favourable circumstances, and whose temper was fretted by troubles which ensued from instability of will and conduct. He was reckless always, especially in money-affairs, inclined to fits of moroseness, occasionally gloomy and splenetic, a difficult character indeed. Financial difficulties seem to have put him into O'Connor's hands,[1] a situation which O'Brien's temper could ill brook. O'Brien further conceived that O'Connor had behaved treacherously to him on the occasion of his trial in April 1840.[2] For eighteen months O'Brien was incarcerated at Lancaster. Towards the end of his imprisonment he was able to contribute to the pages of the Star, so that the breach was by no means complete. The newspaper had every reason to desire a continuation of the connection with so able a writer, and one upon whose authority its anti-middle-class teaching was largely based. In April 1841 an article appeared which showed that O'Brien's views on this point were undergoing a significant change.[3] He put forward the thesis that the enormous political power of the middle class is as nothing compared with their social power. In fact political power is a consequence of the social power, which is derived from wealth, position, and social functions. Clearly O'Brien was turning his former teaching upside down.[4] He had hitherto taught that the power of legislation was the basis of social power, and the instrument of social improvement.
This reversal was too sudden for O'Brien himself, and he began to hedge a little. He succeeded after all in coming to the conclusion that the middle class was still the most implacable enemy of the working class, but he was clearly wobbling. The statement that the Reform Act of 1832 was a consequence of the social influence of the middle class, paved the way for the co-operation with part of that class, a policy which O'Brien advocated in 1842, as a means of gaining another and greater Reform Act.
Thus O'Brien, like Lovett, was drifting from the old Chartist moorings now occupied by the National Charter Association. In the summer of 1841 came the General Election which returned Peel to power and began the great financial revolution which ended in the Repeal of the Corn Laws. The Chartists were much agitated by the question as to what policy they ought to pursue in the party conflict. Some time previously
