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 XXVII.

the indian mutiny—private affairs—second journey to america.

The elections had barely taken place before the country1857.
Æt. 53. was thrilled from end to end as it had been on no occasion before, by the appalling horrors of the Indian Mutiny. Cobden had always watched the affairs of this great dependency with jealous and unfriendly eye. As a military and despotic government; as an acquisition of impolitic violence and fraud; as the seat of unsafe finance; for these and other reasons, he had always taken his place among those, and they were much fewer then than they are now, who cannot see any advantage either to the natives or their foreign masters in this vast possession. He had said as much in the House of Commons so far back as 1853, when the renewal of the Company’s Charter was under discussion. When the Mutiny came, then like every one else, he said, he could think of nothing else. Three or four of his letters will be enough to show what he had to say upon the most hideous occurrence in our history.

“Midhurst, Oct. 16,1857. (To Mr. Ashworth.)—I thought I could have withdrawn myself for a time from public affairs, but every Indian mail quite overturns my resolution, and weans me back from my farm and my household, and makes me as much a politician in thought and feeling as ever. And yet I confess to you that this crisis in the East makes 1857.
Æt. 53.me very grateful for the accident which released me from my Parliamentary duties, and thereby relieved me from the necessity of making any public declaration of opinion on the subject; for the more I reflect on it, the less do I feel able to take any part which would harmonize with the views and prejudices of the British public.

“I am, and always have been, of opinion (see the enclosed extract from Hansard)that we have attempted an impossibility in giving ourselves to the task of governing one hundred millions of Asiatics. God and his visible natural laws have opposed insuperable obstacles to the success of such a scheme. But if the plan were practicable at the great cost and risk which we now see to be inseparable from it, what advantage can it confer on ourselves? We all know the motive which took the East India Company to Asia—monopoly, not merely as towards foreigners, but against the rest of their own countrymen. But now that the trade of Hindoostan is thrown open to all the world on equal terms, what exclusive advantage can we derive to compensate for all the trouble, cost, and risk of ruling over such a people?—a people which has shown itself, after a century of contact with us, to be capable of crimes which would revolt any savage tribe of whom we read in Dr. Livingstone’s narrative, and which had never seen a Christian of European till he penetrated among them.

“The religious people who now tell us that we must hold India to convert it, ought, I should think, to be convinced by what has passed that sending red coats as well as black to Christianize a people is not the most likely way to insure the blessing of God on our missionary efforts.

“I am aware that it is quite useless to preach these doctrines in the present temper of the people of this country; but if forced to appear in public to offer my opinion on the topics of the day, I could not ignore this greatest of all texts, and therefore I cling to my shell here because I know1857.
Æt. 53. that this is not the moment to give utterance to my ideas with any chance of doing good.

“Unfortunately for me I can’t even co-operate with those who seek to ‘reform’ India, for I have no faith in the power of England to govern that country at all permanently; and though I should like to see the Company abolished—because that is a screen between the English nation and a full sight of its awful responsibilities—yet I do not believe in the possibility of the Crown governing India under the control of Parliament. If the House of Commons were to renounce all responsibility for domestic legislation, and give itself exclusively to the task of governing one hundred millions of Asiatics, it would fail. Hindoostan must be ruled by those who live on that side of the globe. Its people will prefer to be ruled badly—according to our notions—by its own colour, kith and kin, than to submit to the humiliation of being better governed by a succession of transient intruders from the antipodes.

“These, however, are, I confess, opinions of a somewhat abstract kind, and not adapted for the practical work of the day. What is to be done now? Put down the military revolt in justice to the peaceable population, who are at the mercy of the armed mutineers. It is our duty to do so. We can do it, and I have no doubt it will be done. But then comes our difficulty. With the experience of the present year we can never trust a native force with arms again, with the feelings of security which we formerly indulged. Who will live in the interior of India in future, beyond the range of our forts or the sound of the regimental drum? Certainly no one with wife and children to love and care for. Yet we cannot possibly administer the affairs of that country without a native force, and we are now actually raising an army of Sikhs, the most warlike of 1857.
Æt. 53.our subjects in all Asia, whom we disarmed when we took possession of the country, and of whom Lord Dalhousie said, in a letter, not ten years ago, that every man was against us!

