WHEN any objective person reads accounts of the Radical War or Scottish Insurrection of 1820, the only conclusion can be that the whole affair was rigged from the start by the Scottish authorities – politicians, courts, police and spies.

We saw last week how the “Committee for Organising a Provisional Government” sent out printed documents in early April calling for a general strike. But you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to ask how they were able to do that when most of them had been in custody since March 21.

Mysterious “agents” arranged and paid for the printing, but none of them were ever arrested and charged – might not that have been because they were agents of the police and by extension, the British Government?

To further cover up the document’s real provenance, a reward of £500 was offered for the identification and capture of the authors – it was never claimed, at least not by any ordinary citizen.

Here’s when the whole farrago really begins to stink to high heaven of espionage and agents provocateurs. For there is in existence a contemporary report by a Glasgow police officer known only as Mitchell who had set up a system of informers to tell him everything that was going on among the radicals, as they had become known.

On March 25, Mitchell reported that, following the arrest of the Committee, they had “confessed their audacious plot to sever the Kingdom of Scotland from that of England and restore the ancient Scottish Parliament.”

There you have it – the sundering of the Union was part of the radicals’ project at the outset.

READ MORE: Back in the Day: The Radical War that lasted a matter of days

Mitchell then moved his conspiracy: “If some plan were conceived by which the disaffected could be lured out of their lairs – being made to think that the day of ‘liberty’ had come – we could catch them abroad and undefended.”

Mitchell noted that “few know of the apprehension of the leaders ... so no suspicion would attach itself to the plan at all”. Here was the spy’s next boastful claim to his superiors: “Our informants have infiltrated the disaffected’s committees and organisation, and in a few days you shall judge the results.”

As we saw last week, the plan worked beautifully in favour of the authorities. The radicals were split and disorganised and were easily dealt with in towns across west central Scotland. The Radical “War” had consisted of a few one-sided skirmishes and the so-called “Battle” of Bonnymuir.

The radical leaders – those already not in jail, don’t forget – were all arrested and their trials on capital charges such as treason were soon organised.

In the immediate aftermath of the War there was one bloody incident in Greenock that showed the determination of the authorities to crack down on the radicals at any costs.

It was almost two years ago that Gordon Bryce of the 1820 Society wrote to remind me what happened in Greenock on Saturday, April 8, 1820. I have verified his account and have no hesitation in printing it again: “Paisley was a weaving town and its weavers were actively involved in the Radical War for social change within the weaving industries.

READ MORE: Back in the Day: The events that led to the Radical War of 1820

“Five weavers from Paisley were arrested and sent to Greenock Prison, which was situated in Bank Street, Greenock. This is when Greenock’s sense of social injustice and drive for social rights kicked in. When news of these arrests and imprisonment of these prisoners reached the ears of the citizens, a mob of Greenockians, angered by the social injustice to these prisoners, stormed the prison. Reminiscent of the Storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789, they released all the prisoners.

“It was now Greenock’s turn to be made to pay for their actions. The militia were called in to dispel the mob. This they did by opening fire on the mob reminiscent of the Nazis opening fire on the citizens of Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944, and on Lidice on June 10, 1943.

“Some 18 citizens were shot, six dying in the street and two dying later in hospital. The youngest, James MacGilp, was only eight-years-old and the oldest, John MacWhinnie, was 65. No-one was ever tried or convicted of this atrocity.

“There is a permanent Radical War Memorial sculpture on Bank Street, Greenock, and a plaque further up Bank Street on the wall listing the names and ages of those who died.”

The dead were: Adam Clephane, 48; James Kerr, 17; William Lindsay, 15; James MacGilp, 8; Archibald Drummond, 20; John MacWhinnie, 65; John Boyce, 33; Archibald McKinnon, 17. The last named died of his wounds on May 5, 1820, but he was not to be the last victim of judicial murder.

Gordon has just written to tell me the following: “My interest in the 1820 Rising stemmed from my friendship with fellow Greenockian Iain Ramsay, who was and still is the Chairman of the 1820 Society. At Iain’s suggestion I joined the 1820 Society and my interest in the society led me to be voted onto the full committee. I was further appointed the research officer, researching the events leading up to Saturday, April 8, 1820 and the aftermath.

“On Wednesday, April 8, 2020, the Inverclyde District Council, in conjunction with the 1820 Society, are holding a bi-centennial ceremonial at the Hands of the Fallen Monument on Bank Street, Greenock at 3pm.

“It is appropriate that the commemoration is on the exact day of the atrocity.”

Well done to the Society and the Council for this initiative.

