It would have been wise if Sidmouth and his colleagues had recognised this widespread feeling, had seen that famine and despair were at the bottom of popular discontent, and had admitted error of judgment, at least, on the part of the Lancashire magistrates. On the contrary, they felt it so necessary to support civil and military authority, at all hazards, that they induced the prince regent to express unqualified approbation of the course taken, and afterwards defended it without reserve in parliament. Even Eldon expressed his opinion privately that it would be hard to justify it, unless the assembly amounted to an act of treason, as he regarded it; whereas Hunt and his associates were prosecuted (and convicted in the next year) not for treason, but only for a misdemeanour. At all events, the storm of indignation excited by this sad event, and not confined to the working classes, powerfully fomented the reform movement. Large meetings were held over all the manufacturing districts, and a requisition to summon a great Yorkshire meeting was signed by Fitzwilliam, the lord-lieutenant, who attended it in person. For these acts he was properly dismissed, but, in spite of inflammatory speeches, nearly all the meetings passed off quietly and without interference. Nevertheless, the government thought it necessary to hold an autumn session, and strengthen the hands of the executive by fresh measures of repression. These having been passed in December after strenuous opposition, were afterwards known as the six acts, and regarded as the climax of Sidmouth's despotic _régime_.