EHENTICE'S HISTORICAL SKETCHES AND RECOLLECTIONS OF MANCHESTER. * Mn. PEMCTIcE was
a Reformer in olden times, when the public avowal of Liberalism, and the resolution to act upon Liberal prin- ciples, instead of being a "sure card," involved the risk of legal prosecution, with the prospect of fine and imprisonment, to say no worse. The Reformer whom caution or position placed beyond the reach of the Attorney-General or a bull-headed local Magis- trate, had every avenue of advancement shut against him, so far as depended upon Government or even private patronage. -Unless he had some considerable means of entertainment, the expression of his opinions, if at all extreme, were very likely to lead to social ban or personal indignity. People who can remember the conversation of the early part of the century, can also remember hearing of gentlemen being turned out of coffeerooms for a favourable criticism on Tom Paine, or a harsh judgment upon the bombardment of Copenhagen ; while the perpetrators of such feats bragged of them, as if, like Othello, they had done the state some service. In rampant and now Radical Manchester, they went a degree further, and instead of turning Reformers out, refused to let them in.
"There are numbers of persons now alive who recollect seeing in Man- chester taverns, boards stuck up with the inscription 'No Jacobins admitted here.' So late as 1825, there was one of them in a public-house in Bridge Street, as fine as gilding and decoration could make it ; but it was removed then in deference to the change of opinion and to prevent its being burnt. The putting up of these articles-of-peace boards was part of a plan to pre- vent the discussion of Reform principles in bar-parlours. Soon after the pro- clamation of 1792, and to prevent a meeting announced to be held to raise a subscription for the sufferers by war in France, a taxgatherer, accompanied by several persons employed by the clergy, went round the town to all the innkeepers and publicans, advising them, if they had any regard to the re- newal of their licences, to suffer no societies similar to the Constitutional to be held in their houses. The publicans gave a ready response to this call. 'They thought their licences,' says Mr. Walker, of more value than our elute& They, besides, valued the custom of the jovial .Church-and-Bing men more than that of men who met to talk rather than to drink."
"Tempera mutantur, et nos mutamur in ills": but our objects are changed rather than ourselves ; perhaps the men of cotton are now Radical after the same fashion as they were once Tory : nature is not altered by turning round.
The earlier part of the days of the "life and fortune" men Mr. Prentice knows only by tradition or youthful remembrance. From 1811, when he was in the very dawn of manhood, he can say, in the words of the well-used quotation, "quorum pars fui." At first he was what may be called an amateur politician, his business being that of a manufacturer's agent, and politics not his direct Vneation. The Manchester Guardian was started after the mas- sacre in 1819, by the late John Edward Taylor, on money advanced by some zealous Radicals; but when Taylor turned to better- paying Whiggery, his former friends, and Mr. Prentice among the • Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections of Manchester, intended to Il- hutrate the Progress of Public Opinion from 1792 to 1832. By Archibald Prentice. Published by Gilpin. number, began to feel the necessity of replacing the Guardian by a more independent organ. Owing to this feeling, an " action" took place. Mr. Prentice in 1824 commenced his career as a pub- licist, in the Manchester Gazette ; which, after some change of name is now the Manchester _Examiner and Times, and is, says its retired proprietor, " not only at the head of the Manchester press, but at the head of the provincial press of the 'United King- The book in which Mr. Prentice records his traditions and reminiscences contains a picture of the leading politicians of Man- chester, sketches of the principal public events of the time, and a notice of the progress of opinion in the town. It is in fact a his- tory of British politics from the outbreak of the Revolutionary war to the final passage of the Reform Bill ; those events being the most fully dwelt upon which most directly affected the town and district of Manchester, and in which the townsmen played leading parts. This limitation, however, has little practical effect. Whenever anythinr, was going on, Manchester, whether Tory or Radical, was pushing business ; and on some occasions played first fiddle, as in the celebrated massacre, and in various outbreaks either political or economical. Her politicians, without being &- lens or Ciceros, were hardheaded, outspoken, persevering men, with a good deal of pecuniary liberality, if it was likely to answer, and some alloy of coarseness. In general history they may loom small; in local memorial they are men of mark and likelihood ; though the constable Nadin—an English edition of the celebrated Major Sirr, of Dublin notoriety—seems the most strikingly dra- matic character. Mingled with these public matters are biogra- phical particulars of the author himself, and glimpses of the Man- chester press.
