The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• The Life of Richard Cobden
• Chapter I.: Early Life.
• Chapter II.: Commercial and Mental Progress.
• Chapter III.: Travels In West and East.
• Chapter IV.: The Two Pamphlets.
• Chapter V.: Life In Manchester, 1837–9.
• Chapter VI.: The Foundation of the League.
• Chapter VII.: The Corn Laws.
• Chapter VIII.: Cobden Enters Parliament—first Session.
• Chapter IX.: Cobden As an Agitator.
• Chapter X.: The New Corn Law.
• Chapter XI.: Sir Robert Peel’s New Policy.
• Chapter XII.: Renewed Activity of the League—cobden and Sir Robert Peel—rural Campaign.
• Chapter XIII.: The Session of 1844—factory Legislation—the Constituencies.
• Chapter XIV.: Bastiat—new Tactics—activity In Parliament—maynooth Grant—private Affairs.
• Chapter XV.: The Autumn of 1845.
• Chapter XVI.: Repeal of the Corn Laws and Fall of the Government.
• Chapter XVII.: Correspondence With Sir Robert Peel—cessation of the Work of the League.
• Chapter XVIII.: Tour Over Europe.
• Chapter XIX.: Election For the West Riding.—purchase of Dunford.—correspondence.
• Chapter XX.: Miscellaneous Correspondence On Social and Political Movements.
• Chapter XXI.: The Don Pacifico Debate—the Papal Aggression—correspondence With Mr. Bright On Reform—kossuth.
• Chapter XXII.: The Protectionists In Office.
• Chapter XXIII.: The Panic of 1853.
• Chapter XXIV.: The Crimean War.
• Chapter XXV.: Death of His Son.
• Chapter XXVI.: Chinese Affairs—cobden’s Motion—the Dissolution.
• Chapter XXVII.: The Indian Mutiny—private Affairs—second Journey to America.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Return From America.—the New Ministry.
• Chapter XXIX.: The French Treaty.
• Chapter XXX.: Holiday and Return to Paris.
• Chapter XXXI.: The Tariff—the Fortification Scheme.
• Chapter XXXII.: The Policy of the Commercial Treaty.
• Chapter XXXIII.: Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1859–60—paris—return to England.
• Chapter XXXIV.: The American War—fortification Schemes—international Law.
• Chapter XXXV.: Correspondence With Mr. Delane.
• Chapter XXXVI.: The Danish War—last Speeches In Parliament—correspondence.
• Chapter XXXVII.: Speech At Rochdale—the Land Question—correspondence—last Days and Death.
• Chapter XXXVIII.: Conclusion.
• Appendix
• Note A. (see P. 115).
• Cobden to W. C. Hunt On the Hours of Labour.
• Full Text of the Last Letter Written By Mr Cobden
• Bibliography of Richard Cobden, Based On the British Museum Catalogue
• Biography, Criticism Etc

CHAPTER XVII.

correspondence with sir robert peel—cessation of the work of the league.

1846.
Æt. 42.Three days before the vote which broke up the Administration, Cobden had taken a rather singular step. As he afterwards told a friend, it was the only thing that he ever did as member of the League without the knowledge of Mr. Bright. He wrote a long and very earnest letter to the Prime Minister, urging him, in the tolerably certain event of defeat on the Coercion Bill, to dissolve Parliament.

• “76, Upper Berkeley Street, Portman Square,

“23 June, 1846.

“Sir,—I have tried to think of a plan by which I could have half an hour’s conversation with you upon public matters, but I do not think it would be possible for us to have an interview with the guarantee of privacy. I therefore take a course which will be startling to you, by committing the thoughts which are passing in my mind freely to paper. Let me premise that no human being has or ever will have the slightest knowledge or suspicion that I am writing this letter. I keep no copy, and ask for no reply. I only stipulate that you will put it in the fire when you have perused it, without in any way alluding to its contents or permitting it to meet the eye of any other person what ever.1 I shall not waste a word in apologising for the1846.
Æt. 42. directness—nay, the abruptness—with which I state my views.

“It is said you are about to resign. I assume that it is so. On public grounds this will be a national misfortune. The trade of the country, which has languished through six months during the time that the Corn Bill has been in suspense, and which would now assume a more confident tone, will be again plunged into renewed unsettlement by your resignation. Again, the great principle of commercial freedom with which your name is associated abroad, will be to some extent jeopardized by your retirement. It will fill the whole civilized world with doubt and perplexity to see a minister, whom they believed all-powerful, because he was able to carry the most difficult measure of our time, fall at the very moment of his triumph. Foreigners, who do not comprehend the machinery of our government, or the springs of party movements, will doubt if the people of England are really favourable to Free Trade. They will have misgivings of the permanence of our new policy, and this doubt will retard their movements in the same direction. You have probably thought of all this.