“No; there is no future but trouble and loss and disappointment and, I fear, crime in India, and they are doing the people of this eountry the greatest service who tell them the honest truth according to their convictions, and prepare them for abandoning at some future time the thankless and impossible task.”

“August 24. (To Mr. Bright.)—If we could meet, I should be glad to have a whole week’s adjourned debates on public matters with you; and I could write you long letters too, but somehow I always feel myself restrained by the fear that my correspondence does you harm by keeping the brain needlessly on the old scent. I wish you to discard politics from your thoughts; how then can I with consistency dose you with my political speculations? Besides, to tell you the truth, I can find nothing very cheerful to remark upon in relation to public matters. The proceedings of the House have ceased to interest me; and when I glance at the conclusion of the reports, and sometimes read ‘adjourned at a quarter to three o’clock.’ I hug myself with delight at the recollection that I am not of the dramatis personœ of the humiliating performance.

“The only subject that binds my attention fast to the newspapers is this horrible Indian business. There has been noting in history since the St. Domingo revolt to compare in fiendish ferocity with the atrocities by the Sepoys upon the women and children who have fallen into their hands. One stands aghast and dumbfoundered at the reflection that after a century of intercourse with us, the natives of India suddenly exhibit themselves greater savages than any of the North American Indians who have been brought into contact with the white race. It is clear that1857.
Æt. 53. they cannot have been inspired with either love or respect by what they have seen of the English. There must be a fierce spirit of resentment, not unmixed with contempt for the ruling class, pervading the native mind. From the moment that I had satisfied myself that a feeling of alienation was constantly increasing with both the natives and the English (we had some striking evidence to this effect before our Committee in 1853), I made up my mind that it must end in trouble sooner or later. It is impossible that a people can permanently be used for their own obvious and conscious degradation. The entire scheme of our Indian rule is based upon the assumption that the natives will be the willing instruments of their own humiliation. Nay, so confident are we in this faith, that we offer them the light of Christianity and a free press, and still believe that they will not have wit enough to measure their rights by our own standard.

“Chance has thrown me in the society of some ladies who have lately returned from India, where they were accustomed to barrack life, their husbands being officers in native regiments. I find the common epithet applied to our fellow-subjects in Hindostan is nigger. One of these ladies took some credit for her condescension in allowing a native officer, answering to the rank of a subaltern, to sit down in her presence when he came for orders to her husband, All this might have been borne, though with difficulty, if the English with whom the natives came in contact displayed exalted virtues and high intellectual powers. But I fear the traits most conspicuous in our countrymen have been of a very different character. A low morale and an absence of mental energy have been the most conspicuous faults of the British officers, and the business of the regiments has more and more fallen into the hands of the natives. What is now 1857.
Æt. 53.witnessed in India—the assassination and massacres on one side, and the wholesale executions on the other—must for ever perpetuate and deepen this feeling of alienation.1

“I can see nothing but increased difficulties in future in consequence of the almost indiscriminate slaughter with which every commissioned officer and his drum-head court are visiting the Sepoys that fall into their power. Unless this is persevered in until the 100,0000 mutineers are hung up, the only effect will be to convert those who escape into worse assassins and incendiaries than before. How are we to maintain despotic sway in future over 100,000,000 of Asiatics (for it must be undisguised despotism henceforth) and preserve our own freedom at home? Will it be possible to find a sufficient number of recruits in England to keep up a sufficient army for this purpose?

“These are questions that I shall not answer at present, but I confess to you that I have no faith in the doctrine that by any possible reforms we can govern India well, or continue to hold it permanently. God and nature have put a visible and insuperable obstacle in the way of our rash and audacious scheme. And if it be true, as even Voltaire believed it to be, that there is ‘un Dieu rétributeur et vengeur,’ the deeds perpetrated by the British in times past, and still more the bloody deeds now being enacted, and which all arise from our own original aggression upon distant and unoffending communities, will be visited with unerring justice upon us or our children. But I am sinning against my own rule in thus venting my croakings upon1857.
Æt. 53. you.....

