30th November 1816: Another correspondent writes to the Leeds Mercury in the debate about shearing frames vs hand-cropping

MR PRINTER,—In your paper of the 23d inst. I observed a comparison between the dressing of cloth by manual labour and machinery. Now, though I cannot doubt the veracity of your correspondent, who asserts that more men are employed in the latter mode of dressing it; yet, being an old man, whose ideas perhaps may have been narrowed and contracted by age, I cannot give full credit to this assertion without some explanation, and such an explanation as may be comprehended by other old men, whose intellectual powers may be rendered equally callous and obtuse. I have, for more than forty-five years, had the government of trading concerns, have viewed improvements with pleasure, and have, in some degree, shared in the benefits thereof; and experience has convinced me, that the use of a certain degree of Machinery has benefited the labouring classes; but I am free to knowledge that I am not able to see, to my satisfaction, that dressing cloth by Machinery can produce to the poor shear-men any real advantage, because when in the dressing-mills I have seen that one man can well manage four pair of shears. If your correspondent, who has made the assertion, will be so good as give the A. B. C. thereof, in your paper, he will oblige me with many more of your readers.

It has been hinted to me, that if the croppers would lower their wages, say, be content to earn 20s. a week, instead of 30s.—that then the dressing-mill would not be employed. This may be worthy the consideration of the shear-men; but I admit that it is difficult to persuade men, that 20s. a week constant, is better for them than 30s. though liable to interruptions.

23rd November 1816: Correspondents argue about shearing frames in the Leeds Mercury

In addition to the above paper, on the general subject, the following observations on the use of Machinery in the Dressing of Woollen Cloth, have been handed to us for insertion:

"The finishing of woollens by machinery," says one of our correspondents, "does not diminish manual labour. In proof of which assertion, I beg leave to state, that I am acquainted with a manufacturer in the neighbourhood of Leeds, who finishes about twenty-two pieces of cloth weekly, and if this cloth was finished by hand labour, the journeymen's wages would amount to about 26l. Fourteen or fifteen workmen would be required in that way to perform this work, whereas, by machinery, twenty workmen are required, twelve of whom have from 20 to 40 shillings per week, four of them 15 to 20 shillings weekly, and the other four a less sum. Instead of a decrease, there is therefore, as I have asserted, an increase of manual labour. A journeyman cropper would finish at 5 cuts, that work on which machinery bestows 8, 9, or 10, and two men would raise in half a day as much cloth as can be raised by machinery in nearly double that time. These are not mere vague notions, but facts founded on experience. The principal use of machinery in this department of the woollen trade, consists in the superior style of finishing. Cloth dressed in this way is more valuable than that finished by hand, that is, if it be properly prepared, for if not, machine dressing injures the fabric."

Another correspondent, writing on the same subject, says, "The usual payment made by cloth dressers to their workmen, for cloth dressed by hand labour, is 5 percent. upon the cost price of cloth; while the average wages paid for the last four years, by a house in this neighbourhood, pretty extensively engaged in the dressing of cloth by machinery, has been found on an accurate examination, to amount only to three and a half per cent.; so that the sum paid for labour is thirty shillings less in every five pounds. Or the matter may be put in another light: The men who work the machinery, being under no restrictions, and requiring less skill, are content to work for 18s a week each; but the regular cloth dresser working by hand, will own 30s. From which it would appear, that as many hands are required, but the labour employed in the new, is less expensive than that used in the old mode of dressing."

23rd November 1816: 'A Manufacturer' replies to 'Observator' in the argument about technology in the Leeds Mercury

MR. EDITOR,—I would not have troubled you with this, had I not felt much disappointment, on perusing your paper of Saturday last, to find but one reply to OBSERVATOR, on taxing Machinery, and that one so very leading lenient and mild. I am not in the habit of writing for the press; I am but a manufacturer, at the head of a considerable number of workmen, and therefore I must crave indulgence from the Critic, both for my grammar and composition. I should answer Observator, first, by stating a few facts which cannot be controverted, and secondly, by asking him a few plain questions.

First, then, a demand for goods has created all the manufactories in this country, and immense sums have been invested in building, machinery, and the capital necessary to make them answer.

Secondly, this property is rateable to the poor and to every other parochial tax, and pays a far greater proportion according to its real value, than the property of the gentleman of landed interest.

Thirdly, pauperism has not increased with Machinery.

Fourthly, the wages, arising from labour without Machinery, will not enable the population to purchase the produce of the land, and other articles of support, which yield a tax, besides relieving the landed interest.

Fifthly, neither the number nor the industry of the inhabitants of this country have diminished, and they never will to any great extent, either starvation or emigration

Sixthly, the morals of the population employed in manufactories are improved in a far greater degree than in any other class of labourers in the country.

I would now ask—has not the gentleman of landed interest had a hand in the increase of Machinery? Has he ever complained until now, that he too begins to feel the pressure of the times? Has he not been the principal supporter of unjust and unnecessary wars? Has not all his influence been directed to their promotion, in order that he might increase his rent-roll? Have not pauperism and the poor-rates risen and fallen exactly with the price of provisions? And has not the price of provisions been enhanced by the wars of the Ministers of the gentleman of landed interest, the paper-money system, and that horrible and engulphing system of corruption which pervades every department in the State? Is it not this which has left the mechant without orders, the manufactories without employ, and the operative class without bread? And lastly, has not the gentleman of landed interest been, for the last twenty-five years, enriching himself by supporting war, which, he says, has increased trade, and machinery, and population, to eat his dear corn?

I would now observe, that Observator must be very ill informed indeed, if he thinks that the present population will go back to the dressing, scribbling, carding and spinning of wool, by hand-labour, as they did forty years ago. Let him but propose such a thing to the few there are yet left, and they would laugh in his face.

He must be equally ignorant of the present state of information which the operative classes have attained, to suppose they will either starve or emigrate—no, they are too numerous and too enlightened to suffer or to do this, and he may depend upon it, that if employment be not found in the usual way, they will still find the means to live. Yes, the inhabitants born upon the soil will not leave it, and they will live upon it too. God in nature teach them this, and congregated in factories they have learned to feel themselves men, and are no longer the same ignorant and stupid beings they were previous to the introductions of Machinery. The light of truth is diffused over the land, and the hand-maid of truth is virtue, and its offspring is liberty. Factories have proved schools in which inquiry has been awakened, and the social feelings improved, by which the mists of delusion have melted before the rising sun of truth, and the midnight hags of ignorance and superstition can no longer bind the people by their spells.

Here this Observator, and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, before it is too late. It is the voice of a Manufacturer, who considers himself as only a foreman to several hundreds of human beings, his brethren in calamity, and in the eyes of God and nature—equal.

A MANUFACTURER

16th October 1816: 'Investigator' writes to the Leeds Mercury in defence of Machinery

Mr. EDITOR—I do not all agree with "Observator," in your last week’s Mercury, in the recommendation of a Tax on Machinery, neither do I think many of his arguments and conclusions are good ones. His remarks appear to have arisen from a desire to relieve his country from the difficulties under which it labours. But I conceive that, as well as many others, he has mistaken the legitimate objects that occasion our distress, and of course failed in pointing out where we are to look for remedies. Though pauperism may have increased with the extension of machinery, it does not follow that they should be cause and effect, nor even that there should be any connection between them. I believe there has not been any general scarcity of work for these many years past, until the present, nor while our trade flourished, did many apply to their parishes for want of work. Though they might be displaced by machinery yet they found employ in some other department, and I believe seldom had occasion to apply to their parishes. The great increase of pauperism may be accounted for by the lax state of the morals of the lowest class, and the decay of those principles of honour, which, from considering it shameful to become chargeable to their parish, taught them to provide for themselves against a time of need. What ought to have been laid up for the winter has been too often spent in the false sunshine of dissipation. There are still townships where this honour is preserved, when the labourer, like the industrious ant, provides against a day of scarcity, and I wish this were more general; but improvidence is one of the marked characteristics of our manufacturing poor. I agree with "Observator" that the factory system has had a great share in sapping the morals of the poor, and I lament it extremely with him.

