d from these meetings, and
this he did on the 29th of January, the very day of the re-opening of
Parliament.

In anticipation of this measure, there was a great assembling of
reform delegates from all parts of England, and of others favourable
to their purpose, in front of Lord Cochrane's residence at No. 7,
Palace Yard, Westminster. Shortly before two o'clock Lord Cochrane
showed himself at the window, and announced that he was now on his
way to the House, there to watch over the rights and liberties of the
people, and that he would shortly return and let them know what was
passing. This he did at four o'clock, part of the interval being
occupied with a fervid address from Henry Hunt. On his reappearance,
Lord Cochrane stated that the speech with which the Prince Regent had
opened Parliament had not disappointed his expectations, for it was
wholly disappointing to the people. The Regent had complained of the
disaffection pervading the country, and had announced his intention of
using all the power given him by the Constitution for its suppression.
Lord Cochrane expressed his confident hope that the people, having
the right on their side, would so demean themselves as to give their
enemies no ground of charge against them; for those enemies desired
nothing so much as riot and disorder.

Thereupon an immense bundle of petitions was handed him, and he
himself was placed in a chair, and so conveyed on men's shoulders to
the door of Westminster Hall, where the crowd dispersed in an orderly
way.

In the House, before the motion for an address in answer to the Prince
Regent's speech, Lord Cochrane rose to present a petition, signed by
more than twenty thousand inhabitants of Bristol, setting forth the
present distress of the country, the increase of paupers and beggars,
the grievous lack of employment for industrious persons, and
the misery that resulted from this state of things. In these
circumstances, the petitioners urged, it was in vain to pretend to
relieve the sufferers by giving them soup, while, for the support of
sinecure placemen, pensioners without number, and an insatiable
civil list, half their earnings were taken from them by the enormous
taxation under which the country groaned. After considerable
opposition, the petition was allowed to lie on the table.

Lord Cochrane then presented a smaller but much more outspoken
petition from the inhabitants of Quirk, in Yorkshire. "The
petitioners," it was there ur