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r DEATH OF JOHN FROST, THE…

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r DEATH OF JOHN FROST, THE CHA11TIST. There passed awa.y on Saturday last, at our neigh- bouring village, Stapleton, and at the patriarchal age of 93 year, a gentleman who, although he has for some ytsars past lived in such perfect retirement that the world ma.y be almost said to have lost sight of him, at one time played a very stirring part in a great political movement, a.nd even went to the extreme point of at- tempting to overturn by force of arms the existing form of Governiue-it. We allude to Mr John Frost, whom everybody must hare heard or read of AS a famous and condemned Chartist leader. Mr Frost's death recalls one of the most troublous epochs in modern political his- tory. An agitation had been set on foot for enforcing on the Government and Parliament what was designated the People's Charter." Sundry agitators, prominent amongst whom were Mr Feargus O'Connor, Mr Julian Harvey, Mr Joseph Rayner Stephens, Mr IIy. Vincent, and others, were the prime promoters of the movement, and they, by their violent language, succeeded in draw- ing around them a larg nuinberofsyiupathisers amongst the rough colliery and mining populations of the North of England and South Wales, as well as in some districts of London, at Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, and other parts of England. It was an axiom of the Chart- ists that until their pet measure was adopted the people of England were living in a state of political serfdom, and some of their orators made no secret of their resolve to obtain its acceptance even, if necessary, at the cannon's mouth or the point ot the bayonet. Mr John Frost, in the month of November, 1839, car- ried on the business of a draper at Newport, Monmouth- Fhire. He was a member of the Town Council, and had just quitted the office of layor; and took very strong views upon political questions, his respect for things as they were not having probably been much heightened by the fact that he had in the course of his career been fined £ 1000 to the Crown and imprisoned for six months in the Coldbathfields Prison for a trenchant pamphlet which h« wrote reflecting upon a gentleman named Prothero. When the Chartist movement was on foot, Mr Frost, who wns a man of considerable ability and very earnest as a politician, allied himself to it, and was amongst the persons of social influence by whom it was fostered in Monmouthshire and South Wales. Some of the language in which he indulged in connexion with the question led to his being called upon by Lord John Russell to resign his position as a magistrate. He, however, refused in a well-written and spirited letter, and no further hostile action was taken by the Government. It is not our pur- pose to pursue the history of the Chartist rebellion fur- ther than as necessary to elucidate the history of Mr Frost. A plot was formed, by which it was agreed that the Chartists in the Monmouthshire and Welsh hills should march armed upon Newport, that they should take possession of the town, and destroy the bridge so as to prevent the travelling of the mails, and tha.t the non- arrival of tha mails in the North should be the signal for a simultaneous rising there. This rebel army was divided into three corps. Frost was commander of one, Zephaniah Williams, a colliery manager and tavern- keeper of Machen, of a second, and Wm. Jones, a watch- maker, of Pontypool, of the third corps. Several thou- sands of men enlisted under these three leaders, and armed with what was known as the Chartist pike," with guns and mandrils, they on the night of the 3rd of November, 1839, marched upon Newport, reaching that town at two o'clock on the morning of the 4th. Frost's corps was the first to reach, Williams's was some ten mi- nutes late, and Jones's did not get far beyond Malpas. Mr Thomas Phillips, the Mayor of Newport, (who was afterwards knighted), having obtained information of the proposed attack, assembled with other magistrates at the Westgate Hotel, at the bottom of Stow-hill, in which were placed some thirty or forty soldiers, and there awaited the attack. Frost having, as he neared the town, learnt the situation from some beys, divided his forces into two and marched five abreast to the hotel, where they attempted to obtain an entrance, and fired several shots, wounding the Mayor twice, and also in- juring some others amongst those in the hotel. Upon this the soldiers fired, and killed several of the Chartists, amongst whom a panic ensued, and they were speedily routed. For this rebellious act, Frost and Jones and Williams, and several Gthers, vere tried in January, 1840, before a special commission at Monmouth, presided