traveller, probably calculating on the loss of time and money which a regular contest might cause him, said at length-" Weel, if it maun be sae, it maun be sae: doon wi' the Rump, then." And so got rid of his pertinacious and greatly-misrewarded opponent.'-But to return. During these times the magistrates held regular sittings, and compelled all those whom they suspected to take the oaths of allegiance to the reigning monarch. We have little notion now-a-days of the height to which politics were carried a century ago. The feelings of the Jacobites and Whigs penetrated to the assemblies, the Exchange, the Church, and even to private parties and convivial meetings. The toast of the King was a fertile cause of dispute, whenever the question was asked what individual was implied by that name. The impromtu made on such an occasion by Dr. Byrom is well known:'God bless the King-I mean our faith's defender! God bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender! But who Pretender is, or who is King,

God bless us all-that's quite another thing!'

When transportation and execution and massacre had com. pleted their work, and when the towns of the north of England were adorned with the barbarous trophies of eighty human heads, a bill of indemnity was at last introduced, and even then no fewer than eighty exceptions were added to the scrolls of death. Under this act of parliament the Rev. Mr. Clayton, and other gentlemen returned to Manchester, where they met with a joyful reception. The ill-feeling produced among the inhabitants, in consequence of the rebellion, and the circumstances following it, was of long duration, and is to be traced through most of the local tracts and papers for a long series of years afterwards.

CHAPTER XXII.

Trinity Chapel Rebuilt-Infirmary Founded-Dispute Concerning Loom TithesMoral Restraints-Erection of St. Mary's Church-Shude Hill Fight-Duke of Bridgewater's Canal-Chorlton Rant-Corn Riots-Erection of Additional Churches-Public Improvements-Manchester Volunteers-Removal of Thomas Del Booth's Chapel-Commercial Distress-Revival of the Old Party Spirit-Church and King Clubs-Printing Office Attacked-Mr. Walker's Trial-Persecution of Reformers.

PASSING from the sad events connected with the rebellion, we return to the more peaceful annals of the town. In 1751, Trinity Chapel in Salford, was entirely rebuilt, with the exception of the tower; and in the same year the Collegiate Church underwent some repairs. In the following year, the first newspaper of any permanency,' The Mercury', was published by Mr. Harrop. Mr. Whitworth had commenced a periodical some two-and-twenty years previously, but it was rather, as its name imported, a magazine. On June 24, 1752, Manchester's greatest charity, the Infirmary, was opened in Garden Street, Shude Hill. Land for a more suitable building was subsequently purchased from the lord of the manor, and the first stone of the building on the present site of the Royal Infirmary, was laid by the late James Massey, Esq., on May 20, 1754; and £4,000 was then expended on the building. It is needless to say that it has been enlarged and extended many times since. The building on the south side of Marsden Street, at the corner of Brown Street, erected for a theatre, was opened in 1753. Before that time, a temporary building of wood placed near the bottom of King Street, had served as a sanctuary for Thespis.

Till the same year, a claim was made, by the warden and

fellows of the Collegiate Church,upon the weavers of Manchester, of fourpence per loom at Easter, in every year, in lieu of the tithes on the clear yearly gains and profits arising from their art in weaving. This demand was now resisted, and the court of assize at Lancaster, before which the cause was tried, decided in favour of the weavers. The origin of this claim is not well ascertained; but it is supposed to arise from a payment of fourpence a loom annually made by the weavers in ancient times, for the privilege of procuring wood from the forest belonging to the Collegiate body, for the construction and repair of their looms. But the woods having been cut down, so that the weavers were unable to profit by them, they had long ceased to pay the sum demanded. Baines tells us that in 1753, 'twelve women of the town were led through the streets "tied together with a cord like colts going to a fair;" and the vicious life of these unfortunates was thought so great a scandal, that the editor of a public journal announced, that one of the women had disclosed the names of several of her visitors, and that he had it in contemplation to publish them, for the correction of the growing vice.' Things are rather different in our times. According to the same writer Manchester experienced the shock of an earthquake, at midnight of the 22nd of June, of the same year. In the following September, a man named Grindret, a resident of Salford, was executed at Lancaster for poisoning his family. His body was afterwards brought to Manchester, and hung in chains on a gibbet, at the end of Cross Lane, near Windsor Bridge. Further church accommodation being required, an act for the erection of a third church, St. Mary's, was procured this year, and in three years afterwards it was consecrated as a rectory in the gift of the Collegiate Church. The year 1753 is also remarkable as being that of Dr. Deacon's decease. He was buried in St. Ann's church-yard; a tomb at the north-east corner, just opposite to Sir Benjamin Heywood's bank, still recalls his memory.