“P.S. You hint at the possibility of Manchester taking me in case of poor Potter’s death. I don’t think the offer will ever be made, but I am quite sure that there is no demonstration of the kind that would induce me (apart from my determination not at present to stand for any place) to put myself in the hands of the people who without more cause then than now struck down men whose politics are identically my own. To confess my honest belief, I regard the Manchester constituency, now that their gross pocket question is settled, as a very unsound, and to us a very unsafe body.”

September 22. (To Mr. Bright.)—I am glad to see your handwriting again. Although I knew our minds were busy in one and the same direction, yet I abstained from sending you my cogitations, for I was fearful of adding fuel to fire. These Indian horrors give me a perpetual shudder. The awful atrocities perpetrated upon women and children almost give rise to the impious doubt whether this world is under the government of an all-wise and just Providence. What crime had they committed to merit the infliction of tortures and death? Verily the sins of the fathers have been visited on the children to the third and fourth generations! And how can it be otherwise in the case of a nation? For if a collective crime be perpetrated, and a community be visited with retributive justice, even an hour after the commission of the deed, those who have entered life in the interval must participate in the penalty. We can see that it must be so, but not that it ought to be.

“These fiendish outrages upon the defenceless—the propensity displayed in so many places to unparalleled cruelties—have amazed me more than anything that ever occurred in my time. We have read of something of the kind in St. 1857.
Æt. 53.Domingo, in the French Revolution, and in the revolt of the polish peasants, but in our time nothing like it has happened, and I would not have believed that any tribe of men which had been in contact with civilized life could have committed such barbarities. But we seem in danger of forgetting our own Christianity, and descending to a level with these monsters who have startled the world with their deeds. It is terrible to see our middle-class journals and speakers calling for the destruction of Delhi, and the indiscriminate massacre of prisoners. Leaving humanity out of the question, nothing could have been more impolitic than the wholesale execution of common soldiers with which we attempted from the first to put down the rebellion. Had it been a mutiny of a company or a regiment, it would have been of doubtful policy to hang or blow from the guns all the privates concerned. But when an entire army of 100,000 men have planted the standard of revolt, it is no longer a mutiny, but a rebellion and civil war. To attempt to hang all that fall into our power can only lead to reprisals and wholesale carnage on both sides.

“Did you observe that the men who swam ashore at Cawn-pore after the boats, in which were the garrison who had been promised a safe passage, had been treacherously sunk, were blown from the guns on successive days, no doubt in imitation of our treatment of the Sepoys? To read the letters of our officers at the commencement of the outbreak, it seemed as if every subaltern had the power to hang or shoot as many natives as he pleased, and they spoke of the work of blood with as much levity as if they were hunting wild animals. The last accounts would lead one to fear that God is not favouring our cause, and that too many of our countrymen are meeting the fate which was intended for the natives.

“But the future—what is in the distance? The most cer tain and immediate result is that we shall have a bankrupt1857.
Æt. 53. empire of 150 millions of people on our backs. The end of this year will leave the Company minus not much short of 100 millions sterling, including guaranteed railways, &c. And then comes all the sacrifices of life and treasure which we shall make to put down the rebellion and reconquer India. And nobody asks what benefit we shall derive from our success! You know my opinion of old: that I never could feel any enthusiasm for the reform of our Indian Government, for I failed to satisfy myself that it was possible for us to rule that vast empire with advantage to its people or ourselves. I now regard the task as utterly hopeless. Recent and present events are placing an impassable gulf between the races. Conquerors and conquered can never live together again with confidence or comfort. It will be a happy day when England has not an acre of territory in Continental Asia. But how such a state of things is to be brought about, is more than I can tell. I bless my stars that I am not I a position to be obliged to give public utterance to my views on the all-absorbing topic of the day, for I could not do justice to my own convictions and possess the confidence of any constituency in the kingdom. For where do we find even an individual who is not imbued with the notion that England would sink to ruin if she were deprived of her Indian Empire? Leave me, then, to my pigs and sheep, which are not labouring under any such delusions.....”

