724 Chapter XXX
subversion of Parliament,” he was far from being mistaken, though he greatly ex-
aggerated the degree to which it accepted violence as a means of introducing “a
republic or democracy.”^26 Thirty constables sufficed to break the Convention up.
Three leaders, Maurice Margarot, William Skirving, and Joseph Gerrald were sen-
tenced by Braxfield to terms in Australia. In 1794 most of the clubs in Scotland
ceased to meet.
In England, however, the repression of the Scotch clubs and conventions, and
the sentencing of the “Scotch martyrs” to deportation, had inflammatory effects:
The London Corresponding Society held a general meeting on January 20, 1794.
It protested against the proceedings in Scotland, denounced the war to restore
despotism in France, and declared that, if the government sought to crush liberty
in England, the Society should “issue summonses... to the different societies af-
filiated and corresponding with this society, forthwith to call a General Conven-
tion of the People.”^27 Feeling ran high at Sheffield, where thousands of toolmakers,
cutlery workers, and other skilled mechanics read a variety of radical literature,
including the Register edited by Joseph Gales. A great public meeting took place
on April 7, of which the general theme was that everything else having failed, and
the petition of a year before having not even been received, some other (but un-
specified) course of action must be found. One speaker darkly hinted that the voice
of the people would soon “recommend the 558 gentlemen in St. Stephen’s Chapel
to go about their business.” Resolutions were passed, demanding “universal repre-
sentation” as a right. An “Address to the British Nation” was adopted, probably
composed by Joseph Gales.^28 One of the best statements of British radicalism of
the day, this Sheffield Address made no reference to France but refuted the argu-
ment for “virtual representation,” as the Americans had refuted it a quarter of a
century before. It declared that petitioning had been proved useless and a “com-
plete revolution of sentiment” must come about. It complained that plain mechan-
ics could get no attention from “gentlemen,” and that the common man in En-
gland was not free or secure in his property. “What is the constitution to us, if we
are nothing to it? The constitution of Britain, indeed, is highly extolled as the
greatest effort of human wisdom—so is the constitution of Turkey at Constanti-
nople.” The Sheffield mechanics went on to explain what they meant by equality.
“Yes, countrymen, we demand Equality of Rights, in which is included Equality
of Representation, without which terror is law, and the obligations of justice are
weakened, because unsanctioned by the sacred voice of the people. We are not
26 Meikle, 142.
27 While the fear of a “convention” is noted in all works on the subject, the quotation is from a
printed leaflet in the Wentworth Woodhouse collection at the Central Library in Sheffield, headed
“At a General Meeting of the London Corresponding Society, held at the Globe Tavern Strand, on
Monday 20th of January 1794, Citizen John Martin in the Chair, the following Address to the People
of Great Britain and Ireland was read and agreed to.”
28 The Address is printed with Proceedings of the Public Meeting... at Sheffield... of April 1794 in
the Wentworth Woodhouse collection. On Joseph Gales’ years in England see W. H. G. Armytage,
“The Editorial Experience of Joseph Gales, 1786–94” in North Carolina Historical Review (1951),
332–61. For Sheffield, an important center of radicalism, see also G. P. Jones, “The Political Reform
Movement at Sheffield,” in Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society (Sheffield), IV (1937), 57–
68, and J. Taylor, “The Sheffield Constitutional Society,” Ibid., V (1943), 133–46.