by Adam Thorpe
The mob left the Court yard and walked across the fields to the Estate (of Ulverton House.) They tore up the Fences in the fields named Marridge Butt & Whitesheet Haw, & also in Little Hangy to the crab-apple. I heard many men holloeing that they would have their land back or there would be Blood spilt. Some men carried the fence poles as weapons. Because there was only one lanthorn I do not know who destroyed the fences & I did not recognise any Shout. The lanthorn was bandied about from one to another down the line. The horn was blown several times and the Mob advanced across the meadows as belong to Ulverton Hall (meaning Ulverton House) & they broke down the Hedgerows in several places. I believe John Oadam and Giles Griffin were the leaders. Joseph Scalehorn who is a cripple was carried by two men. This was about seven o’clock. It was first light then. They crossed the river by Bottom Bridge and came up Chalky Lane to Plum Farm (meaning Ulverton House Farm).
When they came to the yard of the said Farm there was Lord Chalmers MP on a horse. The Riot Act was read out from a paper by the said Lord Chalmers. He maintained to the mob that there would be £500 for any man informing against 10 other men. They did not heed him. John Oadam called out that they would be having 2s a day for they wd not starve no more. He went to Lord Chalmers but I did not hear what was said between them. The barn was entered and a threshing machine broke and a Winnowing machine. There were six horses on the said threshing machine and they were unstrapped. I saw them running out of the barn but I did not see the machines smashed. I should think it took thirty minutes to break the machines.
The Mob then proceeded to the Hall (meaning Ulverton House) where there was said to be a great machine also. Myself and the Mob crossed the river again at Bottom Bridge and advanced towards the House through the Park. There was a woman in a black bonnet with a rake. She ran away holloeing and the Yeomanry appeared from behind the Temple: they rode down to meet us at the Lake there. They stopped before they reached us, and pointed their muskets at us. About fifty yards away. The mob called out bread or blood but there were no sticks thrown. Smoke came from a gun. There was a loud noise. I believe from the gun. Saw James Malt falling with a great wound in his face: I believe from a musket-ball. The Mob struck the Yeomanry with Sticks and hammers & crow-bars stones hay-forks and so on.
I was struck by a horse and fell to the ground. I should think they were fighting for thirty minutes. There were many wounds and the Blood was spilling on the ground: I saw John Oadam strike a Yeoman with a hay-fork. Another Yeoman struck the said John Oadam on the shoulder with the butt of his musket. I believe it was Edward Pyke who knocked the said Yeoman down to the ground with a dibble. A horse ran the said Edward Pyke into the Lake. I heard him shout that these d—d villains would boil in their blood for this. Men from both sides fell into the Lake: they were beating the swans away from their persons. Alfred Dimmick was wearing a white hat: he had a sign on a pole, he told me before it read No Machines. The sign was torn away & he took a blow on his crown. Joseph Scalehorn was carried from the fighting but the yeomen went after them. Some men were running to the House across the Lawn. Tom Ketchaside who is eighty was knocked to the ground & also William Bray.
Lancelot Heddin (Examinant’s twin brother) who is a cripple came up to take me away from the Fight. He had no weapon. My dress was torn and I had received a wound on the arm. A yeoman caught my brother by his neck and my brother fell & pulled the Yeoman from his horse. My brother rose & was knocked down by a horse and it appeared to me as he (meaning the Examinant’s brother) was Lifeless. Then I ran to fetch assistance, but was apprehended in the Wilderness
you imagine, my dear Emily, the tediousness of this Sessions when in the forefront of my thoughts runs the said matter relating to your health & our Fortune. I have staid in a room without air for three days – ’tis in the Squire’s aged house, insufferably near the Church. The stench of the labourers vies with the stench of the smoke – we have an ill-built chimney-piece – while I persevere in the translation of but thick grunts into some semblance of Rational discourse. I scribble this between whiles. O for the sweet melody of your name! Quam vellem me nescire literas, as those I face each day, when that gift shuts one up in such a fug as this, far from your person, my dearest. (How fitting a classical reflection, when one learns it came from Nero – in his compassionate youth – about to set his pen upon a writ for the execution of some Malefactor!)
