Parliament and by other persons of influence.

And this deponent further saith, that on the 8th day of July, 1842, a speech was delivered, as this deponent has heard and believes, by the said RICHARD COBDEN, and that the said speech contained the following words :

deponent has heard and believes, that the licence, so as herein before stated, permitted to the said mayors, magistrates, alder men, boroughreeves, members of parliament, and other persons of influence, fortune, and station, would not be permitted to the said working-classes, and that they, the said working classes, would be prose"It is my firm belief that, within six months, cuted and imprisoned if they followed we shall have populous districts in the north in a the example so set to them, by the perstate of social dissolution. You may talk of re- sons so placed in authority over them; pressing the people by the military; but what nor, as this deponent has heard and military force would be equal to such an emer- believes, was any notice ever given to the gency. The military will not avail. I do not be- said working classes that the government lieve that the people will break out unless they intended to make any difference in their are absolutely deprived of food: if you are not treatment of language directed to obtainprepared with a remedy, THEY WILL BE JUSTI-ing the repeal of the Corn-laws, and lanFIED IN TAKING FOOD FOR THEMSELVES AND

THEIR FAMILIES."

And this deponent further saith, that the said speech was immediately afterwards, that is to say less than one month before the commencement of the said stoppage of work at Manchester and its neighbourhood aforesaid, published at Manchester aforesaid, by the said GADSBY the printer and publisher of the said Anti-Corn-law League, and that more than EIGHT THOUSAND copies of such speech were, as deponent has heard and believes, published by the said Gadsby; and that several thousands of such speech were, as this deponent has heard and believes, gratuitously distributed amongst the distressed and destitute working classes in Manchester and its neighbourhood aforesaid.

guage directed to obtaining political freedom for the people.

And this deponent further saith, that prosecutions for sedition are never, or very rarely, instituted but with the sanction or by the direction of the Queen's government, and that, therefore, the working classes have no means of judging the plaint which is practically legal, that is to sy, which can be adopted without incurring legal penalties except by observing the extent to which the said government permits political discussion and strong or exciting language to be carried without interruption or prosecution.

extent of comment or criticism or com

And this deponent further saith, that all the before-mentioned numbers of the Anti-bread Tax Circular, from which And this deponent further saith, that the hereinbefore stated speeches, sentenhe has heard and believes that none ces, language and paragraphs have been of the said magistrates, mayors, al- extracted, were at, and immediately predermen, boroughreeves, members of vious and subsequent to, the said stoppage parliament, and others, making, pub- of work at Manchester and its neighbourlishing, and sanctioning the said herein- hood aforesaid, extensively and gratuitbefore mentioned speeches and publica- ously circulated amongst the working tions, have been removed from their classes in Manchester and its neighbouroffice as administrators of the law; and hood aforesaid, by the direction and at the that the same speeches and publications expense, as this deponent has heard and have been repeatedly brought under the believes, of the members of the Anti-cornnotice of the ministers and law-officers law League, and that the said working of the Queen's government. classes were at the time of such gratuitous circulation of the said numbers of the said Anti-bread Tax Circular, in the deepest poverty, misery and destitution.

And this deponent further saith, that no notice or intimation was at any time given to the working classes, as he, this

CAUSES OF THE OUTBREAK.

The foregoing affidavit, sworn by Cooper, and which, had he failed in arresting judgment on the fifth count, I was prepared to submit as my affidavit, will considerably limit my enquiry into the causes of the outbreak of last autumn. However, the national, nay the universal, catastrophe that was averted, the great danger from which the cause of Chartism was saved, and the personal peril which its best friends so narrowly escaped, demand from me a full, a searching, and complete investigation of the whole question.

I am aware that it has been suggested, hinted, rumoured, and industriously circulated, that some of the conference delegates acted with bad faith and with malice aforethought. This charge, however, come from what quarter it may, I unbesitaingly stamp with the name of slander. 1 think I should have been as likely as any other person to have discovered the lurking treachery had it existed; but, alas! it is the damning sin of politicians to lay personal claim to all the good that arises from the projects of others, and to denounce with unsparing bitterness the miscarriage of undertakings in which they were participants. I set out then with the reiteration of my public and private declaration-that there existed no treachery in the delegate conference-nay, I go so far as to aver that neither Cartledge or Griffin entered that conference with any evil design, however revenge and the hope of gain may have subsequently operated upon the one, and a hope of self-preservation upon the other. These remarks do not refer to opinions conscientiously entertained and published under honest conviction; but they do apply to the more cowardly and dangerous mode of inventing calumny and whispering it in private societies, until, like a snowball, it gains strength in its course and ultimately becomes an accepted truism, the accused having no means of justification.

It was necessary to make these preliminary observations in order that the conference, by whose boldness and sagacity Chartism was saved from the conspiracy of the League, should stand fairly before the country. In developing the origin of the outbreak, it will be necessary to direct the public mind to a calm consideration of he machinery by which the League and their hirelings proposed to accomplish their double purpose; first, a total repeal of the Corn-laws by a physical revolution; and, secondly, the formation of an administration out of the free trade ranks: for, however they may have professed in Scotland and elsewhere a disregard of the political Creed of those who should repeal the Corn-laws, yet be assured that, as the Reform

Bill led to the formation of an administration from the ranks of the reform party, so would the free-traders seek the same means for securing the practical carrying out of free trade principles. If the Charter was carried to-morrow, as a matter of course the country would look for a Chartist government; and as it ever has been, so it ever will be, that the political party in the ascendant will carry their power to the formation of a government from their own ranks, however plausibly they may withhold a portion of their design while struggling for the attainment of any substantive measure. The one, indeed the only, stumbling-block in the way of the League to effect the latter object, was the bold and unequivocal refusal of Lord John Russell to make an unprincipled agitation the road to political power-and much as I have had reason to quarrel with many acts of Lord John Russell, I have no hesitation in honestly declaring that he has satisfied my mind that there is a price at which he would not purchase power.

