I will now, my Lord, quit the dreadful scene of St. Peter's Field, and examine the conduct of the police and Yeomanry Cavalry in and about the streets of Manchester. Intoxicated with the idea of having dispersed so great an assemblage of persons, they began to increase that intoxication by the use of strong liquors, and, taking them in the aggregate, they were evidently in a state of inebriation. A blacksmith who, from his appearance, had just quitted his work, was standing in the course of the afternoon at the corner of a street, in all his working habiliments; a special constable comes up to him and orders him to walk away; the blacksmith seeing no cause for it, refuses; the constable, without ceremony, draws his staff from his pocket, and strikes him over the head. This was intolerable! the blacksmith struck him down with his fist, and a crowd collecting, he received that treatment which he justly merited, in a town where law and justice were dispensed with by those whose duty it is to enforce them for the protection of those who are under their care.
Another instance, equally disgraceful to the instigator, occurred in the neighborhood of New Cross, just before dusk. A young man, who was one of the Yeomanry Cavalry, called on a Mr. Tate, in that neighborhood; and seeing from the window a number of persons collected on that spot, he imprudently, and with an air of derision and defiance, took out of his pocket a flag that had got into his possession in St. Peter's Field, and shook it from the window before the assembled people. This became the signal for attack. The windows of the house were immediately demolished, and the calling of the military to this spot caused the loss of life to 8 or 10 persons, one of whom was a mere passer by, and was shot in the head at a distance of 500 yards from the scene of action; at this spot a woman was also shot dead.
The conduct both of the Yeomanry Cavalry, and police, was of the most ruffian-like kind; the military always preceded the police, which is contrary to the known and established laws of this country. The advocates of a Reform in the Commons' House of Parliament must now consider themselves as placed out of the pale of the law. A war was declared on them by the late Royal Proclamation, which has been enforced by the Magistrates of Manchester, and the Reformers have no alternative but to make it a trial of strength. They had no man to advocate their cause among the existing authorities. There is not a man in the present Borough-mongers' House of Commons that is "bold enough to be honest, or honest enough to be bold". There is not a man that ventures to rise and tell them of what they are composed. We then can have no hope left by an appeal to that House, nor by an exposition of its character and composition; we must, therefore, appeal to those weapons and that strength which nature has left in the hands of the oppressed to resist the oppressor. The Executive has denounced the demand for Reform, and has thrown itself into the arms of the Borough-mongers. The House of Lords has not pronounced its determination collectively, but when we know that the majority of the Commons are produced by its members, we are justified in the inference, that it will combine with the Executive to protect its own offspring.