posed to exclude them all from re-election by a self-denying ordinance. The debate resolved itself into a fierce altercation between Dr. Taylor and Harney on the one side and O'Connor and his "tail" on the other. The recriminations show how deep the local dissensions had gone. Finally the motion to dissolve was carried. The Convention then plunged into a sordid and squalid squabble about money matters. It appears that O'Connor had been using his wealth, derived of course from the enormously increased sales of the Northern Star,[1] to buy up a following in the Convention, and even to subject the whole body to his influence by offering himself as security for various objects. This policy he pursued until he became the absolute ruler of the Chartist world. The accounts seem to have been kept with gross carelessness, and money voted with great laxity. In this atmosphere of recrimination, squabble,[2] and intrigue the great Chartist Convention disappeared. It left two Committees, one, of which O'Connor and Pitkeithly were the chief, to dispense the sum of £429, available for the Defence Fund, and another to draw up the valedictory address. The latter produced three addresses: one fiery, dictated by Dr. Taylor; one mild, composed by O'Brien; and one compromising. None of them was published; the Convention was to the last incapable of any decision.
- ↑ 1838: average sales per week, 10,900; February-May 1839: average, 48,000—a fact which gives colour to belief that O'Connor deliberately prolonged the Convention so as to keep up circulation. O'Connor proposed (Northern Star, September 21, 1839) to pay for another Convention out of his own pocket.
- ↑ A curious feature of these squabbles was that Fletcher, an Anti-Poor Law stalwart, declared that the Charter had been put forward by the supporters of the hated Act to capture the Anti-Poor Law agitation (Northern Star, October 19, 1839). He even hinted at Government agency.
