The Grand National Consolidated Trades Union proved to have a wider influence than the Government expected. The whole machinery of the organisation was turned to the preparation of petitions and the holding of public meetings, and a wave of sympathy rallied, for a few weeks, the drooping energies of the members. Cordial relations were established with the five great Unions which remained outside the ranks, for the northern counties were mainly organised by the Builders’ Union, the Leeds, Huddersfield and Bradford District Union, the Clothiers’ Union, the Cotton-spinners’ Union, and the Potters’ Union, which on this occasion sent delegates to London to assist the executive of the Grand National. The agitation culminated in a monster procession of Trade Unionists to the Home Office to present a petition to Lord Melbourne--the first of the great “demonstrations” which have since become a regular part of the machinery of London politics. The proposal to hold this procession had excited the utmost alarm, both in friends and to foes. The _Times_, with the Parisian events of 1830 still in its memory, wrote leader after leader condemning the project, and Lord Melbourne let it be known that he would refuse to receive any deputation or petition from a procession. Special constables were sworn in, and troops brought into London to prevent a rising. At length the great day arrived (April 21, 1834). Owen and his friends managed the occasion with much skill. In order to avoid interference by the new police, the vacant ground at Copenhagen Fields, on which the processionists assembled, was formally hired from the owner. The trades were regularly marshalled behind thirty-three banners, each man decorated by a red ribbon. At the head of the procession rode, in full canonicals and the scarlet hood of a Doctor of Divinity, the corpulent “chaplain to the Metropolitan Trades Unions,” Dr. Arthur S. Wade.[267] The demonstration, in point of numbers, was undoubtedly a success. We learn, for instance, that the tailors alone paraded from 5000 to 7000 strong, and the master builders subsequently complained that their works had been entirely suspended through their men’s participation. Over a quarter of a million signatures had been obtained to the petition, and, even on the admission of the _Times_, 30,000 persons took part in the procession, representing a proportion of the London of that time equivalent to 100,000 to-day.[268] Meanwhile Radicals of all shades hastened to the rescue. A public meeting was held at the Crown and Anchor Tavern at which Roebuck, Colonel Perronet Thompson, and, Daniel O’Connell spoke; and a debate took place in the House of Commons in which the ferocious sentence was strongly attacked by Joseph Hume.[269] But the Government, far from remitting the punishment, refused even to recognise that it was excessive; and the unfortunate labourers were allowed to proceed to their penal exile.[270]