“October 18. (To Colonel Fitzmayer.)—Do we find that Government and Parliament acquit themselves so well in domestic matters that they have a surplus of efficiency and energy for Hindoostan? Shall we give education to India, or reform its criminals, or abate its crime, or moderate its religious bigotry and intolerance? Can we do these things at home? If a Board of Works can’t give us a 1857.
Æt. 53.common sewer for London, is it likely to cover India with canals for irrigation? If Catholic and Protestant can’t live together in Belfast, excepting under something like martial law, are we the people to teach Christian charity and toleration to the Hindoos? With such views as mine, what am I to do in public life in the midst of all this excitement and enthusiasm for reconquering and Christianizing India? I confess I think myself lucky that I can, with a fair plea, exempt myself from the task of speaking at all in public on the subject, for not having the responsible trust of M.P., I am not bound to shock people with my sentiments. For a politician of my principles there is really no standing-ground. The manufacturers of Yorkshire and Lancashire look upon India and China as a field of enterprise which can only be kept open to them by force, and indeed they are willing, apparently, to be at all the cost of holding open the door of the whole of Asia, for the rest of the world to trade on the same terms as themselves. How few of those who fought for the repeal of the Corn Law, really understand the full meaning of Free Trade principles! If you talk to our Lancashire friends they argue that unless we occupied India there would be no trade with that country, or that somebody else would monopolize it, forgetting that this is the old protectionist theory which they used formerly to ridicule. India was a great centre and source of commerce for the civilized world before Englishmen took to wearing breeches, and it was the renown of its wealth and productiveness which first attracted us there. I am by no means so clear as some people, that we have added greatly to its commerce. Certainly the trade of European countries has increased in a greater ratio than that of India during the last century.

“However, I have wearied you with my abstractions. The practical business in hand is to put down the military mutiny, which, in justice to our own subjects, we are bound1857.
Æt. 53. to do. I fear that in the process we shall familiarize ourselves with deeds of blood which may tend to make us a cruel and sanguinary nation, and then God help Bolton or Oldham, if some day from sudden suffering its passionate multitude should set the middle classes and their Horse Guards at defiance; for assuredly then they who now cry for the destruction of Delhi would not be less merciful to the bricks and mortar of Lancashire.”

“Nov. 22. (To Mr. White, the Member for Brighton.)—.... You have seized upon the most important of our social and political questions in the laws affecting the transfer of land. It is astonishing that the people at large are so tacit in their submission to the perpetuation of the feudal system in this country as it affects the property in land, so long after it has been shattered to pieces in every other country except Russia. The reason is, I suppose, that the great increase of our manufacturing system has given such an expansive system of employment to the population, that the want of land as a field of investment and employment for labour has been comparatively little felt. So long as this prosperity of our manufactures continues, there will be no great outcry against the landed monopoly. If adversity were to fall on the nation, your huge feudal properties would soon be broken up, and along with them the hereditary system of government under which we contentedly live and thrive. When I was travelling on the Continent, I found among the thinking part of the population in France, Italy, and Germany, a great feeling of surprise that the men who had abolished the Corn Laws had not also abolished the monopoly of land; and they were quite puzzled, and almost incredulous, when I told them that there was little feeling against our custom of primogeniture even among the rural population of England. Another reason may help to 1858.
Æt. 54.account for our indifference to the subject. We have been taught to consider our colonies as an outlet for the population, and this not by a process of expatriation to a foreign land, but by emigration to other parts of our own territory. Then there is our insular vanity, that scorns to follow the example of other countries and that lays us open to the influence of flattery, of which John Bull will accept any quantity, however coarsely laid on, in place of more substantial payment of what is honestly his due.”

“London, May 16, 1858. (To G. Combe.)—... I have come to London for a few weeks, and have brought my wife and little girls. We have been staying with our friends in a succession of visits, and I have seen a little of the politicians from whom I have been so long separated.

“I am afraid our national character is being deteriorated, and our love of freedom in danger of being impaired by what is passing in India. Is it possible that we can play the part of despot and butcher there without finding our character deteriorated at home? Were not the ancient Greeks and Romans corrupted and demoralized by their Asiatic conquests, and may we not share their fate, though in a different way? Then comes the question which you have so ably put in your letter. ‘what possible benefit can we derive from our Indian conquests?’ I confess I take a gloomy view of our prospects in that quarter. The English people will not give up Hindoostan, any more than they did North America, without years of exhausting war.

