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 XXVI.

chinese affairs—cobden’s motion—the dissolution.

The first week of the new year (1857) found Cobden back1857.
Æt. 53. again at Dunford; but at the end of January he went with his wife to a hydropathic establishment at Richmond. “I have little sympathy myself,” he said, “with the hydropathic superstition; but the simple diet and regular hours are always in favour of health.” As it happened he had, besides simple diet and quiet hours, something which to natures such as his is the most favourable of all conditions to sound health, I mean the excitement of vigorous interest in a great public cause.

Certain transactions in China had for some time attracted his vigilant attention, and they now occupied him to the exclusion of everything else. In his pamphlet on the Second Burmese War Cobden had shown the danger and injustice of our accepted policy towards the weak nations of the East. A war had now broken out in China which illustrated the same principles in a still more striking way. Sir John Bowring, the Governor of Hong Kong, was an old friend of Cobden’s, a member of the Peace Society, and one of the earliest agitators against the Corn Law. But he was a man without practical judgment, and he became responsible for one of the worst of the Chinese wars. The Chinese boarded the “Arrow,” and rescued twelve of their countrymen from it on a charge of Piracy. The British Consul 1857.
Æt. 53.protested on the ground that malfeasants on board a British ship should not be seized, but should be demanded from the Consul. Nine men were returned at once. Bowring sent word that unless the whole of the men were returned within eight-and-forty hours, with apologies for the past and pledges for the future, the English men-of-war would begin operations. On a certain day the whole of the men were returned, with a protest from the Chinese governor that the ship was not a British ship, and that therefore he was not bound to demand his malfeasants from the Consul. The Chinese governor was perfectly in the right, Bowring’s contention was an absolute error from beginning to end.1 The “Arrow” was not a British ship. Its licence had expired. Even if this had not been so, the Hong Kong agents had no power to give a licence to a Chinese ship-owner protecting him against his own government. The case stood thus then. Bowring had made a claim which was legally untenable. The Chinese governor, while declaring it illegal, acquiesced in the demand. Yet the day after the whole of the men had been given up, naval and military operations were begun, a great number of Chinese junks were destroyed, the suburbs of Canton were burnt and battered down, the town was shelled, and this iniquitous devastation was the beginning of a long and costly war.

The course which the Government at home ought to have taken was this. Bowring ought to have been recalled; in time it is to be hoped that public opinion will insist that agents who are guilty of action of this kind shall not only be recalled, but shall be formally disgraced and explicitly1857.
Æt. 53. punished. His recall would have been justified even by the opinion of that day or of this. It was not, however, to be expected from the statesman whose politics never got beyond Civis Romanus especially when he was dealing with a very weak Power. The Government resolved to support Bowring. As usual, they shifted the ground from the particular to the general; if the Chinese were right about the “Arrow,” they were wrong about something else; if legality did not exactly justify violence, it was at any rate required by policy; orientals mistake justice for fear; and so on through the string of well-worn sophisms, which are always pursued in connexion with such affairs.

To Cobden, as we may suppose, the whole transaction seemed worthy of condemnation on every ground. Bowring’s demand was illegal, and ought not to have been made. If this was doubtful, at any rate Bowring’s violent action was precipitate. It was a resort in the first instance to measures which would hardly have been justifiable in the last instance. If there were general grievances against the Chinese, why not make joint representations with France and the United States, instead of stumbling into a quarrel in which we had not a leg to stand upon, and beginning a war for which in the opinion of our best lawyers there was no proper ground.2

