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 Halley, the Scottish delegates, opposed the Address altogether. Burns said that so far from being in a majority, they were only a minority of the nation. (He was met with cries of "We are ten to one.") He answered that he was glad to hear it. They had only to show that they were in such a majority and there would be no need to talk of arms. Many of the delegates spoke very boastfully of the strength of their following. With this ambiguous address, and the completion of the arrangements for the great Whit-week campaign, the Convention quitted London.

It reached Birmingham on May 13. There was apparently no great excitement and no meetings were held in the Bull Ring. So far the Convention's injunctions regarding the strict observation of the law were effective. The delegates evidently heaved a sigh of relief on quitting London, which O'Connor said was "the most damnable of all places for bad air"; the members had come to Birmingham "to recruit their health." The Convention was welcomed by an address from the Radicals of Duddeston-cum-Nechells, a suburb of Birmingham. Its authors "hail with heartfelt and boundless joy the auspicious hour which has given to the millions of our brethren in political bondage a mighty Congress, solemnly elected by the people, to assert and win our natural and imprescriptable [sic] rights and franchises," and invoke "upon your gigantic labours the blessing of that Providence at whose breath every oppressor shall be swept from off the land."

Once arrived in Birmingham, the Convention took up a vigorous line of action. It treated the preparations of the Government as a signal for hostilities, and issued what may be regarded as a declaration of war. This was the fiery document styled "The Manifesto of the General Convention of Industrious Classes," which ran as follows:—

Countrymen and fellow-bondsmen! The fiat of our privileged oppressors has gone forth, that the millions must be kept in subjection! The mask of CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY is thrown for ever aside and the form of Despotism stands hideously before us: for let it be no longer disguised, THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND IS A DESPOTISM AND HER INDUSTRIOUS MILLIONS SLAVES.

Fellow-countrymen, our stalwart ancestors boasted of rights which the simplicity of their laws made clear and their bravery protected: but we their degenerate children have patiently yielded