The schemes by which the desired object was to be achieved have been openly published in the newspapers of all shades of politics; in the liberal press with encomium, in the Tory papers for unfriendly comment; however, there never has been a fair analysis published of the manner in which the machinery was to be arranged and the uses to which it was to be applied for the attainment of their first and primary object, a repeal of the Corn-laws by violence. I think, however, that I shall be enabled to throw some new light upon that subject, by merely pointing to the speeches of some of the open conspirators, and to the overt acts of those who warred upon us in mask.

My principal object in my present undertaking is to justify the innocent and to saddle upon the guilty the weight of their own crime. As I shall be compelled to introduce the part which the delegates who assembled at Birmingham were destined to take in the struggle for a repeal of the Corn-laws, but, more especially, the use that it was intended to make of the Chartist body in that conference, which was originally to have assembled under the auspices of Mr. Sturge, prior to the outbreaks, this may be the most fitting place to develope one feature of the case which has not yet been subjected to comment. In searching for the most assailable points through which a total cessation of labour might be effected, it fell to the lot of the League to propose a plan by which all labour might be suspended by a "coup de main." Argument had failed; discussion was not permitted; the organized body of Chartists were not to be entrapped by the glib philosophy of hired, interested, and unprincipled demagogues, and, consequently, a project was proposed, by which the whole labour of the country should be suspended by compulsion. That project was the stoppage of all mining operations. Let me here transcribe from the affidavit, the exact terms in which this project was couched.

"The League and the Anti-monopolist Association, with the assistance of the colliers, have the power of COMPELLING the aristocracy, in less than one month, to abolish the Corn-laws altogether and to COMPEL them also to grant the " People's Charter." Let the colliers in all parts of England cease work for a month, and the thing is done; they have only to insist on the measures before they go to work again. This is the most simple and efficient measure that could be adopted to get all we want, without spilling a drop of blood, or causing any commotion of any kind. The city of London would be without fuel, and all other concerns MUST COME TO A STAND till it was settled."

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Now I ask, in the name of justice, in the name of decency, in the name of common sense, how such an announcement from such a quarter was left wholly unnoticed, while those who never used such language have been made the victims of government wrath and persecution? The Chartists approve the continuance of a cessation from work by those who have been driven from work, but do not recommend a single man to leave his employment, while the League conspirators publish a scheme for COMPELLING all to cease labour. Let us now argue upon this part of the subject. Every man who has taken an active part in Chartist agitation is aware that the non-adoption of Chartist principles by the colliers has long been a source of deep regret; in fact, that the colliers were not only not friendly to Chartist principles; but, on the contrary, were opposed to them, or heard them expounded with apparent indifference. Very shortly, however, after the commencement of the above project, we find a vigorous agitation started in the mining districts, and at the head of which are some of the disciples of Mr. Joseph Sturge. As a matter of course it would not have been prudent to state openly to the colliers that the object in inducing them to cease from labour, was that thereby a repeal of the corn-laws may be effected. But the plan was so to inflame their minds by a species of fanatical hypocrisy and declamation, that they should threaten in the first instance, to see what effect that would produce. This plot was carried to a certain length in parts of Staffordshire by the preachers of Sturgism, when the most zealous in the Chartist cause took advantage of the existing excitement and mixed up the question of the Charter with the general question of wages, that upon which the Sturge biblical rascals had inflamed them. However the League plot succeeded to a point beyond what the conspirators had originally intended as a first experiment. The Chartists begin to see through the trick, the masters seize the passing opportunity of making a reduction in the wages of their impoverished workmen-all becomes confusion: the masters, many of whom are magistrates, become alarmed at their own monster, and forthwith, the League and their fanatics skulk off and declare the whole to be a Chartist conspiracy, employing coercion to cause a cessation from labour, in order to compel her Majesty to change her measures. Was ever concoction more hellish, or design more palpable, mean, and cowardly? Did the charge of conspiracy against the League rest here it might be considered weak, but when we couple this fact with those which occurred simultaneously in the very heart of the manufacturing districts it gives to the whole plot a most circumstantial importance. When, however, we take a fair, a full, and an impartial retrospect, one panoramic view of that which now presents itself, as a whole, we need no such aid as single acts or individual declaration. And if it is rightly held that, in cases of murder, circumstantial testimony when wove into one perfect web of evidence can be made so strong, conclusive, and convincing, as to justify the taking of life, by what law, I would ask, were we excluded from establishing our own innocence, by proving the guilt of others, that very guilt being charged on us? In medical jurisprudence nothing is more common than to prove the innocence of the accused upon mere presumption, while in our case the presumption was adopted by the highest legal authorities in both houses of parliament, and by the almost unanimous opinion of all classes, as well as by the Press of the country; and yet were we precluded, not only from setting it up as part of our defence, but furthermore from making it a ground for a mitigation of punishment.