Cuffay speech at London Demonstration

The Chartist newspaper the Northern Star reported Cuffay speaking at the London demonstration of 2 March 1948

We have arrived at a time when a league of kings is no longer dreaded … The French had set us a glorious example, beating the strongest army in the world … Never despair of your rights. ‘Look there,’ said the speaker, pointing to a huge placard bearing the words, ‘The Republic for France – the Charter for England’. (Rapturous cheering.) Ay! And if they refused us the Charter, we should begin to think about a republic. (Great cheering.) …Look at the immense meeting recently held in Leeds, with the Mayor in the chair, who declared himself heart and soul a Chartist. (Loud cheers.) Let them follow up this meeting, and the day was not far distant when the Charter must become the law of the land. (Great cheering.)

The Chartists blamed the British government and one of the Chartist placards read:

What an awful spectacle in Ireland, after forty-seven years of vaunted Union! Her trade ruined, her agriculture paralysed, her people scattered over the four quarters of the globe, and her greenfields [sic] in the twelve months just past made the dreary graveyards of 1,000,000 of famished human beings.