REPORT By the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to Inquire into certain Meetings and Combinations endangering the Public Tranquillity, and to Report to the House as they shall see occasion. Ordered to Report, That the Committee have met, and have proceeded in the examination of the papers referred to them. Their attention was, in the first instance, directed to those which relate to the metropolis; and they have found therein such evidence as leaves no doubt in their minds that a traitorous conspi has been formed in the metropolis for the purpose of overthrowing, by means of a general insurrection, the established government, laws, and constitution of this kingdom, and of effecting a general plunder and division of property. In the last autumn, various consultations were held by persons in the metropolis engaged in this conspiracy. Different measures, of the most extensive and dangerous nature, were resolved upon; partial preparations were made for their execution, and various plans were discussed for collecting a force sufficient for that purpose. But at a subsequent consultation, another plan was adopted, which was to get a great number of men together to see what force could be raised, and it was agreed, that the best way to get them together would be to call a public meeting. Spafields was fixed upon aş the place affording the greatest facilities for entering the town, and attacking the most important points in the city. In pursuance of this design, and in order to assemble in the neighbourhood of London a greater number of the poorer classes of the community, and particularly of those in whose minds the pressure of the times might be supposed to have excited disaffection and discontent, advertisements were inserted in newspapers, and handbills were industriously distributed, inviting the distressed manufacturers, mariners, artisans, and others, to assemble at that place on the 15th of November. A large body of people accordingly assembled at the time and place prescribed. The most inflammatory language was there held to the multitude, having a direct tendency to excite them to outrage and violence; and the meeting was in fact followed by some acts of plunder and riot. A petition to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent was agreed to at that meeting, and an adjournment to Palace-yard on the first day after the meeting of parliament, was proposed; but the 2d of December was subsequently fixed upon (on the proposition of one of the persons concerned in the plans already described) for another meeting in Spafields; and that day appears to have been determined upon for the execution of their design. Various schemes were formed for this purpose; amongst them was a general and forcible liberation of all persons confined in the different prisons in the metropolis into some of which, in order to facilitate its execution, an address was introduced, assuring them, that their liberty would be restored under a new government; announcing the intended attack upon all the prisons for that day; apprising the prisoners that arms would be ready for them; exhorting them to be prepared with the national tricolour cockade, and to co-operate by the most violent and sanguinary means to ensure suc cess. It was also proposed to set fire to various barracks, and steps were taken to ascertain and prepare the means of effecting this purpose. An attack upon the Tower and the Bank, and other points of importance, was, after previous consultations, finally determined upon. Pikes and arms to a certain extent were actually provided, and leaders were named, among whom the points of attack were distributed. It further appears, that the interval between the two meetings was employed with unremitting assiduity by some of the most active agitators, in taking regular circuits through different quarters of the town. In these they either resorted to the established clubs or societies, or laboured in conversations, apparently casual, at public houses, to work up the minds of those with whom they conversed, into such a state of ferment and irritation, as to render them, when collected in sufficient numbers, for what ever ostensible purpose, the fit and ready instruments for the execution of any project, however rash and desperate. In the course of these circuits, one of their chief objects appears to have been to take every opportunity of attempting to seduce from their allegiance the soldiers of the different guards, and at the barracks. The principal persons concerned in this plan actually proceeded to Spafields on the 2d of December, some of them with concealed arms, and with ammunition previously prepared: they had also provided themselves with tri-colour flags, and with a standard, bearing the following inscription :-" The brave soldiers are our brothers; treat them kindly." And also with tri-colour cockades, evidently adopted as the signal of revolution. After much inflammatory language, a direct invitation was, by one of these persons, addressed to the multitude to proceed immediately to actual insurrection; and it appears quite certain, that the acts of plunder which were perpetrated for the purpose of procuring arms, and the other measures of open insurrection which followed, were not accidental or unpremeditated, but had been deliberately preconcerted, as parts of a general plan of rebellion and revolution. There appears also strong reason to believe that the execution of those projects, at that particular time, was expected by some of the associations in distant parts of the country. The conspirators seem to have had the fullest confidence of success; and a persuasion has subsequently been expressed amongst them, that their plans could have been defeated only by casual and unexpected circumstances. Even after the failure of this attempt, the same plans appear not to have been abandoned. Your Committee are deeply concerned to be compelled, in further execution of their duty, to report their full conviction that designs of this nature have not been confined to the capital, but have been extended, and are still extending, widely in many other parts of Great Britain, particularly in some of the most populous and manu facturing districts. At the meeting of the 2d of December, in Spa-fields, that part of the assembly which had not engaged in the acts of plunder and insurrection before mentioned, came to a resolution to ad. journ the meeting to the second Monday after the meeting of Parliament, namely, the 10th of February; and it appears, by the papers referred to the Committee, that meetings in various parts of the country, conformably to a plan settled by the leading persons in London at an early period, were intended to be held on the same day. It appears manifest, that the persons engaged in various parts both of England and Scotland, in forwarding the plans of revolution, have constantly waited for the example of the metropolis. Intelligence of the event of the meeting there, on the 2d of December, was anxiously expected; and as the first report of the beginning of the disturbance excited in a high degree the spirits of the disaffected, so its speedy suppression produced the expression of strong feelings of disappointment. Had it even partially succeeded, there seems much reason to believe that it would have been the signal for a more general rising in other parts of the kingdom. Since that time, it appears to be the prevailing impression amongst the leading malcontents in the country, that it is expedient for them to wait till the whole kingcom shall (according to their expression) be more completely organized, and more ripe for action, What is meant by completely organizing the country, is but too evident from the papers before the Committee. It appears clearly that the object is, by means of societies or clubs, established, or to be established, in all parts of Great Britain, under pretence of parliamentary reform, to infect the minds of all classes of the community, and particularly of those whose situa tion most exposes them to such impressions, with a spirit of discontent and disaffection, of insubordination, and contempt of all law, religion, and morality; and to hold out to them the plunder and division of all property, as the main object of their efforts, and the restoration of their natural rights; and no endeavours are omitted to prepare them to take up arms on the first signal for accomplishing these designs. It is on these grounds that your Committee have been led to look with particular anxiety to the formation, principles, and conduct of those societies or clubs, by which the ends of the disaffected have been hitherto so much forwarded, and are expected by them to be finally accomplished. Many of these societies pass under the denomination of Hampden Clubs. Under this title, societies of very various descriptions appear to have been formed, all professing their object to be parliamentary reform. This name, and their professions, may have induced many persons to become members of such societies, who may not be aware of the ultimate intentions of many of their leaders; and the Committee would by no means ascribe to all these societies the same practices and designs which they have found to be but too prevalent amongst a large number of them; but they find that, particularly among the manufacturing and labouring classes, societies of this denomination have been most widely extended, and appear to have become some of the chief instruments of disseminating doctrines, and of preparing for the execution of plans, the most dangerous to the pub. lic security and peace. Others of these societies are called 3 |
