Page:The Chartist Movement.djvu/338

 The National Petition was now ready for presentation, and, according to O'Connor and Jones, had been signed by something approaching six million persons. The Convention publicly announced that it was to be handed in to Parliament on Monday, April 10, and convoked for that day a mass meeting of sympathisers on Kennington Common. The plan was for the Petition to be carried solemnly to Westminster, accompanied by an imposing procession. The great multitude of Chartists, reinforced by any friends of the cause who cared to join, was to convince the timid aristocrats of the strength of the people's cause and terrorise them into the immediate concession of the Charter. In other cities sympathetic demonstrations were to show that zeal for the Charter was not limited to the capital.

The greatest alarm was created by the proposed action of the Chartists, and the publicity chivalrously given to the proposed meeting gave the administration the opportunity of taking adequate precautions to deal with the threatened disorder. The Government lawyers discovered a law of the Restoration period which forbade the presentation of a petition by more than ten individuals. An Act was hurried through Parliament making certain seditious deeds felony. Among such acts were "seeking to intimidate or overawe both Houses of Parliament," and "openly or advisedly writing or speaking to that effect." An army of special constables approaching 170,000 in strength was hastily levied, among their number being Louis Napoleon, the future Emperor of the French. The Duke of Wellington, still Commander-in-chief though on the verge of his eightieth year, was entrusted by the Cabinet with the direction of all the measures necessary for defence, and the Tory veteran appeared in the Whig Cabinet to deliberate with it on the steps to be taken. His plans were judicious and promptly carried out. All available troops were collected, and carefully massed at certain central points from which they could be easily brought to defend the bridges over the Thames, and watch the two miles of road that separated Kennington Common from Westminster Bridge. But they were carefully hidden out of sight and few suspected the strength of the forces reserved for emergencies. The discipline of the streets, even the control of the passage over the bridges, was left to the new police and to the civilian special constables who were everywhere in evidence. In Kennington and Lambeth peaceable citizens carefully barricaded their houses and kept within doors.