Page:The Chartist Movement.djvu/230

 agency." So reports the Mayor—a curious corroboration of part of Urquhart's story from an apparently independent source, although Cardo may have picked up the idea from hearing Urquhart lecture in the course of a strenuous tour in the winter of 1839–40. When sending Cardo away by the mail on the 16th, the Mayor observed a stranger who was said to be Dr. John Taylor. The Mayor requested the Government to send down somebody who knew Beniowski by sight. He received an anonymous letter alleging that Beniowski had been sent with 138 lbs. of ball cartridge from London via Bristol. Three men were arrested on suspicion, but apparently no further proceedings were taken.

About the same time the Bradford magistrates report secret proceedings. They managed to corrupt a Chartist, and obtained information of the intended rising. On December 17 they received a long report, probably through this channel. The rising was to take place on the 27th. A secret Convention would meet in London on the 19th and give the signal. There had been a meeting in Manchester the previous week, in which Taylor was the leading spirit. The soldiery were to be harassed by systematic incendiarism, and an attempt was to be made to assassinate the judges on their way to the trials at Monmouth.

The Birmingham secret meetings continued, and there, too, there was talk of organising incendiarism. A memorandum describing the organisation is amongst the Home Office papers. The Chartist body there numbers some three or four hundred organised in lodges. The members are carefully selected. Each lodge is headed by a captain, who is a member of the General Committee. This body meets at private houses—a different one in each case. A password is given, and all precautions against surprise by the police are taken. It was intended to have a general rising in case of Frost's conviction. Some Chartists talked of proclaiming a republic, whilst others declared that, if Frost were not released, the Queen's marriage would not take place.

Similar reports of secret organisations of Chartists emanate from Loughborough and the hosiery villages in the neighbourhood. There the organisation in sections of ten, which seems to have been the general model, was in full swing. The project of a general rising was entertained, and the Newport men were blamed for being so hasty and premature. A similar