“It is more and more my conviction that the task of governing despotically 150 millions of people at a distance of twelve thousand miles cannot be executed by a constitutional Government. It ought to be done, if at all, by a despot, whose rule is concentrated, and less liable to personal changes than our representative forms admit. With a change of Government every six or twelve months it is impossible that we can have a continuous plan or a real responsibility. Since1858.
Æt. 54. I have been in London, I, have heard scarcely a word about the best mode of governing the millions of India. The only talk is about the chance of turning out one Ministry and bringing in another.”

“March 28. (To Mr. Gilpin.)—What a pretentious and hypocritical people we are in our dealings with the outside world! How we abuse and bully king Bomba because he will not govern his lazzaroni according to our notions of constitutionalism! But when you propose to apply a little of our love of liberty to our own fellow-subjects in India ‘oh! oh!’ is the reply you meet with in the House. Yet you would have no difficulty in carrying the cheers of the said House for any proposal to put the slaves in America or Cuba immediately on the same political level as their masters. This nation will meet with a terrible check some day, unless it makes a little better progress in the science of self-knowledge.”

“October30. (To Mr. Gilpin.)—... Is Klapka gone? He mentioned to me in conversation some views about our Indian massacres of private men, that I should like to be allowed to quote some day. I remember he expressed himself as a soldier with some disgust on the subject. He said the indiscriminate destruction of rank and file was unprecedented in modern times, and he stated that anybody accustomed to armies knew that when a whole regiment or army fell from its allegiance, the great body of the privates really took no active part, that they went with the officers as a mater of instinct, and that perhaps with the exception of a few violent ringleaders the rest hardly knew anything about it. In some cases a minority would in their hearts be opposed to the mutiny, but they had no choice but go with the rest. He argued that to slay all alike in the field or on the gallows was terrible.”

1858.
Æt. 54.A few months before this, Cobden had felt for an instant that he would have liked to be in the House. Mr. Gibson, who had found a seat at Ashton-under-Lyne, beat Lord Palmerston on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill (Feb. 20), and the Minister who had returned to power in triumph eleven months before, suddenly saw himself compelled to resign. “When I read,” said Cobden to Mr. Lindsay, “the account of Bright and Gibson walking up to the table of the House to pass sentence upon that venerable political sinner, I could not help thinking what a fine historical picture the artist missed. There was surely something more than chance in bringing back these two men to inflict summary punishment on the man who flattered himself a few months ago that he had put his heel on their political necks. For the first time I felt regret at not being there to witness that scene of retributive justice.”

On the feeling between England and France which had arisen in connexion with the circumstances of the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, he wrote to his friend, Michel Chevalier:—

“July 13.—It is useless our pursuing the tu quoque argument, otherwise I should remind you that our estrangement has all sprung out of the unfortunate course pursued by your Government at the time of the Orsini horror. Never did your Emperor fall into such a mistake as to seek to widen the responsibility of that mad outrage by making it the ground of domestic legislation of a restrictive character and of diplomatic negotiation, requiring fresh safeguards from foreign governments: all which assumed that others besides those frenzied Italians were plotting against his life. To assume that assassination had sympathizers in England, France, or elsewhere, was an insult to humanity, His policy should have been the very opposite. He should have thrust aside the injudicious advisers who recommended such a course, and should have loudly proclaimed his belief that men of all nations would equally join in condemning the devilish act:1858.
Æt. 54. and he should have placed himself under the protection of that sentiment of horror which was universally entertained, whilst he might have frankly owned that his life, like that of every other man, was at the mercy of those who chose to cast off all the restraints of reason, religion, and humanity. Such a course as this, narrowing the responsibility of the atrocious act to those who were its wicked authors, would have attracted the sympathy of the whole civilized world. But it is useless now to dwell on these reminiscences. I hope the really gallant conduct of our Queen in paying a visit to Cherbourg, and thus giving a slap in the face to those mischievous fools who are constantly raising the cry of a French invasion, will have the effect of soothing all the irritation on your side.”

The second Administration of Lord Derby was formed, and Mr. Lindsay asked for Cobden’s view of the new political situation. In reply he once more preached a sermon on the old text.

