gainst all acts calculated to disturb the public peace. It
is necessary that a Council should be held for the issue of this
proclamation, and important that it should arrive in Manchester on
Monday.

These considerations have prevented Sir Robert Peel from giving
previous notice to your Majesty, and having your Majesty's sanction
for the holding of a Council. On account of the urgency of the case,
he has requested a sufficient number of Privy Councillors to repair to
Windsor this evening, in order that should your Majesty be graciously
pleased to hold a Council, the proclamation may be forthwith issued.
The members of the Privy Council will be in attendance about half-past
six o'clock, as Sir Robert Peel has considered that from that time
to half-past seven will probably be the least inconvenient to your
Majesty.

He writes this immediately after the breaking up of the Cabinet.

[Footnote 68: The disturbances of this month, which originated
in a strike for wages in Lancashire, were inflamed by
agitators, and rapidly spread through Cheshire, Staffordshire,
Warwickshire, and Yorkshire, eventually extending to the
populous parts of Scotland and Wales. Several conflicts took
place between the populace and the military, and there
was much loss of life and property, as well as aggravated
distress.]

[Footnote 69: On 16th August 1819, a great popular
demonstration in favour of Parliamentary Reform, presided
over by Henry Hunt, the Radical, had taken place in St Peter's
Fields, Manchester. A riot ensued, and the Yeomanry charged
the populace, with some loss of life. The affair was
afterwards known as the Peterloo massacre.]

[Pageheading: CHARTIST DISTURBANCES]

_Sir James Graham to Queen Victoria._

WHITEHALL, _15th August 1842._

Sir James Graham, with humble duty, begs to lay before your Majesty
the enclosed letter from Major-General Sir William Warre[70] in
command of the Northern District.

From this report it is evident that a strong and salutary moral
impression had been produced by the arrival of a reinforcement
of 1,400 men in the disturbed district in the short time of
six-and-thirty hours after the first requisition for assistance had
been sent from Manchester; and the General has now at his disposal a
force quite adequate to cope with the vast assemblage of people who
are expected to meet to-morrow at Manchester.

Some symptoms of this di