and as many girls danced to the music or
sang snatches of songs. Some children also
went with them, and several hundred stragglers
walked by their side. The column increased in
number at every hamlet it passed through.

At Newtown, the partner of a firm for which
Bamford had lately worked came up, took him
by the hand, and said, kindly though earnestly,
that he hoped no harm was intended by all those
people that were coming in; Bamford replied
that he would pledge his life for their perfect
peaceableness.

"Look at them," said Bamford. "Do they
look like persons wishing to outrage the law?
They are heads of decent working families.
No, no, my dear sir and respected master, if
any wrong or violence takes place, it will be
committed by men of a different stamp from
these."

The master replied he was glad to hear it,
and was happy he had seen Bamford; and, in
reply to Bamford's inquiry, he said he "did
not believe they would be interrupted at the
meeting."

"Then," said Bamford,  "all will be well,"
and shook hands with his master and left him.
As they entered Manchester, Bamford heard
that Dr. Healey, a quack doctor, had led the
Lees and Saddleworth union, following a coal-
black flag, inscribed, in ghastly white letters:

"Equal Representation or Death;" and above
this, "Love"—with a heart and two hands
joined.

Even at that thoughtful moment, Bamford
confesses he could not help smiling at the
notion of his little friend heading a funeral
procession of his own patients. The Middleton
men reached St. Peter's Field about half-past
eleven.

The Jacobite emblems were eminently unwise.
The Tories of Manchester were already quite
enough astounded at the form and precision of the
marching, and at the great number of the visitors.
A contemporary writer says, with almost
ludicrous horror: "Half an hour ago I met in
Oldham-street an immense mass of men, marching
in common time, five abreast, with two
white flags, and a very respectable band of
music, consisting of not less than thirty
performers. I counted these files until about two
thousand men had passed, when the crowd
became so great that I could no longer pursue
my reckoning, but I conceive that the whole
party drawn up and marching in order could
not be less than four or five thousand. Very
shortly afterwards a party of about eight thousand
passed the Exchange. These also were in
military array, preceded by flags, red and black,
with the cap of Jacobinism. The former of the
two parties came from Bury, the latter from
Royton. Similar parties came in from Stockport
and the other towns in the neighbourhood.
I have just been at the spot appointed for the
meeting; about fifteen thousand persons are
already there, men and women."

St. Peter's Field, then a large open space of
two or three acres, is now nearly in the centre
of that great metropolis of industry, Manchester.
The Free-Trade Hall stands on its site, and
a theatre, a museum, and numerous palatial
warehouses skirt the ground. In the centre of
the space on this unlucky August day stood
two carts with a sort of stage formed upon
them. Around the carts were planted five
banners, two red, two white, and one black.
Upon one side of the latter was a hand holding
the scales of justice, with the inscription,
"Taxation without Representation is Unjust and
Tyrannical." On the other side was at the top
"Love;" beneath, "Unite and be Free," "Equal
Representation or Death." On some of the
other flags were, "No Corn Laws," "Let's
Die like Men, and not be Sold like Slaves."

That heavy sullen oppression of dread
suspense and alarm that precedes a thunderstorm
hung over Manchester. The shop-windows in
Market-place, Market-street, and the body
of the town, were closed, and from an early
hour in the forenoon all business was
suspended—not from a dread of the harmless
reformers, but from fear of some violence being
used against them. In the principal streets an
immense number of country people were strolling
about. The more retired parts of the town
were silent as death. The scene, says an eye-
witness, excited an impression at once
melancholy and awful. The wildest rumours were
current. It was said that Hunt was to be a
arrested on the hustings, and it was known that
the Manchester and Salford yeomanry cavalry,
one hundred and forty in number (nearly all
master manufacturers), were concealed in
Messrs. Pickford's yard. Capital had grown
cruel in its angry alarm. About two hundred
special constables had been sworn in. The
Cheshire yeomanry, nearly four hundred strong,
and the 1st Dragoon Guards, were near the city.
The magistrates could also rely promptly on six
troops of the 15th Hussars, nearly the whole of
the 31st and 88th Foot, and two companies of
Horse Artillery. They could not help being
afraid, property is always timid; but, with such
an overwhelming force, they need scarcely
have been cruel, for there were soldiers
enough to have swept the streets and to have
sacked the city. We all know what a single
file of grenadiers can do against even an armed
and infuriated rabble. Witness those terrible
Lord George Gordon riots; witness the Bristol
riots. Remember the French in Madrid;
remember even that savage outbreak of the Reds,
when Cavaignac mowed them down in heaps.
What riot has there been in England since
Jack Cade struck London Stone with his
dripping sword, that twenty dragoons could not
have trampled down, right or wrong?

The special constables and the local yeomanry
the magistrates held in their own leash. The
soldiers were under the command of Colonel
Guy L'Estrange, of the 31st Regiment, who was
senior officer in the absence of Sir John Byng
(afterwards Earl of Strafford), the general of
the district, who was then at Pontefract, and to
whom no intimation of the intended movements