bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted
strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no
longer leavened with a sense of injustice.'

On the retirement of Sir Robert Peel from office in 1846, Lord John
Russell became prime-minister, with Lord Palmerston as foreign secretary.
No very great measures were passed by the new ministry, but the policy of
free trade recently adopted by the country was steadily carried out. But,
although parliament did not occupy itself with any very important reforms
during his tenure of office, Lord Russell had his hands quite full in
other respects. Chartism came to a head during this period; and besides
this, there were fresh difficulties in Ireland in store for the new
premier.

For ten years during the early part of the reign of Victoria, Chartism was
like a dark shadow over the land, causing much uneasiness among peaceable
and well-disposed persons. The Reform Bill of 1832 had disappointed the
expectations of the working-classes. They themselves had not been
enfranchised by it; and to this fact they were ready to ascribe the
poverty and wretchedness which still undoubtedly existed among them.

It was not long, therefore, before an agitation was set on foot for the
purpose of bringing about a further reform of parliament. At a meeting
held in Birmingham (1838), the People's Charter was drawn up. It contained
six 'points' which henceforward were to be the watchwords of the party,
until they succeeded in carrying them into law. These points were (1)
universal suffrage; (2) annual parliaments; (3) vote by ballot; (4) the
right of any one to sit in parliament, irrespective of property; (5) the
payment of members; and (6) the redistribution of the country into equal
electoral districts.