CHAPTER VII. THE TENTH OF APRIL, 1848--ITS INCREDIBILITIES
It is not easy to determine which of many historic incidents of interest should take precedence. The 10th of April, known as the day of Chartist Terror--still spoken of in hysterical accents--will do, as it shows the wild way with which sober, staid men can write history. I was out that day with the Chartists, and well know how different the facts were from what is believed to be the peril of the metropolis on that day. I have long regarded it as one of the "bygones" having instruction in them.
The French have their 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794), when the Reign of Terror ended, and their 18th Brumaire (November 9, 1799), when the Napoleonic Terror began, and the English have their 10th of April, 1848, when a million special constables were out staff in hand, to prevent a National Petition of the people being presented to the House of Commons. Yet no conspiracy existed--nor even had the police fabricated a plot (as they often did in those days)--no disorder had been threatened, not a man was armed; the only imaginable enemy was the Chartist Convention of less than two hundred persons. The most distinguished of the Special Constables was Louis Napoleon, who four years later became known as the assassin of French liberty, and whose career is one of the infamies of Imperialism.
The 10th of April, 1848, has for more than half a century held a place in public memory. The extraordinary hallucination concerning it has become historic, and passes as authentic. Canon Charles Kingsley was the chief illusionist in this matter. He wrote: "On the 10th of April, the Government _had_ to fill London with troops, and put the Duke of Wellington in command, who barricaded the bridges and Downing Street, and other public buildings."* Nobody "had" to do what Kings-ley relates. Nine years had elapsed since any one had taken the field against the Government, and that was in a Welsh town 147 miles away. John Frost and his tiny band of followers were the insurgents. All were put down in twenty minutes by a few soldiers. Frost came to London in 1839 to consult James Watson, Henry Hetherington, Richard Moore, William Lovett, and other responsible Chartists, whom he most trusted. They besought Frost to abandon his idea of an attack upon Newport, as no one would support him. There were no arms in London on April, 1848, no persons were drilled, no war organisation existed, and no intention of rising anywhere. The Government knew it, for they had spies everywhere. They knew it as well or better in 1848 than in 1839. For nine years John Frost had then been in penal servitude, and no one had attempted to imitate him. Nor had he any followers in London in 1848. At his trial no noblemen, no aristocratic ladies, crowded the court to cheer him by their sympathy, or mitigate his sentence by their influence--as they did when Dr. Jameson and others were on trial for their wanton and murderous raid on the Government of South Africa. Such is the difference between the insurgency of poverty seeking redress, and the insurgency of wealthy insolence seeking its further aggrandisement There was absolutely nothing in the field against the Duke of Wellington in London but a waggon, on which a monster petition was piled.