Explore "The Manchester Rebels" by William H. Ainsworth on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The visit of the boroughreeve and constables to the Bull's Head attracted a considerable crowd to the market-place -- it being rumoured that the magistrates were about to arrest an important Jacobite gentleman.
A political arrest at this juncture, when the town was in such an inflamed state, seemed to most persons, whatever their opinions might be, an exceedingly ill-advised step, and the magistrates were much blamed for taking it.