bury, Bradford, and Halifax. If O'Connor attained supremacy within the National Charter Association, it was partly because he worked for it, for none of his followers, Cooper perhaps excepted, could compare with him in activity. He rejoiced in the work; he enjoyed the excitement and the applause. Controversy he almost welcomed, as if politics were a great Donnybrook. Year after year his herculean frame enabled him to continue, but the malady which was slowly unseating his reason caused his feats of endurance to be less and less controlled as the years went on. Chronic incoherence characterised his later activities. But in these earlier years O'Connor's ubiquity and superhuman energy were invaluable to the cause. He brought in recruits wherever he went. He kept the agitation alive through good report and evil report. So far as Chartism spurred on governments and public opinion to a more sympathetic treatment of the poor and the industrious classes, O'Connor must not be denied some of the praise for the good which indirectly ensued from his immense activities.
From the moment of O'Connor's release the policy of the National Charter Association took on a firmer shape. Much had been done since the Manchester Delegate Assembly of July 1840. A lively agitation was organised; a Convention had been held, and a petition, very successful in point of signatures at least, had been presented in May 1841 by T. S. Duncombe to the House of Commons, praying for the release of the Chartist convicts. Duncombe's motion that the Queen be requested to reconsider the cases of all political prisoners was lost only on the casting vote of the Speaker, who declared that the motion was an interference with the Royal Prerogative.[1] On the occasion of an O'Connor demonstration at Birmingham in the September following, MacDouall, as one of the Executive, put forward a programme of agitation which included another National Petition and Convention.[2] All efforts were to be concentrated upon these objects and the Petition was to be presented in 1842. The organisation was strung up to a higher degree of activity. Delegate meetings, representative of large areas, were called to supervise the arrangements.[3] In October 1841 the Executive published the programme outlined by MacDouall. The Convention was to meet on February 4,
