Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/242

 "On Monday, Aug. 5, an important meeting of the inhabitants of the town and county of Northampton was held at that place, pursuant to advertisement.

"Some short time back a requisition was forwarded to Messrs. Cobden and Bright, signed by 1,200 agriculturists, manufacturers, and others, inviting them to attend a meeting at Northampton, for the purpose of discussing the great question of free trade, a request with which those honourable gentlemen immediately complied. A second requisition, signed by ninety-one supporters of the Corn Laws, was subsequently despatched to Mr. Stafford O'Brien, one of the members for the county, and chairman of the Publishing Committee of the Agricultural Protection Society, calling upon him to meet and refute the arguments of the members for Stockport and Durham. Ad answer was received from that gentlemen declining to be present; on the ground that the requisitionists were quite able to forma their own opinions without calling in the aid of strangers.

"The Northampton branch of the Ishmaelite section of chartists also despatched a third requisition, which was accepted, to Mr. Feargus O'Connor, who, it was intended, should act in concert with the honourable member for the county, whose presence was confidently anticipated, from the important situation he was known to hold in the great Central Society for the maintenance of the Corn Laws. Lord Fitzwilliam, the Mayor, and several of the most respectable inhabitants of Northampton, were severally proposed by the free traders as chairman of the meeting, all of whom were successively objected to by the chartists, who intimated their determination to allow no person to fill that office except Mr. Grundy, a retired tradesman of the town, who is held in great estimation by them. Notwithstanding the palpable unfairness of this. dictation, the free traders, knowing Mr. Grundy to be a gentleman of integrity and high respectability, acceded to the proposition, and the meeting was accordingly presided over most impartially and honourably by that gentleman, Commodious hustings were erected in the noble market-square—a space capable of accommodating with ease 50,000 persons. At the commencement of the proceedings the numbers present amounted to about 5,000, which was soon augmented to 6,000. A great number of the most influential tradesmen and gentlemen of the town and surrounding districts were present, including many farmers, several of whom held up their bands in favour of a repeal of the Corn Laws.

"Mr. Cobden, contrary to his usual practice, submitted to the meeting a resolution in favour of free trade, which haring been seconded by Mr. Alderman Cotton, Mr. Feargus O'Connor came forward and proposed a long and desultory amendment, recognising the great evils of the Corn