EXPLOITS OF RICHMOND;

EXPOSURE OF THE SPY SYSTEM; LETTERS OF ANDREW HARDIE, &c.

Bru. Do you know them?

Luc.

No, Sir: their hats are pluck'd about their ears,

And half their faces buried in their cloaks,

That by no means I may discover them

By any mark of favour.

Bru. Let them enter.

They are the faction.-O Conspiracy!

Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night

When evils are most free? O, then, by day

Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough

To mask thy monstrous visage?

Not Erebus itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.-Shakespeare.

"As there can be no truth (continues Fulton in his letter to Mr. Lang) in the report of a man having dispersed copies of the same Address, printed in the same manner as those of Glasgow; I can positively affirm, that there was not a single copy thrown off by us before Saturday morning, a few minutes after 12 o'clock. We composed the types a few minutes before 12 o'clock (at night), and we put it on the Press as soon as it was corrected. We had the best half of them ready before five o'clock in the morning, and about seven, I carried all that was thrown off to the house of the above-mentioned Craig. We began again at nine o'clock on Saturday night, and had them all off before 12, and it (the Address) was distributed immediately. Lees got the second package in the office, at midnight. I saw him in about half an hour afterwards in the Globe tavern, where he was sitting along with Craig and Mrs Lees, when I received seventeen shillings in cash, and here the business closed with us concerning the Address. Lees told me that when the Militia were overpowered, that a Manifesto would be published, stating the grounds on which they, the Radicals, had taken up arms, and which was to be followed by a paper currency to pay the Radical troops which were collected. That the five counties were to produce upwards of 70,000 effective men. It appears to me that Lees was either a Spy, or the dupe of a Spy. As for Craig, he was drilling a party of pikemen, on the Sauchiehall Road, when the Policemen made their appearance. In the hurry to get out of the road, one of the pikemen broke a lamp with his pike, and Craig being near, was seized by the Police, and taken to Anderston, where he was examined by Mr. Houldsworth, J. P. He was fined in five shillings-but not having it, the Justice himself became No. VI.] [Price 2d.

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bound for him, and gave him his liberty. Now, it is very strange that a Justice of the Peace would become bail for a prisoner of this description, but we must not judge too rashly. The time he was seized was on Monday night, but I cannot with any degree of certainty state as to the time of night. This man's nephew was at Bonnymuir, but escaped. If you inquire concerning Craig, perhaps you may lead to a detection, or, perhaps you will find Lees, and this is the only clue to the affair I can give you. Hoping you will be able to trace it to its source, I remain your obedient servant,

To Mr. William Lang, Printer, Glasgow.

R. F. FULTON.

On the above letter of R. F. Fulton's, a few explanatory remarks seem called for. He was known to be a Radical Reformer; and hence Lees and Craig, no doubt, anticipated that they could make him, and his assistant in the Printing-office, the more easily their dupes. That they inspired Fulton with the notion that a great rising was on the eve of taking place in England cannot be doubted, and how artful was it for Lees to keep up the interest of the thing, and to make it look serious, by avoiding his first appointment with Fulton, on the pretence that the Secret Committee" were watched (directed seems now the fit word that ought to be employed) by the local authorities!" Yet, they (Lees and Co.) send for this youth on the day following, (Thursday,) give him £1 3s. to purchase paper, telling him that "the copy of the Address was then transcribing," and they make an appointment to meet him at the Cross of Glasgow, that evening at half-past eight o'clock. Why, we wonder it did not strike Fulton, as we are sure it must now strike every body, that, if it was dangerous to meet Lees at the corner of Ingram-street on the Wednesday, it was equally dangerous (if not more so) to meet him at the Public Cross, on the very next evening! But they adjourn to the Globe tavern in the Saltmarket-the very place, we beg our readers to observe, where Richmond held some of his meetings; and Lees, to give the thing a little more stage effect, pulls out the copy of the Address, "which he had concealed between his stockings and his legs," and prevails upon this raw, unexperienced youth, and another boy of the name of Hutchison (the son of highly respectable parents), to enter their master's office during the night, and unknown to their master, to print several hundreds of this Treasonable Address, for which they received a few shillings, though Lees and Co., we dare say, took care to be exceedingly well paid for it otherwise. Fulton affirms, "that none of the copies were printed by him, or in bis master's office, till the Saturday morning;" but it by no means follows that other copies of it were not printed previously, and even subsequently, in other places and we repeat the statement in the 5th No., p. 74, "that a copy of this Treasonable Address was in the hands of the Magistrates of Glasgow, on Friday-twenty-four hours before it was put up, or published in Glasgow." Observe, that Lees delivered his copy to Fulton on the Thursday evening, and Fulton states, "that it was written in a form something like a law paper, and had much the appearance of having been written by a hand accustomed