His idea of a tax on machinery is so extremely speculative and impolitic, that I think very few words needful on that subject. For it is plain to be seen that such a tax on machinery as would create an expensive demand for manual labour, must be extremely high; machinery being so much cheaper a power, not to say any thing of the superior manner in which it performs many of the operations of the manufacturing process. Whatever tax might be laid on machinery would ultimately fall on the manufactured article, and would raise the price so much, that there is little doubt it would extinguish our export trade. If this is to be extinguished, as seems to be threatened from all more quarters than one, it is time for the British merchants, whose cheif trade is in the export of manufactured goods, to be looking around for some other country, where they may employ their capital unrestrainedly.

Instead of pressing remedies that would be worse than the evil they seek to cure, it is the duty of every Briton, quietly to wait a little longer for the amendment of the times. There is already in many places a considerable improvement, and I have no doubt the evil will work its own cure. We are not alone in our difficulties; so far from this, I know few countries where the people are in a better situation than in our own. If the disposition that is shown to relieve distresses by those are able to give, be met with equal readiness by the poor to submit to their deprivations for a time, I have no doubt but the sun, which has for a season been covered with spots, will again shine with increased splendour on the people of Great Britain.

INVESTIGATOR.

Leeds, November 11th, 1816.

9th November 1816: 'Observator' writes to the Leeds Mercury advocating the taxation of machinery

To the EDITOR of the LEEDS MERCURY.

SIR—I rely upon your well-known for the insertion in your widely extended paper of the following remarks on the general distress of the country, with the subjoined hints, calculated to relieve the community from the enormous burthen of poor rates and taxes.

The employment of so great portion of our population to carry on the late eventual war so drained us of men, that, to enable us the carry on our trade at the same time, which increased to an enormous extent, in consequence of our naval superiority, factories were filled with machinery, to perform the work that had before been done by hand; and the Agriculturalist following the examples of the trader, establishing the thrashing-machine, &c. &c. Whilst we, as it were, held the world in subjection by blockading the ports of our enemies, and engrossed to ourselves not only the trade of Europe, but nearly of the whole world, these inventions added sinews to our country, at the same time that they enabled the traders to acquire immense fortunes. But since peace has been restored, those Powers who were compelled to use goods of our making, now make for themselves, consequently our trade has diminished; but the number of labourers increased by the return of thousands from the army and navy: thus, the necessity of machinery is done away by the diminution of trade and the increase of labourers: still the machine continues to be worked while the labourer is unemployed and in a state of distress.

As the gentleman of landed interest is obliged to support the pauper, it would seem wise to employ him to thrash out his corn: and as the factories do not employ our poor, or support them when unemployed, and as they do not increase our revenue by import or export duties, it would seem expedient that the machines used in them should be done away, or that the articles made by them should be subject to a tax, so as to put manual labour on a footing with machinery.

The observations that follow will, I believe, apply to all the various concerns conducted by machinery, but, as the clothing trade is more familiar to me than any other. I shall confine my remarks to that only. Whoever will take the trouble to trace the progress of machinery in this business from its introduction to the present time, and its effect upon the landed interest, will find that just in proportion as labour has been done away by its employment, so has the land been burthened to support the poor, although it was not so severely felt whilst we had nearly trade of the whole world, and the war demand enabled the Agriculturalist to obtain his own price for the produce of his land. About thirty years ago the carding-engine and spinning-jenny were introduced: this was the first serious encroachment on the labourer; up to this period the whole female population of a manufacturing district was constantly employed spinning, &c. and the male cultivated the land: there was not a cottage within twenty miles of a manufacturing town whose inhabitants were not furnished with labour, and consequently with bread. A reference to the parish books would enable any gentleman to trace its effect on the poor-rates. The next step of innovation that lessened labour was the use of the scribbling engine; this branch of the trade employing fewer persons, chiefly men and boys, and being introduced during the war, was less felt; then followed the various machines used to dressing cloths, called gigs and shearing frames, whose operation collectively has transferred the labour of the country to an immense pile of building called a Factory; the machinery of which is worked by water or steam, and managed by a few persons only, instead of giving employment and support to thousands, who would, in their turn, by the wages arising from labour, be enabled to purchase the produce of the land, and other articles of support which yield a tax, and thereby contribute to take the burthen from the landed interest. It is, I believe, a political axiom not disputed, that the strength of a country consists in the number and industry of its inhabitants: if this be true, I begin to suspect, that unless some employment be found for the labourer, we must in the next war fight our battles with machinery, or become an easy prey to some daring invader, when emigration and starvation have depopulated our country. In an overgrown factory, one or even two hundred cloths are made a week by the employment of a few persons only; so that if we could retain the trade of the whole world, and combinations of persons continue to extend mechanical influence to the exclusion of manual labour, the population of the country must be in a state of starvation, and would demand support from the landed interest: furnish the poor with employment instead of using machines, and there will immediately follow a decrease of poor-rates, for then none will require parochial relief but the orphan, the aged, and infirm.

With one quarter part of our trade, conducted without machinery, there would be no want of employment for the poor, and instead of a company of three or four persons, with an overgrown capital, engrossing the trade of a populous district, it would be divided amongst the many, and the industrious man with a small capital would be enabled to bring his goods to market on equal terms with this opulent neighbour. The introduction of machinery has enabled the facturer to glut the market in a few weeks, let the demand be what it may: so that even the persons employed in these factories, some of whom get great wages, when at work, are sometimes revelling in drunkenness or debauchery, or starving for want of employ. The introduction of machinery has contributed also to debase the morals of society, by huddling the sexes together, in these factories, beyond the conception of persons not acquainted with its effect.

The charitable donations of the opulent, (which operate as a tax on the landed interest) can at best afford only temporary relief; and if it could be continued, would not fail to convert our hardy industrious labourer into a cringing servile beggar. If the gentlemen of landed interest, who must support the starving poor, do not enact some salutary law on this subject, these Trading Companies will ruin the country ruined the country to enrich themselves; and while they assume a style of splendour that eclipses and astonishes the country gentleman, their poor neighbours starve.

Tax machinery and you will give the poor employment: you will make them independent, and will make them happy.

OBSERVATOR.

25th September 1816: Large demonstrations of unemployed men occur in Leeds

On Wednesday 25th and Friday 27th September 1816, large demonstrations took place in Leeds, involving hundreds of unemployed men. The protests were against their predicament, but also directed at the publisher of the Tory Leeds Intelligencer, who had recently published editorials scoffing at the distress of the unemployed.

Both Leeds Newspapers carried reports and editorials about the demonstrations.

The Leeds Mercury of Saturday 28th September 1816 carried a long editorial:

On Wednesday last an assemblage of several hundred men, chiefly work-people out of employment, took place in front of the Leeds Intelligencer Printing Office, but after remaining in that situation for some time they separated, without committing any act of riot or excess. The motive of this meeting we have heard differently stated, but we believe the real object of the unfortunate people of whom it was composed, was to shew the town, and more especially to prove to the Printer of the Intelligencer, that the distress which has been felt and complained of in this town and district is a reality, and not, as he has indiscreetly and insultingly represented it, in his paper of the 16th instant, a mere "farce" and an "excellent joke." After the meeting in Cross-Parish a number of the people adjourned to the Workhouse, where the Committee, consisting of the guardians of the poor, was then sitting, and the applications for the relief of distressed families were on that day unusually numerous. 

