ABSTRACT
First published in The Examiner, V, 9 August 1812, pp. 497–8. The ‘Luddite’ disturbances of 1811 (so named after the mythical leader General Ned Ludd) against harsh working conditions and industrialization in the north had spread extensively throughout Yorkshire and Lancaster in 1812. Attempting to quash the threat of a massive popular resistance movement, the government made Luddite destruction of labour-saving textile machinery (a protest action known as ‘frame-breaking’) a capital offence and mustered upward of 12,000 soldiers in the troubled areas. Byron’s maiden speech in Parliament, delivered on 27 February 1812, addressed the Luddite crisis and expressed deep sympathy for those driven to violent protest by severe depravation. In this essay, Hunt particularly deplores the government’s practice of infiltrating Luddite groups with spies who stirred agitation and spread conspiracy rumours in order to provide a justification for government repression. Compare his related sympathy for the peaceful protesters attacked by local yeomanry at the Manchester disturbance in 1819 (Vol. 2, pp. 203–8).
