Note 6 — {263} INTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNAL

December 2, 1816, a large mob collected at Spa-fields, London, and after addresses by certain Radicals and Spencean Philanthropists (members of a society which aimed to abolish private property), it proceeded to take possession of the Tower, but disbanded before much damage had been done. Feeling confident that sedition was being plotted in all the newly-organized clubs throughout England, Parliament (March 3, 1817) authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. March 25, the Seditious Meetings Act was passed, prescribing the death penalty for refusal to discontinue any meeting when required to do so by a magistrate (see Parliamentary Debates, xxxv, pp. 795, 826, 1083, 1227). The reformers regarded these laws as subversive of all liberty; Cobbett headed the articles in his Register, "A History of the Last Hundred Days of English Freedom, ending with the passing of the Absolute-Power-of-Imprisonment Act, in the Month of March, 1817."—Ed.