A more particular notice of some of the persons who have acted prominent parts in the transactions above detailed, will be given in the next chapter.
Chartists and Complete Suffragists--Feargus O'Connor--William Lovett--John Collins--Henry Vincent--Thomas Cooper--Edward Miall--Reverend Thomas Spencer.
In this chapter, I will give brief notices of some of the more prominent Chartists and Free-Suffragists.
FEARGUS O'CONNOR has been styled "The Great Chartist Leader." In advocating the cause, he has suffered for his imprudences, if not for his principles. He is made up in about equal degrees of the braggart and the coward, the demagogue and the democrat--a legitimate product of the rotten institutions and turbulent times in which he was born and has flourished. With many good qualities and many bad ones, he had not the moral bravery to lead a reformation, nor the physical courage to head a revolution. Aspiring to do both, and wanting capacity for either, he failed in each. Respect for an impulsive man who has proclaimed good principles in bad times, and sympathy for a weak man who has felt the thorn of persecution from worse hands than his own, induce me to forbear further remark on the foibles and follies of one who is shorn of his influence to do much future good or evil. Better for Chartism if he had lived and died a Tory; though, with all his sins, he will be kindly remembered when Toryism rots in contempt.
WILLIAM LOVETT'S manly virtues and vigorous sense adorn a noble enterprise. Born in extremest poverty, he has struggled upward against the crushing weight of factious systems, to an influential position in society. While a young man, he was drafted into the militia--refused to be degraded into a machine to kill men at the word of command--was arraigned before a magistrate for the offense--terrified the justice by the boldness and ability of his defense--and was discharged from the service after seeing his little property confiscated and his family reduced almost to beggary. This petty tyranny fixed him in the purpose of preparing himself to aid in remodeling institutions that taxed him to the marrow, without allowing him any voice in the selection of his rulers. He worked at his trade of cabinet-making by day, and cultivated his mind by night. Throwing himself into all movements for the improvement of the laboring classes, he first attracted general notice by his connection with the London Working Men's Association, established in 1836. The many able addresses which this central body issued to the working men of the kingdom, and to the laboring classes in Belgium, Poland, and Canada, were prepared by him. These led the way for the Chartist movement. In 1838, he assisted Messrs. O'Connell, Roebuck, and other members of Parliament, in preparing "The People's Charter;" his part of the work consisting in drafting, theirs in revising, this noble and painfully celebrated document.