dvances
of despotism and the arming one part of the people against the other.
Finally it declared that in cases of necessity the safety of the people
was the only law. We may here note that a few Hanoverian and Hessian
battalions had been landed in Hampshire, as a temporary measure,
previous to their transference to other ships. This occasioned some
clamour at Westminster, Grey, Fox, Sheridan and others claiming that the
liberties of England were in the direst danger. Pitt refused to accept a
Bill of Indemnity for his action, and the House supported him by a great
majority.[322]

The other reference at the Chalk Farm meeting was to the proposal to
sanction the subscriptions to the Volunteer forces now being raised in
various counties.[323] At the outset this noble movement had in view the
defence of the constitution no less than of the land; and this doubtless
accounts for the fact that Coke, Mingay, and other Norfolk Whigs
struggled desperately and successfully to break up a county meeting held
at Norwich for this purpose on 12th April, shouting down even so able a
speaker as Windham. In general, however, these meetings were an immense
success. That at Aylesbury realized L5,851 for a county corps; and one
at Epsom, for Surrey, brought in nearly double as much.[324] Most
noteworthy of all these meetings was one of 19th April 1794 at
Birmingham, where loyal sentiments crystalized in a rhetorical jewel of
rare lustre. The "Loyal True Blues" of Birmingham, in view of the
threats of the French "to insult the chalky cliffs of Albion and to
plant in this island their accursed tree of liberty, more baneful in its
effects than the poisonous tree of Java which desolates the country and
corrupts the winds of heaven," resolved to quit the field of argument
and to take arms as a Military Association. For nothing could be so
effective as "the decided and awful plan of the whole Nation rising in a
mass of Volunteers, determined to dispute every inch of ground with
their daring aggressors and to spill the last drop of their blood in
defence of their religion and their laws." They beg Edward Carver to
command them; they will choose their uniform, will arrange themselves as
grenadiers and light infantry; and, "to preserve the _coup d'oeil_, the
whole corps will be arranged with the strictest attention to the height
of the members."[325] Possibly the Royalists of Birmingham may have
known of the hint conveyed in Hardy's letter, that the