“My object, however, in writing is more particularly to draw your attention from the state of parties in the House, as towards your government, to the position you hold as Prime Minister in the opinion of the country. Are you aware of the strength of your position with the country? If so, why bow to a chance medley of factions in the Legislature, 1846.
Æt. 42.with a nation ready and waiting to be called to your rescue? Few persons have more opportunities forced upon them than myself of being acquainted with the relative forces of public opinion. I will not speak of the populace, which to a man is with you; but of the active and intelligent middle classes, with whom you have engrossed a sympathy and interest greater than was ever before possessed by a minister. The period of the Reform Bill witnessed a greater enthusiasm, but it was less rational and less enduring. It was directed towards half a dozen popular objects—Grey, Russell, Brougham, etc. Now, the whole interest centers in yourself. You represent the Idea of the age, and it has no other representative amongst statesmen. You could be returned to Parliament with acclamation by any one of the most numerous and wealthy constituencies of the kingdom. Fox once said that ‘Middlesex and Yorkshire together make all England.’ You may add Lancashire, and call them your own. Are you justified towards the Queen, the people, and the great question of our generation, in abandoning this grand and glorious position? Will you yourself stand the test of an impartial historian?

“You will perceive that I point to a dissolution as the solution of your difficulties in Parliament. I anticipate your objections. You will say,—‘If I had had the grounds for a dissolution whilst the Corn Bill was pending, I should have secured a majority for that measure; but now I have no such exclusive call upon the country, by which to set aside old party distinctions.’ There are no substantial lines of demarcation now in the country betwixt the Peelites and the so-called Whig or Liberal party. The Chiefs are still keeping up a show of hostility in the House; but their troops out of doors have piled their arms, and are mingling and fraternising together. This fusion must sooner or later take place in the House. The independent men, nearly all who do not look for office, are ready for the amalgamation. They are1846.
Æt. 42. with difficulty kept apart by the instinct of party discipline. One dissolution, judiciously brought about, would release every one of them from those bonds which time and circumstances have so greatly loosened.

“I have said that a dissolution should be judiciously brought about. I assume, of course, that you would not deem it necessary to stand or fall by the present Coercion Bill. I assume, moreover, that you are alive to the all-pervading force of the arguments you have used in favour of Free Trade principles, that they are eternal truths, applicable to all articles of exchange, as well as corn; and that they must be carried out in every item of our tariff. I assume that you foresaw, when you propounded the Corn Bill, that it involved the necessity of applying the same principle to sugar, coffee, etc. This assumption is the basis of all I have said, or have to say. Any other hypothesis would imply that you had not grasped in its full comprehensiveness the greatness of your position, or the means by which you could alone achieve the greatest triumph of a century. For I need not tell you that the only way in which the soul of a great nation can be stirred, is by appealing to its sympathies with a true principle in its unalloyed simplicity. Nay, further, it is necessary for the concentration of a people’s mind that an individual should become the incarnation of a principle. It is from this necessity that I have been identified, out of doors, beyond my poor deserts, as the exponent of Free Trade. You, and no other, are its embodiment amongst statesmen;—and it is for this reason alone that I venture to talk to you in a strain that would otherwise be grossly impertinent.

“To return to the practical question of a dissolution. Assuming that your Cabinet will concur, or that you will place yourself in a position independently of other of appeal to the 1846.
Æt. 42.country, this is the course I should pursue under your circumstances. I would contrive to make it so far a judgment of the electors upon my own conduct as a Minister, as to secure support to myself in the next Parliament to carry out my principles. I would say in my place in Parliament to Lord George Bentinck and his party,—‘I have been grossly maligned in this House, and in the newspaper press. I have been charged with treachery to the electors of this empire. My motives have been questioned, my character vilified, my policy denounced as destructive of the national interests. I have borne all this, looking only to the success of what I deemed a pressing public measure. I will not, however, stand convicted of these charges in the eyes of the civilised world until, at least, the nation has had the opportunity of giving its verdict. I will appeal to the electors of this empire; they shall decide between you and me—between your policy and mine. By their judgment I am content to stand or fall. They shall decide, not only upon my past policy, but whether the principles I have advocated shall be applied in their completeness to every item of our tariff. I am prepared to complete the work I have begun. All I ask is time, and the support of an enlightened and generous people.’

