acquired the appellation of alarmists.

Yet, though Fox was thus deserted, on the 17th of December he returned
to the charge. On that day Mr. Grey complained that the loyalists and
high churchmen had been committing riots in Manchester and other towns
in the kingdom. The Manchester riots, he said, had risen out of a loyal
meeting held in that town, at which meeting he represented that Mr.
Peel--the father of Sir Robert--declared that it was time for the people
to rouse from their lethargy, as there were incendiaries in the country.
He called upon Mr. Peel to name these incendiaries; and then called
the attention of the house to a paper issued by the association against
republicans and levellers, which was entitled "One Penny-worth of Truth
from Thomas Bull to his Brother John." Mr. Grey said, that this
pamphlet contained some unfounded and libellous invectives against the
dissenters; and that it was calculated to produce alarming effects,
by exciting the people against them. He moved, that the said libellous
paper should be delivered in at the table and read. In reply to his
demand of Mr. Peel, that gentleman said that there was no truth in any
part of the report to which Mr. Grey had alluded, except that "God Save
the King" had been sung at the meeting: and he proved that, so far from
exciting the people against their fellow-subjects, the resolutions of
the committee of the Manchester Society were calculated to dissuade the
populace from outrage and wrong. Many members opposed the motion;
but Fox strenuously supported it. In the course of his speech, Fox
criticised the loyal associations and subscriptions which had been
set on foot, for the purpose of aiding in the prosecution of affected
persons. He treated the associations as tending to hinder the
improvement of the mind, and as a mobbish tyranny; and he compared them
with Lord George Gordon's mob; declaring, at the same time, that he
had advised his friends in Westminister to sign the said associations,
whether they agreed with them or not, in order that they might avoid
destruction to their persons or their houses, or a desertion of their
shops. Burke was very severe in his remarks upon this last assertion. He
observed:--"This insidiuous advice will tend to confound those, who wish
well to the object of the association, with the seditious against whom
the association is directed. By this stratagem the confederacy intended
for preserving the British constitution and