From 1753 to 1757, the prices of provisions were unusually high, and in the latter year, so great was the scarcity, that several food riots occurred. One of the most serious of these took place in Shude Hill Market, on Tuesday, the 6th of June, when the farm produce exposed for sale was seized by the populace, and a

considerable quantity destroyed. But a much more serious affair took place on Saturday, the 15th of November, when a large body of men from Saddleworth, Oldham, Ashton-under-Lyne, and other places, armed with implements of husbandry and whatever rustic weapons came first to hand, met on Newton Heath, and, having de stroyed a corn mill at Clayton, proceeded to the market place at Shude Hill, where they were met and resisted by the high sheriff, attended by a number of the principal inhabitants, supported by a party of soldiers. Rendered in some degree desperate by their necessities, and never dreaming that the soldiers would fire upon them, the rioters proceeded to acts of outrage; some of them seized the provisions in the market, while others pelted the soldiers with stones, with such violence, that one soldier was killed on the spot, and nine others wounded. Remonstrance and admonition having failed, the soldiers were ordered to fire, and a kind of engagement ensued, long known as 'Shude Hill Fight,' in which four of the rioters were killed, (amongst whom was a boy, who was shot in a tree,) and fifteen wounded. This fatal example dispersed the mob, and restored public tranquillity, which was afterwards preserved by the firm, but conciliatory conduct of the authorities of the town, and by the charitable contributions of the benevolent.

The extensive system of water communications, constructed by the Duke of Bridgewater, date their rise from the years 1758 and 1759, when acts were obtained enabling him to construct a canal from Worsley to Salford, and also to Hollin's Ferry, on the river Irwell; and, secondly, to deviate from that course, and to carry his canal across the Irwell to Manchester. While the carrying out of these designs was in progress, another act, obtained in 1761, gave him power to construct a canal from Longford Bridge to Hempstones, in Halton, so as to obtain direct communication between Manchester and the tidal portion of the river Mersey at Runcorn. The canal from Worsley to Manchester was opened June 17, 1761. The great locks at Runcorn, the heaviest portion of the works upon the second undertaking, having a rise of ninety feet from the river Mersey, were opened on January 10, 1773, and the entire undertaking was completed in 1795, at a cost of £220,000.

In 1759, an act was passed freeing the inhabitants of Manchester from the obligation of grinding their corn at the School Mills, malt only excepted. In the following year, the coronation of George III. was celebrated in Manchester with as much 'pomp and circumstance' as possible. This is the more remarkable from the fact that the coronation of the five previous sovereigns, James II., William III., Queen Anne, George I., and George II., seem to have passed without any popular manifestations of feeling in the town. With the accession of George III,,' says Dr. Hibbert-Ware, a new system of politics was inagurated. The divine right of kings was completely set aside by the establishment of the House of Hanover on the English throne. Nevertheless the politics of this reign differed from those of the preceding one, inasmuch as the late Tories and Jacobites were less inclined to infringe on the power of the throne, or to add to the privileges of the people, which it was deemed were perfectly sufficient for a well organised government. The names of Whigs and Tories were therefore still kept up, though limited in their relative signification; the former signifying those who were inclined to give a considerable share of influence to the democratical part of the government; while Toryism imported an opposite bias, and an inclination that the preponderance of power should rest in the monarchical part of the British constitution. During the reign of George III., a preference was shown to the counsels of such ministries as adopted the principles of the modern Tories, and the preference appears to have given a perfect satisfaction to the late Jacobites, inasmuch as it afforded them an opportunity of triumphing over their old opponents the Whigs and Presbyterians.'

The opposition between these parties in Manchester was first evinced when about the year 1763, it was intended to erect Manchester into a borough under the sanction of a royal charter. With this view it was agreed, that a new municipal government should be formed, the powers of which should be exercised by a certain number of the inhabitants, jointly representing the three great political and religious parties of the town. For instance, the new magistrates were to consist of one-third High Churchmen, one-third Moderate or Low Churchmen, and the remaining third of