Proof was not wanting that his determined attitude on these matters had won him the support of great masses of the democracy. Miners' Unions and Labourers' Unions wrote, begging, some for his portrait, others for an address; also, in places where opposition had been offered to his speaking, reprisals were exacted.
'Early in January, 1873, we went to Derby, at the request of the chairman of my meeting at Derby which had failed in the winter of '71-72, when, though a majority were upon our side, a gang of hired poachers had entrenched themselves in a corner of the room, had burned cayenne pepper, and defied all attempts to drive them out. The chairman was a man of determination who did not mean to be beaten. He organized his meeting on this occasion with almost too much care, for I fancy he brought fighting friends from Nottingham and other bruising places to it. The Tory roughs appeared, as on the former occasion. Before we were allowed to enter the room they were charged by means of battering rams with such effect that their entrenchments were destroyed, and they themselves were mostly stunned and carried out one by one. No one was dangerously hurt, but there were many broken heads. Lady Dilke was present in the thick of it, and, according to the newspaper reports, anxiously begged the stewards to deal gently with those whom they threw out. After this the meeting was held in peace. But the result was a formal Government inquiry, and the removal of the chairman of the meeting from the County Bench by the Lord Chancellor. He turned clergyman, to the benefit of Notes and Queries and of the societies for antiquarian research, for, being a man of active mind, and finding the care of small parishes of ritualistic tendencies insufficient to occupy his whole time, he became the author of the famous book, Churches of Derbyshire, and of much other antiquarian work.'
Sir Charles notes that this address at Derby was in fact his first pronouncement on "Free Land." In the following week, at Chelsea, he spoke upon Free Trade, and in both these speeches used the phrase, "Free land, free church, free schools, free trade, free law," laying down, early in 1873, 'the principles on which Chamberlain and John Morley afterwards went in the construction of the pamphlet known as The Radical Programme.'
Sir G. Trevelyan writes:
"In the first months of 1872 he was supposed to have injured himself greatly by his proceedings with regard to the Civil List; and yet, _to my knowledge, within a very few years Mr. Disraeli stated it as his opinion that Sir Charles Dilke was the most useful and influential member, among quite young men, that he had ever known."
In pursuit of his plan of "keeping quiet" till the impending dissolution, he took no prominent action in these months; but he backed independent Liberalism whenever he saw a chance, as, for instance, by subscribing to forward the candidature of Mr. Burt, who had then been selected by the Morpeth miners to represent them. There was, however, a further reason for this quiescence. Lady Dilke at the close of the season was seriously ill, and it was late in autumn before she could be taken abroad to Monaco. Here, under the associations of the place, Dilke wrote his very successful political fantasy, Prince Florestan.
Another event which clouded 1873 was Mill's death—'a great loss to us. Ours was the last house at which he dined, and we, with the Hills' (the editor of the Daily News and his wife), 'were the last friends who dined with him. The Watts portrait for which he had consented to sit was finished for me just when he died.'
'I loved him greatly,' Sir Charles writes. The relation between the two had been that of master and disciple, and Mill may be said to have carried on and completed the work of old Mr. Dilke.
[Illustration: JOHN STUART MILL.
From the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A., in the Westminster Town Hall.]