In speaking of the public distress in this town, we have uniformly guarded with extreme caution against those exaggerations into which we think opposite sides have fallen. We have stated repeatedly, that according to our views, the Mayor's Letter to the Ministers of Religion in the town, coloured those distresses too highly; but his error was on the side of humanity; and we are far from thinking that he could be guilty of the folly of wishing to impart éclat to the conclusion of his mayoralty by seeking to obtain contributions for distress which had little or no existence. Such an insinuation it remained for those who condemn others for speaking disparagingly of authorities, to level against the chief magistrate of the borough. The truth of the declaration made from the hustings in Westminster we have also denied, not in degree, but to the extent. We have said, and we now repeat, that the distress is neither unequalled nor indescribable. But while we have combated these exaggerations on one side, we have with equal earnestness, and certainly with more feeling, denied pointedly and positively that the distress on which so much has been said, has no existence. Existence it unfortunately has, and to an extent too that no well regulated mind can contemplate without feelings of deep commiseration. But it is not sufficient that the public should feel; it is necessary that they should act; and we hope the time is not far distant, when the town of Leeds, properly convened, will have an opportunity of shewing that they are alive to the destitute state of  their distressed neighbours. In the mean time, it is the wisdom of men of all parties to sooth the public feelings, and to guard against those exaggerations, as well on one side as on the other, which are calculated only to convert into a subject of discussion, those misfortunes which it ought to be the business of all, by united efforts, to alleviate, if they cannot remove. 

It has been suggested to us, that all discussions on these subjects are prejudicial; and if he be meant all intemperate discussions, we fully concur in the truth of the observation. But if it be meant to deprecate all mention of the subject as well that which exaggerates as that which tends to place the matter in a sober and proper point of view, we must beg to express our decided dissent from such a proposition. Truth, humanity and justice, never suffer by investigation. The gloomy silence of studied suppression, is, if possible, more mischievous than even the language of violent discussion. It closes the door of hope. It appears like abandoning the cause of the poor in despair; and that we will never do while we have a mind to exercise and a pen to wield in their behalf. 

WHILE we are upon this subject, we must be excused, if we expose the extreme want of candour, and the palpable, and we will add, wilful misrepresentation that has taken place regarding the statements in our last paper. We never adduced as a proof of the public distress the fact that only 1046 men were out of employment in the whole of the West-Riding of Yorkshire; what we said was, that's 1043 men were out of employment in one particular department of a single branch of the woollen manufacture. It is dealing fairly with the public, is it honest towards the labouring classes, to make these wilful and deliberate perversions of the truth? Let any man of integrity answer that question. We did not, as a proof of public distress, say that an accumulated surplus of £400 was at this moment in the hands of the parish officers. What we did say was, that an accumulated surplus of £1800, which was in the treasury of the parish in May last, had since that time been reduced to £400. Are not these repeated efforts to deceive, a proof that they are a part of a system? and what must be done the nature of that cause that requires such support? 

It is in pursuit of this system, that the Dissenters of Leeds are represented as answering the solicitations of the Mayor "to contribute to the relief of their suffering brethren, with dry eyes and immovable countenances, quietly keeping their hands in their pockets, and protesting that they could not discover any objects on whom they could properly bestow their charity." Do the Dissenters deserve this reproach? Let the numerous charities in Leeds answer this question. Do they deserve, in a time like this, to be held up, in a public newspaper, as fit objects for popular indignation? Is this a just representation of their conduct, or of the language of the paper that might be supposed to speak their sentiments on the occasion in question? In the first place, the letter of the Mayor was not, as is here insinuated, confined to the Dissenters. It was sent also to the Clergy of the Established Church, who acted, and very properly acted, in the same way as the Dissenting Ministers. But is it true that "the organ of the party" denied the propriety of raising funds for the relief of the distressed? Did we not, on the contrary, recommend that the inhabitants of the town should be called together, "to devise a mode of relief, that should be, in some degree, commensurate with the distress it is meant to abate?" And yet our accusers have the unblushing effrontery to come forward and state publicly, that the propriety of raising funds, for the release of the distressed, was denied. We have long treated the calumnies and misrepresentations, flowing from the contaminated source in which these imputations originate, with silent contempt, and impunity has made the slanderers audacious. There have evidently been making an experiment upon public credulity, and endeavouring to compress into a focus the greatest possible mass of misrepresentation, calumny, and falsehood.

The same edition also had a shorter article about the demonstration on Friday:

Yesterday another assemblage of unemployed workmen took place in Briggate and Cross-Parish, from whence they proceeded to the Court-House, where the Magistrates were sitting, and paraded for some time in front of Park-Row. Though we are by no means dispose to censure these meetings with undue severity, the first of which might be considered in some degree necessary in order to prove by an argument the force of which could not well be resisted, the reality of the public distress; yet we must say, that we do not perceive any good, and we fear much ill, may arise from their repetition. We hope and believe, that no violence or outrage is intended; but all large bodies of men, assembled under such circumstances, resemble a magazine of combustibles, and who shall say that some incendiary hand, either from a mistaken zeal, or from worse motives, may not cast in a spark, the consequences of which would probably be less fatal to those without than those within the garrison? It is, we allow, a great evil for men that are willing to work to be unemployed; but there are still greater and more lasting evils. In a country like this, no man will be suffered to perish for want. The masters in general, are as anxious to give employment to their workmen as the men are to be employed. They have a common interest. One cannot be pinched by penury, but the other must be threatened with ruin. They are embarked in the same ship, and the crew may depend upon it that the officers will not suffer her to sink, if any effort of theirs can keep her afloat. The mess at present may be slender, but popular commotions would not strengthen it. We hope trade will soon begin to improve; we hear, indeed, that some alteration for the better has already taken place. In the mean time, the more opulent inhabitants of the town, will, we do not doubt, do their duty. There never yet was a well founded appeal made to them in vain. It is some consolation to know, that in many branches of trade work-people are tolerably well employed, among those may be ranked joiners, bricklayers, and handicrafts men in general; there are, to be sure, many exceptions, but the principal distress is found among those usually employed in the different branches of the woollen manufacture.

The Leeds Intelligencer posted the following editorial about what had occurred, and in response to the Leeds Mercury's comments:

In our Market-place, on Wednesday and Friday last, there was an assemblage of between three and four hundred men, who stated themselves to be out of work. They paraded in different places, but, we are happy to say, did not commit any violent acts of outrage. The general belief is, that the sole object of this assemblage was to convince us, that there were so many persons as composed it out of employment. 

As this belief is avowed by our opponents, we would ask, Why then, do they insidiously seize such a moment, to enter into a long strain of falsehood and declamation, in order to render us as odious as possible in the eyes are lower orders? They know we cannot treat them, in a reply, as they deserve, without the hazard of adding to that irritation which has already been excited, and which we are anxious to allay, not on our account, but for the sake of public tranquillity, and of the misguided men themselves, whose safety might be compromised by their own unthinking rashness. 

We have never contended that no distress whatever existed—that not any persons were out of employment;—this has, all along, been self-evident. What we have argued, and that merely in refutation of the Westminster Patriots, is, that the distress the poor, in this place, did not warrant the assertions of the redoubted Major Cartwright, and the truth of this is fully admitted, even by those who have taken the occasion to malign and misrepresent us. That even a single individual should be destitute of work, we lament as much as anyone—but we will not, though the task would not be difficult, cast back or recriminate the foul aspersions put upon us by our angry and insidious adversaries. 

To the proposal of those adversaries we fully agree, and are willing to abide by the judgment of an impartial public, which of the two has advocated the cause of Liberty, and which the cause of Licentiousness—which has contended for the honour of Britain, and which has supported the cause of her most inveterate enemies. In the real, unexaggerated distress of the labouring classes, and in the present depression of trade (which is not confined to this country, but which extends all over Europe, and even to America) we ever did, and ever shall, feel the deepest interest: and whatever our enemies may insinuate or threaten, we shall never be found wanting, as far as our feeble means allow, in giving our support to the cause of humanity. Have not our columns, on every agitation of great questions in commerce, and on the recent Wool Question in particular, been zealously crowded with articles to promote that commerce and the consequent employment and prosperity of the labouring classes? For the vigilance with which we have watched over their real interest, we are not afraid of a comparison with any paper in the Kingdom. Have we, in public or in private, ever withheld our mite from any effort to relieve public distress? We may be represented as enemies of the poor: but the consciousness of an exactly opposite character, and the invariable exercise of that character in the discharge of our duty, shall with us, as we trust it will with the Public, suffice better to silence the voice of calumny, than the prolongation of a discussion which several reasons render it improper to continue. For the actual difficulties that exist, both with respect to workmen and their employers, we trust the returning title of prosperity will speedily bring an efficient remedy, if it be not interrupted and frighted back by the designing clamour of those whose business it is to sow dissatisfaction, and to excite despair.

