The Revolution in Tanner's Lane

Soon after this visit debates arose in Zachariah's club which afterwards ended in the famous march of the Blanketeers, as they were called. Matters were becoming very serious, and the Government was thoroughly alarmed, as well it might be, at the discontent which was manifest all over the country. The Prince Regent was insulted as he went to open Parliament, and the windows of his carriage were broken. It was thought, and with some reason, that the army could not be trusted. One thing is certain, that the reformers found their way into the barracks at Knightsbridge and had lunch there at the expense of the soldiers, who discussed Hone's pamphlets and roared with laughter over the Political Litany. The Prince Regent communicated to both Houses certain papers, and recommended that they should at once be taken into consideration. They contained evidence, so the royal message asserted, of treasonable combinations "to alienate the affections of His Majesty's subjects from His Majesty's person and Government," etc. Secret committees were appointed to consider them both by Lords and Commons, and in about a fortnight they made their reports. The text was the Spitalfields meeting of the preceding 2nd of December. A mob had made it an excuse to march through the city and plunder some shops. Some of the charges brought against the clubs by the Lords' Committee do not now seem so very appalling. One was, that they were agitating for universal suffrage and annual Parliaments -- "projects," say the Committee, "which evidently involve, not any qualified or partial change but a total subversion of the British constitution. " Another charge was the advocacy of "parochial partnership in land, on the principle that the landholders are not proprietors in chief; that they are but stewards of the public; that the land is the people's farm; that landed monopoly is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and destructive of the independence and morality of mankind. " The Reform party in Parliament endeavoured to prove that the country was in no real danger, and that the singularly harsh measures proposed were altogether unnecessary. That was true. There was nothing to be feared, because there was no organisation; but nevertheless, especially in the manufacturing towns, the suffering was fearful and the hatred of the Government most bitter. What is so lamentable in the history of those times is the undisciplined wildness and feebleness of the attempts made by the people to better themselves. Nothing is more saddening than the spectacle of a huge mass of humanity goaded, writhing, starving, and yet so ignorant that it cannot choose capable leaders, cannot obey them if perchance it gets them, and does not even know how to name its wrongs. The governing classes are apt to mistake the absurdity of the manner in which a popular demand expresses itself for absurdity of the demand itself; but in truth the absurdity of the expression makes the demand more noteworthy and terrible. Bamford, when he came to London in the beginning of 1817, records the impression which the clubs made upon him. He went to several and found them all alike; "each man with his porter-pot before him and a pipe in his mouth; many speaking at once, more talkers than thinkers; more speakers than listeners. Presently ‘Order' would be called, and comparative silence would ensue; a speaker, stranger or citizen, would be announced with much courtesy and compliment. ‘Hear, hear, hear' would follow, with clapping of hands and knocking of knuckles on the tables, till the half-pints danced; then a speech, with compliments to some brother orator or popular statesman; next a resolution in favour of Parliamentary Reform, and a speech to second it; an amendment on some minor point would follow; a seconding of that; a breach of order by some individual of warm temperament; half a dozen would rise to set him right; a dozen to put them down; and the vociferation and gesticulation would become loud and confounding."