The prince took all in good part. Kind-hearted and reasonable, he was perhaps really willing to bear his share of the pressure of the times, and ready to suppose that the House of Commons was the best judge of what his income ought to be. If not so, he was too sensible to shew any discontent; and by his good-humour on the occasion he gained an esteem which was more worth having than any wealth that parliament could have given him.

CHAPTER XIV.

LLUSION has been made to the darkness of the times in 1839 and 1840. Since the peace, there had ,hardly been a season so gloomy in

fact and in prospect. In looking for the causes of the misery and crime of this period, we find them, as usual, in the state of the crops. There were then, as usual, multitudes of people who did not understand; and

the fact and their failure to understand it together were soon to bring about the greatest social, as parliamentary reform was the greatest political, event of the century. There were then, as usual, professional men, country gentlemen, and others by hundreds, who said with an air of superiority, that they took no interest in politics; and these were the men who concluded that the commotions and outrages of the period were owing to the unfortunate propensity of the lower classes' to concern themselves with politics. There were then, as usual, clergymen by hundreds, who said with a complacent smile, or an air of pious trust, that since England was England there had always been alarms of bad crops, but that it always ended in there being a harvest; these gentlemen not having the remotest idea of the differences between one group of years and another as to production of food, and never perceiving that it was their especial duty as clergymen to look closely into the causes of want, woe, and crime. They thought that the perverseness of the heart of man was explanation enough of any amount or capricious accession of guilt; and, as they could not stoop to politics or political economy, they remained

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unaware that the average of moral disease might be anticipated as confidently as that of physical disease, from the estimate of the harvests of any group of years. It was no thanks to them that this miserable experiment is now no longer likely to be tried. It is no thanks to them that, by opening to our country an access to the harvests of the world, a prospect lies before us of a more equable supply and price of food, and a cessation of the fluctuations and cruel uncertainties which perilled the fortunes of the wellfed, and wore out the heart and hope of the multitudes who had to win their bread from day to day. There were still hundreds and thousands of menand the leading politicians of both parties were among them-who thought that to attack the cornlaws was to attack the constitution of society; who would no more listen to evidence of the mischief of agricultural protection than they would listen to arguments against the institution of property. It is worth recording again here, that the prime-minister himself had volunteered his opinion on the matter in the House of Lords, saying that he had heard of many mad things in his life, but, before God, the idea of repealing the corn-laws was the maddest he had every heard of. Thus it was with Lord Melbourne. Lord J. Russell counselled the House to refuse to hear evidence on the operation of the corn-laws. Sir R. Peel was as yet pondering slidingscales, and destined to propose and try another before he should discover that this was a matter in which adjustments could be of no possible use, while they were pretty sure to do mischief. To set against all these classes of men, there was another-a little band at first, but soon becoming a host-who understood the matter enough to be sure of attaining a thorough knowledge of it, as soon as they should combine to act upon what they knew. The darkening of the times in 1839 determined these men to aim at a repeal of the corn-laws as the first object to their own fortunes, to the actual preservation of the working-classes, and to the welfare of the nation at large.

During the four years from 1832 to 1835 inclusive, more wheat was grown in Great Britain, it is believed, than was ever known before. More wheat was sown; and the improvements in tillage were by that time so considerable as to produce clear results. But during those four years also the winters had no undue frosts; the spring rains were enough, and not too much; and the summer suns were warm enough to harden and ripen the grain. They were four noble harvests, as far as wheat was concerned, though barley rose nearly to the price of wheat, and hay and pulse were dear. The farmers suffered, as they were apt to do, under a stringent corn-law which made them rich in bad seasons, and prepared for their impoverishment in abundant years. But while they were in such adversity as that royal speeches commiserated them, and parliament discussed their case, everybody else was prospering. The very cattle, sheep, and pigs were eating wheat; brewers and distillers were making beer and spirits from it. The agricultural labourers, though receiving very low wages, were more comfortable than usual, from the cheapness of provisions. They found

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themselves in easier circumstances with 8s. per week, and wheat at 35s., than with 12s. per week, and wheat at 77s. As for all other working-classes of the kingdom, it was a time of high prosperity for them. All the mines and all the mills were busy, and the tradesmen of the towns were everywhere prosperous; for the largest classes of society were employed on full wages; and bread being cheap, they had money to spare for other objects of purchase. The houses of the operatives filled with furniture, and their chests with good clothes. The tradesmen rose in proportion from this increase of custom, and in their turn improved the condition of the manufacturers, who, in consequence, kept up or extended their manufacture, to the continued benefit of the operatives. Such was the happy state of things while we were blessed with good harvests; and the prosperity reached its height towards the close of 1835, when wheat was at 35s. 4d. Owing to its cheapness, less was now sown of wheat, and more of other things which had become dear.

In 1836, the spring was cold and dry, and the summer was ungenial in the north of England and Scotland; so that the harvest was not well got in. On the whole, there was a considerable falling off from preceding years; but still, more than enough was got in for the wants of the country till the harvest of 1837. The crop of 1837 was just sufficient for the wants of the country; but it was inferior to the production of any one of the five preceding seasons. The people were still eating abundantly, as the last few years had accustomed them to do. If now there had been a propitious season, everything might have gone on smoothly, though food prices were higher than they had been. During the commercial difficulties of the spring of 1837, which have been before exhibited, when credit was disturbed by foreign influences, the price of wheat, as of other things, had risen unduly; but at the end of 1837, it was 538.; and at this price, manufactures, commerce, and the condition of the people might have gone on without deterioration. But the weather was now dreadful. In the middle of January an extraordinary frost set in, which lasted so long as to occasion serious fears for the wheat in the ground; and in February, the price rose to 55s. 3d. In March, it rose further; and again in May, when frosts recurred. In July, it was 688. As harvest prospects did not improve, the price of wheat rose to 77s. in the third week in August. In September, all the bonded wheat in the kingdom was entered for home consumption. Prices fell as a large quantity of foreign corn was thrown into the market in September; but by the next January, wheat was at 81s. 6d. The difference of quantity home-grown between 1834 and this date was above 7,000,000 of quarters. At the same time, and in strict connection with this deficiency, manufactures had fallen off, and the prices of articles in common use among the working-classes had risen; so that those classes found themselves now receiving less wages, and compelled to pay dear for the necessaries of life. The distress was becoming formidable. Yet were hundreds of the clergy smiling over the usual alarms, as they called them, about the

