d
and beaten; provision dealers were plundered, and a pawnbroker's house
of business was stripped of all valuable articles. Rioting subsequently
occurred, although nearly four thousand police were in the neighbourhood
or in reserve. This meeting seriously damaged the chartist cause in
the metropolis. The upper and middle classes saw that plunder and
molestation awaited them and the peaceable portion of the poor, if
Chartism should gain the ascendant; and a determination arose to meet
and suppress, with a resolute hand, the first outbreak. Early in April,
fifteen of the rioters were put upon their trial for robbery with
violence; eleven were convicted, and sentenced to various terms of
transportation. This infuriated their confederates, and preparations
were made for another demonstration of immense magnitude, to which Mr.
Fergus O'Connor gave all his energy and influence. It was proposed
to hold another meeting at Kennington Common on the 10th of April,
ostensibly to carry a petition to the parliament house for making "the
Charter" law. One hundred and fifty thousand Chartists were expected to
assemble from very great distances. It was generally believed that the
intention was to effect an English socialist revolution. Probably on no
occasion, since the apprehension of invasion from the great Napoleon,
was the London public so much alarmed. The subject, of course, fell
under the consideration of parliament, where Fergus O'Connor was accused
of attending seditious meetings and making treasonable speeches; this he
denied with the greatest effrontery, affecting to be a pattern of order
and law, although it was notorious that he was bent upon revolutionary
attempts, and that his main motive was to resent certain affronts
offered to himself by the Whigs. He had been jealous of O'Connell, whom
that party to a certain extent petted, giving him private power and
patronage, while Fergus was treated, as he himself believed, without
consideration. His first attempts at agitation were in his own country,
Ireland; but O'Connell turned him into ridicule, and eventually
denounced him. Fergus then saw that the only hope of becoming an
agitator of name and influence lay among the discontented English
operatives; and he sought fame and power in that direction by means
unworthy of any man, and ultimately ruinous to himself and to many of
his dupes. On Tuesday, the 5th of April, the following conversation
occurred in the commons, which show