hinted at. In November 1838 O'Connor at a meeting at Manchester said it was necessary to put a period to agitation, lest the enthusiasm should evaporate.[1] Perhaps we shall not be wrong in assuming that enthusiasm for Poor Law repeal had already begun to evaporate, and to be replaced by discontent of another description.
However that may be, the growth of distress and privation during the year 1838 tended inevitably to weld the agitations together. Scotland was agitated by the prosecution of the Glasgow cotton-spinners, whose fate recalled the immortal Dorchester Labourers of '34. In South Wales, where the mining districts presented an unequalled field for agitation, the eloquence of Henry Vincent, backed by John Frost, a tradesman of Newport and a J.P. to boot, had an enormous effect. Vincent explained to the ignorant and half-barbarous miners how that they were despoiled of a large proportion of the wages, which they earned at such risk to themselves, for the purpose of supporting in idleness and luxury a degraded and despotic aristocracy. This explanation of the long familiar evils of truck and mining royalties naturally raised the Welshmen to an incredible pitch of indignation. It was the sole burden of Vincent's oratory, but, as a well-known authority has said,[2] repetition of an assertion without attempt at proof or demonstration is the one essential of mob-oratory, and Vincent possessed a faculty of infinite variation upon one theme. South Wales was also to have, in 1843, its own peculiar form of rebelliousness in the curious "Rebecca riots," directed mainly against the payment of road tolls. Men, dressed as women, obeying the orders of a mysterious "mother Rebecca," smashed toll-bars and defied discovery. It was alleged that a lawyer, Hugh Williams of Carmarthen, was the instigator. He passed, like all other local agitators, into the Chartist ranks.
The Charter was put forward in May, and the Petition in August 1838. The former was distributed throughout the Working Men's Associations, and the latter was formally published at the great Birmingham meeting of August 6.[3] From this moment the excitement began to rise to fever heat. At scores of meetings the Petition and Charter were adopted with immense enthusiasm. This was especially the case in the North. Everybody was carried away by the fire and fervour
