Enemie Anonimous
A letter from an unknown Luddite to a local magistrate:
Huddersfield 21 October 1812 Ratclif
Sir,
I drop you this as a warning that I have for some time Eyed you as your Publick character act with so much injustice to almost every individual that has had the misfortune to come before you that I and my two Assocites is this hour your sworn Enimes and all his Magistes forces will not save you, for I dow not regard my own life if I can have reveang of you which I mos ashuredly will make myself another Jhn Bellingham and I have the Pellit mad that shall be wet in you Harts Life Blood if I should dow it in the hous of God
I with hatered your sworn Enemie Anonimous
Add. Joseph Ratclif Esqr Millns Bridge
There’s something powerful about even the meanest and most brutish of the Luddite’s threatening letters. Both assertive and cowardly, at-once vengeful and impotent, the enemie anonimous rebukes the powerful and spits the venom of the downtrodden.
Text from Writings of the Luddites by Kevin Binfield.