A Tory in the strictest sense of the word Coleridge never was; for he always claimed right to dissent and did at times dissent from the ministry of the hour. A striking instance of his dissension was given while living at Calne, when he strongly objected to the imposition of new corn duties when wheat was selling at 63_s._ a quarter and the quartern loaf sold at 11_d._ The working people were in a state of starvation, and Coleridge espoused the cause of the starvers and got up a Petition against the duties proposed. He even became the ringleader of the local agitation. He writes to Dr. Brabant of Devizes (6½ miles away) in the Spring of 1815: "On Wednesday we had a public meeting in the Market Place, at Calne, to petition Parliament against the Corn Bill. I drew it up for Mr. Wait, and afterwards mounted on the butcher's table made a butcherly sort of speech of an hour long to a very ragged but not butcherly audience, for by their pale faces few of them seemed to have had more than a very occasional acquaintance with butcher's meat. Loud were the huzzas, and if it depended on the inhabitants at large, I believe they would send me up to Parliament" (_Westminster Review_, 1870, p. 348). Coleridge and the Morgans themselves were not in a flourishing condition. They were in straitened circumstances, and Coleridge wrote the following two letters to Cottle in March 1815. LETTER 164. TO COTTLE Calne, March 7, 1815. Dear Cottle,