He then gave a description of the meeting for the county Kent, which was held on the 11th June 1822 in the Town Hall of Maidstone: "I set off in the morning with some great landholders of the county-Whigs. . .

"We alighted at an inn, where we found some of the persons of greatest consequence in the vicinity already met in committee. A draft of a Petition had been prepared the day before, in which the grievances of the agricultural class were enumerated; next a reduction of taxes was called for, as well as measures to raise the price of corn; and lastly, a reform of Parliament was demanded as the only remedy of all the evils of the State. This project seemed calculated to satisfy the wishes of the most democratic. It was then discussed, slight amendments made in it, and preparations to submit it to the general meeting-everything inducing a presumption that it would be adopted there without opposition.

"The hour of meeting arrived, and we went down to the marketplace. It was market day. Some thousands of people were already assembled; all the windows of the adjacent houses were filled with spectators; with the noise of the crowd were mingled the lowing of oxen and the bleating of sheep, and all the confused bustle of buying and selling. The impatient multitude thronged round some carts placed for the convenience of speakers, and across one of which were the two deal boards, serving as the chair and desk of the Sheriff who presided at the meeting. Some got up on the wheels, others mounted on ladders, that they might be certain of not losing a word of what was said, so extremely sensible are the lower classes of the people in England of the pleasures of political eloquence. . . . After the Sheriff had announced the purpose of the meeting, a member of Parliament, the representative of the Whigs of the county, made a speech, in which he explained the motives of the intended petition. The conduct of the Ministry, and the increase of the taxes, owing to ruinous and impolitic wars, were naturally the subjects of his discourse, more than once interrupted by the thunder of applause from 10,000 auditors.

"The assembly appeared to be unanimous; however, Sir E. Knatchbull, the ministerial member, though almost alone, thought it incumbent on him not to let the speech of his

colleague pass unanswered, and boldly undertook to defend the opinions of the Ministry, who were there at least in a great minority. His speech was listened to without favour, but with impartiality. .

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"The Petition experienced no opposition, and the Sheriff was about to put it to the vote, when a voice was heard from the midst of the cart most thronged by the mob, claiming the right of moving an amendment. Every eye was directed to that quarter, where a man, with gray hairs, but stout made, and with a bold countenance, made way through his friends, and advanced to speak. This was the famous Cobbett; he was received with a general murmur of disapprobation. Cobbett, no Jacobins!' exclaimed more than one voice. ever, a nobleman in opposition claimed leave for him to speak. 'Is he a freeholder of the county?' was asked on all sides. 'Yes, I am,' answered Cobbett. Then you have a right to be heard,' said the Sheriff; and it is my duty to support you in it.' . . . He spoke, moving an amendment in favour of a reduction of the national debt; threatening Whigs-the great lords of the county-for retaining their rotten boroughs, and saying, The time has come to speak to you in harsher language, and you shall hear it from my mouth. Submit without longer delay to the sacrifice of your boroughs, or prepare yourselves for the sacrifice of your mansions and your fortunes.'

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He was succeeded by another orator, who entered more at large into the amendment, and completed the conquest of the meeting. The efforts of the Whigs to reject it were without avail, and it was carried by a great majority.

"Here, then, we have a victory gained by the leader of the Jacobin party, not over a few obscure ministerialists, but over the Whigs-over the most considerable and most justly respected landholders of the county. . . . Would you not suppose the country to be on the verge of a revolution? . . . Not so, however. After a momentary agitation order is restored, and the people, satisfied with having enjoyed their rights, retire more attached than ever to the institutions by which these rights are secured. . . . I returned to London with the same persons whom I accompanied in the morning. They did not experience fewer testimonies of respect than before; nothing was changed; there was not the least apprehension of the

stability of rank or property; and 10,000 men voting a national bankruptcy 30 miles from the capital did not even occasion the slightest variation in the price of stocks."

He sums up his views on county meetings thus: "It would be wrong to conclude from this that county meetings are empty ceremonies-a sort of saturnalia for the day without any influence on the morrow. These meetings have a real influence on the opinions of the many; they enlighten and confirm them; they keep up, among the people of England, a sense of their rights and of their strength, without which all written securities are vain; and a statesman must be destitute of judgment and foresight who does not lend an attentive ear to the wishes expressed in meetings of this kind."

