I opened the second question, and from that time spoke in nearly every debate.

It was very uphill work for some time.

The three Villiers and Romilly stuck to us for some time longer, but the patience of all the founders of the Society was at last exhausted, except me and Roebuck.

In the season following, 1826-7, things began to mend.

We had acquired two excellent Tory speakers, Hayward and Shee (afterwards Sergeant Shee): the Radical side was reinforced by Charles Buller, Cockburn, and others of the second generation of Cambridge Benthamities; and with their and other occasional aid, and the two Tories as well as Roebuck and me for regular speakers, almost every debate was a _bataille rangee_ between the "philosophic Radicals" and the Tory lawyers; until our conflicts were talked about, and several persons of note and consideration came to hear us.