John Smith, the editor of the Liverpool Mercury, was on the
platform with most of the other journalists during the meeting at
St. Peter's Field on 16th August, 1819. Like Richard
Carlile, Smith escaped before the Manchester
& Salford Yeomanry made their arrests. As writing a critical
report on the behaviour of the soldiers at the Peterloo
Massacre, Smith also published a pamphlet on the subject entitled
An Impartial Narrative of the Late Melancholy
Occurrences in Manchester.
(1)
John Smith, a journalist at Liverpool Mercury, gave evidence
at the trial of Henry Hunt in March, 1820.
In no case whatever did I see any attempt to resist nor any encouragement
to resistance given to Mr. Hunt, or any other person, either by word,
look, or gesture. I saw no sticks lifted up against the military.
I saw no brickbats or ones thrown till the close of the dispersion,
when I saw one stone thrown. If any stones or brickbats had been thrown,
or any sticks raised in defiance of the military, I must have seen
it. I am more than six feet high, and therefore was able to see all
that took place. I neither heard any offensive expressions uttered,
nor saw any acts of violence committed by the people, from the time
of their assembling to their complete dispersion.
(2) John Smith, letter to the Earl of Derby
(18th August, 1819)
Hunt was beginning to address his countrymen when the volunteer cavalry
of the town, many of whom but a few days before had made the most
violent declarations, rushed upon the people, cutting right and left,
taking forcible possessions of the conductors of the meeting, and
then proceeding by direct charges upon the multitude to force them
from the ground.
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