over the National Petition and obtain by all legal and constitutional means the Act to provide for the just representation of the People, entitled the 'People's Charter.'" The detailed rules bear out the title. In this document the Convention becomes a peaceful agitating body; there is no mention of anything else.
Despite this official avowal of law-abiding intentions, the advocates of violent courses were becoming more and more conspicuous. They were aided by doleful reports about the Petition, which made success by peaceful agitation seem very remote indeed. The Birmingham delegates had not attended the Convention since the opening of the session, excusing themselves on various pretexts. A letter from Salt, dated February 17, relates that he has just heard with great concern that there is no probability that the Petition will have more than 600,000 signatures. "In this case we can no longer call it a 'National Petition.' The assumption on which we have proceeded proved false: our position is entirely changed, and I have not yet any very definite idea of the measures it will become our duty to adopt."[1] The Birmingham Journal followed this with the suggestion that the Convention should dissolve until the Petition became more largely signed.[2] This was ill news indeed and came as a great shock to the sanguine spirits of the Convention. More serious still perhaps was the obvious fact that the Birmingham delegates had lost their nerve and were preparing to abandon the whole business. The Convention, which had hoped to present the Petition before the end of February, and so provoke an early decision upon the question of further measures, was compelled to postpone the event for two months. Finally May 5 was fixed as the day for the presentation of the Petition. The Convention was thus required to nurse the excitement and enthusiasm of its followers for nine weeks longer, without committing itself too far. This was no easy task, but more difficult still was the preservation of unanimity within the Convention itself.
Early in March dissension began to grow threatening. On the 2nd the London Democratic Association, a violent and reckless body, held a meeting at which Harney, Ryder, and Marsden were the chief speakers. Inflammatory speeches were the order of the day. The Convention was denounced for its delays and its cowardice, and three resolutions were carried and then communicated to the Convention itself.