over by the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, Sir Nicho- las C. Tyndall.'and Mr Justice Williams. The Attorney and Solicitor Generals, Mr Sergeant Talfourd, M.P., Mr Sergeant Ludlow, Mr Whiteside, and Mr Talbot ap- peared as counsel for the Crown; and Sir Frederick Pollock, M.P., Mr Fitzroy Kelly, M.P., and Mr Thomas for the prisoners. As they elected to sever their cases, Mr Frost was first tried alone. The indictment charged him under four counts-first, with levying war against the State second, with compassing the deposition of her Majesty the Queen third, with compassing to levy war against the Quoen. The evidence was conclusive, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty, with a recommend- ation to mercy, as they also afterwards did in the cases of Jones and Williams. The Lord Chief Justice passed upon the prisoners the sentence for high treason—viz., to be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, then to be hanged till dead, and then to be decapitated and quartered, their bodies to be afterwards disposed of as di- rected by her Majesty. At wie trial, a curious legal objection was taken against receiving the evidence of any one of the witnesses. It appeared that the true bill against the prisoners was returned on the 11th December. On the 12th copies of the indictment were delivered to them, and on the 17th, five days afterwards, they were served with a list of the witnesses. It was objected by Sir Frederick Pollock and Mr Fitzroy Kelly that as the 7th Anne, cap. 21, sec. 11, required that the list of the witnesses should be delivered with the indictment at least ten days before the trial," the law had not been complied with, an,l no witness could be heard. The Lord Chief Justice considered the point so important that he reserved it for the opinion of the judges. Their Lord- ships, on being afterwards appealed to, were divided re- specting it, and, although a majority ruied in favour of the Crown, it was not thought well, in the face of the doubt, to carry out the death penalty, The sentence was consequently commuted to transportation, and Mr Frost and his companions were sentenced to the penal settle- ment at Van Diemen's Land. In 1856, after he had undergone sixteen years' punishment, a Royal pardon was granted to him, and he returned to his family and country. At first he appeared a little before the public after his arrival, as a lecturer. Since then industrious penny-a-liners and sensation-mongers have inter- viewed' him, and at intervals more than once his death has been prematurely announced. The winter of his eventful life has, however, been paesed in modest retire- ment, in respect wherever truly known, and in the af- fections of all immediately connected with him. So runs the obituary in the Bristol Daily Pott of a man who, under some circumstances, might possibly have made an honourable figure in hi-to-ry -perhaps have been immortalised in an epic, or perpetuated by a statue, and held in perennial remembrance by a grateful posterity. Aged 93 years Only think what a man may do in 93 years! Some (let us say Keats) have found less than a third of that time sufficient to make a lasting mark in the annals of their country. But 93 Will the reader oblige us by going back 93 years, and observing what events have occurred—what great or celebrated men have flourished- during that period. In 1784, when John Frost was mewling and puking in his nurse's arms," America was in the first year of her independence, and two great authors died, Dr. Johnson and Sir John Fielding, the former being the compiler of the most author- ative English Dictionary, and the latter the creator of the most perfectly original work of fiction in the English language. In the same year died, very suddenly, at Rouen, in Normandy, Mr. John Hanbury, M.P., (father of the late C. H. Leigh, Esq). At that time there did not exist in Monmouthshire a tramway or canal. Two years later an iron rail-road was con- structed at Coalbrook Dale but not until 1796, when the canal was opened between Newport and Pontypool, was there any other mode of transit for the produce of Blaenavon and Blaen- dare Ironworks, than that afforded by the backs of horses and mules. In 1791 died John Wesley, (at the age of 88), and in 1793, the Rev. Edward Jones, (the" Prophet of the Tranch,") aged 91 years and 7 months; and if we go back that lengthened term, (something less than the lifer time of John Frost,) we are carried from the 40th year of the reign of Victoria, through the reigns of William 4th, George 4th, George 3rd, 2nd, and 1st, to the days of Queen Anne, when the country was excited, not by the atrocities of I Turks and Russians, but, glorious victories of Marlborough, and thejudieial atrocities of Jeffreys. Somewhere