The place vacated by the resignation of Sir Edmund Henderson was offered to Sir Charles Warren, a well-known officer of Engineers, whose talent for administration had been proved in Bechuanaland and elsewhere, and who now relinquished the Governorship of the Red Sea Littoral to take up the Chief Commissionership of the Metropolitan Police. The task entrusted to the new chief was definite if not easy. Before all things he had to restore the prestige which had suffered so severely on the day when the mob gained the upper hand, and he had to demonstrate, cost what it might, that the police could not again be defied with impunity. After the occurrences of February 1886, there was a truce lasting some eighteen months during which the peace was successfully maintained in spite of the persistent hostility evinced by a large section of the public. But in the autumn of 1887, disorderly assemblages of the unemployed, led by demagogues, encouraged by foolish agitators, and reinforced with the scum of London, became so frequent and intolerable,[261] that Sir Charles Warren had to make a bold move in the interests of order, by altogether forbidding the use of Trafalgar Square as a place of public meeting. His action was endorsed by the Secretary of State, but only in such a half-hearted fashion that the forces of disorder, confident that they were the masters of the situation, determined to fight it out. Accordingly both parties prepared for battle. On the one side some six or seven thousand special constables were sworn in, and a large military force was held in reserve; on the other, defiance was openly preached, and adherents were canvassed. When on Sunday the 13th of November the mob began to assemble, they found that the Square and its approaches were already held; but, undeterred by the force opposed to them, and in no mood to return quietly to their homes, the ring-leaders, after a short parley, tried to break through the police cordon. In the course of the protracted struggle which ensued, several minor casualties occurred on either side, and although the crowd resolutely returned to the attack time after time, in the end the police were successful all along the line; the square was cleared without loss of life or injury to property, and the ability of the police to carry out the orders of the Government was satisfactorily demonstrated. Subsequently other attempts were made to reopen the question; but the result was the same. The next phase was the repetition of the familiar and easily disproved charges as to the alleged violence of the constables, many persons, who had attacked the police for their failure in 1886, now joining in the chorus anathematising their successes of the following year.