could have excogitated it. It was of foreign origin. It was, in fact, modelled on the Greek Hetairia, and Russian agents were at the back of it. The chief of these agents was Beniowski, an alleged Polish refugee, who, however, was a former member of the Hetairia. A secret insurrectionary committee of five was appointed to direct the organisation. Cardo, Warden, Westrapp, and another, who was a high police official, were also members. Cardo and Warden were men of the highest genius, the one a Socrates and the other a Shakespeare.
A general rising was planned for the end of the year. One hundred and twenty-two thousand armed and partially trained men were ready, and a Russian fleet would provide munitions. Beniowski was to command in Wales, where apparently the main rising was to take place. Urquhart, however, got wind of the plot in time to put a stop to it. He convinced Cardo, Warden, and Dr. Taylor (who was to have some part in the plot) that they were the victims of a Russian agent provocateur, and persuaded them to abandon it. Frost, however, he did not reach in time, and so could not save him.
Feargus O'Connor was not involved in the affair at all, as he was regarded as too cowardly and unreliable. He was only concerned with the circulation of the Northern Star. This on the information of a member of the Convention of 1839—perhaps Cardo.
So much for Urquhart's story. It forms the source of the very unsatisfactory narrative of Thomas Frost,[1] a Croydon man who came into the Chartist movement in its last stage, eight years or so after the events at Newport. Frost appears to give much credence to Urquhart's story, but adds nothing to it. The narrative of Gammage[2] is more circumstantial even than Urquhart's. Gammage came into the movement about 1842, and later developed into a thoroughgoing opponent to O'Connor. His account is published with a view to blackening O'Connor, and is based upon the revelations of one William Ashton of Barnsley. These latter were made public in 1845[3] in the midst of fierce attacks upon O'Connor, then Chartist dictator, and purported to be damning evidence of O'Connor's treachery in connection with the affair. There is a further account by Lovett,[4] but it is of no great value. Lovett was in
- ↑ Forty Years' Recollections, London, 1880, pp. 102 et seq.
- ↑ History of the Chartist Movement, 1854, pp. 282 et seq.
- ↑ Northern Star, May 3, 1845.
- ↑ Life and Struggles, pp. 239-40.