“This tone is essential, because it will release the members of a new Parliament from their old party ties. The hustings cry will be, ‘Peel and Free Trade,’ and every important constituency will send its members up to support you. I would dissolve within the next two months. Some people might urge that the counties would be in a less excited state, if it were deferred; but any disadvantage in that respect would be more than compensated by the gain in the town constituencies. I would go the country with my Free Trade laurels fresh upon my brow, and whilst the grievance under which I was suffering from the outrages of Protectionist speakers and writers was still rankling in the1846.
Æt. 42. minds of people, whose sympathies have been greatly aroused by the conduct of Lord George Bentinck and his organs of the press towards you. Besides, I believe there are many county members who would tell their constituents honestly that Protection was a hopeless battle-cry, and that they would not pledge themselves to a system of personal persecution against yourself. Some of your persecutors would not enter the next Parliament.2 Now I will anticipate what is passing in your mind. Do you shrink from the post of governing through the bonà fide representatives of the middle class? Look at the facts, and can the country be otherwise ruled at all? There must be an end of the juggle of parties, the mere representatives of traditions, and some man must of necessity rule the State through its governing class. The Reform Bill decreed it; the passing of the Corn Bill has realized it. Are you afraid of the middle class? You must know them better than to suppose that they are given to extreme or violent measures. They are not democratic.

“Again, to anticipate what is passing in your thoughts. Do you apprehend a difficulty in effacing the line which separates you from the men on the opposite side of the House? I answer that the leaders of the Opposition personate no idea. You embody in your own person the idea of the age. Do you fear that other questions, which are latent on the ‘Liberal’ side of the House, would embarrass you if you were at the head of a considerable section of its members? What are they? Questions of organic reform have no vitality in the country, nor are they likely to have any force in the Hous until your work is done. Are the 1846.
Æt. 42.Whig leaders more favourable than yourself to institutional changes of any kind? Practical reforms are the order of the day, and you are by common consent the practical reformer. The Condition of England Question—there is your mission!

“As respects Ireland. That has become essentially a practical question too. If you are prepared to deal with Irish landlords as you have done with English, there will be the means of satisfying the people. You are not personally unpopular, but the reverse, with Irish members.

“Lastly, as respects your health. God only knows how you have endured, without sinking, the weight of public duties and the harassings of private remonstrances and importunities during the last six months. But I am of opinion that a dissolution, judiciously brought on, would place you comparatively on velvet for five years. It would lay in the dust your tormentors. It would explode the phantom of a Whig Opposition, and render impossible such a combination as is now, I fear, covertly harassing you. But it is on the subject of your health alone that I feel I may be altogether at fault, and urging you to what may be impossible. In my public views of your position and power, I am not mistaken. Whatever may be the difficulties in your Cabinet, whether one or half-a-score of your colleagues may secede, you have in your own individual will the power, backed by the country, to accomplish all that the loftiest ambition or the truest patriotism ever aspired to identify with the name and fame of one individual.

“I hardly know how to conclude without apologising for this most extraordinary liberty. If you credit me, as I believe you will, when I say that I have no object on earth but a desire to advance the interests of the nation and of humanity in writing to you, any apology will be unnecessary. If past experience do not indicate my motives, time, I hope, will.

“It is my intention, on the passing of the Corn Bill, to1846.
Æt. 42. make instant arrangements for going abroad for at least a year, and it is not likely after Friday next that I shall appear in the House. This is my reason for venturing upon so abrupt a communication of all that is passing in my mind. I reiterate the assurance that no person will know that I have addressed you, and repeating my request that this letter be exclusively for your own eyes,

I have the honour to be, Sir, respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

Richard Cobden.

“Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Peel, Bart. M.P.”

“P.S. I am of opinion that a dissolution, in the way I suggested, with yourself still in power, would very much facilitate the easy return of those on your side who voted with you. And any members of your government who had a difficulty with their present seats would, if they adhered to you, be at a premium with any free constituency. Were I in your position, although as a principle I do not think Cabinet ministers ought to encumber themselves with large constituencies, I would accept an invitation to stand for London, Middlesex, South Lancashire, or West Yorkshire, expressly to show to the world the estimation in which my principles were held, and declaring at the same time that that was my sole motive for one Parliament only.”

To this the Prime Minister replied on the following day, writing at the green table, and listening to the course of the debate as he wrote:—

• “House of Commons,

“Wednesday, June 24th, 1846.

“Sir,—I should not write from this place if I intended to weigh expressions, or to write to you in any other spirit than 1846.
Æt. 42.that of frankness and unreserved, by which your letter is characterized. First let me say that I am very sorry to hear you are about to leave London immediately. I meant to take the earliest opportunity, after the passing of the Corn Bill, to ask for the satisfaction of making your personal acquaintance, and of expressing a hope that every recollection of past personal differences was obliterated for ever. If you were aware of the opinions I have been expressing during the last two years to my most intimate friends with regard to the purity of your motives, your intellectual power, and ability to give effect to it by real eloquence—you would share in my surprise that all this time I was supposed to harbour some hostile personal feelings towards you.

“I need not give you the assurance that I shall regard your letter as a communication more purely confidential than if it had been written to me by some person united to me by the closest bonds of private friendship.

