Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert PeelAnonymous
History
Cassell's History of England, Vol. 5 (of 8): From the Peninsular War to the Death of Sir Robert Peel
Anonymous
Great Britain -- History
Scarcely were the elections over when a strike took place amongst the
working cotton-spinners in Manchester. Food was dear, and the rate of
wages was not in any proportion to the dearness. The men who turned
out paraded the streets, and, as is generally too much the spirit of
strikes, endeavoured forcibly to compel the workmen of other factories
to cease working too. The magistrates, on the 1st of September, issued
a proclamation, that they were determined to resist such attempts,
and to punish the offenders. Sir John Byng, the same who had favoured
the endeavours of Oliver in Yorkshire, commanded the forces there,
and every precaution was taken to secure the factories still in work.
On the very next day the spinners were joined by a great mob from
Stockport, and they endeavoured to break into Gray's mill, in Ancoat's
Lane, and force the men to cease. But there was a party of soldiers
placed within in expectation of the attack, and they fired on the
assailants, and killed one man and wounded two others. The troops
then dispersed the mob, which was said to have amounted to at least
thirty thousand men. This ended the strike and the rioting for the
time. The coroner's jury pronounced the death of the man justifiable
homicide, and Ministers congratulated themselves on the speedy end of
the disturbance. But the elements of fresh ones were rife in the same
districts. The country was by no means in the prosperous condition that
they had represented it.
In the autumn the great Congress of Sovereigns assembled at
Aix-la-Chapelle. We have already anticipated their chief object--the
final evacuation of France by the Allied troops, and the settlement
of compensations. They assembled about the middle of September,
and remained together till the middle of November. Their business
conferences, however, did not commence till the 30th of September.
With regard to the evacuation of France, we need only state that it
was greatly promoted by the exertions of the Duke of Wellington.
Robert Owen was there to endeavour to enlist the Sovereigns in his
schemes of social reform, but did not make any proselytes amongst the
crowned heads, though the Czar Alexander told him he fully entered into
his views, as he was generally accustomed to tell all reformers and
religious professors, leaving them in the pleasing delusion that they
had won him to their opinions. Clarkson was there to engage them to
sanction the suppression of the slave trade, but with as indifferent a
result. This was the closing scene of the great European drama, which
opened with the French Revolution and terminated with the capture of
Buonaparte. The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle may be regarded as the
recital of the epilogue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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