13th July 1816: Report on the weather in the Leeds Mercury

The Weather.—The oldest man living does not recollect such unseasonable weather as we have lately experienced. But this is the case not only in England, but in the most mild and salubrious parts of France, and every other part of the Continent. A letter from Bordeaux, of the 15th June, says:—"We really do not know here where we are. We sit with our doors and windows closed and fire burning as in the middle of winter. It is cold as in October, and the sky is dark and rainy; violent winds accompanied with heavy rain and hail rage round the house our country houses; the low grounds are under water; if we have one tolerable warm day, several cold and rainy ones like the preceding, are to follow. The oldest people in the country do not recollect such a summer. Vegetation suffers, particularly the vines. The time of the blossom should be past, and they have not yet begun to blossom.—This is a bad prospect of the vintage, as the grapes cannot possibly ripen."

26th April 1816: The Secretary of the Leeds Cloth Dressers' Union outlines their distress to the Leeds Mercury

To the editor of the Leeds Mercury.

Sir,

Who is the true Friend of his Country? This Question strikes me more forcibly at a Time like the present, when it is acknowledged by all, that general Embarrassment and Want of Employment pervades the whole Nation. The Man, (at such a critical time,) that does every thing in his power to give employment to the lesser class of the community, must be acknowledged to be a friend truly to his Country, and if he should make a small sacrifice, so much the more. Now, Sir, it is a well known fact to every one that properly understands it, that the Machinery for the making of Cloth in the Town and Neighbourhood of Leeds throws Two to Three Hundred [Men] out of Employment, with very little benefit to the Owner, if any, and the Work, to say the least of it, no better done. If this be true, and it is too true, what will be the feeling of those brave Men returning from the Army and Navy to find all their hopes blasted, and their former employment [taken] by Machinery?

Likewise, the Cloth-workers, who have borne the weight of heavy Taxes and dear Provisions during the War, at the return of peace to [have] every thing turn from them that would Support them and their Families. The Person that gives Employment to the Working Classes encourages Consumption and helps the Revenue, and is worthy the gratitude of all good Men. It is unnecessary to say any thing more, the following statement will say sufficient:

The Quarterly Report of the Clothworkers’ Brief Institution, taken from the 1st of January, 1816, to the 31st of March.

In January there were out of Employ…… 317
In February…….D………...D………….. 378
In March ………..D……….D…….…… [389]

In this Number are included the lately returned from his Majesty’s Service.

The Number of Children dependent on these Individuals or Support is, 1134.

In the course of the last Quarter the Institution has paid to the Relief of their own Sick and Funerals 61l. 6s.

JOHN SUNDERLAND, Secretary.
April 26th 1816.

N.B. There are at present not less than Six Hundred Pairs of Sheers going by Machinery.

25th February 1816: Four shearing frames broken by Luddites at Quarmby, their final action in the West Riding

At 1.00 a.m. on Sunday 25th February 1816, the final Luddite action in the West Riding took place - just after the fourth anniversary of the first actions in the County.

The Leeds Mercury of 2nd March carried the following report about the attack:

Outrage near Huddersfield.—Last Sunday morning, about two o'clock, several persons broke into the house and shop of James Roberts, of Quarmby, near Huddersfield, cloth-dresser, and after demolishing all the windows and window-frames, for several yards square, proceeded to break the shears and improved shear-frames used in the cloth-dressing business; and, having effected their lawless purpose, retired without molesting any part of the family. It is fervently to be hoped, that the outrages which disgraced the neighbourhood of Huddersfield some years ago, and which proved so fatal to their perpetrators, are not about to be renewed; but should that be the case, we are assured that the persons whose property is likely to suffer in the event of a renewal of the frame-breaking system, are determined to defend their property against any attack that may be made upon it, and to render mutual assistance to each other for this important object.

The passage was a press release by the authorities, since the Leeds Intelligencer also quoted the same text and acknowledged they had received it from Huddersfield and didn't wish to add comment.

James Roberts gave a deposition to Joseph Radcliffe on the 26th February, confirming the time of the attack as 1.00 a.m. Throughout the attack - which he said lasted for 3 hours - he remained in bed because he was so afraid, and he also confirmed that not one word was uttered by the attackers. Attached to the deposition was an estimate of the cost of the damage: 3 broken frames, 1 damaged frame, and 4 pairs of hand shears - £16, 17 shillings sixpence; and for damage to the windows, £25, 17 shillings sixpence.

17th February 1816: Weather report from Bradford

The Leeds Mercury of Saturday 17th February 1816 carried a local report about the increasingly cold weather being experienced in the 'year without summer':

Thermometer.—At Bradford, on the morning of the 9th inst. At nine and till near ten o'clock, the thermometer stood at 10 degrees, being 22° below the freezing point. The depression being so great, induced the observer to check it by three other thermometers, which proved the accuracy of the first. The situation in which it is placed in due North, and quite open to the country.—Barometer, at the same time, one line below changeable.

16th January 1816: The Leeds Cloth Dressers Union case comes to court

On Tuesday 16th January 1816, the case of the Union Officers arrested and charged with aiding and abetting an illegal combination (i.e. Trade Union) by Leeds Magistrates in December was heard at Leeds Borough Quarter Sessions. The Leeds Mercury of 20th January 1816 gave a good summary of the proceedings:

TILLOTSON, SUNDERLAND, & OTHERS, Appellants, REX, Respondent. 

The Appellants, who are cloth-dressers, were convicted on Tuesday, the 19th of December last, by Whittell York, Esq. Mayor, and Thomas Ikin, Esq. on a charge of combining to hinder Messrs. Oates and Hardisty, cloth-merchants, of this town, from employing Thomas Marshall, as a cloth-dresser. Mr. Williams, who came from Preston for the purpose of sustaining the appeal, had been especially retained by the Appellants at a very considerable expence. His assistance, however, turned out to be unnecessary, as Mr. Maud, who was Counsel in support of the Conviction, stated to the bench that it was impossible the conviction could be legally sustained, as the Magistrates before whom the the conviction had taken place had no jurisdiction in the case, the act having especially provided, "that no Justice, being a master in any trade or manufacture, concerning which any offence is charged to have been committed should act in execution thereof." On this ground Mr. Maud said, the conviction must necessarily be quashed, for if that Court should affirm it, the Court of King's Bench would, would, under the circumstances of the case set such conviction aside. He concluded with moving that the conviction be quashed, to which the Court of course assented.—Conviction quashed.

30th December 1815: Leeds Cloth Dressers' Union Secretary writes a corrective letter to the Leeds Mercury

Following the report of his arrest in the 23rd December 1815 edition of the Leeds Mercury, John Sunderland - the Secretary of the Cloth Dressers' Union (or 'Brief Institution') - wrote to the paper, who published the letter on Saturday 30th December 1815:

TO the EDITOR of the LEEDS MERCURY.

SIR,— I beg that you will correct a Paragraph in your last Paper, by the Insertion the following Statement:—On Monday Night, the Eighteenth Inst. John Sunderland, Clerk to the Cloth Workers’ Brief Institution, was apprehended in the Act of reading a Letter, paying the Sick, &c. and himself and Twenty-Four other Persons searched, along with Five Women, who were applying for Relief for their Sick Husbands. At the same Time the Books and Papers were seized, and all taken away. John Sunderland and others were immediately conveyed to the Black Lion, Mill-Hill, at Nine o'Clock, and there remained till Two the next Day in the Afternoon, without being examined by any Magistrate. The said John Sunderland, Joseph Tillotson, William Anderson, William Hampshire, and Samuel Wheatley, after being examined, were held to Bail, for persuading Thomas Marshall, (the Informant,) to leave his Employers, Messrs. Oates and Hardisty, contrary to the Statute in that Case made and provided.

I am, Yours, &c. 

J.S.

23rd December 1815: 'The Thrashing Machine: A Tale'

THE THRASHING MACHINE.

