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TRADITIONAL TUNES. 161
WITH HENRY HUNT WE'LL GO.
IN 1819, just after the "Peterloo Riots," the song, "With Henry
Hunt we'll go," was much sung in and about Manchester.
Although I have met with several people who remember the song
being sung, yet I cannot get a complete version of it. To Mr.
James B. Shaw, of Cornbrook, Manchester, I am indebted for the
air and the fragment forming the chorus, and the first verse of the
song is supplied by "S.B." — a correspondent in the Manchester
City News.
Henry Hunt is now forgotten, but he was one of an early band
of reformers. He was born in Wiltshire in 1773, and it is said
that (being an opulent farmer) he offered, during an invasion panic
in 1801, the whole of his stock, worth about ^20,000, to the
Government if it were needed.
Having been fined and imprisoned for challenging Lord Bruce,
his feelings turned towards radicalism, and in 181 9 he became the
hero of " Peterloo."
On the 1 6th of August of that year a mass meeting of radical
reformers from many Lancashire towns assembled in St. Peter's
Fields, Manchester. Henry Hunt and several other gentlemen
were sitting in a barouche, upon the box of which was a female
attired as the figure of liberty. Although the crowd appears to have
been peaceable, yet the magistrates were so ill-advised as to attempt
to seize Henry Hunt, and the military were sent to assist Joseph
Nadin the constable in executing the warrant of arrest. All was
confusion, and the military plunged with drawn swords into the
mass of human beings before any were conscious of their danger.
The deaths and injuries sustained by this charge were long remem-
bered, and coming while the memory of Waterloo was still fresh,
the disastrous occurrence was spoken of as " Peterloo." Henry
Hunt was imprisoned for two and a half years for his part in the
transaction.
About this time there was a song, " The Battle of Waterloo,"
popular, and to the tune of this the Henry Hunt song was written,