172 



COBDEN, RICHARD. 



somewhat improved by a year or more of travel, 

 daring which he visited France, Spain, Italy, 

 Germany, and Russia. Before he set out upon 

 this journey, Lord John Russell, then premier, 

 offered him a place in the cabinet, which he 

 declined. During his absence, the Anti-corn- 

 law League, and the Free Traders generally, 

 subscribed and presented to him on his return 

 the munificent sum of 80,000 ($400,000), a 

 contribution made to testify their sense of grati- 

 tude to him for the benefits he had conferred 

 upon the country, and which, while it should 

 enable him to withdraw from his business, would 

 leave him at liberty to devote his whole time to 

 the service of the nation. A part of this sum 

 was expended in the purchase of his paternal 

 estate of Dunford and the lands adjacent, and 

 the fitting it up as a desirable residence for a 

 country gentleman, and the remainder was in- 

 vested in the bonds and stock of the Ulinois 

 Central Railroad, an investment which was for 

 a time unproductive, but which before .his 

 death had begun to yield a liberal return for 

 the capital invested. 



In 1848 Mr. Cobden returned to his legisla- 

 tive duties, having been elected both for the 

 West Riding of Yorkshire and for Stockport, in 

 his absence. He chose the larger constituency, 

 and labored with great zeal for the repeal of 

 the navigation laws, another of those ancient 

 abuses which should have been done away long 

 ago. There was at this time one of those ab- 

 surd panics in relation to a French invasion, 

 which have kept the British nation in a state 

 of terror much of the time for the last fifteen or 

 twenty years, and have cost them untold sums, 

 but Mr. Oobden's effective ridicule did much 

 toward quieting it. In the spring of 1848, on 

 the 23d of May, on the occasion of Mr. Hume's 

 motion, Mr. Cobden took bold and decisive 

 ground in favor of Parliamentary reform. In 

 this he included extension of the suffrage, the 

 vote by secret ballot, and the shortening of the 

 duration of Parliaments. While the question 

 of Free Trade was undecided, he had appropri- 

 ately refused to take an active part in any other 

 measure of reform ; but that once settled, he was 

 free to advance to other measures of hardly 

 less importance. He also sought earnestly the 

 reduction of the national expenditure of a war- 

 like character, and the introduction of a stipu- 

 lation for arbitration into all international 

 treaties ; and for the latter purpose he encour- 

 aged and took part in the Peace Congresses 

 which were held for several years in the differ- 

 ent capitals of Europe. 



Then came the Crimean war; and Richard 

 Cobden and John Bright, who had been re- 

 proached with cowardice and pusillanimity for 

 their advocacy of universal peace and good will 

 among men, when the populace were madly 

 bent on a war with France, were not the men 

 to desert their principles when war came with 

 a powerful foe, and was waged in reality for an 

 abstraction. It was of course unpopular to 

 breast the waves of clamor and obloquy which 



beat against them : when a nation is drawn or 

 driven into war, however unjust or unrighteous 

 may be the contest, it is always difficult to stem 

 the popular current which invariably sets in for 

 war; but neither Cobden nor his friend Bright 

 were wanting in moral courage, and they dared, 

 in the face of the bitterest abuse, to maintain 

 their views in Parliament throughout the strug- 

 gle. At length peace was restored, and with 

 the negotiations which resulted in the Treaty 

 of Paris, in 1856, came a new triumph for 

 Cobdei. The arbitration clause, of which he 

 had so warmly urged the incorporation into all 

 future treaties of the great powers of Europe, 

 was, in substance, incorporated into this treaty. 

 The Chinese war in 1857, in which, on pre- 

 texts which were utterly unjustifiable as a 

 ground of war with a weak and almost help- 

 less nation, the Government had sanctioned 

 acts of most barbarous aggression and had car- 

 ried their invasion to the Chinese capital itself, 

 was even more abhorrent to Mr. Cobden's sense 

 of right than the war with Russia. He de- 

 nounced it with all his eloquence, and moved 

 and carried through the House of Commons, 

 by a majority of sixteen, a vote of censure on 

 the Ministry, and of want of confidence in the 

 Government. Palmerston, now premier, at 

 once dissolved Parliament, and appealed to the 

 country in a new election. The war-cry was 

 raised, and in the insane fury of the moment, 

 Cobden and Bright and a large number of the 

 Free Trade and Peace men were defeated. The 

 triumph of the Palmerston party was short, 

 however ; Milner Gibson, who, though defeated 

 in his own borough, was returned from another, 

 overthrew the Palmerston government in 1858, 

 on a vote of confidence, and after a short trial 

 of a Tory Cabinet, that was defeated ; and the 

 adroit and sagacious Palmerston discovered that 

 he could only return to power by introducing a 

 large liberal element into his new Cabinet. 

 Mr. Cobden, meantime, soon after his defeat, 

 went abroad and spent nearly two years on the 

 Continent and in the United States. His ex- 

 tended tour in the latter country, and the 

 familiarity he gained with our institutions, was 

 of great service to him and to the interests of 

 freedom in the years that followed. During 

 his absence he had been returned to Parliament 

 by the borough of Rochdale; and as he ap- 

 proached the Liverpool harbor, the steamer on 

 which he was returning was boarded by a 

 deputation of gentlemen, who informed him 

 that Lord Palmerston had designated him as 

 President of the Board of Trade in his new 

 cabinet. , 4fr, Cobden promptly declined the 

 offered post, in a personal interview with Lord 

 Palmerston, alleging as a reason that his views 

 had always differed so much from those of the 

 premier, that he could not in justice to his own 

 character for consistency, or his duty to his 

 country, consent to serve as member of a 

 cabinet with those from whom he conscien- 

 tiously differed so greatly. Palmerston was 

 disappointed and annoyed by his refusal, but 



