under the Crown:

"The descendants of the Roundhead commoners, chafing under
the limitations of the franchise, burdensome taxation, the
contempt with which they are regarded by the lords of the
soil, the grievous effects of the laws of entail and
primogeniture, whereby they are kept poor and rendered liable
to starvation and pauperism--these have looked to America as
the model democracy which proves the poor man's capacity for
self-government." The meeting was called for seven o'clock
but at half after five the hall was filled, and at six
crowded. A second hall was filled and outdoor meetings of two
thousand people organized in Exeter Street. "All
working-class England was up in arms, not so much against
slavery as against British oligarchy[1361]."

The correspondent further reported rumours that this meeting had caused
anxious consideration to the managers of the _Times_, and the decision
to step more warily. No doubt this was exaggeration of the political
character and effect of the meeting, but certain it is that the
political element was present joining hands with anti-slavery
enthusiasm. Also it is noteworthy that the last confident and vigorous
expression of the "failure" of democracy, from sources professedly
neutral, appeared immediately after the St. James' Hall meeting, but was
necessarily written before that meeting took place. _Blackwood's_, in
its issue of February, 1863, declared, as before: "Every sensible man in
this country now acknowledges ... that we have already gone as far
toward democracy as is safe to go.... This is the great moral benefit
which we have derived from the events in America." John Blackwood was an
intimate friend of Delane, editor of the _Times_, holding similar views
on political questions; but the _Times_ was suddenly grown cautious in
reading English political lessons from America. In truth, attack now
rested with the Radicals and Bright's oratory was in great demand[1362].
He now advanced from the defensive position of laudation of the North to
the offensive one of attacking the Southern aristocracy, not merely
because it wished to perpetuate African slavery, but because it desired
to make all the working-classes as subservient to it as was the
negro[1363]. It was now Radical purpose to keep the battle raging and
they were succeeding. Bigelow believed that the United States might well
recognize its opportunity in