In August 1819 , he led a group from Middleton to St Peter 's Fields for a meeting pressing for parliamentary reform and repeal of the Corn Laws . There they witnessed the Peterloo Massacre , and Bamford was arrested and charged with treason . Although no evidence showed that either he or any of his group had been involved in the violence , he was found guilty of inciting a riot and sentenced to a year in Lincoln gaol . The experience of the massacre made a deep impression on Bamford , convincing him that state power would always succeed against radical militancy . He came to be seen as a voice for radical reform , but opposed to any activism that involved physical force . Addressing the accusation that his political group had used violence in pursuit of their reformatory ends , Bamford responds in '' Passages in the Life of a Radical and Early Days '' ( 1840 – 1844 ) , " It was not until we became infested by spies , incendiaries , and their dupes – distracting , misleading , and betraying – that physical force was mentioned amongst us . After that our moral power waned , and what we gained by the accession of demagogues , we lost by their criminal violence , and the estrangement of real friends . " Bamford was the author of poetry mostly in standard English , but of those in dialect , several that showed sympathy with the conditions of the working classes became widely popular . His '' Passages in the Life of a Radical '' ( 1840 – 1844 ) is an authoritative history of the condition of the working classes in the years after the Battle of Waterloo
Peterloo Massacre
Peterloo Massacre
Samuel Bamford