Oastler's agitation for a Ten-Hour Act having failed, he was temporarily swept aside in favour of a Society for Promoting National Regeneration, the brainchild of John Doherty and Robert Owen, which aimed to secure an eight-hour day by concerted strike action but failed to organise a general strike of textile workers (partly because of pre-emptive anti-union action by millowners).
Another Ten-Hour Bill was now contemplated for 1836, but was pre-empted by a government Bill to weaken the existing Act by reducing the age up to which only an eight-hour day could be worked to twelve.
Oastler played a prominent part in agitation against the government Bill and for the introduction of a revived Ten-Hour Bill.
The government Bill was withdrawn after it secured a majority of only two at Second Reading; the campaign for a Ten-Hour Act continued, but was seriously set back by a speech Oastler made at Blackburn in September 1836.
The Blackburn Standard (a friend of the Ten-Hour Bill) published only an expurgated account of the meeting at which Oastler spoke, preceding it with an editorial in which they deplored the speeches of him and his fellow orators: 
 
Such of the sentiments to which they gave utterance, as we deem safe to publish, we report at some length in other columns, but we must say, that they delivered a vast deal of empty, impudent, nonsensical, mischievous, and disgusting balderdash, which we consider it to be our duty to exclude altogether from the Standard. ...
we much regret that the management of this important ... measure should have fallen into the hands of these injudicious advocates.
We do not hesitate to aver that they have, in one night, done more injury to the cause of the factory operatives in this town, by the disgraceful advice which they tendered to their hearers ... than the true friends of the people can repair by the most strenuous attention for many months.
It is not surprising that Christian ministers decline to join in a crusade where the leaders are utterly devoid of Christian charity, and reckless of the consequences of their violence
The Standard therefore did not report that Oastler had talked of teaching children to sabotage mill machinery,; this was however seized upon by his opponents such as the Manchester Guardian  which urged that either 'his friends should put him under some restraint' or 'the law should interpose to end the career of wickedness which he seems disposed to run'.
In a justificatory letter to the Guardian Oastler said that he was only advocating sabotage where (as at Blackburn) magistrates were denying justice to factory children by openly refusing to enforce the Factory Act. "
If after this your magistrates should refuse to listen to your complaints under the factory act and again refer you to me, bring with you your children and tell them to ask their grandmothers for a few of their old knitting needles which I will instruct them how to apply to the spindles in a way which will teach these law-defying mill owner magistrates to have respect even to 'Oastler's law* as they have wrongly designated the factory law."

This caused widespread outrage and the rupture of relationships with Ashley and Wood   the Leeds Intelligencer ceased to publish his letters : John Fielden however stood by him .
Oastler's health broke down at the end of 1836; a meeting at Manchester in January 1837 was told he was unable to address it as 'his exertions on behalf of the factory slave had brought him to the edge of the grave'
Oastler's agitation for a Ten-Hour Act having failed, he was temporarily swept aside in favour of a Society for Promoting National Regeneration, the brainchild of John Doherty and Robert Owen, which aimed to secure an eight-hour day by concerted strike action but failed to organise a general strike of textile workers (partly because of pre-emptive anti-union action by millowners). Another Ten-Hour Bill was now contemplated for 1836, but was pre-empted by a government Bill to weaken the existing Act by reducing the age up to which only an eight-hour day could be worked to twelve. Oastler played a prominent part in agitation against the government Bill and for the introduction of a revived Ten-Hour Bill. The government Bill was withdrawn after it secured a majority of only two at Second Reading; the campaign for a Ten-Hour Act continued, but was seriously set back by a speech Oastler made at Blackburn in September 1836. The Blackburn Standard (a friend of the Ten-Hour Bill) published only an expurgated account of the meeting at which Oastler spoke, preceding it with an editorial in which they deplored the speeches of him and his fellow orators: 
 
Such of the sentiments to which they gave utterance, as we deem safe to publish, we report at some length in other columns, but we must say, that they delivered a vast deal of empty, impudent, nonsensical, mischievous, and disgusting balderdash, which we consider it to be our duty to exclude altogether from the Standard. ... we much regret that the management of this important ... measure should have fallen into the hands of these injudicious advocates. We do not hesitate to aver that they have, in one night, done more injury to the cause of the factory operatives in this town, by the disgraceful advice which they tendered to their hearers ... than the true friends of the people can repair by the most strenuous attention for many months. It is not surprising that Christian ministers decline to join in a crusade where the leaders are utterly devoid of Christian charity, and reckless of the consequences of their violence
The Standard therefore did not report that Oastler had talked of teaching children to sabotage mill machinery,; this was however seized upon by his opponents such as the Manchester Guardian  which urged that either 'his friends should put him under some restraint' or 'the law should interpose to end the career of wickedness which he seems disposed to run'. In a justificatory letter to the Guardian Oastler said that he was only advocating sabotage where (as at Blackburn) magistrates were denying justice to factory children by openly refusing to enforce the Factory Act. "If after this your magistrates should refuse to listen to your complaints under the factory act and again refer you to me, bring with you your children and tell them to ask their grandmothers for a few of their old knitting needles which I will instruct them how to apply to the spindles in a way which will teach these law-defying mill owner magistrates to have respect even to 'Oastler's law* as they have wrongly designated the factory law." 
This caused widespread outrage and the rupture of relationships with Ashley and Wood   the Leeds Intelligencer ceased to publish his letters : John Fielden however stood by him . Oastler's health broke down at the end of 1836; a meeting at Manchester in January 1837 was told he was unable to address it as 'his exertions on behalf of the factory slave had brought him to the edge of the grave'
Richard Oastler