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humanity, in the large view of the question, are likely to be less consulted by the short-sighted restriction of labour, than they are by its perfect freedom-it is because the fact is unquestionable, that though you may exempt the child from fatigue, you also deprive it of prospective employment, by driving the manufacturers to seek elsewhere that protection which is denied them at home-it is for these reasons that I implore parliament to decide the question this night, whether it will legislate or not.' It was not decided that night, nor for some years afterwards. After that session, Mr Poulett Thomson, who understood the matter, appeared no more in the House; and when he was gone, the other Whig ministers appeared unable to hold the convictions they occasionally expressed against legislative interference with factory labour. Thus was the irritation of this 'perpetual blister' added to the many others under which employers and labourers were suffering. The mill-owners resented this interference with the management of their affairs, which operated as a reduction of the value of the machinery which they had put up in the expectation of freedom in making their arrangements-seeing, all the time, how fruitless must be all attempts to legislate between parents and children, and how manufactures must droop under arbitrary restrictions imposed by the legislature. The operatives were kept in a state of agitation, whatever might be their opinions on the subject. Some fretted at the refusal of the legislature to let Lord Ashley take care of their children; while those of an opposite way of thinking declared it no time to be preventing their families from earning all they could, and resented this interference with their only possession, their labour, as the most flagrant attack yet attempted on the rights of the poor. All this did not tend to the tranquillisation of the country.

During the latter part of 1838, when Chartist meetings were held frequently, and with a formidable aspect throughout the north of England, the home secretary, Lord John Russell, had shewn a humane anxiety to bring the ignorant crowd to their senses, and within the limits of order, without visiting their guilty leaders with any treatment which could be construed as persecution, and be made to yield the ordinary fruits of persecution. Many complaints were made of want of vigour in this method of proceeding; but there appears every reason to believe that the disorder of the time would have been more violent if severity had been used, instead of being extinguished. Under a Sidmouth rule at the home-office, we might have seen all the north of England in a blaze of rebellion before the end of 1838. As it was, matters grew too threatening to be left to take their course without check. Great allowance was to be made for the irritation of the Lancashire operatives, from suffering of body and mind; but in the month of November, the torch-light meetings became formidable enough to alarm the inhabitants at large, to whom protection was due. On the 22d of that month, the home secretary sent a letter to the Lancashire magistrates, requesting them to make public notification of the illegality of torch-light meetings of the kind then in fashion, and

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to declare their intention of preventing or dispersing such meetings. This was followed up, in the middle of December, by a royal proclamation, which enjoined all persons to desist from holding torchlight meetings. It was time to put some restraint on the leaders and orators of these meetings; for now the Rev. J. Stephens, the chief orator, had denounced a mill-owner at Ashton-under-Lyne as 'a devil's magistrate,' and had prophesied that 'his house would soon be too hot to hold him;' and this gentleman's factory was fired one night soon after, while Stephens was holding forth to a torch-light assemblage. Stephens was arrested before the end of the month, but admitted to bail, while awaiting his trial at the Liverpool assizes. While out on bail, he preached to crowded congregations, with a violence of language which looked like insanity. Some of the witnesses against him were respectable Wesleyans, who had sat under his father's ministry, and were most reluctant to appear against the agitator; but they knew so much of the sharpening of pikes and preparation of firearms, and were so alarmed and distressed at the spread of a spirit of murderous rebellion in a neighbourhood generally quiet, that they could not doubt their obligation to get Mr Stephens silenced by the law. He was sentenced to an imprisonment of a year and a half in Knutsford Jail. A far more respectable and reasonable man was chairman of some of the earlier meetings among others, at the great Kersal Moor meeting at Manchester, when not fewer than 200,000 persons are said to have been congregated-Mr Fielden, the member for Oldham-the great promoter, under Lord Ashley, of the ten-hour measure. Mr Fielden was a man of great benevolence, and of a disinterestedness which gave him an influence among men better informed than himself, which he had not judgment or knowledge to command. He was too good for such work as the grosser kind of Chartist agitation, when he once saw what it was becoming; but his early sanction of torch-light meetings was a mistake to be regretted. The other leaders at this period were Richard Oastler, of Leeds, whose complacent ignorance unfitted him for any task of political guidance; and Feargus O'Connor, whose only escape from a charge of cruel fraud on his followers for a course of years, is in an admission of such senselessness and ignorance as have made him the worst enemy of those whom he professed to serve. It is very probable that from the moment when Feargus O'Connor first placed himself at the head of a Chartist procession to the last stoppage of his land-scheme, he may have fancied himself a sort of saviour of the working-classes; but if so, he must bear the contempt and compassionate disapproval of all men of ordinary sense and knowledge, as the only alternative from their utter reprobation.

After 1839 came in, new leaders and new mobs arose, and also a more respectable association, which deserved better than to be connected in name and reputation with the Chartism of the Stephenses and Oastlers, and the torch-bearers who fired factories. Delegates were sent from the working-classes to form a convention in London, for the promotion of 'the rights of the Commons of England, and especially