oly of the trade of the world, found their profits reduced, by the
new competition to which the re-establishment of peace exposed them, to
a point which compelled them to a severe reduction of expenditure. The
uncertainty felt as to the results to be brought about by the inevitable
repeal of the Bank Act of 1797, and the return to cash payments--results
which it was impossible to estimate correctly beforehand--had a tendency
to augment the distress, by the general feeling of uneasiness and
distrust which it created. And the employers of labor could not suffer
without those who depended on them for employment suffering still more
severely. The consequence was, that there was a general stagnation of
trade; numbers of artisans and laborers of every kind were thrown out of
work, and their enforced idleness and poverty, which was its result,
made them ready to become the tools of demagogues such as are never
wanting in the hour of distress and perplexity. Meetings were convened,
ostensibly to petition for reform, but in reality to afford
opportunities for mob-orators, eager for notoriety, to denounce the
government and those whom they styled the "ruling classes," as the
causes of the present and past evils. From these meetings multitudes
issued forth ripe for mischief. In some places they rose against the
manufacturers, and destroyed their machines, to the recent introduction
of which they attributed their want of employment. In others, still more
senselessly, they even set fire to the stores of grain in the
corn-dealers' warehouses, aggravating by their destruction the most
painful of their own sufferings. On one occasion, a mob which had
assembled in one of the eastern districts of London, on pretence of
framing a petition to be presented to the Prince Regent, at the close of
the meeting paraded the streets with a tricolor flag, the emblem of the
French Revolutionists, and pillaged a number of shops, especially those
of the gun-makers, spreading terror through all that side of the
metropolis. In at least one instance the violence of the rioters rose to
the height of treason. Assassins fired at the Regent in the Park as he
was returning from the House of Lords, whither he had been to open
Parliament; and when it was found that they had missed their aim, the
mob attacked the royal carriage, pelting it with large stones, and
breaking the windows; nor was it without some difficulty that the escort
of troops cleared a path for hi