So said, at least, in this month of March, 1780, Lord George Gordon, the
Association's president. Whether it was the fact or otherwise, few men
knew or cared to ascertain. It had never made any public demonstration;
had scarcely ever been heard of, save through him; had never been seen;
and was supposed by many to be the mere creature of his disordered
brain. He was accustomed to talk largely about numbers of
men--stimulated, as it was inferred, by certain successful disturbances,
arising out of the same subject, which had occurred in Scotland in the
previous year; was looked upon as a cracked-brained member of the lower
house, who attacked all parties and sided with none, and was very little
regarded. It was known that there was discontent abroad--there always
is; he had been accustomed to address the people by placard, speech,
and pamphlet, upon other questions; nothing had come, in England, of his
past exertions, and nothing was apprehended from his present. Just as
he has come upon the reader, he had come, from time to time, upon the
public, and been forgotten in a day; as suddenly as he appears in these
pages, after a blank of five long years, did he and his proceedings
begin to force themselves, about this period, upon the notice of
thousands of people, who had mingled in active life during the whole
interval, and who, without being deaf or blind to passing events, had
scarcely ever thought of him before.
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