The chance of reversing the course of policy depended as usual on the accidents of party combination. In a letter to Mr. Lindsay written in the last month of 1856, Cobden 1857.
Æt. 53.describes the state of parties at that time. “It is unlike,” he said, “everything I have witnessed for the last fifteen years. There seems to be no party having an intelligible principle or policy in which any considerable body out of doors takes an interest. The two sides of the House no longer represent opposing parties—unless, indeed, it may be said that our leader is at heart an aristocratic Tory, while the chief of the Opposition is, if anything, a democratic Radical. Of this a considerable number on the Tory side seem to be shrewdly aware, for they evince no desire to turn out Palmerston, in whom they have more confidence than in Disraeli.” Under these circumstances, however, the position of a Minister must always be precarious, for the absence of definitely antagonistic policies places him at the mercy of fortuitous personal coalitions. One of these coalitions came into existence now. The Peelites were only following the tradition of their master in condemning a precipitate and useless war. Mr. Disraeli and his friends played the official part of an Opposition in censuring an Administration. Lord John Russell obeyed an honest instinct for justice. All these sections resolved to support Cobden. It was on the 26th of February that Cobden brought forward a motion to the effect that without expressing an opinion on the causes of complaint arising from non-fulfilment of the treaty of 1842, the House thought the late violent measures at Canton not justified by the papers, and that a Select Committee should inquire into the commercial relations with China. This enabled him to cover the whole ground of our policy in that country. He did so in one of the most masterly of his speeches; it was closely argued, full of matter, without an accent of passion, unanswerable on the special case, and thoroughly broad and statesmanlike in general views.3 The House was profoundly impressed. After a long debate,1857.
Æt. 53. in which lord Palmerston taunted Cobden with his un-English spirit, and wondered how he could have thought of attacking an old friend like Bowring, the division was taken. There was a majority of sixteen against the Government. The sixteen would have been sixty, it was said, if Lord Derby’s party had held together. That so many of them were found on Cobden’s side, showed that so far as opinion and conviction went, the minority was very small indeed. But, as we are always seeing, it is the tendency of party government to throw opinion and conviction too often into a secondary place. Mr. Gladstone said that if the division had been taken immediately after the speeches of Cobden and Lord John Russell, the motion would have been carried by a majority so overwhelming that the Minister could not have ventured to appeal to the country against it. The interval allowed the old party considerations to resume their usual force. As it was, Lord Palmerston with his usual acuteness and courage of judgment determined to dissolve Parliament. Mr. Bright was now at Rome. “I need not tell you,” he wrote to Cobden, “how greatly pleased I was with the news, and especially that the blow was given by your hand.” The blow was unhappily to be returned with interest.

The country had not long been engaged in the heat and turmoil of the general election, before Cobden detected ominous signs. He had long before resolved to abandon his seat for the West Riding. It was too plain that he had no chance. His views on education alienated one section, and his views on the Russian War had alienated all sections. It was thought that Huddersfield was the borough where the feeling of which Mr. Baines was the chief exponent, and which Cobden had offended, was least formidable. So to Huddersfield he went. But he was not more active for himself, 1857.
Æt. 53.than he was on behalf of his absent comrade. It is easy to explain the feeling that was abroad. Under our system there is little tolerance for individual dissent, and new principles make their way against artificial difficulties of desperate force. People said that Cobden and his friends had shown themselves perversely independent of the Minister. They had been a thorn in the side of three Liberal Governments. They had been openly mutinous under Lord John Russell; they had opposed Lord Aberdeen; they had violently quarrelled with Lord Palmerston. They had committed the unpardonable offence of leading their enemies to turn out their friends. All this was narrow, undiscriminating, and ungenerous. In time men became ashamed of such criticism, but for the hour it was fatal. Cobden moved the vast audience of the Free Trade Hall to its depths by an eloquent and toughing vindication of Mr. Bright, with whom, as he told them, he had lived in the most transparent intimacy of mind that two human beings ever enjoyed together. When he spoke of Mr. Bright’s health—“impaired in that organ which excites feelings of awe and of the utmost commiseration for him on the part of all right-minded men”—his emotion almost overpowered him, and shook the soul of his hearers.4 But the practical conclusion was foregone. He wrote hasty notes to inform Mrs. Cobden of his fears.

