ABSTRACT
The dissolution of the Convention has been well described as the result of a coalition of those who contemplated a direct resort to force and those who were simply disillusioned with the struggle. Alexander Somerville, who had seen active service with the British Auxiliary Legion in Spain from 1835 to 1837, was thought to be sympathetic to the chartist cause. The Polish emigrant was Major Bartlomiej Beniowski, who had deserted the Russian army for the Polish resistance in 1830 and who subsequently went into exile in France and Egypt before settling in England in or about 1836. The fact of the matter was that in the late summer of 1839, as the General Convention lurched towards dissolution, a number of coteries were formed in London. Some remained committed to reform through a reformed Parliament and others contemplated a revolutionary refashioning of society.