A TALE.

Many ages ago, the inhabitants of a large, populous, and opulent island were divided into sects or castes, distinguished from each other by the kind of corn which they grew and consumed. The principal of these were the Wheatites. There were the Oatites, the Barleyites, the Ryeites, and a great many ites, most of them composed of different mixtures of some of the above-mentioned kinds of grain. In these enlightened and liberal-minded times, it will be almost difficult to comprehend and believe, how much animosity subsisted between these different classes of the same community, for no other reason in the world, but because they each chose to grow, and live upon that food, which they believed would the most contribute to health and long life. My intention is not at present to enter into either the cause, the nature, of the effects of these animosities, otherwise the subject might be rendered both instructive and interesting. I shall therefore proceed to the relation and description of what is my more immediate object.

A distinguished and opulent Farmer from amongst the Wheatites, sailed to a far distant country where these islanders had long had a settlement. When there, he could not but notice and be pleased with a very simple machine, which had long been used in country for thrashing corn. The most unskilful person could manage it. It was certainly very rude in its construction, and did not rid much work,—but the Farmer saw at a glance of his "eagle eye," that it was capable of much improvement. With distinguished benevolence, he not only set himself to construct one on an improved plan but, without fear or reward undertook to instruct the natives in the use of it, and for several years continued to assist them in working it. Such was his success that every body who saw it, at once perceived and admired its beauty and utility.

A length he transmitted to his own country a full, clear and correct description of the apparatus, and the effects which it had produced. Strange as it may seem, little notice was taken of his invention by any of his countrymen at home. Not a Wheatite offered to profit by the valuable discovery. When the benevolent Farmer returned to his native island, he had the mystification of learning, that his suggestion had been by his caste totally unnoticed. Having himself for the business which fully engaged his time and attention, he suffered his own discovery to lie totally dormant, and so to this day, in all human probability, would it have lain, for any thing that the Wheatites cared about it. It happened, however, that before the return the Benevolent Farmer, a poor labourer, of the name of Joseph who had all this life been a thasher of corn, happened to see the statement which the Farmer had transmitted home, and being both a shrewd and industrious man, he at once recognized the value of the discovery, and determined to avail himself of it; at the same time he perceived, that it was capable of great extension and improvement.

Joseph was a kind of [illegible] [illegible], not so much inclined to [illegible] as many others; he therefore was not so narrow minded as to stand entirely aloof from those who ate different bread from himself, when he thought, that by joining together, they might benefit each other. He saw that machine might be constructed, and worked at little expence, capable of thrashing much more corn than could be thrashed by the poor, (for he intended it for their use,) of any one caste in any one neighbourhood. The only chance, therefore, which he had of proving the capability of the invention was, to induce the rich of all castes to contribute towards erecting the machine, and the poor of all castes to send their corn to be thrashed by it. This, in these times of christian charity, may be thought not only to be an easy task, but one which would meet with universal approbation and support. Poor Joseph, however, had the prejudices of other times to contend with. At first, notwithstanding these, such was the novelty of the plan, and such its evident utility, that it banished for a time all animosity, and rich and poor, of all castes, joined so heartily in the undertaking, that Joseph had soon more work for his machine than it could do. This, instead of disheartening him, served only to stimulate him to greater exertions; he enlarged his machine, he published an account of its success; the whole island rang with its praises; almost every town in the kingdom were at strife which should erect the first and the best, and they called them by the name of Joseph. The great and the noble of the land patronized him, and even ROYALTY itself visited, [advocated] and encouraged the use of the machine, [illegible] poor Joseph too much for weak human nature to bear without being the worse for it. Joseph’s heart not being devoid of the seeds of vanity,—and this rich manure so abundantly appeared, caused them to grow, and bear leaves, flowers, fruit so abundantly, that the appearance of the meek and humble man was in a great measure hid under their luxuriance. At this good may sigh, the gay may smile, but none but the bad will rejoice. Let him, who could have better withstood such temptations, throw the first stone at poor Joseph, yet the man who could have withstood such flattery, will be among the last to do it.

Now it came to pass, that when the rich Wheatites, and more particularly the great farmers among them, perceived that Joseph’s Thrashing Machines were then spreading through the whole land, that the rich of all castes supported them, and that the poor of all castes sent their corn to be thrashed [illegible], they began to look about and bestir themselves in good earnest, meeting together and saying "if this man be thus suffered to thrash the corn of our poor, we shall have half of them poisoned by their wheat being contaminated with pernicious mixtures,—some scattered grains of oats, or barley, or rye, cannot fail to get in amongst it, and let the other castes say what they will and thrive even better than they do, which is not necessary, we are well assured that no kind of grain is wholesome but pure wheat. If they will thrash for their own poor, we will take care that they do not thrash for ours. Besides, what business have they to use these Trashing Machines at all; much less to call them after the name of a man, who has no more claim to the invention than a thief to his stolen property? Did not our caste invent it, and shall we suffer another to claim the merit, and reap the advantage without asserting in supporting our title to whatever may have arisen from it? So saying they sent, and called the Benevolent Farmer from that useful retirement in which he had almost forgotten that such a machine existed. They told him of the mighty works which he had done. He stared a little at first, but he was soon persuaded,—(for who could not in such a case be soon persuaded)—that he had been the author of all these wonderful things.—They determined to erect Trashing Machines for the thrashing of wheat only, in all parts of the Island, to be called NATIONAL MACHINES; they appointed the Farmer Superintendent of them, and they raised him to great honour and riches.

Now, notwithstanding that Trashing Machines of both kinds were thus very numerous, the island was so fruitful in corn of every kind, that there was more than work sufficient supplied by the poor, for them all. The competition, therefore, was of the greatest advantage—since almost all the poor, of whatever caste, might now have their corn thrashed in an expeditious way for nothing, instead of knocking it on as well as they could themselves, or having it done for them by the old, slow, and expensive method. Thus far, therefore, the effect at least was good, and all might have thrashed away as hard as they could, in peace and harmony with each other, without any fear of wanting employment.

It, however, unfortunately happened, that some of the more opulent farmers amongst the Wheatites were not content to enjoy the advantages which their caste reaped from the greatly improved Machines, unless the whole world would confess that they and they only, had any claim to merit in the discovery and perfecting of the machine. They abused poor Joseph most dreadfully, called him very hard names, and probably, if they had had him fully in their power, might have employed their machines in thrashing something else besides wheat. Nay, they went so far as to affirm that all the alterations which he had made in the machine, were calculated to spoil it; wherefore they did all in their power to turn the whole into ridicule; and they determined, that not a nail, a screw, or a wheel in theirs, should resemble Joseph’s machine. They asserted, that the latter were without exception coarsely and clumsily put together; that the power was ill applied, and that many parts were introduced for no other purpose than to attract attention and produce surprise. They affirmed, that the oil used was not only injudiciously administered, but that it was in itself bad and unfit for the purpose.—They asserted, that these machines did not perform their work well, but that in spite of all the care they could take, each kind of flour would contract and retain a flavour of some of the others. The corn, they said, was too much agitated in passing through the machine, jumping about from side to side, kicking up a very great and unnecessary dust, in short, they affirmed that poor Joseph was more fitted for exhibiting dancing automata at a country fair, than for being the manager and conductor of a machine, which required the greatest solidity of judgment, with the most unwearying perseverance.

How much of this was true the account from which I have drawn this statement does not proceed to state; it however does affirm, that the Wheatites were not, in this instance, altogether actuated by those pure and disinterested motives which in our happier times prevail. Neither does the accounts go on to state the final result of this conduct in the Wheatites; perhaps it was written during the contest, and before the issue could be known. We, however, in these latter days, who have had more experience, and have, moreover, the happiness and the privilege to live in an age, when brotherly love so much more abundantly prevails amongst all sects, parties and classes, shall feel no hesitation in condemning and stating our conviction of the mischievous consequences of such unchristian conduct. We, supposing ourselves the place of the Wheatites, should no doubt have felt and acted very differently. We should have seen and acknowledged that each of the rival candidates had his respective share of merit.—We should have rejoiced in the success of our rivals in the good cause, as well as in our own.—We should have strenuously supported our own machine, without derogating from the advantages of theirs:—nay we should have been happy, whenever they had hit upon any improvement, to adopt it, as well as to have furnished them with any useful idea which had suggested itself to us. Thus should we have gone on in love and charity together, mutually encouraging and assisting each other in the good work. Let us not, however, too severely condemn the errors of men who have prejudices of time country, station and self  interest to combat, which, probably, under all the same circumstances, we might not have been able to overcome. Let us, therefore, be thankful but not censorious.