“Manchester, March 17.—I hear very discouraging accounts of Bright and Gibson. There have been many defections, and unless our friends are giving themselves needless alarm, I fear the chances are greatly against us. The cause chiefly assigned is less an alteration of opinion than a feeling of resistance towards the ghost of the League, which still persists in haunting Newall’s Buildings, and, as is alleged, dictates to Manchester. I was always of opinion that it would have been much better to1857.
Æt. 53. have abolished the whole concern and taken up new quarters, and a new name. But it is too late to say anything about it now, and, indeed, the less said the better. I have determined to go the Huddersfield. I attend a great meeting this evening in the Free Trade Hall, and to-morrow shall proceed to Huddersfield.”

“Huddersfield, March 24.—I am dragged about all the day through mud and mire canvassing, and hardly know whether I can win. I don’t think they are by any means safe at Manchester. I go over there again to-morrow, to attend a meeting in the Free Trade Hall”

“March 25.—We have just had the nomination. I was dragged to the hustings and obliged to speak, very much against my inclination. We had the show of hands. The polling is to-morrow. Our friends are in better spirits every hour, but I am still very doubtful. If I win, I will telegraph to London, and request a letter to be sent by tomorrow’s post to you. So if you do not hear at the same time as you get this, conclude that I have lost”5

No telegram was sent, for Cobden was beaten. A Tory had carried the borough not long before, and now the combination of Tories with Palmerstonian Whigs was doubly irresistible. Cobden only polled 590 votes, against 823 for his opponent. At Manchester Mr. Gibson and Mr. Bright were defeated, and the latter of them was at the bottom of the poll. Fox was thrown out at Oldham and Miall at Rochdale. Lord Palmerston’s victory was complete, and the Manchester School was routed. Nothing had been seen like it since the disappearance of the Peace Whigs in 1812, when Brougham, Romilly, Tierney, Lamb, and Horner all lost their seats.

Mr. Bright wrote to Cobden from Rome during the elections. He had, he said sarcastically, just been reading 1857.
Æt. 53.Bulwer’s Rienzi, and so he was prepared for ignorance, seurrility, selfishness, ingratitude, and all the other unpleasant qualities that every honest politician must meet with. When the news of the great reverse reached him, he took it with a certain composure. He put the case to Cobden, exactly as to a historical observer five-and-twenty years later it would seem that it ought to have been put.

• “Venice,

April 16.

My dear Cobden,

“I have been intending to write to you from day to day since I received your letter. It was most refreshing to me to read it, although its topics were not of the most pleasing, but it came at the right time, and it said the right thing, and was just such as I needed.....

“In the sudden break-up of the ’school’ of which we have been the chief professors, we may learn how far we have been, and are ahead, of the public opinion of our time. We purpose not to make a trade of politics, and not to use as may best suit us the ignorance and the prejudices of our countrymen for our own advantage, but rather to try to square the policy of the country with the maxims of common sense and of a plain morality. The country is not yet ripe for this, but it is far nearer being so than at any former period, and I shall not despair of a revolution in opinion which shall within a few years greatly change the aspect of affairs with reference to our Foreign policy. During the comparatively short period since we entered public life, see what has been done. Through our labours mainly the whole creed of millions of people, and of the statesmen of our day, has been totally changed on all the questions which affect commerce, and customs duties, and taxation. They now agree to repudiate as folly, what, twenty years ago, they accepted as wisdom. Look again at our Colonial policy. Through the labours of Molesworth, Roebuck, and Hume, more recently1857.
Æt. 53. supported by us, and by Gladstone, every article in the creed which directed our Colonial policy, has been abandoned, and now men actually abhor the notion of undertaking the government of the Colonies; on the contrary, they give to every Colony that asks for it, a Constitution as democratic as that which exists in the United States.

