The first effect of these outrages was to damage the cause of Reform itself, even such uncompromising reformers as Lord Grey denouncing "meetings at which extensive schemes of Reform were submitted to individuals incapable of judging of their propriety." The second consequence was to compel the ministers to take steps to prevent a recurrence of such tumults and crimes. At first they were contented with a temporary suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; but, even while that suspension was in force, it did not entirely prevent meetings, at some of which the language of the speakers certainly bordered on sedition; and when the suspension was taken off, fresh meetings on a larger scale, and of a more tumultuous character than ever, were held in more than one rural district; finally, in July of 1819, the whole kingdom was thrown into a violent state of excitement by a meeting held at Birmingham, at which the leaders, assuming the newly-invented party name of Radicals, not only demanded the remodelling of the whole system of government, but, because Birmingham as yet sent no members to the House of Commons, took it upon themselves to elect Sir Charles Wolseley, a baronet of respectable family, as their representative to the Parliament, and charged him to claim a place in the House of Commons in the next session, by the side of those elected in obedience to the royal writs. Sir Charles was at once arrested on the charge of having at this meeting used seditious language calculated to lead to a breach of the peace; but the Radical leaders, far from being intimidated by this demonstration of vigor on the part of the government, immediately summoned a similar meeting in Manchester, announcing their intention to elect a representative of that great town likewise, which, though the largest of all the manufacturing towns, was also unrepresented in the Imperial Parliament. The magistrates prohibited the meeting. It was only postponed for a week, when the people assembled in such formidable numbers (no estimate reckoned them at fewer than 60,000), that the ordinary civil authorities deemed themselves unequal to dealing with it, and called in the aid first of the Yeomanry and then of a hussar regiment. The soldiers behaved with great forbearance, as soldiers always do behave on such occasions; but they were bound to execute the orders which were given them to arrest some of the leaders, and, in the tumult which was the inevitable consequence of their attempt to force a way through so dense a crowd, three or four lives were, unfortunately, lost.
So unusual a catastrophe called out the energies of both parties. The Radical leaders published manifestoes declaring the people had been "massacred" by the soldiers by the orders of the government. Meetings were held to denounce the conduct of the ministers, one being even promoted by Lord Fitzwilliam, as Lord-lieutenant of Yorkshire, a dignity of which he was instantly deprived; while, on the other hand, the grand-juries of Cheshire and Lancashire made reports of the condition of those counties to the Secretary of State, which showed that a most alarming spirit prevailed over the greater part of the district. "The most inflammatory publications had been issued in the principal towns, at a price which put them within the reach of the poorest classes of society. The training and military drilling of large bodies of men under regular leaders had been carried on to a great extent for some time, chiefly by night; and there was no doubt that an extensive manufacture of arms was going on." What was a hardly inferior symptom of danger was a system of intimidation which prevailed to a most serious degree. Many magistrates had received notices threatening their lives, and combinations had been formed to withhold custom from publicans and shopkeepers who had come forward to support the civil power. In many parts of the two counties the grand-juries declared "that no warrant of arrest or other legal process could be executed; the payment of taxes had ceased, and the landlords were threatened with the discontinuance of their rents."
It was admitted that the spirit of disaffection was local, confined to three or four counties; but those counties were, next to Middlesex itself, the most populous and among the most important in the kingdom, and there was danger lest the feeling, if not checked, might spread. The crisis seemed so momentous, that some even of the Opposition leaders volunteered their counsels and aid to the ministers in dealing with it. And the ministers, after long deliberation, decided on calling Parliament together in November, and introducing some bills which they conceived necessary to enable them to restore and preserve tranquillity. They were six in number; and-perhaps, with some sarcastic reference to Gardiner's Six Acts in the sixteenth century-they were very commonly spoken of as Lord Sidmouth's Six Acts, that noble lord being the Home-secretary, to whose department they belonged. It is not necessary here to do more than mention the general purport of five of them. One prohibited military training without the sanction of the government; another empowered magistrates to search for arms which they had reason to believe were collected for illegal purposes; the third authorized the seizure of seditious and blasphemous libels; the fourth subjected publications below a certain size to the same stamp as that required for a newspaper; the fifth regulated the mode of proceeding in trials for misdemeanor of a political character. But these enactments were regarded as little more than arrangements of detail or procedure involving no principles, and some of them were admitted even by the most steadfast opponents of the ministers to be necessary. But the sixth, designed to restrain the practice of holding large open-air meetings-not, indeed, forever, but for a certain period, fixed at five years-was strongly resisted by the greater portion of the Whig party in both Houses, as a denial to the people of one of their most ancient and constitutional rights.[179]
Its principal clauses enacted that "no meeting exceeding the number of fifty persons (except a meeting of any county or division of any county, called by the Lord-lieutenant or sheriff of such county, etc., or by five or more acting justices of the peace for such county, or by the major part of the grand-jury; or any meeting of any city, borough, etc., called by the mayor or other head officer of such city, etc.) should be holden for the purpose or on the pretext of deliberating upon any public grievance, or upon any matter relating to any trade, manufacture, etc., or upon any matter of Church or State, or of considering, proposing, or agreeing to any petition, address, etc., etc., unless in the parish or township within which the persons calling any such meeting usually dwell;" and it required six days' notice of the intention to hold such meetings, with their time, place, and object, to be given to a magistrate. It empowered the magistrate to whom such notice was given to alter the time and place. It forbade adjournments intended to evade these prohibitions. It forbade any one to attend such meetings except freeholders of the county, or parishioners of the parish, or members of the corporation of the city or borough in which they were held, or members of the House of Commons for such places. It empowered magistrates to proceed to the places where such meetings were being held, and, if they thought it necessary, to require the aid of constables. It enacted that any meeting, the tendency of which should be "to incite or stir up the people to hatred and contempt of the person of his Majesty, his heirs and successors, or of the government or constitution of this country as by law established, should be deemed an unlawful assembly." It empowered one or more justices of the peace, in the event of any meeting being held contrary to the provisions of this act, to warn every one present, in the King's name, to depart; and made those who did not depart in obedience to such warning liable to prosecution for felony, and, if convicted, to seven years' transportation. It forbade the display of flags, banners, or ensigns at any meeting, and the employment of any drum, or military or other music; but it excepted from its operation "any meeting or assembly which should be wholly holden in any room."