by the rioters, and before the rioters could be dispersed several of them were killed and wounded; according to the accounts received, at least three were killed and about twenty wounded.On the 14th of April riots again prevailed at Stockport; the house of Mr. Goodwin was set on fire, and his steam-looms were destroy

rioters on a heath about two miles from the town, for the purpose, as supposed, of being trained for military exercise, was surprised and dispersed; contributions were also levied in the neighbourhood, at the houses of gentlemen and farmers.About the same time riots also took place at Manchester and in the neighbourhood, of which the general pretence was the high price of provisions. On the 26th and 27th of April the people of Manchester were alarmed by the appearance of some thousands of strangers in their town, the greater part of them, however, disappeared on the 28th; part of the Local Militia had been then called out, and a large military force had arrived, which it was supposed had overawed those who were disposed to disturbance. An apprehension, however, prevailed, of a more general rising in May, and in the neighbourhood of the town many houses were plundered. Nocturnal meetings for the purpose of military exercise were frequent; arms were seized in various places by the disaffected; the house of a farmer near Manchester was plundered, and a labourer coming to his assistance was shot. The manner in which the disaffected have carried on their proceedings is represented as demonstrating an extraordinary degree of concert, secrecy, and organization. Their signals were well contrived and well established, and any at

patched to Nottingham, for the purpose of assisting the local authorities in their endeavours to restore tranquillity in the disturbed districts.The systematic combination, however, with which the outrages were conducted, the terror which they inspired, and the disposition of many of the lower orders to favour rather than oppose them, made it very difficult to discover the offended. In the following night a meeting of ers, to apprehend them if discovered, or to obtain evidence to convict those who were apprehended of the crimes with which they were charged. Some, however, were afterwards proceeded against at the Spring assizes at Nottingham, and seven persons were convicted of different offences, and sentenced to transportation. - In the mean time acts were passed for establishing a police in the disturbed districts, upon the ancient system of watch and ward, and for applying to the destruction of stocking frames the punishment before applied by law to the destruction of other machinery. The discontent which had thus first appeared about Nottingham, and had in some degree extended into Derbyshire and Leicestershire, had before this period been communicated to other parts of the country. Subscriptions for the persons taken into custody in Nottinghamshire were solicited in the month of February at Stockport, in Cheshire, where anonymous letters were at the same time circulated, threatening to destroy the machinery.used in the manufactures of that place, and in that and the following months attempts were made to set on fire two different manufactories. The spirit of disorder then rapidly spread through the neighbourhood; inflammatory placards, inviting the people to a general rising, were dispersed, illegal oaths were administered, riots were produced in various places, houses were plundered by per-tempt to detect and lay hold of the offenders sons in disguise, and a report was industriously circulated, that a general rising would take place on the first of May, or early in that month.This spirit of riot and disturbance was extended to many other places, and particularly to Ashton-under-line, Eccles, and Middleton; at the latter place the manufactory of Mr. Burton was attacked on the 20th of April, and although the rioters were then repulsed, and five of their number were killed by the military force assembled to protect the works, a second attack was made on the 22d of April, and Mr. Burton's dwelling-house was burnt before military assistance could be brought to his support. When troops arrived to sprotect the works, they were fired upon

was generally defeated. The same spirit of riot and disturbance appeared at Boltonin-the-Moors. So early as the 6th of April, intelligence was given, that at a meeting of delegates from several places it had been resolved, that the manufactory at West Haughton, in that neighbourhood, should be destroyed, but that at a subsequent meeting it had been determined that the destruction of this manufactory should be postponed. On the 24th of April, however, the destruction of this manufactory was accomplished. Intelligence having been obtained of the intended attack, a military force was sent for its protection, and the assailants dispersed before the arrival of the military, who then returned to

miles from Leeds, was attacked by a large body of armed men, who proceeded with great regularity and caution, first seizing the watchman at the Mill, and placing guards at every neighbouring cottage, threatening

alarm, and then forcibly entering the mill, they completely destroyed the machinery. In the following night, notwithstanding the precautions adopted, the buildings belonging to Messrs. Dickinsons in Leeds, were forcibly entered, and the whole of the

were cut to pieces. Many other persons in Leeds were threatened with similar treatment, and the proceedings at this place are represented to have had for their object the destruction of all descriptions of goods prepared otherwise than by manual labour.

