Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

The Story of the Cato Street Conspiracy.

ONE day in November 1819, while Sir Herbert Taylor, a confidential servant of George III., was walking in the High Street at Windsor, he was addressed by a man named Edwards, who kept a small shop at Eton for the sale of plaster casts-among which, by the way, the one that found the readiest sale was a little model of Dr. Keate, of flagellating proclivities, then head master of Eton; the junior members of that famous college purchasing it freely as a mark to be pelted at. This Edwards informed Sir Herbert that he had a story to tell; and proceeded to furnish details of a desperate plot against the King's Ministers, which, he asserted, had nearly reached maturity. Sir Herbert, of course, immediately communicated with the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, by whose directions Edwards was employed as a spy, to watch and betray the movements of his former associates, while he was at the same time engaged in collecting proofs of the veracity of his statements. Other emissaries went up and down the country in search of information, and reported before long that agents of the conspirators had appeared at Middleton, Darwen, and several places in Lancashire, endeavouring to persuade the discontentedand high prices, low wages, severe repressive measures, and such terrible “mistakes" as the Manchester or "Peterloo" massacre, had sown discontent broadcast among the labouring

classes-to join in a nefarious but comprehensive plot to assassinate the Ministers, and while the executive power was temporarily paralysed, seize the Bank, the Mansion House, and the Tower, and establish a provisional republican government. But assassination is not popular among Englishmen. The scheme was atrocious in conception, and it was also absurd; for how could a handful of half-armed men hope to overthrow the settled institutions of the country, defended as they were by an overwhelming force? It met with little favour, therefore, beyond the small circle of reckless and ignorant followers whom its author had contrived to gather round him.

This author was a man of some ability and of infinite daring-Arthur Thistlewood, who had served as a subaltern officer in the militia, and afterwards in the regular army. He had been a resident in France during the worst excesses of the French Revolution, and had imbibed the sanguinary spirit of the Reign of Terror. Having made up his mind that England was suffering from misgovernment, he was prepared to redress its grievances by the strong hand, and to involve the country in all the horrors of insurrection. In 1816 he was concerned in the Spa Fields riots. A Mr. Spence, a Yorkshire schoolmaster, had broached a notable plan for making everybody rich and happy :-the State was to resume all the lands of the country, direct their cultivation, and distribute their produce for the support of the people. His admirers constituted themselves into a "Society of Spencean Philanthropists," for the purpose of realising this ideal socialism. Unfortunately, they were not content with discussions which ignored the elementary principles of social order, but, as wilder spirits gained admission to their meetings, launched into revolutionary projects, in which

dangerous course they were artfully encouraged by Government spies and paid informers. According to the dubious evidence of a man named Carm, they babbled about the construction of strange machines for destroying cavalry, and the manufacture of asphyxiating compounds for suffocating soldiers in their barracks (as schoolboys destroy wasps' nests); of seizing the Tower, and barricading London Bridge to prevent the passage of artillery from Woolwich. All these formidable operations were to be conducted under five distinguished commanders, of whom Arthur Thistlewood was one. On December 2nd, 1816, the fanatics assembled in Spa Fields, with tricoloured flags, sashes, and similar appurtenances, as if a powerful government could be overthrown by frippery!-marched to attack the Tower, paraded along Cheapside, and at the Royal Exchange were gallantly encountered and put to flight by the Lord Mayor, a couple of aldermen, and five constables.

For the parts they had played in this grotesque farce— which, however, if they had had their way would have been converted into a shameful tragedy-Thistlewood and his confederates were put on their trial, the charge being high treason; but the jury refused to take so serious a view of their sayings and doings as this implied, and acquitted them. Thistlewood, however, instead of being sobered by his escape, sent a challenge to Lord Sidmouth; whereupon

he was

arrested, convicted of a misdemeanour, and imprisoned for a twelvemonth. He came out of prison with a personal grievance to inflame his resentment at the public wrongs. Just at this time occurred the deplorable" Peterloo" outrage, when a quiet assembly of citizens was ridden down by a body of yeomanry, and Thistlewood at once resolved, in mysteriously magniloquent language, that “the

[ocr errors]

lives of the instigators should be the requiem of the souls of the murdered innocents!' He was in this mood of gloom and ferocity when he met with George Edwards, the plaster cast vendor, who professed to sympathise with all his views, and concerted with him and others the details of a projected insurrection, while preparing to betray them.

At first Thistlewood would seem to have aimed only at the life of Lord Sidmouth, on whom, as Home Secretary, he laid the onus of the wrong-doing he had sworn to avenge; and he and his comrades had planned to attempt his assassination in the autumn of 1819. A series of accidents, however, delayed the enterprise; and the delay enabled Edwards to urge him on to more desperate and comprehensive action. It was then that Thistlewood determined upon sweeping away the whole Cabinet at one fell blow, and hoped to find an opportunity at a Cabinet dinner at Lord Westmoreland's, but for some reason was unable to do so. The deaths of George III. and the Duke of Kent, with their funeral pageants, followed; and so the conspirators drifted on into the month of February 1820, when their poverty compelled them to take immediate action, and on Saturday, the 19th, they came to the resolution of murdering each Minister at his own house. On the following Tuesday, however,- so they were apprised by Edwards,-Lord Harrowby was to give a Cabinet dinner at his mansion in Grosvenor Square. Thistlewood sent out for a newspaper to satisfy himself that the information was correct, and, finding it to be so, exclaimed: "As there has not been a dinner so long there will, no doubt, be fourteen or sixteen there, and it will be a rare haul to murder them all together."

It was then arranged that some of their number should

keep watch over Lord Harrowby's house, to see that no police or soldiers were stationed there. Then, while the Ministers were at dinner, one of them was to call with a note; and, the door being opened, his comrades were to rush in and commit the murders, carrying bags in which to bring away as trophies the heads of the two Ministers most generally detested, Lords Sidmouth and Castlereagh; thereafter the gang were to fire the cavalry barracks by flinging fireballs into the straw-sheds, when it was hoped that "the people" would rise simultaneously, and capture-without arms or ammunition-the Bank and the Tower! A wilder

dream of plunder and murder was never concocted by the fevered brains of madmen and revolutionary enthusiasts. In some continental capitals it might possibly have been feasible, but in London it could never have had a chance even of temporary success.

Straight from the conference at which this wholesale assassination was settled went one Thomas Hidon, a cow

keeper, to warn Lord Harrowby, whom he found riding in the Mall. By appointment with his lordship he met him again on the following morning in the Ring at Hyde Park, and revealed the grim secret of which he had become possessed, adding that the Ministers were to be destroyed by hand-grenades thrown under the table, and by the sword

if

any escaped the explosion. Meanwhile, another traitor, an Irishman named Dwyer, was making similar disclosures at the Home Office; and as the statements of these two men tallied with the particulars previously furnished by Edwards, the Government proceeded to act upon them. They determined not to dine at Lord Harrowby's, but that the preparations for the dinner should be continued lest the conspirators should suspect that their designs were known.

« ZurückWeiter »