The Government neither helped them nor put them down, but stood by,
hoping that something might come of it. These 'Friends of Order,' as
they were called, had some successes at first, and grew bolder; they
got many officers of the regular army to help them, and by their
means laid hold of munitions of war of all kinds. One part of their
tactics consisted in their guarding and even garrisoning the big
factories of the period: they held at one time, for instance, the
whole of that place called Manchester which I spoke of just now. A
sort of irregular war was carried on with varied success all over the
country; and at last the Government, which at first pretended to
ignore the struggle, or treat it as mere rioting, definitely declared
for 'the Friends of Order,' and joined to their bands whatsoever of
the regular army they could get together, and made a desperate effort
to overwhelm 'the rebels,' as they were now once more called, and as
indeed they called themselves.

"It was too late. All ideas of peace on a basis of compromise had
disappeared on either side. The end, it was seen clearly, must be
either absolute slavery for all but the privileged, or a system of
life founded on equality and Communism. The sloth, the hopelessness,
and if I may say so, the cowardice of the last century, had given
place to the eager, restless heroism of a declared revolutionary
period. I will not say that the people of that time foresaw the life
we are leading now, but there was a general instinct amongst them
towards the essential part of that life, and many men saw clearly
beyond the desperate struggle of the day into the peace which it was
to bring about. The men of that day who were on the side of freedom
were not unhappy, I think, though they were harassed by hopes and
fears, and sometimes torn by doubts, and the conflict of duties hard
to reconcile."