A FRIEND TO THRASHING.

18th December 1815: Cloth Dressers' Union Secretary arrested in Leeds

In the evening of Monday 18th December 1815 John Sunderland, the secretary of the Cloth Dressers' Union (or 'Brief Institution') was arrested in Leeds. The two local newspapers carried reports of the arrest.

From the Leeds Mercury of Saturday 23rd December:

On Monday night last, John Sunderland, Secretary of United Cloth-Dressers’ Society, was apprehended at a public-house in this town and committed to prison, on a charge of aiding and abetting an illegal combination for preventing the use of Machinery in the dressing of woollen cloth, and at the same time the papers of the Society were seized and inspected by the Magistrates. On the following day Sunderland and three other persons were held to bail to appear at the Quarter Sessions to answer to the said charge.

From the Leeds Intelligencer of Monday 25th December:

Monday last, five men, members of a Committee of Cloth-dressers, were convicted at our Rotation Office of having entered into an illegal combination for preventing or their fellow-workmen from following his trade, unless he paid the sum of five pounds, which this Committee thought itself entitled to demand of him. They have appealed to the Quarter Sessions. It might have been hoped that the awful example at York, would have been a sufficient warning to workmen of every description, of the danger of entering into illegal combinations. Though any Class of workmen may set out with a resolution not to give way to such daring acts of outrage, as drew down that terrible infliction of the law, they ought to be aware that, having once entered upon an unlawful career, it is impossible for them to foresee where the evil may terminate, and that, however guarded they may be in their proceedings, detection, must, sooner or later, overtake every deviation from that course which the laws of the land, as well as every principle of policy, of necessity, and of justice, have marked out. The object of dislike to the present combination, is that species of machinery, employed for the dressing woollen cloth, called Gig Mills. By this machinery, some are of opinion that the manufacture can be finished, at the same expence, in a style much superior, to that which the Cloth-Workers are either able or willing to affect by manual labour. Several manufacturers, therefore, exercising that opinion, (which is their undoubted right) have determined on employing such machinery. Against this system, it appears, the Cloth-Workers have combined; and having demanded, as we have above stated, five pounds from an individual who had worked with machinery in Ireland, before they would allow him to earn his subsistence here by his wonted avocation, he gave information of the system, and the Committee, with their books and papers, were taken into custody. An extensive correspondence and combination have in consequence been discovered. As the next sessions must determine the business, it would be improper here to dwell further on the subject.

26th August 1815: The Leeds Mercury publishes a final editorial on the Charles Sutton affair

In the last Intelligencer a boast is put forth by the new Editor that he contributed to bring down upon a rival publication at Nottingham, the vengeance of law! After this we should not be surprised to hear those loyal vagabonds, the common informers, who go about the country seeking whom they may devour, boasts of their patriotic services in inflicting upon the inadvertent offenders against the revenue laws the terrors of the Exchequer. There is, indeed, this difference between the two characters—the one is actuated by a spirit of revenge, the other by a spirit of avarice; but, as to their loyalty, they are exactly upon a par. This literary informer finding himself incapable of contending with his adversary in the fair field of political combat, was, according to his own confession, obliged to summons to his aid the assistance of the Attorney-General, against whose ex officio logic all other arguments are unavailing. But when he boasts of having scorched his rival, he ought, in justice, to have added, that he destroyed himself. The Nottingham Review, which he opposed, was prosecuted; but the Nottingham Gazette, which he conducted, was annihilated. If this egotist only succeeds as well as at Leeds as he did at Nottingham, his master will have no great reason to exult in his powers, and his absence will be as little regretted here as it is there. For ourselves we have only to say, that a tolerable share of vigilance has, we believe, been exercised for the last dozen years over the productions of this press, but hitherto without any very distinguished success. For the future we rely more on our own discretion than upon any forbearance in the quarter in question. In fact, we asked no forbearance—we shall acknowledge no favour; and we despise alike the threats and the clemency of all the servile slaves of power.

19th August 1815: The Leeds Mercury responds to the Leeds Intelligencer's editorial about the Charles Sutton trial

We [illegible] a moment from more agreeable and more [illegible] pursuits, to notice a [most] violent [and impudent] attack made upon the paper by the [Editor] of the Leeds Intelligencer, who has, we [hear], [just] [arrived] from the parties of St. Giles’s, and whose language seems to be well suited to that [illegible] region. It is perhaps not known to the public, that the Editor of the Intelligencer, having written himself down, has been driven to the necessity of calling in the aid of an auxiliary, and by a very discrete choice, has, it is said, selected as his coadjutor the quondam conductor of a defunct journal, which, owing to the violence of its principal and the poverty of its talents, lately expired at Nottingham. These two negatives, which it is hoped may make an affirmative, are now uniting their wits, and it is to this promising coalition of mental energies that their small remaining stock of readers are to be indebted for the judicious, temperate, and profound observations which will in future flow from the "Intelligencer Office," and of which the last paper presents a happy specimen. Having found, from experience, that these ephemeral scribes "will die of themselves if you let them alone," we shall not be very anxious to notice their future ravings, nor would they have claimed our attention on the present occasion, had we not been inclined to put the public in possession of a secret that these combined editors, in excess of their modesty, appeared dispensed to withhold—probably from an indisposition to admit that additional aid was found requisite to prop a declining interest. As the alliance formed by these luminaries between the Leeds Mercury and the Nottingham Review, we have no objection to it whatever—they are quite at liberty to unite us with any part of the press they think proper, except with the slavish sycophants of power, the panders of ambition, and the servile tools of an existing administration. The watchfulness they have announced over the public papers, that dare to be honest in the worst of times, may recommend them to the French Minister of Police, who is just at this moment in need of a legion of censors of the press, to guard against the free discussion of political subjects; but, thanks to the glorious and successful struggles of our ancestors—thanks to the happy institutions of our country—and thanks the patriotic feeling of the present race of Englishmen, who know how to defend their best inheritance—censors of the press in this country are held in deserved detestation, and in proclaiming themselves as the fit instruments of such an office, the con-joint Editors hold themselves up to public execration. We have only further to observe, that so little are we influenced by the arrogant pretensions that have called forth these observations, that, under all circumstances, we shall keep on the even tenour of our way, and that though all the sycophants in the kingdom should be congregated to watch over us, we shall fearlessly endeavour to make the potent instrument placed in our hands administer to the liberty, the happiness, and the prosperity of our country.

14th August 1815: The Leeds Intelligencer publishes another outspoken editorial about Charles Sutton

We have promised to pay a little occasional attention to the Nottingham Review, and to shame, if anything can shame, the other paper published in that town, into the discharge of this duty, a duty, which, in such a place as Nottingham do [illegible] [illegible] print professing loyalty to the King, and attachment to the establishments of the country. But, while we spare a few "words of rebuke" to the convicted libeller of the British army, the detected instigator to outrage, murder, and insubordination of the British manufacturer, we must not entirely neglect the raving vagaries of its fraternal politician, the other weekly herald of discontent and [disapprobation], the public spirited and patriotic MERCURY of LEEDS! As these illustrious compatriots, however, even when united, are scarcely worth one's powder and [shot], we must be as sparing of our time and our ammunition as possible, and by placing them, as often as we conveniently can, together, to make to take aim at the [illegible], that we may kill both fools with one stone. The task we undertake, though loathsome, is necessary; and we shall lose no proper opportunity of [chastising] these mercenaries of a foreign tyrant, these malevolent and croaking scribblers, according to the magnitude of their respective [slur], and of arresting and beating back upon themselves, the putrid stream of moral and political quackery and delusion, with which they incessantly endeavour to annoy the Government of their country, and to poison and defile the already corrupt and feeble intellects of their infatuated disciples and admirers.

