In this moment of paramount distress, the evil-minded and the designing, taking advantage of the disposition of the people, and urged by personal considerations, continued those attacks upon the ministry of the country which they had hitherto made without that success which they required, and the people, whose attention was now withdrawn from the object which had hitherto served to keep their minds occupied, were easily led away and persuaded that the dangers and difficulties which appeared to exist were the result of bad management only, and were of a nature likely to be permanent, and most injurious to their well-being. The existence of the evil was attributed to some defects which were pointed out in the representative system; and as this was considered to be the root of the evil, the name of radical (from _radix_, the Latin word for a root) was given to the persons who espoused these new opinions. The party in itself, both as regarded reputation and numbers, was contemptible to a degree, and the names of a few only who were its leaders will be handed to posterity. Thistlewood, Watson, and Hunt, were the most notorious of these agitators, who, as it will hereafter appear, met with very different fates. Thistlewood was hanged; Watson escaped to America; Hunt, by a most extraordinary circumstance, eventually became a member of parliament. Englishmen have an undoubted privilege of assembling for the purpose of declaring their grievances and soliciting redress, whether from the sovereign or the parliament, and this liberty afforded the demagogues a good opportunity for inflaming the passions of the deluded, and disseminating their own pernicious opinions. Meetings were held in various parts of the kingdom for the ostensible purpose of petitioning for parliamentary reform, and the metropolis followed the example. When we come to the case of Watson and Thistlewood, we shall enter fully into the atrocious scheme of those who devised many of these meetings, but at present it is necessary to confine ourselves to a detail of facts, which will serve as an illustration of what is to follow.