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FORE:In May the gingham-weavers of Carlisle and that neighbourhood held a similar gathering, and in June meetings were held on Hunslet Common, near Leeds, at Glasgow, Ashton-under-Lyne, and other places. The meeting at Glasgow, on the 16th of June, was held on the Green, and amounted to thirty or forty thousand people. They complained of the low wages for cotton-weaving, and proposed a petition to the Prince Regent, praying that he would enable them to get over to Canada, promising that all such as received that favour should repay the outlay by yearly instalments. But the bulk of the assembly protested against emigration, asserting that the remedy for their distresses lay in annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and the consequent reduction of taxation; and they proposed that they should march up to London in a body, and present their petition to the Prince Regent in person. At Ashton the chair was taken by the Rev. Joseph Harrison, and the strange creature called Dr. Healey, of whom Bamford gives an extraordinary account in his "Life of a Radical," made a most wild and seditious harangue. At a great meeting at Stockport, on the 28th of the same month, a very different personage presided. This was Sir Charles Wolseley, of Wolseley Park, in Staffordshire. Sir Charles said that he had been engaged in the outbreak of the French Revolution, and had assisted in the taking of the Bastille, and that he would spend his last drop of blood, if it were necessary, in destroying the Bastilles of his own country. The acquisition of such an advocate of Reform was not likely to be received with apathy. Sir Charles was invited to preside at a similar meeting at New Hall, near Birmingham, on the 12th of July. At this meeting he was elected "legislatorial attorney and representative" for that town. This was a circumstance that excited the alarm of Government. They immediately issued warrants for the apprehension both of Sir Charles and of Dr. Harrison for seditious expressions used at the Stockport meeting. Sir Charles was arrested at his own house, at Wolseley Park; and Harrison was taken on the platform of a public meeting, at Smithfield, in London, on the 21st of July, at which Hunt was presiding. On conveying Harrison to Stockport, the constable who arrested him was attacked by the mob, and a pistol was fired at him, the ball of which lodged in his body.The king agreed to visit the Assembly in the morning; and he went, attended by his two brothers. He addressed them in a kind and conciliatory tone. He said, "You have been afraid of me; but, for my part, I put my trust in you." This avowal was received with applause, in one of those bursts of sentiment, so sudden and so soon over, which mark French history one moment with tearful emotions and the next with savage bloodshed. The deputies surrounded the monarch, and escorted him back to the palace with tears in their eyes. The queen, from a balcony, saw this enthusiastic procession. She stood with the little dauphin in her arms, and her daughter holding by her dress; and herself, greatly moved, was hailed for the moment also by the senators. For the time all seemed to be forgotten. The king consented to the recall of Necker. The Duke de Liancourt was appointed president of the Assembly, in the place of Bailly; and the nobles, who had hitherto absented themselves from the sittings, now attended and voted. Thus was the Assembly apparently amalgamated, and the revolution completed. A sudden fit of generosity seemed to seize the nobles in the Assemblywhich, in fact, was a fit of terrorfor they had come to the conclusion that no protection was to be expected from the Assembly against the fury and cupidity of the people. They saw that the Assembly was the slave of the people; that the army had fraternised with the people; and that they were at the mercy of the merciless populace. The Viscount de Noailles and the Duke d'Aiguillon declared that it would be wicked and absurd to employ force to quiet the people. They must destroy the cause of their sufferings, and all would be accomplished. The nobles hastened to renounce their privileges. They crowded round the table to enumerate what they surrendered. The Commons, having nothing of their own to give up, surrendered the privileges and charters of towns and provinces. Some offered up their pensions; and one deputy, having nothing else, surrendered his personal convenience, pledging himself to devote his energies to the public welfare. The whole Assembly was in a ferment and fever-heat paroxysm of renunciation, such as could only be witnessed in France. Lally Tollendal, unable to approach the tribunal, sent up a note to the President"Everything is to be apprehended, from the enthusiasm of the Assembly. Break up the sitting!" Lally moved that the king should be proclaimed the restorer of French liberty, which was carried by acclamation; that a Te Deum should be performed for this joyful event; and the Assembly broke up about midnight in a bewilderment of rapture and wonder at its own deed.
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