In 1830 and 1831, rural southern England witnessed a strange phenomenon – a series of threats in the form of letters, signed with a strange codename – ‘Captain Swing.’ They were usually brief. One letter said:
Sir, Your name is down amongst the Blackhearts in the Black Book and this is to advise you and the like of you, who are Parson Justasses, to make your wills. Ye have been the Blackguard Enemies of the People on all occasions, Ye have not yet done as ye ought …
Sometimes, they scrawled warnings:
Revenge for thee is on the wing, from thy determined Captain Swing.
Very soon, they acted upon their warning; set fire to heaps of hay and destroyed threshing machines; demanded higher wages and boycotted the church. They did all this to communicate the reality of distress in the countryside to the authorities.
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