McCulloch mentioned the matter to several young men of influence, to whom he was then giving private lessons in political economy.

Some of these entered warmly into the project, particularly George Villiers, after Earl of Clarendon.

He and his brothers, Hyde and Charles, Romilly, Charles Austin and I, with some others, met and agreed on a plan.

We determined to meet once a fortnight from November to June, at the Freemasons' Tavern, and we had soon a fine list of members, containing, along with several members of Parliament, nearly all the most noted speakers of the Cambridge Union and of the Oxford United Debating Society.

It is curiously illustrative of the tendencies of the time, that our principal difficulty in recruiting for the Society was to find a sufficient number of Tory speakers.