Note 444 — Chapter XI · THE LAST LABOURERS’ REVOLT

Ten days later, after Lord Melbourne’s circular of December 8, Dr. Newbolt changed his tone. Writing to the Home Office he deprecated the censure implied in that circular, and stated that his conduct was due to personal infirmities and threats of violence: indeed he had subsequently heard from a certain Mr. Wickham that ‘I left his place just in time to save my own life, as some of the Mob had it in contemplation to drag me out of the carriage, and to destroy me upon the spot, and it was entirely owing to the interference of some of the better disposed of the Peasantry that my life was preserved.’