energy in the popularisation of the Charter. It was presented with some ostentation to the great demonstrations at Glasgow and Birmingham in May and August 1838. Vincent went on missionary tours which took him to Northampton, Manchester, Bristol, Bath, Trowbridge, and Birmingham.[1] From these journeys, in fact, he never returned, for he took up his residence at Bath, where he attained immense popularity as an orator and as editor of the Western Vindicator, a paper as inflammatory as his own speeches. Through this organ Vincent became a furious and reckless preacher of social revolution, a circumstance which made him the first victim of Government action in 1839. Hartwell,[2] another missionary, was similarly affected by the immense audiences which gathered to hear him on his wanderings. He, too, deserted the quiet ways of the Association for the turbulent methods of the North and Midlands.
The behaviour of these two members was a chief symptom of the break-up of the Association, which, as it were, died in giving birth to the Chartist agitation. Some of the members, led by Vincent and Hartwell, were desirous of turning the Association into a large agitating body, like the unions of 1831–32, or like the enormous bodies then rapidly mobilising in the North and Midlands. They wanted it to desert the placid methods of the past two years. They considered that their two years' agitation had sufficiently educated the opinion of the people, and that the time was now ripe for more energetic measures, for a public display of strength, and it might be for an actual revolution. Motions began to be introduced at the meetings of the Association with a view to increasing its numbers, a step which shows that the Association had travelled far from its sober declaration against the fascination of mere multitudes.[3] These tendencies were stimulated by the great meetings at Glasgow and Birmingham, at the latter of which the Association was represented by Vincent, Hetherington, and the Rev. Dr. Wade. The proposal for a Convention was taken up with enthusiasm and the elections were carried out at a public meeting in Palace Yard, Westminster, on September 17, 1838. The notion of a Convention carried with it suggestions of revolutionary activity, and by the end
