 The military presence comprised 600 men of the ; several hundred infantrymen; a Royal Horse Artillery unit with two six-pounder guns; 400 men of the Cheshire Yeomanry; 400 special constables; and 120 cavalry of the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry.The Manchester & Salford Yeomanry were relatively inexperienced militia recruited from among local shopkeepers and tradesmen, the most numerous of which were publicans.Recently mocked by the "Manchester Observer" as "generally speaking, the fawning dependents of the great, with a few fools and a greater proportion of coxcombs, who imagine they acquire considerable importance by wearing regimentals, they were subsequently variously described as "younger members of the Tory party in arms", and as "hot-headed young men, who had volunteered into that service from their intense hatred of Radicalism."