with writing." Now, we are in a condition to prove, that the copy delivered by Lees to Fulton, was written by John Anderson, Junior, son of the late Mr. John Anderson, Writer in Glasgow, from a printed copy, furnished to him by Duncan Turner, formerly alluded to, who was, undoubtedly, an emissary, or a Spy, of the Government. And we assert, that the authorities of Glasgow knew this perfectly well. For John Anderson, Jun., was apprehended on the Friday following, viz., the 7th of April, on a warrant of the Sheriff, at the instance of the Fiscal, "charged guilty of circulating, publishing, and posting up the above treasonable address," on which occasion, he, in his written declaration, emitted before the Sheriff, exposed the whole truth concerning the address; and if the statement now made by us shall be denied by the local authorities, or any one connected with them, we hereby challenge them to produce the original written declaration of Anderson, which ought still to be in their possession, and let the truth at once be made evident. But this is not all. A warrant was subsequently granted against Anderson, viz., on 21st April, 1820, ordering him to be detained in jail, “till liberated in due course of law;" and therefore he ought to have been brought to trial by the authorities, and acquitted or condemned.

But what is the fact? Anderson wrote to LORD SIDMOUTH, telling how he was situated, and the consequence was, that Anderson never was brought to trial at all. He was liberated on the 4th of August, on caution!!" It was policy-aye, it was State policy”to keep him confined in the jail till then, lest he should tell tales out of it, before Hardie and Baird and Wilson were convicted. But the moment he got out of jail, he was dispatched to the East-Indies, where we believe he is at this moment !

We have still a few additional facts to tell respecting this "Treasonable Address," before we come to the bloody affair at Bonnymuir. We hope our readers will not grudge the tedium, or think any of these details unimportant. Our sole anxiety is to make the chain as complete as possible, in order that we may be enabled to pull the real enemies of our country to pieces, or enable the public to fix upon them the stamp of "everlasting reproach."

It is of consequence to keep in view, that the local authorities issued no proclamation or offer of reward for the authors, printers, or publishers of the "Treasonable Address," till Tuesday the 4th of April, though it was put up on the Saturday night, or Sunday morning, and notoriously known through the whole city of Glasgow, in the course of the Sunday! No doubt the authorities issued a proclamation on the Monday; and we beg our readers again to refer to this first proclamation, (No. 5. p. 76), and we leave them, or any rational man, now to say whether that first Proclamation was not almost as much calculated to create terror and alarm, as the Treasonable Address itself? We defy any man, who now candidly peruses it for the first time, to draw any other conclusion from it than this, viz., that Glasgow, on that day, was in a state of actual, or, at least, approaching insurrection. For the very first line of this Proclamation states, “In conse

quence of the present threatening appearances, the Magistrates hereby order all shops to be shut, until tranquillity is restored, at the hour of six; and they hereby enjoin all the inhabitants to retire to their houses, not later than seven o'clock. All strangers are enjoined to withdraw from the city, and parties or groupes of people standing together, or walking in the streets after seven o'clock, will be deemed disturbers of the peace, and dealt with accordingly. If the lamps are put out, the inhabitants are desired immediately to illuminate their windows with as much light as they can conveniently command.-GOD SAVE THE KING."

Now, we aver that no riot or disturbance took place in Glasgow on the Sunday, or the Monday. Neither man, woman, or child, were killed or even wounded, in consequence of any riot or rising. And but for the previous "Treasonable Address" itself, which we are now bringing home to the proper quarter, the City of Glasgow might have been as quiet then, as we have no doubt it will be to-morrow; nor was there any more occasion for that Proclamation, on Monday the 3d of April, 1820, than there will be on Monday first, the 11th June, 1832. The Proclamation, then, we repeat, was alarming on the face of it,-but this was, perhaps, one of the very things wanted, and there is even some proof to bear us out in that conjecture, for Richmond's memorable declaration again presents itself to our notice, viz. that THE DELUSION WAS KEPT UP UNDER THE EYE OF GOVERNMENT"-and that "IT HAD THE CHIEF INFLUENCE IN MISLEADING THE POPULATION IN

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THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS." And surely it is scarcely necessary for us to remind our readers, that the Government of 1817, was the Government of 1820.

