Note 772 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

‘From the summer of 1769 is to be dated the first establishment of public meetings in England.’ Albemarle's Mem. of Rockingham, vol. ii. p. 93. ‘Public meetings, … through which the people might declare their newly-acquired consciousness of power, … cannot be distinctly traced higher than the year 1769; but they were now (i.e. in 1770) of daily occurrence.’ Cooke's Hist. of Party, vol. iii. p. 187. See also Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. ii. p. 420.