The description enables us to realise very vividly the nature, character, and import of county meetings at this time. Gradually, as we have seen, these meetings, convened mainly on the subject of agricultural distress, drifted ever more and more toward Parliamentary reform-gradually too, during these years, the different sections of the popular party subordinated their differences and began to form a more homogeneous party. The beginning of 1823 saw the Platform vigorously at work. So early as the 3d of January a meeting of the county Norfolk was held, some 5000 to 6000 persons being at it-"a most numerous and respectable assemblage," and the High Sheriff in the chair. A Mr. Thurtell moved a series of resolutions, in which the excessive distress of the agriculturists was enlarged upon. Taxation was declared to be its chief cause-an abolition of all needless places, pensions, and sinecures, a partial reduction of the national debt, and the repeal of certain taxes were called for as remedies. The subject of Parliamentary reform, however, was not mentioned-designedly, it may be presumed. The proposal was made to embody the purport of the resolutions in a Petition to Parliament, when suddenly and unexpectedly Cobbett appeared on the scene, just as he had done at Maidstone, and proposed a rival Petition. It was rather a startling document. The House was to be besought to pass an Act for causing an efficient reform in the House of Commons in order that such Parliament might adopt measures to effect the following purposes: An appropriation of a part 1 Parliamentary Debates, 1823, vol. viii. p. 1254.

of the public property, commonly called church property, and also the sale of Crown lands to the liquidation of the debt. Α reduction of the standing army-a total abolition of all sinecures, pensions, grants, and emoluments, not merited by public services. An equitable adjustment with regard to the public debt, and also with regard to all debts and contracts between man and man. The Petition also asked that the House would be pleased to suspend by law, for one year, all distraints for rent, all process for tithes, and all processes arising out of mortgage, bond, annuity, or other contract affecting house or land, to repeal the whole tax on malt, hops, leather, soap, and candles. In conclusion, the Petition assured the House that the petitioners "venerate the Constitution of their fathers; that they sought for no change in the form of the Government; that they fervently hoped this Constitution might descend to their children; but that they were fully convinced that unless the present evils were speedily arrested and effectually cured, a convulsion must come, in which the whole of this ancient and venerable fabric will be crumbled into dust."

The unexpected intrusion of Cobbett led to a great clamour. An eye-witness has described the scene. He said that when he entered the hall, "Mr. Cobbett appeared to be speaking with the most violent gesticulations from one end of the hustings; a reverend gentleman was speaking apparently with equal energy from the other; and the under-sheriff was reading from a large paper in the middle; whilst, from the unintermitted clamour of the circle that surrounded them, it appeared to him that not one of them knew that the others were also holding forth."1

Another eye-witness described the confusion of the meeting, and stated that though he stood within two yards of Mr. Cobbett, he could scarcely collect a word that he uttered, for as soon as he came forward, great uproar and tumult ensued. To obtain attention Cobbett cried out, "Here's immediate relief for you-this will fill your bellies-this will prevent your beds from being taken from under you." The eyewitness adds, "It was, however, a very good-humoured meeting; everybody was laughing."

1 Parliamentary Debates, vol. viii. p. 1257.

"The most numerous and respectable assemblage" preferred the Petition proposed by Cobbett to the more moderate one proposed by Mr. Thurtell, and it was adopted, and in due time was presented to and received by the House-much to the indignation of many people-Mr. M. A. Taylor among the number, who, though he declared himself to be a reformer, said the Petition was a mockery and farce, containing a mass of absurdities, a tissue of false statements, and a farrago of inconclusive reasoning. It went to a direct revolution in Church and State."

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Several counter-petitions reprobating the Petition were got up by the party which was defeated at the meeting, and were presented to the House at the same time as it was.

Meetings such as these present a very interesting phase of Platform activity. They did not, however, all eventuate in the same manner.

On the 17th January a meeting was held in the Town Hall of Hereford, about 5000 persons being present. The Lord Lieutenant of the county presided, and he was accompanied by the leading gentry of the county, and the hall was thronged with the gentry and farmers of the county.

Cobbett here again proposed a Petition, but he was outvoted, and his Petition was rejected. That, however, which was proposed by a Mr. Charlton, and adopted, contained a sweeping condemnation of the Government, and asked for several financial reforms, some of an extreme character.

And then a county meeting was held in Somerset, Hunt, now released from prison, being at it, "ready," he said, "notwithstanding his imprisonment, to speak his mind again. He would endeavour to do it like a gentleman, but still he would speak out plainly." This meeting is interesting for one circumstance which occurred at it. Hunt urged the meeting not to wait for another county meeting, but to petition for reform now.' The High Sheriff, who was chairman, interfered, and declared "Once for all that he would not entertain any Petition in which reform was called for, because that topic had nothing to do with the present meeting"; and he further declared that the law allowed him to decide.

A county meeting took place in Yorkshire, expressly in

VOL. I

1 The Examiner, p. 67, 1823.

2 G