The

their quarters; the rioters taking advantage of their absence, assailed and forced the manufactory, set it on fire, and again dispersed before the military could be brought again to the spot.-Symptoms of the same spirit appeared at Newcastle-under-death to any who should attempt to give Lyne, Wigan, Warrington, and other towns; and the contagion in the mean time had spread to Carlisle and into Yorkshire. -In Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in the neighbourhood, the destruction of dressing and shearing machines and shears began early in Febru-goods there, consisting principally of cloths, ary; fire-arms were seized during the course of March, and a constable was shot at in his own house. In March a great number of machines belonging to Mr. Vicarman were destroyed, and in April the destruction of Bradley Mills, near Huddersfield, was threatened, and afterwards attempted, but the mills were protected by a guard, which defeated the attempt. About the same time the machinery of Mr. Rhode's mill at Tentwhistle, near to Stockport, was utterly destroyed; and Mr. Horsfall, a respectable merchant and mill-owner, in the neighbourhood of Huddersfield, was shot about six o'clock in the afternoon, in broad day-light, on the 28th of April, returning from market, and died on the 30th of the same month.A reward of £2000. was offered for the discovery of the murderers, but no discovery has yet been made, though it appears that he was shot by four persons, each of whom lodged a ball in his body; that when he fell, the populace surrounded and reviled him, instead of offering assistance, and no attempt was made to secure the assassins, who were seen to retire to an adjoining wood. Some time after, a young woman was attacked in the streets of Leeds, and nearly murdered, her skull being fractured; and the supposed reason for this violence was an apprehension that she had been near the spot when Mr. Horsfall was murdered, and might, therefore, be able to give evidence which might lead to the detection of the murderers. The town of Leeds had for some time before been much alarmed by information that attacks were intended to be made on places in the town and its neighbourhood, which in duced the magistrates to desire a strong military force, and to appoint a great number of respectable inhabitants of the town special constables, by which means the peace of the town was in a great degree preserved.

Early, however, in the morning of the 24th of March, the mills of Messrs. Thompsons, at Rawdon, a large village about eight

-At Leversedge, near Hockmondwicke, which is in the neighbourhood of the moors dividing Lancashire and Yorkshire, an attack was made early in the morning of the 12th of April by a body of armed men, represented to have been between two and three hundred in number, on a valuable mill belonging to Mr. Cartwright. mill was defended with great courage by Mr. Gartwright, the proprietor, with the assistance of three of his men and five soldiers, and the assailants were at length compelled to retire, being unable to force an entrance into the mill, and their ammunition probably failing. Two of the assailants were left on the spot desperately wounded, and were secured, but died of their wounds. Many others are supposed to have been also wounded, and information was afterwards obtained of the death of one of them. When the assailants retired, they declared a determination to take Mr. Cartwright's life by any means. One of the wounded men who was left on the spot was only nineteen years of age, and son of a man in a respectable situation in the neighbourhood; but neither this man nor the other prisoner would make any confession respecting their confederates in this outrage. The neighbouring inhabitants, who assembled about the mill, after the rioters had retired, only expressed their regret that the attempt had failed. A vast concourse of people attended the funeral of the young man before described, who died of his wounds; and there was found written on the walls in many places, "Vengeance for the Blood of the Innocent." The threats against Mr. Cartwright's life were attempted to be put into execution on the 18th of April, when he was twice shot

at in the road from Huddersfield to Raw- | depredations which were committed by bofold. About the same time a shot was dies of armed men." At the same time this remarkable circumstance was stated, that amongst one hundred depositions taken by the Magistrates of the facts of robberies committed, there was only one as to the perpetrator of the crime.During the latter part of this period, it is represented that nightly robberies of arms, lead and ammunition, were prevalent in the districts bounded by the rivers Air and Calder, and that the patrols which went along both

fired at a special Constable on duty at Leeds, and a ball was fired at night into the house of Mr. Armitage, a Magistrate in the neighbourhood, and lodged in the ceiling of his bed-room; Col. Campbell also, who commanded the troops at Leeds, was shot at in the night of. May 8, upon returning to his own house, by two men, who discharged their pieces at him within the distance of twenty yards, and immediately after a third shot was fired, direct-banks of the Calder, found the people in ed towards the room usually occupied by Colonel Campbell and his family.At Horbury, near Wakefield, valuable mills were attacked on the 9th of April by an armed body, supposed to consist of 300 men. The machinery and considerable property were destroyed. The men who committed the outrage were seen on the 1. between Wakefield and Horbury, marching in regular sections, preceded by a mounted party with drawn swords, and followed by the same number of mounted men as a rear guard. They were supposed to have assembled from Huddersfield, Duesbury, Hickmondwicke, Guildersome, Morley, Wakefield, and other places.