Edward Hobbs, saith that on Monday the 22nd of November instant about two hundred persons were unlawfully and riotously assembled together at Ulverton House in the said county and Examinant saw the Prisoner John Oadam strike Robert Jefferies who was then and there aiding and assisting in suppressing the said Riot. The Prisoner hit the said Robert Jefferies with a hay-fork. I struck him on the back with my musket and he fell to the ground and I then heard him say he would have that d—d Bailiff’s blood for posset on the morrow (meaning this Examinant)
I have never insisted anything of the sort. Far be it for me to be adjudged wanting in this matter, for I have ever been solicitous (if you will pardon the play) after your well-being – even before I declared these feelings for you. Indeed, were it not for my appeals to your father, you would not have been released earlier, and so avoided further complexities – as you no doubt have by going North, as it were – to the favour of your uncle and his codicil, however reluctant the climate to shine upon your fair visage, my dearest Emily
Edmund Bunce had a brown Smock.
whereas, if you had but hearkened to my appeals – you were released post-chaise long ago: but be that as it will
Oadam had a crown of bedwine upon his head: of old man’s beard. I heard him say that he would be King before tomorrow – this was in jest. Other men had yarrow flowers on their Caps and in their Coats, and I held a flag out of a rag. Most of the Mob departed after thirty minutes but we staid at the Malt Shovel for the remainder of the day. We blew a horn and sang some songs to keep our spirits high. We went to bed early but a Press Gang came round at four o’clock in the night & made us go with them to Bursop & Little Bursop, where we broke up three Machines:
if nothing else, we shall be content at least, with this matrimonial arrangement, that can only be of advantage to all concerned – if one absents from that inclusive gathering your dear father – who cannot be content with a place, as it were, in Heaven. O the Sessions winds on, or down, as my timepiece – regular but slow. We must sweep the floorboards twice a day, as those discharged on their own recognizance to appear in person come for their Examination, it seems, straight from the Field, & those from Prison reek of a cow-byre – which should not surprise, since a cow-byre is indeed their Prison (albeit emptied of the lower beasts) – however, the subsequent foul dunginess means I must hold my handkerchief to my nose nevertheless, or feel giddy. There is no other recourse: the town Gaol being full to its gills, our Lord Chalmers (does your father know him?) has donated his secure cow-house of brick for their incarceration, this being, no doubt, an improvement upon the town lodgings – but meaning I am hardly in the town, where there is a decent theatre on the main road, tho’ one’s attention is much disturbed by the coaches outside and their infernal clatter, and there are too many pigs in the road, that one must wade through them, if one chooses the wrong morning. Alas, it is always the wrong morning – without your fair white face, my dearest love: I have never, in all my life, seen so many brown Ploughmen as I have seen thro’ these last few days – and waggoners, and shepherds, & reapers, and paupers, and Jobbers of every fowl & four-legged beast one might imagine, and Well-diggers, & mealy Mealmen and ruby-cheeked Farmers: it has quite enervated my desire to flee the city’s smoke. We are set up in a room of the Manor in the settlement (for so I grace it) named Ulverton – or Ulvers – or Ulverdon – makes no difference – the most dismal place one can imagine – the seat of the Riots in this part of the county – with ditch-mud in the place of road and not a head of thatch without its sprout of moss & weeds. The main Square hardly merits justification of its nomination:
but is more a Circle of despondency about a dripping well, whose handle creaks the rope up so loud it forces me to ask for repetition from the Examinants at least ten times of a morning (I exaggerate for effect, for the Manor is some hundred yards along the road, but the church bells shake us each quarter – I feel quite at home as in Bow.) If only you, my dear Emily, had witnessed these Troubles, that you could sit before me and Deposition in the sweetest of tones, while your Examiner gazed upon you from his high table and cross-questioned (but not wiggingly) on the issue of Love – for which there is no Defence. I also have my manly cough returned, tho’ the flush
He then saw against the Door twelve or so men by that light. They demanded of him six shillings, or they said they would have him by the scruff and wd threw him into the horse-pond, the bloody bugger, for they had empty bellies enough and so did their Children, & they had not a faggot between them to keep the winter off & to dry their cloathes. He then gave them a purse with the said amount. The Mob soon dispersed, after boasting to his presence that they had broke as many machines
determined on one matter: that we should establish our matrimonial footing on as firm a step as this country will hold – viz., not in London where the powder of ambitious lawyers chokes me in every thoroughfare, but in the calmer pond of some slumberous Country Town, where the bells ring with diffidence over the pompous, and the honest fellow can walk about without an eye ever turned for his rump. We will have a green patch and I shall return promptly for my lunch of kidneys, keeping time by the cathedral spire. If I can tie this up with as strong a ribbon as bundles these briefs for the Prosecution of said wretched Rioters – your father will have to find the sharpest of scissors likewise. If I am thwarted, and forced to breathe more of that pestilent air, I shall grow melancholy as those Greenlanders in Denmark – looking ever north, my dearest!
