n support of the martyr to liberty; and when his imprisonment
terminated on the prorogation of parliament, vast crowds collected,
and a procession was arranged to convoy him to his home. Place had
been active in arranging all the details of what was to be a great
popular manifestation. To his infinite disgust, Burdett shrank from
the performance, and went home by water. The crowd was left to expend
its remaining enthusiasm upon the hackney carriage which contained his
fellow-sufferer Jones. Jones, in the following December, was sentenced
to twelve months' imprisonment for a libel. Cobbett, Burdett's special
supporter at this time, was also imprisoned in June 1810. For a time
the popular agitation collapsed. Place seems to have thought that the
failure was due to Burdett's want of courage, and dropped all
communication with him till a later contest at Westminster.

Place was thus at the centre of the political agitation which, for the
time, represented the most energetic reforming movement. It was in
1811 or 1812 that he became acquainted with Mill.[9] In Mill he
recognised a congenial spirit, and a man able to defend and develop
principles. He perhaps, as Professor Bain thinks, made advances to
Mill upon the strength of the history of India; and in 1814 he was
certainly endeavouring to raise money to put Mill above the need of
precarious hack-work.[10] The anticipated difficulty of persuading
Mill so far to sacrifice his independence was apparently fatal to the
scheme. Place was in occasional communication with Bentham, and
visited him at Ford Abbey in 1817. He became intimate with the great
man; helped him in business affairs; and was one of the disciples
employed to prepare his books for publication.[11] Bentham was the
source of philosophy, and Mill only his prophet. But Mill, who was
capable of activity in practical affairs, was more useful to a man of
the world. The first business which brought them into close connection
was the Lancasterian controversy. The strong interest roused by this
agitation was significant of many difficulties to come. The average
mind had been gradually coming to the conclusion that the poor should
be taught to read and write. Sunday schools and Hannah More's schools
in Somersetshire had drawn the attention of the religious world to the
subject. During the early years of the century the education question
had steadily become more prominent, and the growing interest was shown
by a singularl