“Turn to the question of Parliamentary Reform. ‘Finality’ is stoutly repudiated, not by Lord John Russell alone, but by the Tories. I observe that at the recent elections, Tories have repeatedly admitted that there must be Parliamentary Reform, and that they will not oppose a moderate dose of it; and I suppose something before long will be done, not so real as we wish, but something that will make things move a little.

“But if on Commercial legislation, on Colonial policy, on questions of Suffrage, and I might have added on questions of Church, for a revolution in opinion is apparent there also, we see this remarkable change, why should we despair of bringing about an equally great change in the sentiments of the people with regard to foreign affairs? Palmerston and his press are at the bottom of the excitement that has lately prevailed; he will not last long as Minister or as man. I see no one ready to accept his mantle when it drops from him. Ten years hence, those who live so long, may see a complete change on the questions on which the public mind has been recently so active and so much mistaken.

“This is bringing philosophy to comfort us in our misfortunes, you will say, and does not mend the present, and it is true enough, but it is just the line of reasoning, I doubt not, which has presented itself to your mind when free from the momentary vexation caused by recent events. I am the least unfortunate of our small section, for a year of idleness and of ill-health has made absence from Parliament familiar to me, and I have contemplated resigning my seat since the 1857.
Æt. 53.beginning of 1856. Personally, therefore, to be out is neither strange nor unpleasant, and I am surprised how very little I have cared about the matter on my own account. I hope you can feel somewhat as I do, conscious that we are ostracised because our political creed is in advance of, and our political morality higher than, that of the people for whom we have given up the incessant labours of nearly twenty years. Time will show, and a long time will not be needed to show, the hollowness of the imposture which now rules. Its face may be of brass, but its feet are of clay.....

“It is strange after so much experience that we should be disappointed that opinion goes on so slowly. We have taught what is true in our ’school,’ but the discipline was a little too severe for the scholars. Disraeli will say he was right: are hardly of the English type, and success, political and personal success, cannot afford to reject the use which may be made of ignorance and prejudice among a people. This is his doctrine, and with his views it is true; but as we did not seek personal objects it is not true of us. If we are rejected for peace and for truth, we stand higher before the world and for the future than if we mingled with the patient mediocrities which compose the present Cabinet..... I hope the clouds may break, and that sunshine may come again.

“Ever yours very sincerely,

“John Bright.”

After the elections were over, Cobden went to his home in Sussex, and there he remained in retirement for nearly two years. His correspondence shows how sharply he felt the defeat.

To Mr. Moffatt, he writes:—

“April 7.—I find a retreat to this drowsy neighbourhood very necessary for my health. I overdid it, in trying to canvass Huddersfield and Manchester at the same time, and was almost afraid my head was giving way. How1857.
Æt. 53.ever, my old medicine, sleep, has nearly restored me. But I am determined to keep out of the ring for the present. It suits me on private and domestic grounds to have been beaten at Huddersfield (where my good friends ought not to have taken me), and although the dose is a little nauseous, the medicine will ultimately be of service to me. But I am persecuted with innumerable letters from kind people, who have taken up the notion that I must require encouragement and condolence. And they have all sorts of projects ready cut and dry for me, as if I could begin a life of agitation again, and repeat the labours of my prime now that I am past the zenith.

“The only incident of the election which hangs about me with a permanent feeling of irritability, is the atrocious treatment Bright has received from the people at Manchester. They are mainly indebted to him for the prosperity which has converted a majority into little better than Tories, and now the base snobs kick away the ladder! I find my scorn boiling over constantly, and can hardly keep my hands, or rather my pen, off them. The case of Gibson is different. He could not have been without the expectation that some day an end would be put to a connexion for which there was no special fitness; and to have sat for nearly eighteen years for Manchester has given him a position which nothing can take away. I do not, however,6 think he deserved to be left in a minority. But Bright’s case is very different. He was one of themselves. You know how valiantly he defended his order against all assailants. He was an honour to his constituents. They had no grievance on account of his peace views, for they knew he was a Quaker when they elected him. To place such a man at the bottom of the poll, when prostrate by excessive labours in the public service, is the most atrocious specimen of political ingratitude 1857.
Æt. 53.I ever encountered..... I do not believe he will be affected in the way you fear by the news. He will, I believe, take it very coolly and philosophically; and I think it will prove probably the best thing that could have happened for his health.”