“I do not think I mistake my position.

“I would have given, as I said I would give, every proof of fidelity to the measures which I introduced at the beginning of his Session. I would have instantly advised dissolution if dissolution had been necessary to ensure their passing. I should have thought such an exercise of the Prerogative justifiable—if it had given me a majority on no other question. If my retention of office, under any circumstances however adverse, had been necessary or would have been probably conducive to the success of those measures, I would have retained it. They will, however, I confidently trust, be the law of the land on Friday next.

“I do not agree with you as to the effect of my retirement from office as a justifiable ground, after the passing of those measures.

“You probably know or will readily believe that which is the truth—that such a position as mine entails the severest sacrifices. The strain on the mental power is far too severe;1846.
Æt. 42. I will say nothing of ceremony—of the extent of private correspondence about mere personal objects—of the odious power which patronage confers—but what must be my feelings when I retire from the House of Commons after eight or nine hours’ attendance on frequently superfluous or frivolous debate, and feel conscious that all that time should have been devoted to such matters as our relations with the United States—the adjustment of the Oregon dispute—our Indian policy—our political or commercial relations with the great members of the community of powerful nations?

“You will believe, I say, if you reflect on these things, that office and power may be anything but an object of ambition, and that I must be insane if I could have been induced by anything but a sense of public duty to undertake what I have undertaken in this Session.

“But the world, the great and small vulgar, is not of this opinion. I am sorry to say they do not and cannot comprehend the motives which influence the best actions of public men. They think that public men change their course from corrupt motives, and their feeling is so predominant, that the character of public men is injured, and their practical authority and influence impaired, if in such a position as mine at the present moment any defeat be submitted to, which ought under ordinary circumstances to determine the fate of a government, or there be any clinging to office.

“I think I should do more homage to the principles on which the Corn and Customs Bills are founded, by retirement on a perfectly justifiable ground, than either by retaining office without its proper authority, without the ability to carry through that which I undertake, or by encountering the serious risk of defeat after dissolution.

1846.
Æt. 42.“I do not think a minister is justified in advising dissolution under such circumstances as the present, unless he has a strong conviction that he will have a majority based not on temporary personal sympathies, not on concurrence of sentiment on one branch of policy, however important that may be, but on general approval of his whole policy.

“I should not think myself entitled to exercise this great prerogative, for the sole or the main purpose of deciding a personal question between myself and inflamed Protectionists—namely, whether I had recently given good advice and honest advice to the Crown. The verdict of the country might be in my favour on that issue; but I might fail in obtaining a majority which should enable me after the first excitement had passed away, to carry on the government, that is to do what I think conducive to the public welfare. I do not consider the evasion of difficulties, and the postponement of troublesome questions, the carrying on of a government.

“I could perhaps have parried even your power, and carried on the government in one sense for three or four years longer, if I could have consented to halloo an a majority in both houses to defend the (not yet defunct) Corn Law of 1842, ‘in all its integrity.’

“If you say that I individually at this moment embody or personify an idea, be it so. Then I must be very careful that, being the organ and representative of a prevailing and magnificent conception of the public mind, I do not sully that which I represent by warranting the suspicion even, that I am using the power it confers for any personal object.

“You have said little, and I have said nothing, about Ireland. But if I am defeated on the Irish Bill, will it be possible to divest dissolution (following soon after that defeat) of the character of an appeal to Great Britain against Ireland on a question of Irish Coercion? I should deeply1846.
Æt. 42. lament this.

“I will ask you also to consider this. After the passing of the Corn and Customs Bill, considering how much trade has suffered of late from delays, debates, and uncertainty as to the final result, does not this country stand in need of respose? Would not a desperate political conflict throughout the length and breadth of the land impair or defer the beneficial effect of the passing of those measures? If it would, we are just in that degree abating satisfaction with the past, and reconcilement to the continued application of the principles of Free Trade.

“Consider also the effect of dissolution in Ireland; the rejection of the Irish Bill immediately preceding it.

“I have written this during the progress of the debates, to which I have been obliged to give some degree of attention. I may, therefore, have very imperfectly explained my views and feelings, but imperfect as that explanation may be, it will I hope suffice to convince you that I receive your communication in the spirit in which it was conceived, and that I set a just value on your good opinion and esteem.

“I have the honour to be, Sir,

With equal respect for your character and abilities,

Your faithful Servant,

Robert Peel.”

