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
"People, yeomen, constables," says Sir William Jolliffe, one of these
hussars, "in their confused attempts to escape, ran one over another,
so that by the time we had arrived at the midst of the field, the
fugitives were literally piled up to a considerable elevation above the
level of the ground."
Surely, both magistrates and soldiers might now have been satisfied.
A defenceless multitude have no means of resistance, and, doing their
best to get away, might have been left to do so without further
molestation, which would be equally brutal in the magistrates, and
cowardly in the soldiers. But neither of these parties seems to
have thought so on this unhappy occasion. The magistrates issued
no orders to desist, and the soldiers, by the confession of one of
their officers, went on striking with the flats of their swords at
the impeded people, who were thrown down in their vain efforts to get
away, and piled in struggling heaps on the field. Mr. Hulton confessed
that he walked away from the window after he had let loose the
horse-soldiers on the people. "He would rather not see any advance of
the military." He was, in fact, so tender-hearted that he did not mind
the people--men, women, and children, met to exercise their political
rights--being trodden down under the iron hoofs of horses, and cut down
by the sword, so long as he did not see it.
Hunt, and about a dozen of his friends, were seized on the platform.
Bamford and some others, who had escaped, were afterwards taken. The
streets were then cleared by the infantry. Such was the celebrated
Manchester massacre, in which the actual wounds inflicted by the
soldiers do not appear to have been many. About seventy people were
carried to the infirmaries, or went there, to have their wounds
dressed--a considerable number for severe cuts and fractured limbs; and
six lives were lost, including a special constable run over by the
cavalry, and a Manchester Yeoman, who was struck from his horse by a
brickbat, aimed by a man whom he was pursuing.
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