and other places in the west, with the petitions entrusted to them, the
signatures to which, together with those of the petitions previously sent
up, did not amount to less than half a million; I came to town as the
delegate from Bath and Bristol, both of which cities had held public
meetings, most numerously attended, and passed similar resolutions to
those agreed to at Spa Fields. The Reformers from each of those cities had
sent me up a petition, to be presented to the House of Commons, praying
for _universal suffrage_, one signed by 24,000 and the other by 25,000
persons. To be brief here, (for I shall detail the circumstances more
fully hereafter, as they make a most important epoch of my life); the
delegates met, 63 in number, at the Crown and Anchor, Major Cartwright in
the chair, who, together with Mr. Jones Burdett, attended as a deputation
from the Hampden Club. The Major, in opening the business of the day,
stated that the members of the Hampden Club, with Sir Francis Burdett at
their head, had come to a resolution to support suffrage to the extent of
householders, _and no further,_ and that they recommended the adoption of
this plan to the delegates. The Major was particularly eloquent, and went
out of the usual course of a chairman, by requesting, almost as a personal
favour to himself, that the delegates would adopt the recommendation of
the Hampden Club. Mr. Cobbett then rose, and, in a speech replete with
every argument which this most clear and powerful reasoner could suggest,
proposed the first resolution, that the meeting should adopt the
recommendation of the Hampden Club, and agree to recommend the reformers
to petition to the extent of _householder suffrage only;_ urging, as Major
Cartwright had done before, the necessity of agreeing to this plan,
because Sir F. Burdett had positively refused to support any petitions for
universal suffrage. This resolution was seconded by Mr. Jno. Allen, my
brother delegate, from Bath, although he had positive instructions not to
agree to any thing short of universal suffrage; but Mr. Cobbett's powerful
though fallacious reasoning, had convinced him, of the necessity of