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 Es^qr 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.

Filed under:luddites