The book will be one of considerable interest to many persons. It will remind some of the political contests in which they have been engaged, or upon which they may have looked as observers, and through which the world has happily struggled. Those who are too young to remember those stirring and not altogether un- perilous times, will see them exhibited in vivid colours, and learn the sort of discouragements with which the early labourers in Re- form had to contend and the kind of opposition they had to en- counter. In fact, the history of the progress of Liberal opinions will be passed cursorily before him, with more of personal life and character than history condescends to. If he also finds that the heat of the struggle has not quite subsided in the writer's mind, and that the persecution and still more the insolence which Church and King men were in the habit of dealing out towards men of the wrong sort, has left a rankling behind, it is nothing more than is natural and excusable. The vulgar Whig or " low " Radical tra- ditions on events in general history, rather than politics' had been as well away. Experience and analogy, for example, both show that the war of the French Revolution could not have been avoid- ed. The true ground of censure against Pitt is that he took no pains to avoid the war, if he did not provoke it : but this is a judgment after the time. Again, we know not of the shadow of a reason for the insinuation at page 61, that Napoleon's escape from Elba was connived at, in order to divert men's attention by an- other war. Lord Holland says in his Foreign Reminiscences, that a project was broached at the Congress of Vienna to break faith with Napoleon and send him from Elba to St. Helena ; and which, in Lord Holland's opinion, justifies Napoleon's evasion. The main feature of the book, the history of politics and pro- gress of opinion, is best appreciated by continuous perusal. The smaller subjects well admit of particular exhibition. The follow- inf is a leaf from the author's autobiography—starting in life. My residence in Manchester was the result not of accident but of delibe- rate choice, while yet in a position where choice is not often allowed. I had been only two years in a warehouse in Glasgow, when, near the close of the year 1811, my master (a brother of James Grahame, the author of The Sabbath,' and uncle of James Grahame, author of a History of the United States,') resolved that I should become the traveller in England to receive orders for the muslius he manufactured. My journey extended from Car- lisle, through the Western counties to Plymouth, and then, through the Southern and Midland counties, to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. After three years of such employment, another traveller was employed in my stead, and my time was devoted to the wholesale houses of London and Manchester. 113 Manchester, I found that I met in the street, in one day, more country dra- pers than I could, with the utmost industry, meet in their own shops in two ; and it struck me that if we kept our manufactured stock in Manchester we could considerably increase our business, and at a great saving in travelling expenses. One evening in September 1815, while sitting with my master at his house, I mentioned the concourse of drapers to Manchester, and ex- pressed my conviction, that if there were to be a continuance of peace, that town would become so much the market for all kinds of goods, in cotton, woollens, linen' and silk, as to attract every respectable country draper in England several times in the year. The subject was long and earnestly dis- cussed between us. At length he asked, 'Is this a sudden conviction, or have you thought long about it ?' I told him that every recent visit to Manchester had confirmed the opinion I had formed soon after I had been there the first time. I spoke of the coal-fields of Lancashire, and the in- dustry., the enterprise, and the hard-headed shrewdness of its inhabitants. He said, We have coal, and industry, and shrewdness, and intelligence, here." Yes,' I replied, 'you have, but you have not centrality; von are in a corner; you have nothin.. but Glasgow and Paisley here : Manchester has about a dozen of Paisleys—Wigan, Preston, Blackburn, Bolton, Bury, Roch- dale, Ashton, Stockport, and numerous fast-growing villages, all increasing in importance, and likely some time or other, if fair play is given to their industry, to form one enormous eommunity." But they have the corn-law to retard their prosperity.' 'So have you.' After a long pause, he asked, When can you go to take a warehouse ? "I would go tonight if there was a coach, I replied, but I can go by tomorrow's mail.' I did go next day; made a bargain for the warehouse No. 1 Peel Street ; and in three weeks I opened it with the whole stock transferred from the Glasgow ware- house, with all the responsibility on my young shoulders of, in those days, a large business. It may be supposed I had not much leisure for politics : but I made a point of pushing on work in the early part of the day, so that I had the evenings to myself; and I began to look around me to ascertain what VMS the state of the society in which I was placed, and the opinions which prevailed amongst my fellow-townsmen." That anonymous institution called a jury is, or at least was con- sidered one of the most sacred parts of the British constitution. Even now, few if any dare speak against a verdict openly ; they "hint a fault and hesitate dislike." For a decision on a fact, or to fix a compensation in "damages," it is upon the whole the most satisfactory tribunal that could be established ; the source of satis- faction being that juries generally represent a large part of popular opinion, and arrive at a rule-of-thumb sort of justice, when there is no other rule to guide. Sometimes, however, their verdicts are strange enough; their practically anonymous character giving free scope to self-will or predetermination. Their reasons would seldom bear the light perhaps, even when their decision is unobjectionable. The foundation of John Edward Taylor's career was an action for libel, for writing a letter to a parish opponent, of which Mr. Pren- tice was the bearer; but which seemed less like a libel than a provocation to fight, though rather lengthy for a challenge. Scarlet was retained against Taylor ; the Judge charged against him; and the greater part of the Jury were Tories ; but the fore- man was his friend, and argued down opposition in this wise. 44 The jurors were principally of the old school of Loyalists, and had been disposed to return an immediate verdict of guilty ' ; but John Rylands calmly urged his objections, which were listened to very impatiently. 'Well, gentlemen,' said the sturdy foreman after long discussion, if you will in- sist upon that verdict, I will go to sleep and consider about it in the morn- ing: there is my bed,' throwing his coat into one corner of the room, and then lying down upon it.' His example was followed by others, apparently as stern in maintaining their own purpose. But some did not take it so comfortably; they had for years past been accustomed to their pipes and as many glasses of strong ale by the inn fireside as they liked, and to be thus unexpectedly deprived of those enjoyments and to find themselves supperless in an empty room without fire or candle or bed to lie upon' was beyond en- durance. One of them was really ill, and bemoaned the hardships of his case in piteous accents-4 Are you going to keep me here all night, when I am so ill? " Here are you,' said the foreman, whining about the hard- ships of being shut up for one night, and yet you would put it in the power of the Court to confine a man eighteen months for having spoken the truth!' The appeal was successful. There were now two for a verdict of 'Not guilty.' The others remaining obstinate, John Rylands stretched himself in his cor- ner, and lay in sober thoughtfulness, munching his crust quietly to conceal his possession of it from those with whom he was locked up ; until each of them, one after another, yielded to their cravings for personal comfort as of much greater importance than the vindication of their loyalty, and then they emerged from their total darkness into dim light."
