The Radical’s Arms and The Six Acts

This rather nasty cartoon appears, ostentatiously, to mock the French Revolution and often has that as a caption. It certainly includes badges and symbols of the French radicals. Trampled under the feet of the central figures, however, are the Magna Carta, the crown, and symbols of the established church.

The image was published in November 1819. Three months before, the 15th Hussars and the Cheshire Volunteers attacked a group of 60,000 demonstrators in Manchester. It came to be called The Peterloo Massacre. It is an expression of the fears of the upper classes.

The rally had been called to focus on the depressed economy, the price of bread, and the need for political reform. The industrial cities of the north had no voice in Parliament. It was by all accounts peaceful and orderly. A march of that size by the populous fed upper-class terror of revolution and the Reign of Terror. Nervous officials touched off the unprovoked attack. That November, at about the time this cartoon was published, the powers that be pushed through The Six Acts, six reactionary and repressive laws. They were:

1. The Training Prevention Act made any person attending a meeting for the purpose of receiving training or drill in weapons liable to arrest and transportation.
2. The Seizure of Arms Act gave local magistrates the power to search any private property for weapons and seize them and arrest the owners.
3. The Misdemeanours Act reduced the opportunities for bail and allowed for speedier court processing in order to push through faster convictions.
4. The Seditious Meetings Act required the permission of a sheriff or magistrate in order to convene any public meeting of more than 50 people if the subject of that meeting was concerned with “church or state” matters.
5. The Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act (or Criminal Libel Act)  toughened the existing laws to provide for more punitive sentences for the authors of such writings.
6. The Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act extended and increased taxes to cover those publications which had escaped duty by publishing opinions and not news.