'Early in January, 1873, we went to Derby, at the request of the chairman of my meeting at Derby which had failed in the winter of '71-72, when, though a majority were upon our side, a gang of hired poachers had entrenched themselves in a corner of the room, had burned cayenne pepper, and defied all attempts to drive them out. The chairman was a man of determination who did not mean to be beaten. He organized his meeting on this occasion with almost too much care, for I fancy he brought fighting friends from Nottingham and other bruising places to it. The Tory roughs appeared, as on the former occasion. Before we were allowed to enter the room they were charged by means of battering rams with such effect that their entrenchments were destroyed, and they themselves were mostly stunned and carried out one by one. No one was dangerously hurt, but there were many broken heads. Lady Dilke was present in the thick of it, and, according to the newspaper reports, anxiously begged the stewards to deal gently with those whom they threw out. After this the meeting was held in peace. But the result was a formal Government inquiry, and the removal of the chairman of the meeting from the County Bench by the Lord Chancellor. He turned clergyman, to the benefit of _Notes and Queries_ and of the societies for antiquarian research, for, being a man of active mind, and finding the care of small parishes of ritualistic tendencies insufficient to occupy his whole time, he became the author of the famous book, _Churches of Derbyshire_, and of much other antiquarian work.' Sir Charles notes that this address at Derby was in fact his first pronouncement on "Free Land." In the following week, at Chelsea, he spoke upon Free Trade, and in both these speeches used the phrase, "Free land, free church, free schools, free trade, free law," laying down, early in 1873, 'the principles on which Chamberlain and John Morley afterwards went in the construction of the pamphlet known as _The Radical Programme_.' Sir G. Trevelyan writes: "In the first months of 1872 he was supposed to have injured himself greatly by his proceedings with regard to the Civil List; and yet, _to my knowledge, within a very few years Mr. Disraeli stated it as his opinion that Sir Charles Dilke was the most useful and influential member, among quite young men, that he had ever known."