in Surley Row with my mother and my brother. I was awoken about five o’clock on Sunday the 21st of November last by a horn blowing. I did not get out of bed. I saw several persons at the house opposite and William Dart came to the window of our house and called to us that we must come out. He had on ribands as for the feast of Whitsun & said we must collect shillings & break the machines that do the men’s work. I put on my scarf & opened the Door. Old Becky Shail came out of her house with a basket of lardey for all, she said those d—d wretched gentlemen must catch it: she once had a husband hung & cut up in Reding. Giles Griffin said they shall by g—d. My brother was drawn out by the arm. We proceeded down Back Lane, pressing more persons. My brother tied his trousers in the Road for they gave us no time
but the Squire is the most insufferable of all: he has ten pairs of tall boots that creak like a coach – & a temper attuned to the weather, that holds his sport in the cup of its hand – a tyranny he will not stand for, but with less elegance in his rhetoric than that famous senator to Vespasian. He brings me cups of warm Port of an evening, settles me before his blazing hearth, and proceeds to vie with the Labouring Classes I have endured all day for bluntness of interest and the complete omission of that essential quality of eloquence that once parted us from the barbarians as flesh of peach from its hairy stone. This is how our rustic gentlemen cross the Rubicon – not with theatre & dancing on the ship but only talk of yields, & the price of corn, & harness, & nags’ teeth – & if they grow witty it is like spinning a top with a flail – and if rude – nay not lente but quickly run, you horses of the night! Did I tell you that I knew his son at Winchester? I believe I gave him a welt or two, for he was Junior by three years – a pretty fellow, but a dullard of the first order. He is now in speculation from America
said we did not have number enough to break his machine. He said we did not deserve 2/6d a day for we were paltry fellows who could not turn a Plough without making wind. We left him without abuse because he had stood like a man. We said we would return and went to join the persons that were at Fogbourne. We staid in Fogbourne until one o’clock, breaking there three machines and an iron Plough, & a winnower was already broke by a farmer. We collected £6. We returned to Ulverton where we met the Mob in the Square & we broke the said Farmer Walters’ Machine. Then some of us, about fifty persons, went to the Kistle Cross (upon Furzecombe Down) for a meeting where many spoke as we were all one, and a man I do not know in a black hat & Cloak said as we mean to circulate the Gentlemen’s blood with the leave of God to make our own blood good. Then over the crest to Effley and beyond
while the Briefs grow into bundles but my hand is sagging – it droops like the houses here, that are all sunk into their mud as if they wish to depart whence they came: for the walls are nothing more than earth and straw, and the roofs likewise – veritable pigsties all – nay, the pigs have better accomodation, & their (meaning the pigs) sour vapours blow less sulphurously past one’s nostrils – tho’ the desire to expectorate it from one’s lungs be equal & said desire quite overcomes those venerable parental injunctions in both cases, alas. There is a noisome mill thankfully distant, & an exceedingly ivied church, & the odd Fine house – in a good red brick, but inhabited by species of country tradesmen only a glove’s thickness off those they revile for having hands chapped by their business. These men have daughters shut away like Proserpine in a gloom, awaiting God knows what release by a bachelor with means – once a year, it appears, they ascend to the House where they gaze upon grandiosity and aldermen in equal quantity. Vile is this place of strangled opportunities, and rough fellows not in the least chastened by our proper Oaths and bundles of Terms & brass Ink-pots! Our witnesses creep out from under stones & demand more shillings than we have right to give them – but I give them anyway. So the great weight of the Law descends like some dusty-wigged behemoth in a scarlet stagecoach too small for the ride, and I must look stern and patch up the springs & be forever running to keep up. The dreadful Squire has a plan to carve a Horse on the hillside. All flesh is grass (or in this instance, the reverse
