Major to come to town in time to present these petitions, or at least
some of them, as soon as Parliament met; but when he found that the
delegates who had been assembled in his name had declared for Universal
Suffrage, and that the petitions in London likewise mostly prayed for
Reform upon the principle of Universal Suffrage, he declared that he
would not support the prayer of them, neither had he arrived in town on
the day previous to the meeting of Parliament.

On the failure of Sir Francis to come forward, Lord Cochrane had been
applied to by the Major and Mr. Cobbett, to present these petitions;
but he had declined to act in opposition to his colleague, Sir Francis
Burdett; every effort had been tried to induce him to do so, but they
had been tried in vain. At length I hit upon a plan, which I proposed
to Mr. Cobbett. It was this--that on the day when the Parliament met,
I would collect ten or twenty thousand people in the front of Lord
Cochrane's house, which was in Old Palace Yard, and thus cut off his
Lordship's access to the House, unless he would take in some of the
petitions. I shall never forget Cobbett's look. "What!" said he, "would
you besiege the man in his own house?" I answered, that desperate cases
required desperate remedies. "Aye! aye!" said he, "that is very pretty
talking, it is like belling the cat. Suppose such a thing likely to
succeed with his Lordship, how the devil would you contrive to collect
such a number of people there, without his knowing it, so as to avoid
them, if he pleased?" I replied, "leave that to me. If you will go to
his Lordship's house about one o'clock, and detain him at home, by
endeavouring to persuade him to present the petitions, I will undertake
to bring ten thousand people to the front of his house by two
o'clock,"--the House of Commons being to assemble at three. In fact,
there appeared no other alternative; for on the next day the Parliament
was to meet, and we had not yet one single Member of Parliament who