate Street, London, 1819, Chap. III, vv. 6-16.
83 The Prince Regent.
84 I.e., the Press.
85 I.e., the Church, the Army and the Court.
86 I.e., Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, etc.
87 I.e., The Constitution. This work is in pamphlet form, entitled The Political House that Jack Built. Printed by and for William Hone, Ludgate Hill, London, 1819.
88 Pamphlet entitled The Man in the Moon. Printed by and for William Hone, 45, Ludgate Hill, London, 1820.
89 In the burlesque “Advertisement” section of the pamphlet entitled A Slap at Slop and the Bridge Street Gang, printed by and for William Hone, 45, Ludgate Hill, London, 1822, p. 3. The drawing is by Cruikshank.
90 Ibid., p. 36.
91 Leigh Hunt was also fired to write prose editorials on this topic. See' among others, Examiner, No. 608, of Sunday, August, 22, 1819, pp. 529-531; No. 609, of Sunday, August, 29, 1819, pp. 545-547; also excerpts from the Times on pp. 556-558. No. 610, of Sunday, September 5, 1819, pp. 561-562 contains a leading editorial on the liberation of Henry Hunt, with some details of his examination etc. Hone's anti-governmental publications were being advertised in the Examiner in 1821, and Leigh Hunt's poem A Hanging We Will Go, which appeared in the Examiner, No. 713, of Sunday, September 2, 1821, p. 553, was certainly influenced by the Manchester affair and its consequences.
92 A tag from Magna Carta, often quoted by the Reformers.
93 For some expressions of Shelley's views of earlier years, in addition to those already quoted, see Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. Roger Ingpen. Bell. 1914, I, 202, of Dec. 26, 1811: 292, of April 16, 1812; 308-309, of May 7, 1812; 384 and footnote 1 to the same. Cf. also The Revolt of Islam, VI, v-vii and xiv-xv.
94 Ingpen, op. cit., II, 716. Letter to Charles and James Oilier, of September 6; written from Leghorn.
95 Ibid., 720, of September 21, 1819; also from Leghorn.
96 Ibid., 736-737. The prosecution mentioned in this letter was that of Richard Carlile, the famous Radical publisher. See Ingpen, op. cit., footnote to p. 736.
97 Letters of Mary W. Shelley, ed. Henry H. Harper, for the Bibliophile Society, Boston, 1918. Excerpts from pp. 87-92.
98 Ingpen. op. cit., II, 743-744. Letter to Leigh Hunt of November 3, 1819.
99 The Mask of Anarchy, stanzas xxxvii-xxxviii: Cf. Southey, Wat Tyler:
“The mighty multitude shall trample down
The handful that oppress them.“
Medwin (Life of Shelley, 1847, I, 60) says that Shelley's favorite poet in 1809 was Southey. This influence, as Prof. Walter E. Peck has pointed out, extended even to 1820. See Descriptive Catalogue of the First Editions in Printed Book Form of the Writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1923, p. 59.
100 The Mask of Anarchy, stanzas lxxiii and lxxviii-lxxxv. This poem was written at Leghorn.
101 “A few days before we left Leghorn, which is now two months ago, Shelley sent a poem called The Mask of Anarchy.” Letters of Mary Shelley, ed. cit., p. 78, under date of Nov. 24, 1819.
102 Leigh Hunt's preface to the edition of 1832, page v. Mentioned, but not quoted by H. Forman Buxton in The Gentleman's Magazine for March 1887, p. 240. Cf. Shelley Society's Publications. Extra Series. No. 4 of 1887, pp. 12-13.
103 The Philosophical View of Reform was written in 1819-1820 but first published by T. W. Rolleston, for the Oxford University Press in 1920. This edition contains a multitude of errors. The manuscript, which belongs to Mr. Carl H. Pforzheimer of New York, is now being re-edited by my friend Prof. Walter E. Peck. All references to the text in this paper are to the folio numbers of the MS. and contain many of Prof. Peck's corrections.
104 Philosophical View of Reform. Fol. 56r.
105 Ibid., Fol. 109r-v.
106 MS. “until.”
107 Philosophical View of Reform, Fol. 56r, 56v, 57r.
108 Ibid., Fol. 82r. Cf. “That Representative Assembly called the House of Commons ought questionless to be immediately nominated by the great mass of the people” (Ibid., Fol. 87v).
109 Ibid., Fol. 82v.
110 Cancelled in MS. and no substitute provided.
111 Ibid., Fol. 84'.
112 Cancelled in MS. and no substitute provided.
113 “that,” erroneously, in MS.
114 Fol. 88v.
115 Ibid., Fol. 93r.
116 Ibid., Fol. 98v.
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