It is easy to understand the attractiveness of the idea with which Cobden was now possessed. It was thoroughly worked out in his own mind. By means of the forty-shilling freehold, the middle and industrious classes were to acquire a preponderance of political power. It was not the workmen as such, in whom Cobden had confidence. “You never heard me,” he said to the Protectionists in the House 1846.
Æt. 42.of Commons, “quote the superior judgment of the working classes in any deliberations in this assembly: you never heard me cant about the superior claims of the working classes to arbitrate on this great question.”3 Political power was to be in the hands of people who had public spirit enough to save the thirty pounds or so that would buy them a qualification, if they could not get it in any other way. These middle and industrious classes would insist on pacific and thrifty administration, as the political condition of popular development. Circumstances had brought forward a powerful representative of such a policy in Sir Robert Peel; and Peel at the head of a fusion of Whigs and Economic Liberals would carry the country along the ways of a new and happier civilization. The old Whig watchword of Civil and Religious Liberty belonged to another generation, and it had ceased to be the exclusive cry of the Whigs even now. The repeal of the Corn Laws had broken up all parties, “I felt,” said Cobden, “that I as much belonged to Sir James Graham’s party, as I did to Lord John Russell’s party,”4 There must be a great reconstruction, and Sir Robert Peel was to preside over it.

Such a scheme was admirable in itself. In substance it was destined to be partially realized one day, not by Peel, but by the most powerful and brilliant of his lieutenants. The singular fate which had marked the Minister’s past career was an invincible obstacle to Cobden’s project. It was too late. All the accepted decencies of party would have been outraged if the statesman who had led an army of Tory country gentlemen in one Parliament, should have hurried to lead on army of liberal manufacturers in the next. The transition was too violent, the prospect of success too much of an accident. Nobody, again, could expect with Lord John Russell’s view, and it was a just view, of Peel’s long and1846.
Æt. 42. successful opposition to measures and principles which he immediately took for his own on coming into power, that they should have been able to unite their forces under the lead of either of them. It would have seemed to Lord John quite as equivocal a transaction as the too famous coalition between Charles Fox and Lord North. What he did was to offer posts in his administration to three of Sir Robert Peel’s late colleagues,5 and this was far as he could go. They declined, and the country was thrown back upon a Whig Administration of the old type. When that Administration came to an end, the fusion which Cobden had desired came to pass. But Sir Robert Peel was there no more. The power which he would have used in furtherance of the wise and beneficent policy cherished by Cobden, fell into the hands of Lord Palmerston, who represented every element in the national character and traditions which Cobden thought most retrograde and dangerous.

Happily for the peace of the moment, these mortifications of the future were unknown and unsuspected. Ten days after his letter to the fallen Minister, Cobden received a communication from his successor.

• “Chesham Place,

July 2, 1846.

“My dear Sir,—The Queen having been pleased to entrust me with the task of forming an Administration, I have been anxious to place in office those who have maintained in our recent struggle the principles of Free Trade against Monopoly.

“The letter I received from you in November last, declining office, and the assurances I have received that you are going abroad for your health, have in combination with other circumstances prevented my asking your aid, nor, 1846.
Æt. 42.had I proposed to you to join the Government could I have placed you anywhere but in the Cabinet. I have not hitherto perceived that you were disposed to adopt political life, apart from Free Trade, as a pursuit. I hope, however, you will do so, and that on your return to this country you will join a liberal Administration.

“I care little whether the present arrangement remains for any long period in the direction of affairs. But I am anxious to see a large Liberal majority in the House of Commons devoted to improvement, both in this country and in Ireland. Mr. Charles Villiers has declined to take any office. I am about to propose to Mr. Milner Gibson to become Vice-President of the Board of Trade.

“I remain, with sentiments of regard and respect,

Yours very faithfully,

J. Russell.“

What were the “other circumstances” which prevented Lord John Russell from inviting Cobden to join his Government, we can only guess. It is pretty certain that they related to a project of which a good deal had been heard during the last four or five months. There would undeniably have been some difficulty in giving high office in the state to a politician whose friends were at the time publicly collecting funds for a national testimonial of a pecuniary kind. Whether the Whig chief was glad or not to have this excuse for leaving Cobden out of his Cabinet, the ground of the omission was not unreasonable.

The final meeting of the League took place on the same day on which Lord John Russell wrote to explain that he intended to show his appreciation of what was due to those “who had maintained in our recent struggle the principles of Free Trade against Monopoly,” by offering Mr. Gibson a post without either dignity or influence. The Leaguers were too honestly satisfied with the triumph of the cause1846.
Æt. 42. for which they had banded themselves together eight years ago, to take any interest in so small a matter as the distribution of good things in Downing Street and Whitehall. That was no affair of theirs. It was enough for them that they had removed a great obstacle to the material prosperity of the country, that they had effectually vindicated what the best among them believed to be an exalted and civilizing social principle, and that in doing this they had failed to reverence no law, shaken no institution, and injured no class nor order. It is impossible not to envy the feelings of men who had done so excellent a piece of work for their country in so spirited and honourable a way. When the announcement was made from the Chair that the Anti-Corn-Law League stood conditionally dissolved, a deep silence fell upon them all, as they reflected that they were about finally to separate from friends with whom they had been long and closely connected, and that they had no longer in common the pursuit of an object which had been the most cherished of their lives.6

