I was at that time a Lieutenant in the 15th King's Hussars, which Regiment had been quartered in Manchester Cavalry Barracks about six weeks. This was my first acquaintance with a large manufacturing population. I had little knowledge of the condition of that population, whether or no a great degree of distress was then prevalent, or whether or no the distrust and bad feeling which appeared to exist between employers and employed, was wholly or in part caused by the agitation of political questions. I will not, therefore, enter into any speculation on these points, but I will endeavour to relate the facts which fell under my own observations, although acting, as of course I was, under the command of others, and in a subordinate situation. The military force stationed in Manchester consisted of six troops of the 15th Hussars, under the command of Colonel Dalrymple; one troop of Horse Artillery with two guns, under Major Dyneley; and nearly the whole of the 31st Regiment, under Colonel Guy L'Estrange (who commanded the whole as senior officer). [Sir John Byng was then at Pontefract.] Some companies of the 88th Regiment and [six troops of] the Cheshire Yeomanry had also been brought into the town in anticipation of disturbances which might result from the expected meeting; and these latter had only arrived on the morning of the sixteenth, or a few hours previously; and, lastly, there was a troop of Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry, consisting of about forty members, who, from the manner in which they were made use of (to say the least) greatly aggravated the disasters of the day. Their ranks were filled chiefly by wealthy master manufacturers; and without the knowledge possessed by a (strictly speaking) military body, they were placed, most unwisely, as it appeared, under the immediate command and order of the civil authorities. Our Regiment paraded in field-service order at about 8.30 or it might be 9 o'clock, a.m. Two squadrons of it were marched into the town about ten o'clock. They were formed up and dismounted in a wide street, the name of which I forget,[9] to the North of St. Peter's field (the place appointed for the meeting), and at the distance of nearly a quarter of a mile from it. The Cheshire Yeomanry were formed, on our left, in the same street. One troop of our Regiment was attached to the artillery, which took up a position between the Cavalry Barracks and the town; and one troop remained in charge of the Barracks.