and he repeated the assurance, that he would lay the petition before his
Royal Highness the moment he could gain access to him in the morning,
and that he had no doubt it would receive due attention.

In the evening paper, the _Courier_, of the next day, it was announced
that the Spafields petition bad been presented to the Prince Regent,
who had graciously ordered FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS to be paid to the
Spitalfields soup committee; which sum was to be taken from the Droits
of the Admiralty. In consequence of this grant from his Royal Highness,
the soup committee met, and called a public meeting in the city, for the
purpose of promoting the subscriptions, and devising the best means of
relieving the distress which now was admitted universally to prevail
amongst the labouring classes in the metropolis; so that it was quite
evident that our Spafields meeting had produced infinite good, that
in all probability it had been the means of saving the lives of
thousands, and relieving the distresses of tens of thousands. Mr.
Fowell Buxton attended this meeting, and, after having described the
unparalleled distress and misery of the people, he made a most animated
and feeling appeal to the humanity of the public, to come forward to
relieve them. This and all the other meetings that followed, and all
the subscriptions that were raised, may very justly be ascribed to the
meeting at Spafields; for till that meeting took place, the general
overwhelming distress was little known, and less regarded, by the
opulent and powerful, who alone had the means of relieving it.
Notwithstanding this was undeniably the fact, yet the whole public press
of the metropolis, with very few exceptions, was daily employed in
spreading the most atrocious falsehoods and calumnies against me, for
having attended that meeting. I was represented as a traitor, and one
who wished to overturn the sacred institutions of the country, and
to produce revolution, confusion, and bloodshed. The _Times_, the