On the same day he writes to Mr. Hargreaves:—“The secret of such a display of snobbishness and ingratitude is in the great prosperity which Lancashire enjoys, and for which it is mainly indebted to Bright; and the result has been to make a large increase to the number of Tories, and to cool down to a genteel tone the politics of the Whigs, until at last the majority find an earnest Radical not sufficiently genteel for their taste. This will go on in the north of England so long as our exports continue to increase at their present rate, and in the natural course of things more Tories will be returned.”

The same humour finds vent in some words to Mr. W. S. Lindsay of this date:—

“Did my friend—make a failure of seconding the Address? I hear so. I have never known a manufacturing representative put into cocked hat and breeches and ruffles, with a sword by his side, to make a speech for the Government, without having his head turned by the feathers and frippery. Generally they give way to a paroxysm of snobbery, and go down on their bellies, and throw dust on their heads, and fling dirt at the prominent men of their own order.”

At the end of July a vacancy was made in the representation of Birmingham by the death of Mr. Muntz, and Mr. Bight was quickly chosen to fill the seat. His health seemed to have been so dangerously shaken, that Cobden expressed a natural solicitude on so speedy a return to the agitation of public life. To Mr. Parkes he wrote:—

“August 9, 1857.—I cannot help confessing to you my doubts whether Bright will be equal to the task which he seems bent upon undertaking without much more for1857.
Æt. 53.bearance. If he break down again, the chances are that he is shelved for life, and may lose even the powers which he is now in secure possession of. I very much fear he allows himself to be pushed forward by others who are interested, from enjoying a reflected share of his greatness, in seeing him again in the House. But I have no reason to suppose that this is the case with his wife and family. I have said as much as I could to urge him to be quiet, but I doubt whether he has the power to divert his mind from politics. He seemed to me to be watching or speculating on the details of political movements whilst he was in Algiers or Italy, pretty much the same as when he was at home. The honest and independent course taken by the people at Birmingham, their exemption from aristocratic snobbery, and their fair appreciation of a democratic son of the people, confirm me in the opinion I have always had that the social and political state of that town is far more healthy than that of Manchester; and it arises from the fact that the industry of the hardware district is carried on by small manufacturers, employing a few men and boys each, sometimes only an apprentice or two; whilst the great capitalists in Manchester form an aristocracy, individual members of which wield an influence over sometimes two thousand persons. The former state of society is more natural and healthy in a moral and political sense. There is a freer intercourse between all classes than in the Lancashire town, where a great and impassable gulf separates the workman from his employer. The great capitalist class formed an excellent basis for the Anti-Corn-Law movement, for they had inexhaustible purses, which they opened freely in a contest where not only their pecuniary interests but their pride as ‘an order’ was at stake. But I very much doubt whether such a state of society is favourable to a democratic political movement, 1857.
Æt. 53.and this view I have urged upon Wilson and Bright ever since the League was, or ought to have been, abolished. If Bright should recover his health and be able to head a party for parliamentary reform, in my opinion Birmingham will be a better home for him than Manchester.

“Charles Sumner has been here, and is now on his way to see De Tocqueville. We had some very long adjourned debates, as you may suppose. What a talker he is! One night, or rather morning, I had to warn him to bed at half-past one, which to us rustics is a late sitting, for at this harvest-time folks are thinking of getting up to work soon after that. But excepting for his own health’s sake I would have gladly protracted our noctes to daylight. It is refreshing to meet with a man of his intellectual calibre and of such accomplishments, one too so capable in every way of playing a politician’s part, giving up all to conscience. I really hardly know such a case. We can’t put ourselves in such a comparison, for we have not the same temptations even had we his powers. For in this aristocratic country we know that the chief seats must be occupied by men of a given class, or their nominees. In his country every post was accessible to him, if he could only speak successfully to Bunkum.”

