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.
Print of St. Peter's
Massacre
(1)
John Smith, a
journalist at Liverpool Mercury,
gave evidence at Henry Hunt's trial 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.
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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