remedies. One such meeting, attended by Henry Brougham and Sir Francis
Burdett among others, was held in Palace Yard, Westminster, on the
1st of March, for the purpose of petitioning Parliament against the
renewal of the property-tax and the maintenance of a standing army in
time of peace. Lord Cochrane, the hero of the day, on account of "the
spirit of opposition which he had shown to the infringement of the
constitution and the grievances of the people," won for himself new
favour by the boldness with which he denounced the policy of the
Government, which, boasting that it was ruining the French nation, was
at the same time bringing misery also upon Englishmen by the excessive
taxation and the reckless extravagance to which it resorted.

A smaller, but much more momentous meeting assembled at the City
of London Tavern on the 29th of July, under the auspices of the
Association for the Relief of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor.
Instigated in a spirit of praiseworthy charity by many of the most
influential persons of the day, it was used by Lord Cochrane for the
enforcement of the views as to public right and public duty, and the
mutual relations of the rich and the poor, which were forced upon him
by his recent troubles, and the relations in which he was at this time
placed with some over-zealous champions of popular reform, and some
unreasonable exponents of popular grievances. That his conduct on this
occasion was extravagant and even factious, he afterwards heartily
regretted. Yet as a memorable illustration of the power and
earnestness with which he fought for what seemed to him to be right,
as well with word as with sword, its details, as reported at the time,
may be here set forth at length.

About half-past one o'clock the Duke of York entered and took
the chair, supported on his right by the Duke of Kent, and on