country, a proceeding which did not escape the notice of the Government.[1]
On April 18 Wood of Bolton resigned, having become a Poor Law Guardian, to the great horror of his constituents. Clearly the Anti-Poor Law excitement was subsiding. He delivered a Parthian shot at the Convention by informing his people that if they wanted a physical force revolution they must elect a different Convention. On the 22nd, Matthew, one of the Scottish delegates, resigned also.
A resolution was introduced by O'Connor on the 22nd, suspending all missionary work and requiring the attendance of all delegates till the Petition was presented. Place says this was dictated by a fear that Government was preparing to pounce upon the missionaries,[2] a view which Vincent's arrest early in May serves to support, but it was also due in part to the diminishing attendances of the remaining delegates. O'Connor's speech was another example of indirect terrorism, intended to scare away the remaining moderates. He denounced those who had resigned as "deserters," and declared that the lukewarmness of certain delegates would only cause a greater impatience on the part of those who, being without breakfasts and dinners, were anxious that the Convention should show them how they were to be had. It was useless for the Convention to sit there philosophising. The delegates would have to act or their constituents would think they were enjoying themselves on their salaries. When the Petition was rejected, as it would be, they would have to declare a permanent sitting[3] and invite the country to address the Convention in order that they might consider in what way they could best carry out the objects of their just cause. Unless the Convention brought itself morally into collision with other authorities, it would do nothing to show its own importance.
He then proceeded to hint that the middle-class folk in the Convention were the cause of its lukewarmness. He talked vaguely of a general strike as an alternative to physical or moral force. The operatives would "meet the cannon with the shuttle and present the web to the musket." O'Connor knew none but cotton and woollen weavers. He finally denounced moral philosophers as the bane of their cause,
- ↑ The Aberdeen Chartists wrote to Dr. Taylor, asking whether the constitutional maxims quoted in the debate applied also to Scotland, as they had passed a resolution in favour of arming (Additional MSS. 34,245, A, p. 260).
- ↑ Ibid. 27,821, p. 93.
- ↑ An improvement of an earlier passage in the speech in which O'Connor suggested that they should sit till the funds were exhausted.