The Greenock killings were the dreadful end of the Radical War and the biased press rejoiced. The Glasgow Herald had warned, however, that “the conspiracy appears to be more extensive than almost anyone imagined” and opined that “radical principles are too widely spread and too deeply rooted to vanish without some explosion, and the sooner it takes place the better.”

The indiscriminate slaughter in Greenock was the prelude to something for which no excuse can be made – the state killing of men for their beliefs.

A SERIES of what were intended to be show trials took place over the summer of 1820. But thanks to the jurors, the trials of 85 men for treason and other offences were actually conducted with considerable fairness on the most part, except when the leaders featured.

In Glasgow, on July 20, the trial for treason took place of James “Purly” Wilson, the hosier from Strathaven who had led the radicals’ march from that town.

The Herald reported the start of his trial as follows: “The indictment was read by the Clerk of Arraigns, charging the prisoner with sticking up in various places, and acting upon the recommendation of, the Glasgow Treasonable Address of April 1, which was read as part of the indictment; with procuring arms and ammunition for the purpose of levying war against our Lord the King, and, along with others, marching in military array, with arms in their hands, for the purpose of making war on the soldiers of the King; with appointing commanders to lead them against the troops of the country, with imprisoning various subjects of the King, for the purpose of forcing them to accompany them in levying war against the government of the country, and arraying themselves in military order in the parish of Avondale, on or about April 6, with Arms in their hands, for the avowed purpose of assisting to overthrow the constitution.”

The indictment took two hours to read. The press reported: “It is interesting to note that one of the chief witnesses against Wilson was Sheriff Aiton of Hamilton. Aiton had confessed to having attempted to bribe men into forging pikes so that they should be liable for a charge of treason.”

Proof positive, you would think, of the state’s underhand dealings.

Wilson was found not guilty on three counts, but guilty of “compassing to levy war against the King in order to compel him to change his measures”. The jury recommended mercy, but the death sentence was inevitable.

Seven of Wilson’s colleagues were found not guilty and another was discharged.

On August 4, in Stirling, the major trial took place of the prisoners taken at Bonnymuir. John Baird and Andrew Hardie were named ringleaders, effectively sealing their fate. Two men from Camelon, Andrew Dawson and John McMillan, changed their pleas to guilty, and a further six radicals were discharged in what appears to have been some sort of plea bargain.

All of the following were found guilty at Stirling and elsewhere, and were transported to New South Wales, Australia, where in 1835 they were given a royal pardon: John Anderson, John Barr, William Clackson or Clarkson, James Cleland, Andrew Dawson, Robert Gray, Alexander Hart, Alexander Johnson (he was just 15), Alexander Latimer, Thomas McCulloch, Thomas McFarlane, John McMillan, Benjamin Moir, Allan Murchie, Thomas Pike or Pink, William Smith, David Thompson, Andrew White and James Wright.

James Wilson was executed on August 30. The Herald reported: “The day was fine and the crowd assembled was some 20,000 spectators. The ground was well guarded; by a party of the rifle brigade, the 33rd regiment and a number of the 3rd dragoon guards.”

Wilson remarked to the executioner: “Did you ever see sic a crowd as this?”

Then he was hanged until he was dead, before the executioner decapitated him and held up his head saying “behold the head of a traitor” only for some in the crowd to shout he had been murdered and had “bled for his country”.

Baird and Hardie were never going to get clemency, even though influential people petitioned for it, having seen the widespread revulsion over Wilson’s fate.

Blind as ever, the British Establishment went about creating more martyrs, and Hardie and Baird were executed in the same barbaric fashion as Wilson on September 8, in front of a crowd of 2000 people.

Hardie’s last words were: “Suffering countrymen, I remain under the firm conviction and I die a martyr in the cause of truth and justice, and in the hope that you will soon succeed in the cause which I took up arms to defend.”

Baird said: “Although this day we die an ignominious death by unjust laws our blood, which in a very few minutes shall flow on this scaffold, will cry to heaven for vengeance, and may it be the means of our afflicted countrymen’s speedy redemption.”

It seems almost incredible, but the men who were transported to Australia not only survived, but prospered. One of them, Tom McCulloch, wrote to his wife asking her to come and join him.

He wrote: “The whole of our party is much respected here by the most respectable people in this country, and if you will only come out, a steady man and women can do very well.”

The poet Lord Byron followed the case and wrote:

“They never fail who die in a great cause

The block may soak their gore;

Their heads may sodden in the run:

Their limbs be strung to city gate and castle walls,

But still their spirits walk abroad!”

Next week I’ll show how the radicals won.