The share which the League had in procuring the consummation of the commercial policy that Huskisson had first opened four-and-twenty years before, is not always rightly understood. One practical effect of a mischievous kind has followed from this misunderstanding. It has led people into the delusion that organization, if it be only on a sufficiently gigantic scale and sufficiently unrelenting in its importunity, is capable of winning any virtuous cause. The agitation against the Corn Laws had several pretty obvious peculiarities, which ought not to be overlooked. A large and wealthy class had the strongest material interest in repeal. What was important was that this class now happened to represent the great army of consumers. 1846.
Æt. 42.Protection as a principle had long ago begun to give way, but it might have remained for a long time to come, if it had not been found in intolerable antagonism with the growing giant of industrial interests. It is not a piece of cynicism, but an important truth, to say that what brings great changes of policy is the spontaneous shifting and readjustment of interests, not the discovery of new principles. What the League actually did was this. Its energetic propagandism succeeded in making people believe in a general way that Free Trade was right, when the time should come. When the Irish famine brought the crisis, public opinion was prepared for the solution, and when protection on corn had disappeared, there was nothing left to support protection on sugar and ships. Then, again, the perseverance of the agitation had a more direct effect, as has been already seen from Cobden’s letters. It frightened the ruling class. First, it prevented Peel, in the autumn of 1845, from opening the ports by an order in council. Second, it forced the Whigs out of their fixed duty. Third, it made the House of Lords afraid of throwing out the repealing Bill.

There is another important circumstance which ought not to be left out of sight. One secret of the power of the League both over the mind of Sir Robert Peel, and over parliament, arose from the narrow character of the representation at that time. The House of Commons to-day is a sufficiently imperfect and distorting mirror of public judgment and feeling. But things were far worse then. The total number of voters in the country was not much more than three quarters of a million; six sevenths of the male population of the country was excluded from any direct share of popular power; and property itself was so unfairly represented that Manchester, with double the value of the property of Buckinghamshire, returned only two members, while Bucks returned eleven. It was on this account, as Cobden said, it was because Manchester could1846.
Æt. 42. not have its fair representation in parliament, that it was obliged to organize a League and raise an agitation through the length and breadth of the land, in order to make itself felt.7 It was just because the sober portion of the House of Commons were aware from how limited and exclusive a source they drew their authority, that the League represented so formidable, because so unknown, a force.

The same thought was present to the reflective mind of Peel. Cobden tells a story in one of his speeches which illustrates this. One evening in 1848 they were sitting in the House of Commons, when the news came that the government of Louis Philippe had been overthrown and a republic proclaimed. When the buzz of conversation ran round the House, as the startling intelligence was passed from member to member, Cobden said to Joseph Hume, who sat beside him, “Go across and tell Sir Robert Peel.” Hume went to the front bench opposite, where Sir Robert was sitting in his usual isolation. “This comes,” said Peel, when Hume had whispered the catastrophe, “this comes of trying to govern the country through a narrow representation in Parliament, without regarding the wishes of those outside. It is what this party behind me wanted me to do in the matter of the Corn Laws, and I would not do it.”8

Now that the work was finally done, Cobden was free to set out on that journey over Europe, which the doctors had urged upon him as the best means of repose, and which he promised himself should be made an opportunity of diligently preaching the new gospel among the economic Gentiles. Before starting on this long pilgrimage, he went to stay for a month with his family in Wales. Two days after the final meeting of the League, he thus describes to 1846.
Æt. 42.one of the earliest of his fellow-workers the frame of mind in which it had left him.

“I am going into the wilderness to pray for a return of the taste I once possessed for nature and simple quiet life. Here I am, in one day from Manchester, to the loveliest valley out of paradise. Ten yeas ago, before I was an agitator, I spent a day or two in this house. Comparing my sensations now with those I then experienced, I feel how much I have lost in winning public fame. The rough tempest has spoilt me for the quiet haven. I fear I shall never be able to cast anchor again. It seems as if some mesmeric hand were on my brain, or I was possessed by an unquiet fiend urging me forward in spite of myself. On Thursday I thought as I went to the meeting, that I should next day be a quiet and happy man. Next day brings me a suggestion from a private friend of the Emperor of Russia, assuring me that if instead of going to Italy and Egypt, I would take a trip to St. Petersburg, I could exercise an important influence upon the mind of Nicholas. Here am I at Llangollen, blind to the loveliness of nature, and only eager to be on the road to Russia, taking Madrid, Vienna Berlin, and Paris by the way! Let me see my boy to-morrow, who waits my coming at Machynlleth, and if he do not wean me, I am quite gone past recovery.”9

