deputy-constables and bailiffs, are all
corrupt, and the time is near at hand when they will be upset.
The people should rise _en masse_ to suppress such a tyrannical
Government as the one of this country, and it will not be long,
but very soon, that it shall be overturned, and many a bloody
battle may be fought, and many a one incarcerated in prison,
before it shall be accomplished."

LORD GRENVILLE TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.

March 29, 1820.

Hunt's conviction is beyond my hope, though it would certainly have
been no easy matter for any jury to acquit him, even under the
charge such as it is. His motion for a new trial is, I imagine,
nothing more than the sort of last resource at which defeated men,
whether at elections or trials, always love to catch. It would have
been a dreadful thing indeed if it had been established by the
result of that trial that the Manchester meeting was, under all its
circumstances, a legal assembly.

Alarming as might be considered the aspect of domestic affairs, the
Government, so far from betraying apprehension, carried on the business
of the country with untiring vigilance and decision. Hunt and five of
his associates, after a long trial, were on the 23rd of March, at York,
found guilty of unlawfully assembling and inciting to hatred of the
Government. On the same day, Sir Francis Burdett was found guilty of
uttering a seditious libel. On the 10th of April, Sir Charles Wolseley
and Mr. Joseph Harrison were also found guilty of sedition. The most
guilty of the Cato Street heroes made their last public appearance at
the Old Bailey on the 1st of May; the remainder were expatriated to New
South Wales. Thus the supremacy of the law was vindicated; but there
still existed in the more populous districts feelings inimical to the
authorities, that might be restrained by coercive demonstrations, but
which only waited a favourable season for bursting through all control:
and as, on the 20th of April, Mr. Denman and Mr. Brougham had been
acknowledged by the Lord Chancellor, from his seat in the Court of
Chancery, the Queen's Solicitor and Attorney-General, the discontented
took heart, and saw in this admission of the Queen's position, a
prognostication of the struggle that was to create for them the
opportunity for which they were waiting.

The Court of the Monarch did not appear more apprehensive than his
Mini