“July 28. (To Mr. Parkes.)—Very many thanks for your thinking of me sometimes. I am deep in mangolds and pigs, and unless you brought me occasionally in contact with the great maëlstrom of politics, I should be in danger of forgetting that there are such things was Whigs and Tories in the world. Believe me I am in no hurry to get back to the House. When I saw the other day that the House sat till half-past four, I hugged myself, and looked out on the South Downs with a Keener relish. The tone of Parliament is unlike anything I have ever witnessed, and I should not like to be made more closely acquainted with it. There is a spirit of servility, which cannot last; for a really manly1857.
Æt. 53. assembly (which the House of Commons is) will recover its self-respect, and the reaction will perhaps be all the stronger from the consciousness which will one day flash upon it that it has been prostrating itself before a brazen image, as hollow as it is impudent. But I am content to wait. It is true that Sumner has offered to come and see me, and if he would stay a few days it would be well for his health, but I expect he will linger in town till he has only a day to give me. I went on Friday to dine at the Bishop of Oxford’s to meet Lord Aberdeen, and slept there. The old Earl was looking older and more taciturn than usual. His clothes looked too large for his frame. I should fear he is wasting away, but his northern air, I hope, will set him up again. It is the third year I have had a long tête-á-tête with him, and I have always found myself much interested in a thoroughly quiet and homely intercourse with him and his host.....

“In answer to your friend’s inquiry about Bowring’s truthfulness, you may content yourself with a general description of the genus sentimentalist. They are not to be depended on in political action, because they are not masters of their own reasoning powers. They sing songs or declaim about truth, justice, liberty, and the like, but it is only in the same artificial spirit in which they make odes to dewdrops, daisies, &c. The are just as likely to trample on one as the other, notwithstanding. There was Lamartine, the prince of the class, who mouthed so finely about international rights; and yet it has come out that he was just as ready as king or Kaiser to march an army into Italy to take a material guarantee for—liberty. See the exhibition of Thackeray at Oxford.6 and yet he expressed sympathy to me 1857.
Æt. 53.and Bright at the Reform Club during the war. Then there is his great contrast, Dickens, for ever writing of his desire to elevate the masses and to put down insolence in high places. I saw a note from him in which he refused to sign a petition for the repeal of the taxes on knowledge, on the express ground that he would not promote a deluge of printer’s ink in England similar to what he had seen in America. The most reliable politicians are your wiry logicians of the Jefferson or Calhoun stamp. They may be liable to false starts, but when once you know their premises you can calculate their course and where to find them.’

“Midhurst, June 6. (To Mr. Ewart.)—I must confess the proceedings of your Hon. House have done much to reconcile me to my rustication, for its tone is subservient event to sycophancy. We have had the ‘Barebones Parliament,’ the ‘Long Parliament,’ the ‘Unlearned Parliament,’ but the present ought to the named the ’servile Parliament.’ From such an assembly I confess I am not sorry to be excluded. There has always been until now a body of men, sometimes more and sometimes fewer in the House, who counted themselves for something better than Whigs or Tories, and who were bent on securing something for the public as the price of their support of the more Liberal section of the aristocracy. These men, whether numbering thirty or eighty, were the pioneers of every good work. As a party they seem no longer to have an existence in this Parliament’. When they reappear, and the public have recovered their taste for earnest politics, I hope I shall be of their number; but till then the House of Commons would not suit me, or I suit it.