His mind did not rest long. To Mr. Ashworth he wrote at the same date:—

“Now I am going to tell you of fresh projects that have been brewing in my brain. I have given up all idea of burying myself in Egypt or Italy. I am going on a private agitating tour through the Continent of Europe. The other day I got an intimation from Sir Roderick Murchison, the geologist—a friend and confidant of the Emperor of Russia—that I should have great influence with him if I went to St. Petersburg. To-day I get a letter1846.
Æt. 42. from the Mayor of Bordeaux, written at Paris after dining at Duchatel’s, the French Minister, conveying a suggestion from the latter that I should cross to Dieppe and visit the King of the French at his Chateau of Eu, where he would be glad to receive me between the 4th and 14th August.

“I have had similar hints respecting Madrid, Vienna, and Berlin. Well, I will, with God’s assistance, during the next twelvemonth visit all the large states of Europe, see their potentates or statesmen, and endeavour to enforce those truths which have been irresistible at home. Why should I rust in inactivity? If the public spirit of my countrymen affords me the means of travelling as their missionary, I will be the first ambassador from the People of this country to the nations of the continent. I am impelled to his step by an instinctive emotion such as never deceived me. I feel that I could succeed in making out a stronger case for the prohibitive nations of Europe to compel them to adopt a freer system, than I had here to overturn our protective policy. But it is necessary that my design should not be made public, for that would create suspicion aboard. With the exception of a friend or two, under confidence, I shall not mention my intentions to anybody.”

A few days later he wrote to George Combe, in a mood of more even balance:—

“Your affectionate letter of the 28th of June, has never been absent from my mind, although so long unacknowledged. I came here last week, with my wife and children, on a visit to her father’s, and for a quiet ramble amongst the Welsh mountains. I thought I should be allowed to be forgotten after my address to my constituents. But every post brings me twenty or thirty letters, and such letters! I am teased 1846.
Æt. 42.to death by place-hunters of every degree, who wish me to procure them Government appointments. Brothers of peers, ay, ‘honourables’ are amongst the number. I have but one answer for all, ‘I would not ask a favour of the Ministry to serve my own brother.’ Then I am still importuned worse than ever by beggars of every description. The enclosed is a specimen which reached me this morning; put it in the fire.1 I often think, what must be the fate of Lord John or Peel with half the needy aristocracy knocking at the Treasury doors. Here is my excuse for not having answered your letter before.

“The settlement of the Free Trade controversy leaves the path free for other reforms, and Education must came next, and when I say that Education has yet to come, I need not add that I do not look for very great advances in our social state during our generation. You ask me whether the public mind is prepared for acting upon the moral law in our national affairs. I am afraid the animal is yet too predominant in the nature of Englishmen, and of men generally, to allow us to hope that the higher sentiments will gain their desired ascendency in your life-time or mine. I have always had one test of the tendency of the world: what is its estimate of war and warriors, and on what do nations rely for their mutual security? Brute force is, I fear, as much worshipped now, in the statues to Wellington and the peerage to Gough, as1846.
Æt. 42. they were two thousand years ago in the colossal proportions of Hercules or Jupiter. Our international relations are an armed truce, each nation relying entirely on its power to defend itself by physical force. We may teach Christianity and morality in our families; but as a people, we are, I fear, still animals in our predominant propensities.

“Perhaps you will remember that in my little pamphlets, I dwelt a good deal, ten years ago, upon the influence of our foreign policy upon our home affairs. I am as strongly as ever impressed with this view. I don’t think the nations of the earth will have a chance of advancing morally in their domestic concerns to the degree of excellence which we sigh for, until the international relations of the world are put upon a different footing. The present system corrupts society, exhausts its wealth, raises up false gods for hero-worship, and fixes before the eyes of the rising generation a spurious if glittering standard of glory. It is because I do believe that the principle of Free Trade is calculated to alter the relations of the world for the better, in a moral point of view, that I bless God I have been allowed to take a prominent part in its advocacy. Still, do not let us be too gloomy. If we can keep the world from actual war, and I trust railroads, steamboats, cheap postage and our own example in Free Trade will do that, a great impulse will from this time be given to social reforms. The public mind is in a practical mood, and it will now precipitate itself upon Education, Temperance, reform of Criminals, care of Physical Health, etcetera, with greater zeal than ever....

