Many people believed that given the above the government’s repressive response was fully justified, as reformers stood little chance against such a battery of measures. The authorities were not prepared to take any chances, and occasionally they exceeded their powers. As an example, they prevented the Blanketeers from marching in 1817, due to the fear that this hunger march might come to resemble the ‘Bread march of the Women’ to Versailles in 1789.
In 1819 the government’s public image was faced with disaster, and it’s reputation for repressive reinforced, when the so-called ‘Peterloo Massacre’ was blamed on the Home Office. With hindsight it is clear that any criticism of the government, related to the incident at St. Peters Field, is unjust, as the ‘massacre’ occurred despite rather than because of Home Office advice. The Manchester magistrates decided to send yeomanry into the peaceful crowds at St. Peters Field to arrest the main speaker Henry Hunt despite the fact that Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, had advised that it would be wisest not to intervene unless the mob rioted or committed acts of felony. Thus the ‘massacre’ resulted from the misjudgement of men on the spot acting in a manner directly contrary to Home Office advice.
Liverpool made it clear that he fully supported the action of the magistrates and the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry. Radicals reacted by calling what happened at St. Peter’s Field the ‘Peterloo Massacre’, therefore highlighting the fact that Liverpool’s government was now willing to use the same tactics against the British people that it had used against Napoleon and the French army. This reinforced the government’s reputation for repression.
In fact, Liverpool had ‘no alternative but to support them’, as he himself said in a letter to George Canning in September 1819. Although it was ignoble for Liverpool’s government to have backed the Manchester magistrates after the event, had they followed the course of easy popularity, by condemning their actions, they would have risked greater bloodshed by undermining the authorities of those in the localities upon whom the daily maintenance of law and order depended.
The Six Acts were the immediate reaction to the Peterloo ‘Massacre’. They did not, on the whole, deserve the ‘repressive’ level which some have tried to apply to them, as their scope was greatly exaggerated. Powers given to magistracy to search for arms and prevent mass meetings were strictly temporary, while the other measures merely plugged loopholes in laws that already existed. ‘What is surprising is not their savagery but their restraint’ (Derry).
Another government policy that may not have been as repressive as reputed is the suspension of habeas corpus in 1817. This was intended to be temporary, lasting from June1817 until January 1818, and altogether affecting forty-four people. It was designed as a specific instrument to deal with specific threat, revolutionary subversion. However, the fact does remain that it is evidently immoral to allow anyone to be held in custody for an indefinite period without charges or trail.
The Seditious Meetings Act of 1817 was similarly of brief duration, and was allowed to lapse in 1818. The fact that the government had planned these measures to be temporary showed that they only intended to repress the people until the unrest settled.
Much disorder was actually provoked by the government. This was either indirectly through policies that places intolerable burdens upon the poor (such as the 1815 Corn Law artificially inflating the price of bread), or directly through the practice of employing agent provocateurs. These government informers encouraged law breaking so that they could collect a reward by informing on the lawbreakers. Although this may have been a bit extreme, it could be argued that any possibility of insurrection was nipped in the bud by a government that recognised the threat to the extent of exaggerating it.
In general, however, Liverpool’s government strive to minimise hardship. The 1817 Poor Employment Act made available state loans totalling £750,000 for encouraging the fisheries and public works undertaken by local authorities. Other early reforms of intrinsic importance introduced during the so-called ‘reactionary’ period included the legislation of 1817 alleviating the truck system in coal mines and iron and steel industries: and the promotion of saving banks. Even more important was the 1819 Factory Act, which regulated the employment of children in the mills, and the promotion of Friendly Societies to encourage self-help. Even the much abused Corn Law of 1815, which Liverpool modified in 1822 and wanted to relax still further in 1827, can be regarded as an attempt to smooth the transition from wartime to peacetime by securing the continued viability of the nations chief source of employment.
In conclusion it is clear that the government as a whole were not repressive. The situation between 1815 and the early 1820’s required them to introduce some repressive policies in order for them to take control and deal with the disturbances. His was because there were no practicable alternatives to ‘repression’. Perhaps if any had existed before the 1920’s the government would not have followed that (repressive) course to combat the unrest. However, Liverpool’s options were limited because his resources were so pitifully small. Lacking either a sizable standing army or an effective police force, Liverpool’s government was obliged to rely upon spies and informers. Distrust of police forces was so strong that it was not until 1829 that the metropolitan police were reluctantly sanctioned. However, the government did respond to changing circumstances after 1820 and numerous measures were stopped: For example, the repeal of both the Combination Laws in 1824 and the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828. this made many people believe that the Tories had changed their views and become more in favour of increasing people’s liberties, (hence the phrase ‘Liberal Tories’). This was in act untrue as they did not in any was undergo any kind of conversion to reform. Yes there was a reshuffling of the cabinet, but they were still the same government that had once been called ‘repressive’.
Possibly the only alternative to repression which could have been implemented in the period 1815 to 1820 was the course of action pursued by Peel’s ministry of 1841-6. Peel’s ain was to introduce free trade, which would increase prosperity and hence social stability. However, this course of action was not full available to Liverpool’s government as tariffs could only be reduced if government expenditure was covered by direct taxation. In 1816 the government had been defeated in its efforts to retain the wartime income tax, and therefore lacked the patronage to pursue a policy of free trade, which might have undermined popular discontent.