“March 23.— ‘The present men are more honest, and they are certainly more obliging than the last.’ In this I agree with you, and it might have been said of any Tory Government as compared with any Whig one since I have been in to political ring. I remember when I came into the House in 1841, after the general election which gave Peel a majority of ninety, I found the Tories more civil in the intercourse of the lobbies and the refreshment-rooms than the Whigs. It runs through all departments. It seems as if the Whig leaders always thought it necessary to snub the Radicals, to satisfy the Tories they were not dangerous politicians. But I do not blame them, for they live by it. I do blame those advanced Liberals who allow themselves to be thus used and abused. There is no remedy but in the greater self-respect of the middle class. I fear we have been going the 1858.
Æt. 54.other way for the last ten years. The great prosperity of the country made Tories of us all..... During my experience the higher classes never stood so high in relative social and political rank, as compared with other classes, as at present. The middle class have been content with the very crumbs from their table. The more contempt a man like Palmerston (as intense an aristocrat at heart as any of them) heaped on them, the louder they cheered him. Twenty years ago, when a hundred members of the House used to muster at the call of Hume or Warburton to compel the Whigs to move on under threats of desertion, there seemed some hope of the middle class setting up for themselves; but now there is no such sign.....

“You ask me my view of the political situation. It is hard fate for me to be obliged to choose between Derby and Palmerston, but if compelled to do so, I should certainly prefer the former. Nothing can be so humiliating to us as a party or a nation as to see that venerable political impostor at the head of affairs. But how will you prevent his return to power?.... Half a dozen great families meet at Walmer and dispose of the rank and file of the party, just as I do the lambs that I am now selling for your aldermen’s table. And I very much doubt whether you can put an end to this ignominious state of things. Until you can I don’t think you are playing a part in any noble drama.”

During this period of withdrawal from active public life, Cobden was greatly harassed by private anxieties. As there was always much ill-natured gossip about his affairs, it is well to state the facts as they were. With a portion of the proceeds of the national testimonial Cobden, as we have already seen, had purchased the little property which had belonged to his forefathers. The rest, or most of the rest, he had invested in the shares of an American railway. The Illinois Central is the great line from North to South, with its headquarters at Chicago, taking its course right through1858.
Æt. 54. the centre of the rich valley of the Mississippi, and joining the great river itself at Saint Louis, Cairo, and New Orleans. Very large tracts of the finest alluvial soil in Illinois were ceded to the company on each side of the line. The company therefore had two sources of profit, one arising from the sale of the lands, the other from the traffic on the line itself which in grain was very large and daily increasing. Such property was clearly a legitimate investment to persons who, if more capital were called up than was at first anticipated, could afford to meet the calls upon their shares without inconvenience.2 With a man in Cobden’s position the case was different. In this matter, however, he was not disposed to listen to the advice of his friends, who recommended him only to hold bonds or paid-up shares. “I recollect,” says Mr. W. S. Lindsay, “having many conversations with Cobden on this subject. I agreed with him entirely as to the prospects of the line, but we differed as to the time when the large prospective profits of the undertaking could be realized. He thought they were close at hand; I, on the contrary, held the opinion that, while all the land would in time find purchasers, they would rather belong to the next generation than to our own. In this instance my views came true. The land found purchasers, but not to the extent nor with the rapidity anticipated. The directors had calculated that the proceeds from the sale of the lands would enable them to complete the line, and consequently render further calls upon the shareholders unnecessary. In this they were mistaken.”

“Cobden,” Mr. Lindsay goes on to say, “viewed his investments in an entirely different light from that in which they would be seen by an ordinary man of business. He 1858.
Æt. 54.thought of the overcrowded cities of Europe, and of the masses of people who on this side of the Atlantic were seeking, or about to seek, new homes in the far West. His mind surveyed at a glance the vast expanse of rich, unoccupied virgin land in the mighty valley of the Mississippi, through which the Illinois Central ran its course—a valley where millions of people from the old world could find profitable employment. He was aware of the great and rapidly increasing facilities which would enable the intending emigrant to reach this most tempting field at less cost than their fathers could have travelled from Glasgow to London; and for these reasons he came to the conclusion that the demand for the company’s land would be both great and immediate, and the money derived from the sale would be more than sufficient to complete all the works connected with the railway. But Cobden was no speculator in the ordinary sense of the word.”

