of the slogan "Bread or Blood", only one person is recorded as having been killed during the riots, which was one of the rioters by the action of a soldier or farmer. The rioters' only intent was to damage property. Similar patterns of disturbances and their rapid spread across the country were often blamed on agitators or on "agents" sent from France, where the revolution of July 1830 had broken out a month before the Swing Riots had begun in Kent. Despite all of the different tactics used by the agricultural workers during the unrest, their principal aims were simply to attain a minimum living wage and to end rural unemployment. A 2021 study that examined how information and diffusion shaped the riots found "that information about the riots traveled through personal and trade networks but not through transport or mass media networks. This information was not about repression, and local organizers played an important role in the diffusion of the riots". Aftermath Eventually, the farmers agreed to raise wages, and the parsons and some landlords reduced the tithes and rents. However, many farmers reneged on the agreements, and the unrest increased. Many people advocated political reform as the only solution to the unrest, one of them being the radical politician and writer William Cobbett. The authorities had received many requests to prosecute him for the speeches that he had made in defence of the rural labourer, but it was for his articles in the Political Register that he was eventually charged with seditious libel. He wrote an article, The Rural War, about the Swing Riots. He blamed those in society who lived off unearned income at the expense of hard-working agricultural labourers; his solution was parliamentary reform. During his trial in July 1831 at the Guildhall, he subpoenaed six members of the cabinet, including the prime minister. Cobbett defended himself by going on the attack. He tried to ask the government ministers awkward questions supporting his case, but they were disallowed by the Lord Chief Justice. However, he was able to discredit the prosecution's case, and at great embarrassment to the government, he was acquitted. A major concern was that the Swing Riots could spark a larger revolt. That was reinforced by the 29 July 1830 revolution in France, which overthrew Charles X, and the independence of Belgium from the Netherlands later in 1830. The support for parliamentary reform