John Stiff, Farmer, saith that on Monday 22nd November instant about one hundred and fifty persons unlawfully entered his Court yard at Mapleash Farm near Ulverton in the said county and Examinant spoke to the Prisoner John Oadam who demanded of him 40s and his machine must be broke and they must have 12s a week in wages after Ladyday or they would bring the Country down like a barn with dry Rot. The Examinant gave the said Prisoner £10 in shillings and said that they must spare any more destruction, for they had already broke his machine. I did not see who broke the Machine, but I believe it was the said Prisoner among them –
not heedful, your father will lose you to his sight – unless you obey his command more peremptorily than good sense will allow, and the heart guide. Does it rain in Matlock?
This vagrant was not given relief. He gave much abuse to the magistrate and was committed to the Cage for a week. The Mob demanded of me the key at six o’clock on the following morning, this being Sunday the 21st of November instant
& it was most amusing. Squire Norcoat placed the flags himself upon the hillside that is South-west of the village, while I looked on in apparent admiration – for I could not see, from my vantage point close by, how this miscellany of fluttering cloth could possibly conform to anything of the remotest resemblance to a horse – save an extremely attenuated hippogriff, with bandy legs, and a neck like an ostrich –
Thereupon they broke ope the door, and drew him (the said vagrant Thomas Durner)
believe it – on both of us mounting the hill a mile away, to the north, with a decent view of Louzy Down (upon which the flags were positioned) this famished Monster began to jostle, and shift, and lose an appendage here and fatten another there – and so, guiding by means of a brass speaking-trumpet, and the breeze advantageous to his bawlings, the Squire had it a Horse within the two hours: those men working gallantly as if under Wellington to move about those flags upon the farthest slope at such distant command.
I did not stop them. The Prisoner Scalehorn who is a cripple was among them & also the Prisoner John Oadam. They were civil to me
but I heard Oadam say as they wd be having the good things now
tho’ it was a deal too cold for my liking up there: my chest grew tight as a drum with the wind, & I kept my mouth closed or I wd have been taken with a Fit again. It has blown a chill wind here for three days – my throat aches deucedly. Dearest Emily
I told him he could not abuse the Law, for the vagrant had trespassed and used foul language to the Justice. I said that on the Holy day this action (meaning the release of the said vagrant) was blasphemous, and that they shd rest on the Lord’s day. He called me a Blackguard, and no man of the cloth, or God, and went into my Kitchen where he took a loaf of bread from the cupboard and stated that if a gallon loaf for each child was not forthcoming bellies would be crying out for justice to Heaven & the Almighty Himself wd weep etc. He waved the loaf in my face as if it was a weapon. Several of the men demanded I should lower my tithes and added – that was the farmers’ desire also. I promised then to consider their case, and gave them assurance of this with 3 Sovereigns, for I found it expedient to do so before further abuse was made to my person or Property. They left and I continued with my breakfast. The Mob returned the following afternoon of Monday the 22nd of November tho’ much reduced, for many had been taken in the Fight in the early morning of that day instant.