In a letter to Mr. Moffatt, with whom he was in constant correspondence on the subject at this time, Cobden shows how conscious he was of the view which a hard-headed man of business would be likely to take of what he was doing. At the beginning of 1858, Mr. Osborn, the Chairman of the Railway, was in England, and visited him at Dunford.

“Osborn was so candid with me,” Cobden writes, “so disinterested and friendly in his advice, that I could not help suspecting that a very good friend of mine had whispered in his ear something to this effect. ’say nothing to feed his sanguine views. He has already become tête montée about the Illinois; but rather throw in a word of caution about putting too many eggs in one basket. He is a worn-out agitator, out of business, with a young family. Such people ought not to become speculators. As a rule your public men, and especially your revolutionary leaders, make unsuccessful men of business. They look too high and too far, and others who fire at a shorter range beat them in the1858.
Æt. 54. field. Besides, they look at things too much in the gross, neglect details, and disregard the element of time, which in speculation is everything. Here is Cobden dealing with Illinois Central as if they were going to yield him a profit next quarter-day. Warn him that it will take many years to realize all his expectations.’ Am I not right in my surmise?”

Whether the surmise was right or not, it is clear that the investment, however sound, was not a prudent one for a man who had no spare capital, and who needed income. Cobden was greatly inconvenienced by outstanding loans which were raised to pay the calls. In connexion with them, it is for the honour of human nature that we should mention an extraordinary example of grateful and considerate munificence. The late Mr. Thomasson of Bolton, hearing from Mr. Slagg, their common friend, that Cobden was embarrassed by one of these outstanding loans for the Illinois shares, amounting to several thousand pounds, released the shares and sent them to Cobden, with a request that he would do him the favour to accept their freedom at his hands “in acknowledgement of his vast services to his country and mankind.” On a later occasion, when the same difficulty recurred for the same reasons, Mr. Thomasson went down to Midhurst, ascertained the circumstances, and insisted that Cobden should accept a still larger sum, refusing a formal acknowledgment, and handing it over in such a form that the transaction was not known to any one but Cobden and himself. After Mr. Thomasson’s death, there was found among his private papers a little memorandum of his advances, containing these magnanimous words: “I lament that the greatest benefactor of mankind since the Inventor of printing should be placed in a position where his public usefulness is compromised and impeded by sordid personal cares; but I have done something as my share of what is due to him 1858.
Æt. 54.from his countrymen to set him free for further efforts in the cause of human progress. My children will hereafter be proud that their father at all events recognized his claims. Their fortunes are to a great extent the result of Richard Cobden’s sacrifices.”

It was in connexion with the Illinois Railway that Cobden made his second voyage to the United States. He went on behalf of other English shareholders to examine the line and its management on the spot. He remained in the country for three months. Everything that he saw delighted him. The material and moral progress since his visit in 1835 realized all his expectations. “It is the universal hope of rising in the social scale,” he told Mr.Bright, “which is the key to much of the superiority that is visible in this country. It accounts for the orderly self-respect which is the great characteristic of the masses in the United States.... All this tends to the argument that the political condition of a people is very much dependent on its economical fate.”

So far as the immediate object of his journey went Cobden declared himself to be more than satisfied. “As respects the main question,” he wrote to his wife, “as to the ultimate success of the undertaking, I have no doubt whatever that it will prove the best railroad investment in America. But unfortunately it does not suit me to wait, and nearly all I have is at stake.” In another letter to Mrs. Cobden he writes: “My thoughts are much with you and the dear children. I feel great anxiety to know that you are settled. Everything has gone as unluckily as possible with me. I sometimes feel almost unnerved, great as is my energy and natural buoyancy.” As we shall see presently, the clouds vanished quickly from his spirit, as soon as ever he saw a piece of useful work to be done.

[1]Almost on the very same day Lord Elgin wrote in his Journal:—“It is a terrible business, this living among inferior races. I have seldom from man or woman since I came to the East heard a sentence which was reconcilable with the hypothesis that Christianity had ever come into the world. Detestation, contempt, ferocity, vengeance, whether Chinamen or Indians be the object.”—Lord Elgin’s Journals, p. 199. (August 21, 1857.) On March 29, 1858, there is a similar entry:—“The truth is that the whole world just now are raving mad with a passion for killing and slaying.”

[2]The 100 dollar ordinary shares were lately at 150, and are now 138.