Page:The Chartist Movement.djvu/206

 which his action involved, to do all this was Lovett's moral force. Thus had he resisted the ballot for the Militia in 1831; thus had the Newspaper Taxes been defied and successfully defied; thus would Lovett win the Charter. He would be the advocate of the disfranchised before the bar of public opinion and speak where his advocacy would be most effective. It was a noble ideal, but it was the ideal of a martyr, not of a leader of would-be insurgents. Yet it is not questionable that Lovett accomplished more by this sacrifice for the cause of Chartism and the advance of democracy in England than all those who sneered at his moral philosophy and brandished their arms when the enemy was absent. In the history of the first Chartist Convention there is but one cheering episode, and Lovett is its hero.

The news of the events at Birmingham produced intense feeling throughout the Chartist world. Lancashire was as usual the focus of the excitement. On July 2, Wemyss, at Manchester, reported that one Timothy Higgins of Ashton-under-Lyne had been found in possession of twenty-seven rifles and muskets of various descriptions and three pistols. A placard was posted at Ashton Parish Church:

Men of Ashton, Universal Bread or Universal Blood, prepare your Dagger Torch and Guns, your Pikes and congreve matches and all march on for Bread or blood, for life or death. Remember the cry for bread of 1,280,000 was called a ridiculous piece of machinery. O ye tyrants, think you that your Mills will stand?

On July 10 the Manchester Chartists issued a placard calling a meeting to protest against the introduction into Manchester of a DAMNABLE FOREIGN POLICE SYSTEM and to denounce the BLOODY DOINGS of the police at Birmingham. The placard is headed in leaded type TYRANNY! TYRANNY!! WORKING MEN OF MANCHESTER.

The Convention added to the excitement by rushing through various strong resolutions regarding the immediate resort to ulterior measures. The National Holiday or General Strike was still kept in reserve. These resolutions were published in