The History of England, Vol. 6 of 7: From the Accession of George III., 1760, to the Accession of Queen Victoria, 1837 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The History of England, Vol. 6 of 7: From the Accession of George III., 1760, to the Accession of Queen Victoria, 1837

Another subject also strongly interested the feelings of parliament, as well as the public. The continu ance of outrages in several of the manufacturing counties provoked the enactment of a severe law, which made the breaking of frames, and administering of illegal oaths, a capital felony, and compelled the parties in whose houses frames should be broken, to furnish information to the magistrates. It was against the second reading of this bill on the twenty-seventh of February that lord Byron made his first address to the house of lords, in a strain of sarcasm more fitted to a popular meeting, than to that dignified assembly. The measure was ably defended by the lord chancellor, who explained the error of the notion that the laboring classes were injured by the introduction of machinery: the bill was strongly opposed in the lower house by sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. Whitbread, and sir Francis Bur dett. As murder had in several instances been added to other crimes by the rioters, a special commission, as well as a military force, was sent into the disturbed districts; and many criminals, being convicted, were condemned to the extreme punishment Of the law; though the greater part obtained a remission of their sentence.

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