prison at the time of the rising, and his account was not published till 1876.
All these not altogether trustworthy accounts have one thing in common, that a general rising of some kind was projected, and that the outbreak in Wales was to be the signal. There was a committee in Birmingham and another with its headquarters at Dewsbury in Yorkshire. The head committee was no doubt in London. Dr. Taylor, Frost, Bussey, and Beniowski are mentioned as the chiefs of the affair. Taylor was to take the lead in the North, Bussey in Yorkshire, Frost and Beniowski in Wales. It should be noted, however, that if we take into consideration all the accounts of this projected rising, practically no prominent and unimprisoned Chartist's name would be omitted from the list of the reputed leaders of the alleged rising.
Of the activities of these men and of the local committees we have little or no information previous to the Newport affair. Beniowski was a Polish refugee, and followed the not unusual career of revolutionary intrigue. He was a fine, tall, aristocratic-looking man of considerable talent and energy. He appears to have been a prominent member of the London Democratic Association, which was saturated with the sentiments of French revolutionaries. He was in receipt of a pension of £3 a month from the British Government as trustee for a fund for the support of Polish refugees. In May Lord John Russell ordered this to be stopped, on information regarding Beniowski's behaviour.[1] Evidently the Government had been keeping him under surveillance. All accounts assign to Beniowski one of the chief places in the plot. Of his doings nothing is known definitely until after the Newport affair, though it is probable that he was actively engaged in the military preparations.
Frost had been sent back into the district early in May, when the news of Vincent's arrest was known. He was a Newport man and the leader of the local Chartists, and had been town councillor, mayor, and justice of the peace. But early in 1839 Lord John Russell had removed him from the Commission of the Peace by reason of his seditious language at meetings. This mild martyrdom had greatly increased his local popularity. After the collapse of the Convention he threw all his energies into organising violent proceedings in Newport and the neighbouring coal-mining valleys of
- ↑ Home Office, 40 (44), Metropolis.
