History of the German Struggle for Liberty Volume 3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...home from Parliament; and on February 19th he made a secret report to a committee of the Lords and Commons (cf. pp. 156, et seq.) that "a traitorous conspiracy had no doubt been formed for the purpose of overthrowing the established government and effecting a general plunder." On the 24th of the same month Sidmouth, in moving the second reading of a bill for suspending the habeas corpus--or, in other words, of introducing Prussian police methods into England--said that "such was the nature of the evidence that it left no doubt in the minds of the committee that a traitorous conspiracy had been formed in the metropolis for the purpose of overthrowing, by means of a general insurrection, the established government and of effecting a general plunder and division of property." His letters bristle with dread of revolutionary plots. In 1819 (August 16th), while, therefore, the Carlsbad Conference was in session, he wrote to his daughter anent the Manchester meeting, at which the soldiers had killed six participants, and trusts "this will prove a salutary lesson to modern reformers"; as though British reformers would be discouraged by half a dozen killed, more or less. "It is essential," wrote Lord Ellenborough (son of the first peer of that name) to Sidmouth, September 19, 1819, "that some law should pass to prevent the drilling, either secretly or publicly, except under the King's authority." Sidmouth was delighted with the result of the repressive legislation with which his name is identified. He wrote in 1820: "The accounts from the country are improving--that is, the loyal are becoming more confident and the radicals less so. "The press is the fons ct origo mali. Its licentiousness and the facility o...