the multitudes without, deserted by those to whom they had looked up
for advice, their friends in prison, with the unknown terrors of the
law suspended over them, probably then felt that, miserable and lost
as they had been before, they had now fallen even lower in the scale
of human misery. Criminal proceedings were quickly instituted. Several
commissions were sent down to the districts in which these
disturbances had take place, in order that the offenders might meet
with _speedy_ punishment. The law officers of the crown, with many and
able assistants, in person conducted the proceedings. Temperate, mild,
dignified, and forbearing was their demeanour; in no case was the
individual the object of prosecution; it was the _crime_, through the
person of the criminal, against which the government proceeded. No
feelings of a personal nature were there exhibited; and a mild, but
firm, as it were, a parental correction of erring and misguided
children, seemed to be the sole object of those who then represented
the government. Conviction was heaped upon conviction--sentence
followed sentence--the miserable tool was distinguished from the man
who made him what he was--the active emissary, the secret conspirator,
also received each their proportionate amount of punishment. True, a
few of the more cautious and crafty, all included in one indictment,
eventually escaped the penalty due to their crimes; but, among the
multitude of cases which were then tried, this was, we believe, the
only instance even of partial failure. In spite of this single
miscarriage of the government, the great object of these proceedings
was completely answered; the end of all punishment was attained; the
vengeance which the law then took had all the effect which the most
condign punishment of these few men could have accomplished; the
constitutional maxim of "_poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes_," has been
amply illustrated by these proceedings; Chartism has been suppressed,
by the temperate application of the constitutional means which were