In many parts of this District of Country the well-disposed, were so much under the influence of terror, that the Magistrates were unable to give protection by putting the Watch and Ward Act in execution, and the lower orders are represented as generally either abettors of or participators in the outrages committed, or so intimidated, that they dared not to interfere.At Sheffield the storehouse of arms of the Local Militia was surprised in the month of May, a large proportion of the arms were broken by the mob, and many taken away; this disturbance, however, seems to have been followed by no further consequences, and the remainder of the arms were secured.But during the months of May and June depredations of different kinds, and particularly the seizure of arms, continued to be nightly committed in other parts of Yorkshire; and it is represented that in the neighbourhood of Huddersfield and Birstall the arms of all the peaceable inhabitants had been swept away by bands of armed robbers. In consequence of these outrages the Vice-Lieutenant of the West Riding, the Deputy-Lieutenants, and Magistrates assembled at Wakefield on the 11th of June, and came to a resolution, "That the most alarming consequences were to be apprehended from the nightly

the ill-affected villages up at midnight, and
heard the firing of small arms at short
distances from them, through the whole
night, to a very great extent, which they
imagined proceeded from parties at drill.
In the corner of Cheshire, touching upon
Yorkshire and Lancashire, in the neigh-
bourhood and to the eastward of Ashton,
Stockport, and Moultram, nocturnal meet-
ings were more frequent than ever, and
the seizure of arms carried on with great
perseverance. Peculiar difficulties are
stated to exist in this quarter from the want
of Magistrates.Your Committee have
not thought it necessary to detail, or even
to state all the outrages which have been
committed in different parts of the country,
but have selected from the great mass of
materials before them, such facts only as
appeared to them sufficient to mark the ex-
tent and nature of those disturbances.-
The causes alleged for these destructive
proceedings have been generally the want
of employment for the working manufac-
turers, a want, however, which has been
the least felt in some of the places where
the disorders have been most prevalent, the
application of machinery to supply the
place of labour, and the high price of pro-
visions; but it is the opinion of persons,
both in civil and military stations, well ac-
quainted with the state of the country, an
opinion grounded upon various informa-
tions from different quarters now before
your Committee, but which, for obvious
reasons they do not think proper to detail,
that the views of some of the persons en-
gaged in these proceedings have extended
to revolutionary measures of the most dan-
gerous description.Their proceedings
manifest a degree of caution and organiza-
tion which appears to flow from the direc-
tion of some persons under whose influence
they act; but it is the opinion of a person,
whose situation gives him great opportuni-
ties of information, that their leaders, al-
though they may possess considérable in-

Aluence, are still of the lowest orders; men | wherever I can find him or them, and

though he should fly to the verge of nature, I will pursue him with increasing vengeance. So help me God, and bless me to keep this my oath inviolable."The military organization carried on by persons engaged in these societies has also proceeded to an alarming length; they assemble in large numbers, in general by night, upon

of desperate fortunes, who have taken ad-
vantage of the pressure of the moment, to
work upon the inferior class, through the
medium of the Associations in the manu-
facturing parts of the country. The
general persuasion of the persons engaged
in these transactions appear, however, to
be, that all the societies in the country are
directed in their motions by a secret com-heaths or commons, which are numerous
mittee, and that this secret committee is
therefore the great mover of the whole ma-
chine; and it is established by the various
information to which the committee has
before alluded, that societies are formed in
different parts of the country; that these
societies are governed by their respective
secret committees; that delegates are con-
tinually dispatched from one place to an-
other, for the purpose of concerting their
plans; and that secret signs are arranged,
by which the persons engaged in these con-
spiracies, are known to each other. The
form of the oath or engagement adminis-
tered to those who are inlisted in these so-
cieties, also refers expressly to the existence
of such secret committees.- -The object
of this oath is to prevent discovery, by de-
terring through the fear of assassination
those who take it from impeaching others,
and by binding them to assassinate those
by whom any of the persons engaged may
be impeached. These oaths appear to have
been administered to a considerable extent;
copies of them have been obtained from
various quarters, and though slightly dif-
fering in terms, they are so nearly the
same, as to prove the systematic nature of
the concert by which they are administer-
ed.The oath itself is of so atrocious a
nature, that your committee have thought
it right to insert the form, as it appears in
one of those copies :- "I, A. B. of my
own voluntary will, do declare and so-
lemnly swear, that I never will reveal to
any person or persons under the canopy of
Heaven the names of the persons who com-
pose this secret committee, their proceed-
ings, meeting, places of abode, dress, fea-
tures, connexions, or any thing else that
might lead to a discovery of the same, either
by word or deed, or sign, under the pe-
nalty of being sent out of the world by the
first brother who shall meet me, and my
name and character blotted out of existence,
and never to be remembered but with con-
tempt and abhorrence; and I further now
do swear, that I will use my best endea-
vours to punish by death any traitor or
traitors, should any rise up amongst us,