When the Guardian was established and the Gazette started, the Tory party found that the old style of country papers would not do, and engaged Alaric Watts to enter the lists against Tay- lor and Prentice. This is not a bad account of newspaper squab- bles : there is a large truth in its quiet satire at the close.
"It was desirable that the editor of the new paper should be a man of literary reputation, an author by profession, one whose name in the republic of letters should scare out of the field the men of cotton bags and cambrics. Mr. Alaric Watts was the chosen champion, a writer of some pretty poetry and some sharp criticisms on the fine arts, and besides a member of the cliques of London literati,—excellent editorial qualifiations no doubt ; but, unfortunately, he knew nothing of political science, and, as a poet, had dis- dained to acquire any knowledge of political economy. I had a brief tilt with him, but soon returned to the rule I had laid down, rather to teach truths than to be combating against easily-refuted error. The Guardian and the Courier, however, found it convenient to continue the warfare. It was an easy thing to vindicate Toryism by attacking the Whig Guardian, and it was as easy to vindicate Whiggism by attacking the Courier. By continuing this warfare, the public might at length be led to believe that there was no other party in Manchester than the party Whig and the party Tory, and that there were no other papers than the Guardian and the Courier that represented any portion of public opinion ; and so the tilting has con- tinued from that day to this, always, and even now, as if there were some real points of difference between them. The meeting in the Manor Court- room in favour of Catholic Emancipation set this.petty quarrel a going. The Courier said that one half of the requisitionists were Unitarians; the Guardian that this was false. The Courier called for the names of those who were not Unitarians ; the Guardian called on the Courier to name those who were Unitarians ; and so the discussion went on for weeks together."
In the volume there are glimpses of manners that have almost perished, and of the rise of new modes. Even before railways had been practically tried, or the Manchester and Liverpool began, a year or two of •prosperity gave a goodly sprinkling of schemes for locomotion, most of which the Panic nipped.
"From the real and the apparent prosperity of this period arose the pro- posal of some really useful public undertakings, some of which were after- wards carried into effect. In the Manchester Gazette of the 1st of January 1825, are the resolutions of a meeting to form a railway between Manchester and Bolton, with a capital of 100,000!.; a sum found to be very inadequate to the object. In the same paper is the prospectus of a railway from Lon- don to Manchester, by way of Birmingham, to be afterwards extended from Manchester to 111111; the sum proposed for this great work being only 2,500,0001. In the paper of January 8th, is the prospectus of the Manchester and Leeds Railway, with a proposed capital of 500,000/. In the same paper is a notice that 1000 shares of 100/. each had been subscribed for the Man- chester, Stockport, and Peak Forest Railway, and that double the amount would be sufficient for the purpose. In the paper of January 15th, is the prospectus of the Grand Junction Railway, with a capital of 2,000,000!.; on January 2211, appears the prospectus of the Manchester Central Junction Railway, to connect Manchester, by a line passing through Stockport, Chel- ford, Congleton, with the proposed line from Liverpool to Birmingham. On January 29th, there is the prospectus of a Manchester and Oldham Railway. On February 5th, there is the prospectus of a ship canal from the mouth of the river Dee to Manchester ; a project much laughed at and derided, but which will probably be revived with better effect at some future day. On the 12th of February, I find the resolutions of the committee of the Man- chester and Liverpool Railway, and an announcement that a petition to the House of Commons in its favour will lie at the Exchange Room for signa- ture. These were some of the more sober schemes of a period which was characterized by the wildest speculation."
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