“Now, my dear friend, for a word or two upon a very delicate personal matter. You have seen the account of an ebullition of a pecuniary kind which is taking place in the country, a demonstration in favour of me exclusively to the 1846.
Æt. 42.neglect of others who have laboured long and zealously with me in the cause of Free Trade. I feel deeply the injustice of passing over Bright and Villiers, to say nothing of others; and nothing but the conviction that I am guiltless of ever having arrogated to myself the merit of others consoles me in the painful position in which the public have placed me, of being the vehicle for diverting the reward from men who are as worthy of all honour as myself. But I wish to speak to you upon a still more delicate view of this unpalatable affair. I do not like to be recompensed for a public service at all, and I am sensible that my moral influence will be impaired by the fact of my receiving a tribute in money from the public. I should have preferred to have either refused it, or to have done a glorious service by endowing a college. But as an honest man, and as a father and a husband, I cannot refuse to accept the money. You will probably be surprised when I tell you that I have shared the fate of nearly all leaders in revolutions or great reforms, by the complete sacrifice of my private prospects in life. In a word I was a poor man at the close of my agitation. I shall not go into details, because it would involve painful reminiscences; but suffice it to say that whilst the Duke of Richmond was taunting me with the profits of my business, I was suffering the complete loss of my private fortune, and I am not now afraid to confess to you that my health of body and peace of mind have suffered more in consequence of private anxieties during the last two years, than from my public labours. With strong domestic feelings and with an orderly mind, which was peculiarly sensitive to the immorality of risking the happiness of those whom nature had given the first claim on me, for the sake of a public object, I experienced a conflict between the demands of my responsible public station, and the prior duties which I owed to my family, which altogether nearly paralysed me. I should have retired from public life last August, had not some of my1846.
Æt. 42. wealthy coadjutors in Lancashire forced me to continue at my post, and had they not compelled me to leave to them the cares of my private business. It is owing to the knowledge which my neighbours in Lancashire have of the sacrifices which I have incurred, that the subscription has been entered into; and I wish you to be in possession of the facts, because you are the man of all others whom I should wish to possess the materials for forming a correct knowledge of the motives which compel me to take a course that jars at first sight on our notion of purity and disinterestedness.”2

It is not necessary to enter into a discussion of the propriety of Cobden’s acceptance of the large sum of money, between seventy-five and eighty thousand pounds, which were collected in commemoration of his services to what the subscribers counted a great public cause. The chief Leaguers anxiously discussed the project of a joint testimonial to Cobden, Mr. Bright, and Mr. Villiers, all three to be included in a common subscription.3 But nobody could say how the fund was to be divided. It was then discussed whether as much money could be collected for the three as for Cobden individually, and it was agreed that it could not, for it was Cobden who united the sections of the Free Trade party. He had undoubtedly sacrificed good chances of private prosperity for the interest of the community, and it would have been a painful and discreditable satire on human nature if he had been left in ruin, while everybody around him was thriving on the results of his unselfish devotion. It is true that many others had made sacrifices both of time and money, but they had not sacrificed 1846.
Æt. 42.everything as Cobden had done. The munificence of the subscription was singularly honourable to those who contributed to it. No generous or reasonable man will think that it impairs by one jot the purity of the motives that prompted the exertions of the public benefactor whose great services it commemorated and rewarded.

[1]Cobden did not know that Sir Robert Peel put nothing into the fire. He once said to one of his younger followers,—” My dear——, no public man who values his character, ever destroys a letter or a paper.” As a matter of fact, Peel put up every night all the letters and notes that had come to him in the day, and it is understood that considerably more than a hundred thousand papers are in the possession of his literary executors. Some who exercised themselves upon the minor moralities of private life, will be shocked that he did not respect his correspondent’s stipulation.

[2]“Among other things,” Cobden wrote to Mr. Parkes, “I remember mentioning the fact that Disraeli could not be again returned for Shrews bury.”

[3]Speeches, i. 372. Feb. 27, 1846.

[4]Speeches, ii. 507.

[5]Lord Dalhousie, Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert.

[6]See Mr. Bright’s speech, quoted in Mr. Ashworth’s little book, p. 213.

[7]Speeches, ii. 482. July 6, 1848.

[8]Speeches, ii. 548. Aug. 18, 1859.

[9]To Mr. Paulton. July 4, 1846.

[1]The letter referred to purported to be from a lady, who having nothing but her own exertions to depend upon, begged Mr. Cobden to become her “generous and noble-minded benefactor,” to enable her to “begin to do something for herself.” She says, “I do not see to use my needle; to rear poultry for London and other large market-towns is what my wishes are bent upon.” For this purpose she suggests that Mr. Cobden should procure a loan of 5000l. to be advanced by himself and nine other friends in Manchester, where, she delicately insinuates, he is so much beloved that the process will be a very easy one for him. The loan, principal and interest, she promises shall be faithfully paid in ten years at the most. The writer mentions that she has her eye upon a small estate which will serve her purpose.

[2]To Geo. Combe. July 14, 1846.

[3]The League had already voted a present of ten thousand pounds to Mr. George Wilson, their indefatigable chairman.