Of the Nottingham patriot, we have at present little to say. His feelings are so much engrossed by the issue of his trial for libel, and his ingenuity is so exercised with endeavours to persuade the public of his innocence, that he has neither time nor inclination to attend the general oppressions of the Government, nor to soothe the grievances and the miseries of his enslaved countrymen and country.—He plumes himself not a little on one part of the defence at up to him by his counsel, "that it is impossible he could be an instigator to Luddism, as he had, in strong and eloquent terms, reprobated a late outrage at Basford, in which two men lost their lives!"—But unfortunately for this last effort to establish the purity of his intentions, we are in possession of a fact which appears to have been unknown both to the Counsel for the Crown and for the Defendant. The article re-probating the conduct of the assassins in the outrage alluded to, was sent for insertion in the Review, from a certain gentleman, in Nottingham, distinguished for the moderation and liberality of his views, and holding a high office in the town, whom Mr. Sutton dared not disoblige by refusing a place to that very article, to which he now eagerly clings like a drowning man to a straw. Like the straw, it is, alas, insufficient to sustain his head above the water, and down he must go, into that abyss of ignominy and of guilt he has opened for himself; oppressed and weighed under the flood by the consciousness of the mischief he has created.—loaded with the indignation of the just, and with the reproaches of the criminals he has led astray. As a proof of the accuracy of our statement respecting the article to which we have alluded, it appeared, on the very same day, in all the three Nottingham papers; and so far was the Review from expressing any indignation at the atrocities perpetrated in its immediate neighbourhood, that it did not add a single word, not one representation, from itself, to the paragraph which it reluctantly admitted, in small and obscure print, into its columns!

As for the poor Mercury, we are almost as much disposed to pity us to quarrel with it, in the present depressed state of its idol. The swimming of Buonaparte, in the Bellerophon and Northumberland, appears to have given the jaundiced Editor a swimming in his head. He last week dwelt, with complacency, on the proofs afforded of Buonaparte's "splendid talents," by the mob assembled to gaze upon his prison-ship, paying him "the slight mark of respect of being uncovered" forgetting that he himself, (this same writer for the Mercury) only a few days ago, had discovered that all the misfortunes of the Tyrant were owing to his "want of common prudence!" In the eagerness of his zeal for "soothing the wounded honour of France"—"binding up the wounds of that unhappy country,"—and "preserving the integrity of its territory," he prophecies, that, if a "good round paring" be taken from its present frontier, Europe will be exposed to a second irruption of Barbarians from the North! The only irruption of Barbarians from the North, that has taken place in the present times, is the irruption of the honest, though rude and uncultivated COSSACKS! And Europe owes too much to these unshaved and [illegible] soldiers, who have treated their vanquished enemies with a magnanimity, unknown to "the wounded humour" of their French aggressors, not to wish that the BARBARIANS OF THE SOUTH may again be driven back by them, should an almighty Providence ever permit another irruption from southern devastators into those remote and frozen legion regions of the North, where their unburied and bleaching bones bear testimony to the extent of their ravages, and to the power of an avenging God.

How the press reported the news of the Tambora eruption

In the days before the invention and widespread use of the electric telegraph, international news travelled very slowly indeed - basically, as fast as the fastest ship.

The following are articles from various newspapers, reporting the news of the eruption at Mount Tambora over the following months:

From the Nottingham Review of Friday 24th November 1815:

DREADFUL VOLCANIC ERUPTION.

Extract a Letter from an Officer of the 59th Regiment, at Weltervreden, Island of Java, 30th May, 1815.

"A few days since a dreadful volcanic eruption took place in the Island of Sambaroa, situated to the eastward, which has been attended with most destructive consequences. At Sourabaya the atmosphere was in entire darkness for two days, so as to give the appearance of midnight. At this place, which is at a considerable distance, the ashes discharged from the crater fell in heaps. The noise produced from this awful visitation is beyond description, and caused a sensation among the inhabitants peculiarly afflicting. The sea rose six feet above its ordinary level, almost instantaneously causing the destruction of many lives, and also vessels. In short, the damage sustained has been exceedingly great, and many who were in affluence before this dreadful catastrophe took place are reduced to the greatest distress."

From the Aberdeen Journal of 29th November 1815:    

Extract from a letter, dated Batavia, 28th May 1815.

"We have lately had one of the most tremendous eruptions of a Volcano in this quarter, that perhaps ever took place in any part of the Globe. It is situated in a mountain called Tomboro, on the island of Sumbawa, and is distant from Batavia not less than 650 miles. The explosions were heard here distinctly, like the discharge of heavy artillery, and Capt. ________, who was at the time nearly as far to the eastward of it, as we were west, noted in his Logbook their being heard exactly in the same way. The ashes were thrown as far as Java, and I myself saw them in Batavia: we could not keep the papers on our desks clear of them, for several hours one day. As Soorabaya, it was quite dark at 9 A.M. and at Macassar, (250 miles from Sumbawa) they lay on the ground 1 ½ inches deep. The Captains of the Benares, and Dispatch, both declare that the anchoring ground in one bay on Sumbawa, is materially altered, and the latter states that there are now three fathoms of water over a village which stood near the shore. They found the sea for many miles on the northern side of the island so covered with trunks of trees, and pumice stone, as sometimes considerably to impede the ship’s advance. Many men and other animals have perished. Numbers die daily: and as the Crops of Paddy are utterly ruined throughout the greatest part of the island, the distresses of the survivors must be great; already it is said the Cocoa nuts have been nearly exhausted."

From the Leeds Mercury of Saturday 13th January 1816:

VOLCANIC ERUPTION.
[From the Madras Courier of August 29.]

The Nakhoda of the brig Catharina, which arrived in the course of last week from Java, brings us the first tidings of an extraordinary phenomena which occurred while he lay at Gressey, near Soorabaya, about two months ago, and which we conclude to have been caused by an eruption of one of the volcanoes, in the eastern end of that island, which we believe had been sometimes known to devastate the contiguous parts of that rich and populous region.

He states, the one morning in noise commenced to be heard, as if of a tremendous cannonade from the heaviest kind of ordnance, and very near, continuing for the space of three days; that in the the afternoon of the last of them, this stunning din abated somewhat, and the sky became completely overcast with a cloud of fine dust, or ashes, so thick, as to cause an obscurity equal to that of the darkest night, and to render respiration impracticable, without a cloth, or some sort of veil to cover the face; that this continued for that night, the whole of the succeeding day and night, and until about noon on the third day, when light began to dawn on the terrified multitude, and during the three following days, the atmosphere becoming less and less dense, they were at length entirely relieved from its unusual pressure, by a very heavy and most welcome fall of rain.

The Nakhoda's manner, looking back on this scene of tartarean obscurity, gave us a stronger impression of the horror and consternation which occupied every mind, than we can attempt to convey to our readers in words, and is indicative of a state of confusion and dismay, in some of its circumstances, not unlike our sublime Milton's description of the original chaos, from which the well ordered orb we now inhabit was formed: — "Nothing," he says, "could be seen at the distance of even an arms length, save the glimmering light of fires, or the torches with which people groped their way from house to house: nothing was heard but the roar of thunder, and the mangled shrieks of men, women, and children, who confidently concluding the end of all things to be at hand, and that the awful scene before them could portend nothing less than the final judgement, rent the air with cries for mercy to their Almighty Creator."

After remaining some days at Gressey, the Catharina sailed for Tagal, where the Nakhoda understood the same prodigies had been exhibited, and at the same time, but in a less degree. Here several sudden deaths happened during the days of terror, for which the superstitious inhabitants assigned various causes. At Gressey the visitation proved fatal only to birds, of which many were, on the return of light, seen dead in all directions—having been suffocated by the floating ashes; we are in possession of a specimen of this impalpable powder, evidently a volcanic production, several bags-full of which fell on the small space of the Catharina's deck.

