| Description | The economic distress which followed the Napoleonic War hit the mining community of Amlwch pretty hard : between 100 and 120 copper miners were out of work there in February 1817; but what aggravated the workers more than anything was the continurd export of grain and potatoes from Anglesey to places like Liverpool, and the suspicion that they themselves were having to make do with corn of an inferior quality (see 1542). The immediate cause of rioting was the seizure by the mob of the rudder of the flat "Wellington" which lay laden with corn ready for shipment in Amlwch harbour. So ugly did the situation become that the local magistrates were forced to call in the military, and two companies of the 45th Regiment came over from Ireland remaining until the beginning of March, by which time a semblance of order had been restored. Most of the information about the trouble comes from the reports of Hugh Wynne Jones of Treiorwerth, rector of Aberffraw and Llantrisant and one of the most conscientious of the Anglesey magistrates. He holds no brief for mob violence, but at the same time is conscious of its underlying causes and stresses the urgent need of financial relief on the part of the mining companies. His letter to John Sanderson on February 28th (1561) contains an interesting reference to the reaction of the Methodist element in Anglesey to an attempt by an English agitator (one Mr Cleary) in 1815 to excite popular feeling; he relates how he (the writer) was assured at the time by John Elias "a methodist preacher of great repute in Anglesey" that "great pains were taken to guard any of the poor classes in the connexion against the delusions held out in the inflamatory language of the letter" (a reference apparently to a tract or a pamphlet circulated at the time) |