and labourers trudging to their work
learnt with indignation that the demands of the people had been treated
with characteristic contempt by the Peers.

[Sidenote: THE NATION GROWS INDIGNANT]

The next few days were full of wild excitement. The people were
exasperated, and their attitude grew suddenly menacing. Even those who
had hitherto remained calm and almost apathetic grew indignant. Wild
threats prevailed, and it seemed as if there might be at any moment a
general outbreak of violence. Even as it was, riots of the most
disquieting kind took place at Bristol, Derby, and other places.
Nottingham Castle was burnt down by an infuriated mob; newspapers
appeared in mourning; the bells of some of the churches rang muffled
peals; the Marquis of Londonderry and other Peers who had made
themselves peculiarly obnoxious were assaulted in the streets; and the
Bishops could not stir abroad without being followed by the jeers and
execrations of the multitude. Quiet middle-class people talked of
refusing to pay the taxes, and showed unmistakably that they had caught
the revolutionary spirit of the hour. Birmingham, which was the
head-quarters of the Political Union, held a vast open-air meeting, at
which one hundred and fifty thousand people were present, and
resolutions were passed, beseeching the King to create as many new Peers
as might be necessary to ensure the triumph of Reform. Lord Althorp and
Lord John Russell were publicly thanked at this gathering for their
action, and the reply of the latter is historic: 'Our prospects are
obscured for a moment, but, I trust, only for a moment; it is impossible
that the whisper of a faction should prevail against the voice of a
nation.'

Meanwhile Lord Ebrington, Lord John's colleague in the representation of
Devonshire, came to the rescue of the Government with a vote of
confidence, which was carried by a sweeping majority. Two days later, on
Wednesday, October 12, many of the shops of the metropolis were closed
in token of political mourning, and on that day sixty thousand men
marched in procession to St. James's Palace, bearing a petition to the
King in favour of the retention of the Grey Administration. Hume
presented it, and when he returned to the waiting crowd in the Park, he
was able to tell them that their prayer would not pass unheeded. No
wonder that Croker wrote shortly afterwards: 'The four M's--the Monarch,
the Ministry, the Members, and the Multitude--all against u