who were reduced to such desperation as to resolve to better themselves at the expense of the community.[1] Bradford and Barnsley magistrates reported in similar terms about the same time.[2] At Halifax a book about barricade and street fighting, and the method of facing cavalry with the pike, written by an Italian revolutionary named Macerone, was circulated.[3] Pikes, manufactured out of old files stuck into a handle, or acquired in some similarly inexpensive fashion, were the favourite weapon, though not a few Chartists obtained muskets. These martial preparations were carried on even in the remote districts of Scotland, as far as Aberdeen, though the little weaving towns, like Barrie's "Thrums,"[4] were the chief centres of excitement.
Frequent and tumultuous public meetings increased the excitement. Delegates of the Convention, who there expressed themselves cautiously and vaguely on the subject of arms and physical force, were less reticent whilst addressing their friends and followers in the country. Vincent set the whole of South Wales ablaze, and when he was at last arrested early in May, every one held his breath in terror of the inevitable insurrection. No work was done in Newport on the day the news arrived. In Lancashire the various agitators and delegates used the most extreme language. William Benbow was the most outspoken of these advocates of armed revolution. He was a cobbler of Manchester, now about sixty years old. He had lived through the desperate days of Hampden Clubs and the Six Acts. He had been a friend of Sam Bamford of Middleton and William Cobbett.[5] In 1816, if we are to trust Henry Hunt, Benbow had been denounced by a Government spy for manufacturing pikes in view of a projected rising. He was also the author of a pamphlet advocating the general strike as a political weapon. A thoroughgoing, hardened revolutionary, Benbow had in no wise been discouraged by the experiences of his earlier days. We have seen him as a leader in the Anti-Poor Law agitation,[6] and he came forward now with greater enthusiasm than ever. He travelled all over Lancashire preaching his doctrine of strikes and insurrection. At a meeting in Manchester he spoke, we are told, "like a mad thing."[7] MacDouall, O'Brien, Richardson, and a host of