and extensive in some of the districts where
the disturbances have been most serious;
so assembled they take the usual military
precautions of paroles and countersigns;
then muster rolls are called over by num-
bers not by names; they are directed by
leaders sometimes in disguise; they place
sentries to give alarm at the approach of
any persons whom they may suspect of
meaning to interrupt or give information
of their proceedings, and they disperse in-
stantly at the firing of a gun, or other
signal agreed upon, and so disperse as to
avoid detection. They have in some in-
stances used signals by rockets or blue
lights, by which they communicate intelli-
gence to their parties.They have pro-
cured a considerable quantity of arms, by
the depredations which are daily and night-
ly continued; they have plundered many
places of lead, for the purpose of making
musket balls, and have made some seizures
of gunpowder.- -Their progress in disci-
pline appears from the representation be-
fore given of the two attacks upon the mills
of Rawdon and Henbury; and the money,
which has been in many instances obtained
by contribution or plunder, answers the
purpose of support, and may serve as an
inducement to many persons to engage in
these disturbances.- -The system of inti-
midation produced not only by the oaths
and engagements before mentioned, or by
threats of violence, but by the attack and
destruction of houses and factories, by ac-
tual assassination in some instances, and
attempts at assassination in others, under.
circumstances which have hitherto gene-
rally baffled all endeavours to discover and
bring to justice the offenders, all tend to
render these proceedings greatly alarming
to the country. In many parts the quiet in-
habitants consider themselves as enjoying
protection only as far as the military force
can extend its exertions, and look upon the
rest of the country where the disturbances
take place as at the mercy of the rioters.-
The legal proceedings at Nottingham check-
ed the disposition to disturbance in that
quarter, but this effect did not extend to,

rogative over British subjects. British ju risdiction is thus extended to neutral vessels in a situation where no laws can operate but the law of nations and the laws of the country to which the vessels belong; and a self redress is assumed, which if British subjects were wrongfully detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of force for a resort to the responsible Sovereign, which falls within the definition of war. Could the seizure of British subjects,

other parts of the country; and though the proceedings under the special commissions since issued, and the convictions and executions at Lancaster and Chester appeared to make a considerable impression, they have been far from restoring peace and security to the disturbed districts.A great military force has been assembled; the Local | Militia has been in many places called out, and has done good service; the yeomanry corps have been active and highly useful. Many of the magistrates have zealously ex-in such cases, be regarded as within the erted their powers, some of them at great personal hazard. In many places great numbers of special constables have been appointed from amongst the more respectable inhabitants, and the Watch and Ward Act has been in some places put in force, though attempted without effect in others, or abandoned from circumstances already stated. All these efforts have proved insufficient effectually to put down the spirit of disturbance; and it is, therefore, the decided opinion of your Committee, that some further measures should be immediately adopted by Parliament, for affording more effectual protection to the lives and properties of His Majesty's subjects, and for suppressing a system of turbulence and disorder which has already proved destructive of the tranquillity and highly injurious to the property and welfare of some of the most populous and important districts of the country, and which, unless effectually checked, may lead to consequences still more extensive and dangerous.

OFFICIAL PAPERS.

AMERICAN STATES.-Message of President Madison to the Congress, 1st June, 1812, relative to the dispute with England.

I communicate to Congress certain documents, being a continuation of those heretofore laid before them, on the subject of our affairs with Great Britain.With out going beyond the renewal, in 1803, of the war in which Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior magnitude, the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.

-British cruizers have been in the continued practice of violating the American flag on the great highway of Nations, and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it; not in the exercise of a belligerent right, founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal pre

exercise of a belligerent right, the acknow-
ledged laws of war, which forbid an ar-
ticle of captured property to be adjudged,
without a regular investigation before a
competent tribunal, would imperiously de-
mand the fairest trial, where the sacred
rights of persons were at issue. In place
of such trial, these rights are subjected to
the will of every petty Commander.-
The practice, hence, is so far from affect-
ing British subjects alone, that under the
pretext of searching for these, thousands of
American citizens, under the safeguard of
public laws, and of their National flag,
have been torn from their country, and
from every thing dear to them; have been
dragged on board ships of war of a foreign
nation, and exposed, under the severities
of their discipline, to be exiled to the most
distant and deadly climes, to risk their
lives in the battles of their oppressors, and
to be the melancholy instruments of taking
away those of their own brethren.
Against this crying enormity, which Great
Britain would be so prompt to avenge, if
committed against herself, the United
States have in vain exhausted remonstrances
and expostulations. And that no proof
might be wanting of their conciliatory dis-
positions, and no pretext left for conti-
nuance of the practice, the British Govern-
ment was formally assured of the readiness
of the United States to enter into arrange
ments, such as could not be rejected, if
the recovery of the British subjects were
the real and the sole object. The commu-
nication passed without effect.British
cruizers have been in the practice also of
violating the rights and the peace of our
coasts. They hover over and harass our
entering and departing commerce. To the
most insulting pretensions they have added
lawless proceedings in our very harbours,
and have wantonly spilt American blood
within the sanctuary of our territorial ju-
risdiction. The principles and rules en-
forced by that nation, when a neutral
nation, against armed vessels of belligerents