“Dec. 3. (To Mr. Moffatt.)—It is very kind and friendly in you, as usual, to think of me. This post has also brought a letter from Lancashire, saying some of the leaders at Ashton would wish me to succeed to poor Hindley. But I have resolved neither to stand nor sit for any place; and this1857.
Æt. 53. resolution will certainly be adhered to for a year, probably for the rest of my working days. I am not sulking or shamming, but acting from motives of a personal nature, and which no political considerations will be sufficiently powerful to overcome. If half a dozen constituencies were to offer to return me free of expense I should decline them all. I shall be glad, should you at any time hear of any movement in my favour, if you will discourage it, without giving me occasion to offer explanations which are painful to me. The truth is I cannot leave home for forty-eight hours, and preserve that tranquillity and elasticity of spirit which is necessary to success in public life. Under the circumstances, I am therefore useless anywhere but in my family. There might have been a state of things, indeed there has been, when I sacrificed every domestic consideration for public duty; but there is now no motive or justification for my doing so.”

The actual life of the House of Commons which has invincible attractions for so many men, seems to have had no particular charm to Cobden. At the beginning of the session of 1857 he described to a friend the disagreeable effect upon him of bad air and long speeches. “I don’t know whether you feel yourself similarly affected by the air of the House, but after sitting there for two or three hours I find my head useless for any other purpose but aching. I find my brain throbbing, as though it were ready to burst; and the pain returns upon me as soon as I awake in the morning. It seems as if the air were dried and cooked to such an extent as to rob it of its vital properties. My reasoning powers are in abeyance while under the roof of the House, and if the symptoms continue and no remedy be called for by others, likely to effect a change, I shall seriously consider whether I ought to continue to 1857.
Æt. 53.hold a trust which I am rendered physically and mentally incapable of fulfilling.”

“I came away on Tuesday,” he continues, “after listening for two hours and a half to Disraeli. I wish there could be some Bessemer’s power invented for shortening the time of speaking in the House. My belief, after a long experience, is that a man may say all that he ought to utter at one ’standing’ in an hour, excepting a budget speech or a government explanation, when documents are read. The Sermon on the Mount may be read in twenty minutes; the Lord’s Prayer takes one minute to repeat; Franklin and Washington never spoke more than ten minutes at a time.”

In the autumn of 1857 there was some prospect of a vacancy for the borough of Finsbury, and a movement was started in favour of Cobden as a candidate. Nothing came of it, and it is doubtful, as we shall presently see, whether at that moment his private interests would have allowed him to return to public life. In the beginning of 1858 he received one of the pleasantest of social compliments, in his election as a member of the Athenæum Club by the special favour of the Committee. In the course of the same year his brother, Frederick, died at Dunford. He had suffered such excruciating torture for some time past that to himself death was almost welcome, but Cobden may well have felt a sharp pang at the loss of one to whom he had been all his life bound by the ties of so affectionate an intimacy.

[1]Mr. Ashley’s account of this transaction (Life of Palmerston, ii. 344), is too condensed to be quite accurate. If a man of Mr. Ashley’s industry and character is not careful to see the facts of such cases precisely and as they were, we cannot wonder at the rough and ready style in which the public is wont to take the unsifted official stories for granted, whenever a British agent launches his country into one of these scandalous wars.

[2]Lord Elgin, who was sent out to carry on the war, says in his diary: “I have hardly alluded in my ultimatum to that wretched question of the “Arrow,” which is a scandal to us, and is so considered, I have reason to know, by all except the few who are personally compromised.” Letters and Journals, p. 209. “It is impossible to read the blue-books.” he says elsewhere, “without feeling that we have often acted towards the Chinese in a manner which it is very difficult to justify” (p. 185). See also p. 191, 218, &c., &c.

[3]Speeches, ii. 121—156

[4]See Speeches, ii. 74.

[5]Sir J. Potter, 8368; Turner, 7854; Gibson, 5588; Bright, 5458.

[6]At a bye-election for Oxford city (July 21) Mr. Thackeray stood against the present Lord Cardwell, and failed by the narrow difference of 67, in a gross poll of 2108.