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Harney persuaded the Chartist Convention to back the "Sacred Month" - actually, it was planned to last six weeks, beginning on August 12th. O'Connor argued against it and his Northern Star bellowed: "We believe (this is) a most ill-judged and suicidal act ... from which we should emerge only through blood and fire or chains and slavery more dire than any we have yet known."

O'Connor himself insisted: "there are men earning 15/-, 20/-, 25/- and 30/- a week. I ask, will those men be likely, in a body, to keep the Sacred Holiday? I say not; and, if not, who will be sacrificed? The answer is easy.

The most determined, resolute and oppressed." Strange words, from a man who had already named his own date for the start of an uprising.

In the event, nothing came of the general strike. Harney and Benbow were arrested and charged with sedition as they toured the country trying to drum up support among the masses.

The Convention, realising that their bluff was about to be called, left it to the workers to decide what to do and shut up shop, and the Sacred Month was consigned to history. So, too, was O'Connor's September 29th date, and that looked like the end of the first great Chartist surge - until Newport.

This incident had begun in May, when Henry Vincent was arrested for making seditious speeches. At Monmouth Assizes in August, he was gaoled for a year, angering Welsh Chartists who began to resort to violence.

Newport's Chartist delegate and former JP John Frost condemned the outbreaks, calling instead for a protest meeting and a march on Newport, where Vincent's release would be demanded.

The authorities clearly viewed this as a test of their resolve, and
GEORGE JULIAN HARNEY (left) later became an associate of Karl Marx. Feargus O'Connor (right) was the movement's firebrand figurehead.
not without reason - Frost and his fellow organisers Zephaniah Williams and William Jones had assembled between 6,000 and 7,000 miners and ironworkers, and they hoped that their march would signal the beginning of a general Welsh insurrection. There was talk of other towns being captured, and even the declaration of a new republic.

The authorities knew about this, and their answer was to arrest more Chartists and incarcerate them in Newport's Westgate Hotel, where they were guarded by a troop of 28 soldiers. As Frost's marchers arrived, the soldiers were ordered to fire into the crowd. They killed 20 men and wounded 50 more. Frost and other leaders were convicted of high treason and ordered to be hanged, drawn and quartered.