about this time (namely, 1712,) died Richard Cromwell, (son of the great Protector), at the patriarchal age of 90; so that, two pro- tracted lives added to that of John Frost, land us in the days immediately following those of Shakespear and Lord Bacon, and immediately preceding those of the great patriot, John Hampden. Thus we bring together John Hampden and John Frost; and with very small stretch of the imagination we might conceive them changing places in history; for, doubtless, had the latter lived in the days of Charles the First, he would have joined the Commonwealth; and had the former lived in the days of the agitation for the Six Points," he would have been a Chartist. But let us see what other circumstances of local or general interest have been comprised in the period of John Frost's eventful life. In 1793, when he was in the ninth year of his boyhood, the King and Queen of France were beheaded, and England made preparations for a war with that countiy, which ( nl)- terminated-at Waterloo, in 1815. During these stirring times, when history was written in blood, the character of John Frost was formed, and doubtless partook of the vehement nature of those violent days. Lord Howe and the defeat of the French fleet- the executions of Danton and Robespierre-the battles of St. Vincent, the Nile, and Marengo— the Mutiny of the Nore—the Execution of Robert Emmett—Austerlitz and Trafalgar-the Trials of Horne Tooke, Burdett, and Cobbett-the Resto- ration of the Bourbons-the Peterloo Massacre — such were the topics of general conversation throughout England; and we may be sure that in all these topics Frost took no small part. Long before there was any talk of Chartism we find indications of the bent of Frost's mind. In 1821, he issued a pamphlet bearing the following title:- A Letter to Thomas Prothero, Attorney at Law; Agent to Sir Charles M"r-jan, Baronet, of Tredegar, M. P.; Agent to Sir Pwbt. James A'lard Kemeya; Agent to Thomas Nixon, Esq.; Treasurer of the Caerleon Charity; Treasurer and Deputy 1 Sheriff for the County of Monmouth, and Town Clerk of Newport. By John Frost, Newport. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye DEVOUR WIDOWS' HOUSES.Matt. chap. xxiii, verse 1-1. The Jewish scribes, those plunderers of old, Devour' the produce of the land, we're told; E'on widows felt the grasping of this set, For with them all was lish that came to net; But Christian, scribes the Jewish scribes outdo, They swallow houses and the widows too! Published as the Act directs. Cardiff: Printed for the Author, by Samuel Etheridge, of Hampden Cottage, near Newport, Monmouthshire, 1821. Price One Shilling." This pamphlet, which is a good specimen of Frost's trenchant style of writing, is thus introduced:— Well, Tom, all your bothering and all your blustering have ended in smoke! Your wrath bubbled up a little scum only! Ha, ha, ha! You were afraid to bring the letter forward! Faith! you acted wisely. But what a pretty figure you cut! You come before a jury selected by yourself; you tell this jury that I had committed a breach of the law; that you are desirous of punishing me for this supposed breach; and, after the jury had given you the power to bring me to trial, you drop the affair; and solely because you were afraid that your practices as an attorney would be exposed. I think that no man can be placed in a state of greater degradation than to be under the thumb of a lawyer. The black hole at Calcutta was in- finitely preferable to this. Beware how you rouse the lion; sleep is nearly departing from him; if once his anger should be kindled, and he should put his paw on you, you would return to Usk in a pitiable plight. Do you think that the spirit which formerly distinguished the inhabitants of this country is become extinct P You are mistaken; the day of reckoning is not distant when writs of error, and special pleas, and affida- vits will avail but little. Let every one who has been robbed by lawyers keep an account. I have thirty-three charges, clear specific charges, against these learned gentlemen, and I look with as much certainty to obtain redress as I do for the day of my dissolution. It is impossible* that the country will much longer suffer these robbers to proceed with impunity; the cry of the oppressed has ascended up to heaven, and it will not be very long before justice, ample and complete, will be obtained." The above extracts will suffice to show the spirit of the letter and the author's style of writing. The facts involved in the matter were all personal ones, with which the present gene- ration are not concerned. It is not surprising that a pamphlet such as we have quoted from led to further proceedings. (To bejzontinued in our next).

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