Source 6

Transcript

Notice.

It has been made to appear to the Magistrates acting for the Hundred [division of land] of Wotton, that Hand-bills [small posters] have been circulated and stuck up in three of the Parishes of this Hundred, tending to excite discontent in the minds of the labouring Classes, and to create dissatisfaction and ill-will towards the Government, through the means of deception and misrepresentation, the Magistrates, – with a view to protect the honest labourer from the mischievous designs of men, known in this case to be strangers to the county, and to have no common interest with those whom they would mislead, – feel themselves called upon, in their characters of conservators of the public peace, and as the true friends of the labourers amongst whom they live, to warn them against the objects of these strangers, who, if they should excite them into violations of the law, would, as has been done on so many recent occasions, leave them to suffer the consequences of crime, which, but for such influence, they might never have thought of committing. …