“You may say that the county will repair our losses, and that we may soon build up what is destroyed, and go on as before. It is true that the damages must be paid out of the public fund; but it is not so true that a remedy will thus be found for the distress which violence has brought upon you. The state of trade being what it is, and confidence being so completely destroyed between the two parties to the original contract, there is little encouragement to enter on a new one. My partner and his family will depart immediately. I shall remain with a very few men under me to assist in disposing of our stock, and to wind up the concern; and then this place, lately so busy, and so fruitful of the necessaries and comforts of life to so many hundred persons, will present a melancholy picture of desertion and ruin. If, in after years, any of your descendants, enriched by the labours of generations, should come hither and provide the means of enriching others, may they meet with more success than we have done! May they have to do with men informed respecting the rights and interests of society, as happy in their prosperity as you once were, and more patient and reasonable in adversity! “If these should ever inquire respecting the transactions of this day, it will strike them that the revenge which you have snatched—for I am told you call it revenge—is as foolish as it is wicked. Of all the parties concerned in this outrage, your masters suffer the least—though their sufferings are not small—and yourselves the most. Your occupation is gone; the public resources, to which many here have contributed, must be wasted in repairing the damage intended for us; and worst of all, disgrace and the penalties of the law await many with whom you are closely connected. Having enjoyed from their birth the security and various benefits of the social state, they have thought fit to forfeit their privileges by a breach of the laws; and they must take the consequences. How many of the guilty are now mourning that those consequences cannot be confined to themselves! How many—but I will not pursue this subject further, for I see you cannot bear it. I only entreat those of you who hold your children by the hand, and see them wondering at the mournful solemnities of this day, to impress upon them that the laws must be obeyed, and to assure them from your own experience that, however sad undeserved poverty may be, it is easily endurable in comparison with the thought which will haunt some of you to your dying day—‘my own hands have brought this misery upon myself, and upon those who lookup to me for bread.’ “I have only to add that which it may be a satisfaction to some of you to know, that we freely forgive to such the injury they have meditated against us. We are indeed too deeply concerned for your misfortunes to have much thought to bestow upon our own. Farewell.” The people slowly and silently dispersed, and few showed their faces abroad again that day.