It was, of course, necessary for the local authorities to show, at least, some apparent anxiety for the apprehension of the authors and publishers of the Treasonable Address-and hence they put out the Proclamation of Tuesday the 4th of April, offering "a reward of £300 to any person or persons, who should within fourteen days from that date discover and apprehend those guilty of this overt act of High Treason."

To keep up "this solemn farce," as Richmond called it, (would that it had not ended in a solemn Tragedy!) they, "the local authorities," early in the week, employed three highly respectable gentlemen in: Glasgow, whose avocations they thought were such as would enable them to assist in discovering the place or printing office in Glasgow, where the Treasonable Address was published, and about which all was still kept a profound mystery. We are not aware that we commit any indelicacy in now publishing the names of these three gentlemen, as follows, viz. Mr. William Reid, late of the Glasgow Courier office-Mr. Robert Chapman, late Printer in Glasgow, and Mr. James Haldane, Engraver there. These gentlemen, under the direction of the local authorities, personally examined the types and printing-office of almost every printer in the city, and among the rest-those of Mr. William Lang and Mr. Duncan Mackenzie. This was done early in the week, immediately after the second Proclamation appeared. And it is only an act of justice to the.

gentlemen named, to state, as we now do, that they discharged their duty, delicate as it was, with fidelity and honour. They reported their conviction that Mr. Lang, from the state of his types, could not be the printer of the Address; but, on the other hand, they reported their conviction that if the Address was printed any where in Glasgow, it was in the office of Mr. Duncan Mackenzie.

This corresponded, we need scarcely remind our readers, precisely with the fact; for Fulton and Hutcheson were the apprentices or servants of Mr. Mackenzie, and had used his types in a way utterly unknown to him. But what did the authorities of Glasgow do, in the face of this report, delivered to them by these gentlemen? Did they instantly apprehend Mackenzie? No!-Did they send officers to search his premises- or to apprehend and bring for examination' any of his men? No!!! They waited, or delayed doing any thing of that sort, till certain other hellish projects were accomplished. But they pounced upon innocent parties. They sent a party of police, and soldiers with drawn bayonets, to the house of Mr. Lang, and dragged him out of his bed at two o'clock on the following Sabbath morning, and carried him as a prisoner, not to the Jail of Glasgow, but to the Common Bridewell-and these two gentlemen, Messrs. James Hardie and Thomas Hopkirk, Justices of the Peace, for both of whom an application was made to Lord Sidmouth for pensions, or an allowance in respect of their active services" on that and other occasions,' attended by a strong body of military, ransacked the whole of Mr. Lang's premises on the following day,-carried off the whole of his books and papers-turned his men out of his premises from their lawful employment-locked his doors-and carried away the keys with them! But this species of arbitrary conduct towards Mr. Lang did not stop here. He still lives respected and esteemed by his fellowcitizens; but let him thank God that his life was not foresworn in 1820, because an attempt, as he well knows, was actually made by Calder, the notorious Sheriff-officer, to get one of his (Mr. Lang's) apprentices to fasten the printing of the Treasonable Address on Mr. Lang, for which that apprentice was offered the tempting sum of £300, "and to be made a gentleman for life." Mr. Turner of Thrushgrove, and many other individuals, were likewise apprehended and treated in a similar manner. In fact, the Jail and Bridewell of Glasgow were literally crammed with innocent, but "suspected" persons,-suspected, forsooth, because they were honest Reformers in the worst of times.

Now, we put this following plain, but significant question, which naturally arises from the facts in reference to the report of Messrs. Reid, Chapman, and Haldane, already referred to.-We ask, why did the Magistrates or local authorities of Glasgow, to whom that report was made, not immediately act upon it?

We here drive them on the horns of a dilemma, from which it is in vain for them to escape. If they apprehended Mr. Lang thus early, why did they delay the apprehending of Mr. Mackenzie, on whom the report specially alighted? They surely will not invert the order of things, and say that they preferred to have innocent victims, and to