, we may question whether Fox, had he been in power, would have
allowed the assembling of a National Convention, pledged to press upon
Parliament measures which he reprobated.

It is when we come to details that Pitt is open to the charge of acting
with undue severity. Considering the proved loyalty of the great mass of
the people, what need was there to inaugurate a system of arbitrary
arrests? After all, England was not France. Here no systematic assault
had been made on the institutions in Church and State. The constitution
had suffered dilapidation, but it was storm-proof, and the garrison was
strongly entrenched. Moreover, the democrats for the most part urged
their case without any of the appeals to violence which wrought havoc in
France. There the mob delighted to hurry a suspect to _la lanterne_ and
to parade heads on pikes. Here the mass meeting at Chalk Farm, or on
Castle Hill, Sheffield, ended with loss neither of life nor of
property. So far as I have found, not one life was taken by the people
in the course of this agitation--a fact which speaks volumes for their
religious sense, their self-restraint even amidst deep poverty, and, in
general, their obedience to law even when they deemed it oppressive. The
hero of the year 1794 is not William Pitt, but the British nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[274] See "The Complaints of the Poor People of England," by G. Dyer,
B.A. (late of Emmanuel College, Camb., 1793).

[275] "H. O.," Geo. III (Domestic), 27, 28.

[276] E. Smith, "The English Jacobins," 111-3; C. Cestre, "John
Thelwall," ch. ii.

[277] "Report of the Committee of Secrecy," May 1794. The Duke of
Richmond's plan was the Westminster programme of 1780, which became the
"six points" of the Charter of 1838.

[278] See Fox's letter of 2nd May 1793 to Hardy in "State Trials," xxiv,
791.

[279] M. Conway, "Life of T. Paine," i, 346.

[280] In the Place MSS. (Brit. Mus.), vol. entitled "Libel, Sedition,
Treason, Persecution"--a valuable collection.

[281] "Parl. Hist.," xxxii, 929-44.

[282] "Collection of Addresses ... to the National Convention of France"
(Debrett, 1793), 14.

[283] "Speeches of Lord Erskine," 293.

[284] "State Trials," xxii, 471-522.

[285] Porritt, ii, 128.

[286] "H. O.," Scotland, 7.

[287] _Ibid._

[288] "State Trials," xxiii, 118-26.

[289] I differ here from Lord Cockburn, "Examination of the Trials for
Sedition in Scotland," i, 147.

[290] _Ibid._, i, 162-5; "State Tri