rench usher in a large school
near London--was it Harrow?--has converted several of the boys to
republicanism. Clearly, these are cases for the Aliens Act.

Even Britons, untainted by Gallic connections, are suspect. At
Billingsgate a soldier swears that he was set upon at night because he
wore the uniform of "a d----d tyrant"; and other evidence proves that
the service was unpopular for political reasons as well as the poor pay.
Farmers are plied by emissaries of the clubs as they come in to market.
Complaints come to Dundas that farmers and shippers on the coasts of
Lancashire and Cumberland sell corn to "the natural enemy."

The discontent takes colour from its surroundings. At Pocklington in
Yorkshire the villagers threaten to burn the magistrates in their houses
in revenge for the conviction of poachers. The rowdies of Olney in
Bucks. (formerly a sore trial to Cowper and John Newton) terrorize the
neighbourhood. Everywhere the high price of corn produces irritation.
The tinworkers of North Cornwall march in force to Padstow to prevent
the exportation of corn from that little harbour; otherwise they are
law-abiding, though a magistrate warns Dundas that local malcontents are
setting them against the Government. Multiply these typical cases a
thousand fold, and it will be seen that the old rural system is strained
to breaking point. The amenities of the rule of the squires are now paid
back, and that, too, at a time when England needs one mind, one heart,
one soul. At and near Sheffield serious riots break out owing to the
enclosures of common-fields and wastes, the houses of the agricultural
"reformers" being burnt or wrecked. On the whole, however, I have found
fewer references to enclosures than might be expected.[274]

As generally happens in times of excitement, the towns are the first to
voice the dumb or muttering hatreds of the villages. Parisians led the
Revolution in France, though its causes lay thickest and deepest in the
rural districts. Not until Paris "stormed" its castle did the villagers
attack theirs. So, too, in the muffled repetition of the revolutionary
music which England sounds forth, the towns buzz, while the country
supplies but a dull ground-tone. Dearness of food and scarcity of work
were the chief causes of discontent. The spokesmen for the Spitalfields
weavers, who number 14,000, sent up a temperate petition setting forth
their distress; but, as is often the case in London, their thought