American "Chivalry." But the strife was confined to meetings,
resolutions, and pamphlets. Few riots took place; none of much
importance. The gentlemen of England have never wanted the courage or
the strength to take care of themselves.

The political clubs were the principal centres of agitation. There were
two particularly active on the liberal side: the Revolution Society,
originally founded to commemorate the Revolution of 1688, and the
Society for Constitutional Information, established for the purpose of
bringing about a reform in the representation. But the revolutionary
changes in France had quickened their ideas, and had given them a taste
for stronger and more rapid measures. They now openly "resolved" that
England was "a prey to an arbitrary King, a senile Peerage, a corrupt
House of Commons, and a rapacious and intolerant Clergy." A third club,
the Corresponding Society, was younger and more violent, with branches
and affiliations all over England on the Jacobins' plan, and in active
correspondence with that famous institution. The middle and lower
classes in manufacturing towns, precursors of the Chartists of 1846,
belonged to this society. Their avowed objects were annual parliaments
and universal suffrage; but many members were in favor of a national
convention and a republic. The tone of all three societies became
French; they used a jargon borrowed from the other side of the Channel.
They sent deputations to the National Convention, expressing their wish
to adopt the republican form in England, and their hope of success. The
Corresponding Society even sent addresses of congratulation after the
massacres of September. Joel Barlow, the American, a man of the Paine
genus, without his talent or honesty of purpose, went as Commissioner
of the Society for Constitutional Information to the Convention,--
carrying with him an address which reads like a translation from the
French, and a thousand pair of shoes, with the promise of a thousand