On February 4th, 1839, the Convention assembled in London and drafted a petition to Parliament. The petition called for the adoption of the six points, with an implied threat of action if it were ignored.

But here we see the first crack in the edifice. Delegates were unable to agree on what that action should be and as they discussed the possibilities, the movement was splitting into two factions.

Moral Force Chartists favoured acts of civil disobedience while the Physical Force faction wanted more direct action. While the differences between the two camps were never clear cut, they were enough to blur the issue.

The movement was suffering, too, from a glut of leadership and an unavoidable diversification of aims. Pure Chartism - "The Charter, the whole Charter, nothing but the Charter" - was not the only call. The movement, especially in the industrial Midlands and North, became the focal point for many of the other radical causes of the 1830s, such as the 10-hour factory movement, the fight against the new Poor Law and the battle to abolish the Corn Laws.

O'Connor was mainly responsible for the break between the two factions. He mocked Lovett and the moral-force advocates, and his speeches became increasingly vitriolic and rabble-rousing, with talk of "death or glory" and "dying for the cause."

This went down well with oppressed Northern workers such as the handloom weavers, many of whom were fellow Irishmen, and he even gave them a date for the start of violence if the petition failed: September 29th, 1839. When the petition was delivered in July, Parliament rejected it out of hand.