Newport Chartists Vol.5, p.19

Description

19
At ten o'clock on the morning of Sunday Mr Thos Jones Phillips the
Clerk to the Magistrates for the Borough of Newport and the Division of Bedwel[l]ty
brought me a letter which he had received from Mr Samuel Homfray describing
conduct and proceedings on the part of the men on the previous evening which led
him to apprehend an immediate rising and to believe that attacks were meditated upon
the troops who were stationed in different parts of the County and upon the Gaol
of Monmouth - Mr Phillips left me to proceed to Tredegar and had not left my
house many minutes when Mr John Llewellyn of Abercarne called upon me to
state that when at Lanover on the previous day he had been told by a person of the
name of Wilks that three persons had that morning left Nantyglo and come to Lanover in
order to escape from the Chartists who had been out the previous night in considerable
numbers with the view as was believed to compel persons to join them and as one of
those three persons was a Pensioner it was supposed they were particularly anxious
to secure him -

Mr Llewellin added that on his return to Abercarne the previous night
a person who worked for Mr Powell at the Bryn Colliery had come to his
house and informed him that the Chartists at the Collieries and Iron Works were
to rise on the night of Sunday and march to Newport in order to surprise and
disarm the Soldiers and afterwards to attack the Town after which they were
to proceed to Monmouth to attack the Gaol and release the Prisoners - That
they had been meeting in their Lodges for some nights - That they were
inrolled in Companies of 10 with a Leader to each Company - That a person
working at Mr Powell's Colliery who had been chosen a leader of a Company
had run away that day in order to avoid joining the party having first
communicated to Mr Llewellin's informant his reason for doing so - this
informant chanced to be either a relation or a friend of one Edmund George a
Sub Agent of Sir Benjamin Halls on whom he called to communicate what he
knew and was by him sent to Mr Llewellyn - On receiving this information
I wrote to the Home Secretary the Lord Lieutenant of the County to the Mayor
of Monmouth - the Vicar of Abergavenny and to Mr Richards the Town Clerk
of Cardiff and Agent to the Lord Lieutenant of the County of Glamorgan -

The letters to the Home Office , the Vicar of Abergavenny and to Mr
Richards were sent by post that to the Mayor of Monmouth was forwarded by an
express and that to the Lord Lieutenant was sent by my Servant - Shortly afterwards
the Lord Lieutenant arrived at Newport having met my Servant on the road & having
himself been informed at eleven o'clock that morning that a rising was intended at the
Iron Works in the Neighborhood of Pontypool . Having conferred with him on the proceedings
necessary to be taken I waited on Captain Stack whom I found at the Barracks & having

[left margin/ lines16-18:]
Should not the evidence
of this person be
obtained if possible

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