It would be a sad understatement to say that the men’s witnesses before the 1806 Committee met with a frosty reception. They and their counsel were browbeaten and threatened by the advocates of laissez faire and the anti-Jacobin tribunes of order. Petitions were seen as evidence of conspiracy. Witnesses whom the croppers had sent to London and maintained at such expense were interrogated like criminals (“I mean to tell the truth as far as comes to my knowledge,” expostulated one cropper: “my character is my bread.”).
