The precise details of all these proceedings, and the widespread suffering which they caused, are not important for this book. It is enough to state here that there was much expression of discontent, and that the Government dealt with it in the worst possible way. The wise course was to detach the respectable agitators from the agitators who were not respectable by substantial improvements in the franchise and the distribution of seats. But the Government were incapable of drawing distinctions, and, by confounding all sorts of discontent in their repression, alienated and embittered even those whom they had it in their power to conciliate. Evidence of any general conspiracy to alter the existing order by violent means there is none. Nothing was ever published on behalf of the Government itself which proved anything but constitutional and orderly expressions of dissatisfaction, with occasional outbreaks of reckless language and exceedingly rare instances of such acts as the purchase or manufacture of weapons.[142] There were no collections of arms, no riots, except such as were purely industrial, and no demonstrations of force. Not a single life was ever taken or attempted by the Reformers, and the only dangerous political disturbance of the {124} period was the outbreak of the Tory mob, who looted and burnt the houses of Dissenters and Radicals at Birmingham. But the governing class was afraid, and in its fear it struck out blindly at everything which it disliked. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in 1791, and the executive received power to arrest and detain suspects without trial. At a later date, extraordinary powers were created. A meeting held near London in October, 1795, was followed by an attempt to assassinate the King. The meeting was orderly, and there was not a shadow of proof that there was any connection between the two events. But the Government took advantage of the prevailing indignation to create new crimes, and to increase the punishments for existing crimes. The Treason Act made it an offence, punishable on a second conviction with seven years' transportation, to "incite or stir up the people to hatred or dislike of His Majesty's person or the established Government and constitution of the realm," and extended the definition of high treason. The Sedition Act prohibited the holding of meetings without the presence of a magistrate, made it an offence punishable with death for twelve persons to remain together after a magistrate had called upon them to disperse, and declared that any house, where a substantial number of persons beyond that of the resident family assembled for a common purpose, should be treated as a disorderly house, unless specially licensed. In 1799, after the mutiny in the fleet at the Nore and the great Irish Rebellion, in both of which the Society of United Irishmen had been involved, new statutes made it a criminal offence, punishable by fine and