Although we shall, on receipt of our Java papers, probably find the story rather exaggerated, yet we fear there is too much cause to apprehend an afflictive detail of the effects of so dreadful an eruption as this must doubtless have been, in the more immediate vicinity of the volcano from which it issued;—if, indeed, we can suppose one to have emitted that vast cloud which, if our informant does not mislead us, rolled its dusky wreaths at once to Gressey and Tagal—points, we believe, not less than 200 miles asunder.

A portion of the ashes which fell in the neighbourhood of the volcano, was forwarded to Calcutta, which has been analyzed by the Assistant Assay Master of the Presidency, and we present the following result of his experiment, (for which we are indebted to The India Gazette) for the amusement of our scientific readers:—

"Volcanic ashes from the mountains on the island of Sumbawa, collected in the district of Samarang, after the eruption of the 11th of April, 1815.

 "The substance thus described was brought in the shape of a powder of a greyish brown colour—for void of smell, but possessing a harsh taste; the specific gravity was low, as the powder floated on the surface of the water; before the blow-pipe it melted into a dark brown enamel, and with the aid of borax into a transparent light blue glass.—Nitra-muriatic acid after a long digestion took up about one-fifth of the weight: and the solution yielded a dark blue precipitate with prussiate of potash, indicating the presence of oxid of iron.

"The portion of the powder insoluble in the acid was of a blueish grey colour, infusible per se before the blow-pipe, but convertible into a yellowish glass with the addition of borax—the specific gravity was increased as it now sunk in water; part of the residuum mixed with an equal weight of carbonate of potash and digested repeatedly with sulphuric acid and evaporated, was rendered soluble in boiling water—the watery solution concentrated gave a precipitate of silex and a metallic oxid, and when treated with carbonate of potash yielded a further precipitate apparently alumine—the metallic oxid appeared to be nichel.

"From the several operations of the analysis, the composition of 100 parts of this volcanic matter appears to be silex, about 40, including, perhaps, a very small quantity of oxid of nichel; allumine, 32; oxid of iron, 17; lost 2—100.

"The quantity submitted to examination was too small to furnish any very precise conclusion; but there is every reason to suppose that this substance is analagous to the common volcanic formation or pumice; with which it agrees in its component parts, and differs chiefly, it may be presumed, in the smaller proportion which the silex has to the mass."—(Madras Courier.)

From the Leeds Mercury of Saturday 18th May 1816:

Dreadful Eruption.—A volcano broke out at the mountain of Tomboro, in the Island of Sumbawa, near Java, in April, 1815, the eruption of which was by far the most violent that ever happened in the history of the world, far exceeding in the extent of its effects, any of the eruptions of Vesuvius, Ætna, or Hecla. There is undoubted testimony of its having, been heard at Forts Marlborough and Pedang, on the Island of Sumatra, near a thousand miles from the mountain. At Turnate, 700 miles distant, the explosion resembled a firing at sea, so that a vessel was ordered to chase in the direction of the sound, to discover its cause. At Batavia 600 miles off, the sashes of the windows were so shaken, that they required to be fastened. The quantity of ashes thrown out is almost incredible. At Bannioangie, a town in Java, 180 miles off, the whole country was covered to a depth of eight inches. At Macassar, 220 miles distant, to leeward, the Company's cruizer Benares had some part of her decks covered a foot thick with them. The quantities within a hundred miles of the volcano were most tremendous; covering up forests and towns, and filling up deep vallies; even the contour of the coast being altered by them. As they were lighter than water, they swam about the sea, resembling islands, so as to stop the progress of ships. The darkness produced by the vast quantity of dust in the air was terrific. At Macassar, 220 miles off, on the 12th, and part of 13th of April, it was pitch dark, so that persons could not even see their hands in the middle of the day. The destruction to the unfortunate inhabitants in the vicinity of the mountain has been dreadful. At Sangier, a ttown about 15 miles off, men, horses, cattle, houses, extensive forests, and whatever came in the way of a whirlwind occasioned by the eruption, were carried into the air, and never more heard of. Of all the inhabitants of the towns of Tomboro and Paccate, which amounted to 12,000 persons, only 26 remain, who fortunately had gone on a journey to the eastward at the time. A dreadful famine has been the consequence; all the corn, fruits, and animals near the spot, have been destroyed; the springs covered up; and where the water could be found, it had become of so noxious a quality, as to occasion immediate sickness to those who drank it. The cattle and horses, at a considerable distance, have died for want of food, in melancholy numbers. Even the Rajah of Sangier, one of the richest and most powerful natives in the district, lost a daughter from starvation, and the mortality would have been still greater, but from the humanity of the Lieutenant-Governor of Java, T.S. Raffles. Esq. who, on hearing the situation of the explosion, anticipated its dreadful consequences, and sent some vessels laden with rice to the wretched sufferers.

5th November 1814: Joanna Southcott writes to the press to decry a hoax letter

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.

The following letter appeared in the Observer of Sunday last, and made a considerable impression on the believers of Joanna's mission. It is however clear from the subsequent letters of Mrs. Southcott, which we also subjoin, that the letter purporting to be signed J. Towzer, is a complete forgery.

"Having been requested by Joanna to acknowledge her former wicked errors,—I have therefore, on the part of Joanna, respectfully and with sincere contrition to state, that for some considerable time past she has been in a state of delirium, but at length having become, as it were, herself again, being now calm and collected, and fearing that she is approaching to her latter end, hereby renounces all the wicked incantations of her former distempered brain; and she hopes that a generous public will forget the impositions and errors that she has of late endeavoured to impose upon their understanding. And she further hopes, that all good christians will not only forgive, but will fervently join in her prayers to the Almighty, for a forgiveness of her late blasphemous doctrines, and past sins.

J. TOWZER."

To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle.

SIR,―As a point of common honesty I desire that you will insert this from me as a reparation for the injury intended against my character, by the infamous forgery which you suffered to be copied from The Observer into your paper of this day, signed "J. Towzer." the purport of which was, that I had authorized it to be drawn up, to acknowledge my having imposed upon the public, and that I now renounced the whole of my visitation. In all what I have done and published to the world my conscience accuses me of nothing to renounce, and therefore leaving my cause to God, who hath directed me in the course I have hitherto pursued, I shall persevere in that course, to the confusion of my enemies, who falsely accuse me of imposture and incantations, whereby they themselves become imposters and deceivers, to mislead the unwary.

As you, Mr Editor, were so ready to exult in the insertion of the article above mentioned, supposing, no doubt, that it was genuine, I rely upon your candour, with the same readiness to announce to the public how you were imposed upon by that vile forgery.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT.

From the Leeds Mercury of Saturday 5th November 1814

24th October 1814: 19 year-old worker killed by machinery at Carr's gig-mill, Armley

The Saturday 29th October edition of the Leeds Mercury carried a report about an accident at a gig mill at Armley, near Leeds:

On Monday last, a most shocking accident occurred at the gig-mill of Mr. John Carr, at Armley. One of the straps by which motion is communicated to the gig engine having started from its proper situation, a young man of the name of Lee attempted to replace it, but in the effort his arm unfortunately became entangled in the straps and he was drawn among the machinery, and instantly killed; his body was mangled in a manner too horrid for description. He was an unmarried man, about 19 years of age, the only son of his mother, and she is a widow. On her mind this terrible catastrophe has produced a fatal effect, having completely disordered her intellect, and induced a state of absolute distraction. After this statement, it cannot be necessary to caution all those who may be employed about machinery to exercise an habitual care in avoiding all contact with it, and to refrain from attempting to correct any irregularities during the time that it is in motion, and still less can it be necessary to suggest to the proprietors of these and similar manufactories the moral obligation they are under of adopting every means which ingenuity can suggest, to lessen the danger attendant upon them, and thereby to diminish the frequency of these lamentable accidents. As the young man was generally respected in the situation of life in which he was placed, his funeral was attended by an unusual concourse of people, who appeared deeply impressed with feelings suitable to the melancholy occasion.