CHAPTER XXV.
Notice of Corn-Law Repealers—Mr. Cobden—Mr. Bright—Colonel Thompson—Mr. Villiers—Dr. Bowring—William J. Fox—Ebenezer Elliott—James Montgomery—Mr. Paulton—George Wilson—The Last Meeting of the League.
The seasonable organization, steady progress, and signal triumph of The National Anti-Corn-Law League are attributable in a very large degree to the sagacity, ability, and courage of Richard Cobden. The early career of one who so suddenly acquired a European reputation is not so familiar as to render uninteresting a few incidents of that part of his life.
The leader of the Commercial Revolution of England is the son of a poor yeoman of Sussex. Commencing active life as a clerk in a London counting-house, he afterward removed to Manchester, where he became the traveling agent of a house largely engaged in the cotton trade. His intelligence, industry, and sound judgment won him the confidence of his employers, and the respect of all with whom he had intercourse. His rise was rapid, and we soon find him associated with an elder brother in a manufacturing enterprise of his own. He was highly successful. He studied public taste then as shrewdly as he afterward studied public opinion. An anecdote will illustrate this. In 1837, a gentleman visited Mr. Cobden's warehouse in Manchester, where he was shown some printed muslins of a peculiarly beautiful pattern, which Mr. C. was just sending into the market. A few days afterward, this gentleman was walking in the vicinity of Goodwood, and met some ladies of the family of the Duke of Richmond wearing these identical prints; and shortly after, while strolling through Windsor Park, he saw the young Queen going down the slopes sporting a new dress of the same pattern. Of course, this set all the ladies of the kingdom in a rage after "Cobden's prints," which immediately became as celebrated in the market as did Cobden's speeches a few years afterward.
But Cobden was never a mere calico-printer. In his manufacturing days, his capacious mind embraced large views of finance and trade. In 1835, he published, under the signature of "A Manchester Manufacturer," an able pamphlet on "England, Ireland, and America," and, soon after, another on "Russia," in which he advocated a repeal of the corn laws, free trade, peace, and non-intervention in the politics of other nations; strongly urging that England's true policy was to abolish the agricultural monopoly, open her ports to the world, stick to trade and manufactures, and not meddle with foreign controversies. The information which these pamphlets displayed was rare and valuable; the reasonings cogent; the style forcible; and the sentiments eulogistic of "those free institutions which are favorable to the peace, wealth, education, and happiness of mankind." As an illustration of his thorough mode of sifting a question, it may be stated that, before writing his pamphlet on Russia, he made a tour to the East expressly to gain information on that subject.
Mr. Cobden had now secured a reputation in Manchester and the surrounding district, and became a leading man in all public movements, especially such as related to business and trade. In 1837, he was invited to contest Stockport for a seat in Parliament. He failed of an election by fifty-five votes. In 1840, he was requested to stand for Manchester; but he declined, because he was expected to support, in all things, the Whig Administration; and, being far in advance of it on the subject of Free Trade, he was not the man to put on a chain to win a seat on the Treasury benches of the House of Commons. He was returned for Stockport at the general election the next year, and his biography has since become a part of English history. Of his services in the cause of Free Trade, I have already spoken at some length.
On the second of July, 1846, the act repealing the Corn Laws having received the royal assent, the League held its final meeting at Manchester. All the elite of that victorious body had assembled from three kingdoms. George Wilson, who had presided as chairman of the council during the entire struggle, called to order. Having given a rapid sketch of the rise, progress, and triumph of the Association, he requested Mr. Cobden to address the Assembly. As he rose, the multitude sprang to its feet as one man, and greeted him with cheer on cheer, cheer on cheer, cheer on cheer. There stood the brave leader, the modest man, the victor in a field more glorious than ever Wellington won, unable to utter a word for several minutes, for the rapturous shouts of his companions in arms. His speech was characteristic. He bestowed warm eulogies upon his co-workers in the League, generously complimented Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell for their services in the crisis of the conflict, and delicately alluding to his own labors, insisted, in spite of the thundering "noes" which greeted the statement, that far too large a share of credit had been bestowed on him. He closed by moving that the operations of the League be suspended, and the Executive Council requested to wind up its affairs with as little delay as possible. The next day, a modest letter appeared in the public prints, addressed by him to the electors of Stockport, heartily thanking them for the confidence and kindness with which they had honored him, and announcing that the state of his health induced him to seek a temporary withdrawal from public life. Then followed the European tour; the feastings and toastings at Genoa, Paris, and other Continental cities; the munificent National Testimonial of nearly $100,000; the reëlection to Parliament; the plans for financial reform; the motion and speech on that subject during the late session; the defeat; the girding up of the armor for another struggle.
Those who associate in their fancy great physical endowments with great political achievements, would be disappointed in the person of Mr. Cobden. His name is announced. Forward steps a pale, slender man, with grave features stamped with few of the lineaments usually coupled with greatness and energy, and with rather a weak voice, and a gesticulation no wise striking, begins to unfold his subject. But, lucid arrangement; well selected words; arguments that penetrate to the marrow; facts new and old, clearly presented and felicitously applied; illustrations that shed light without bewildering; an occasional apothegmatic expression, embodying the whole subject in a phrase that enslaves the memory; earnestness and sincerity which first enlist sympathy and soon beget conviction—these are the elements of his power as a public speaker. The League furnished half a score of more brilliant orators than he; it produced not another such advocate. But, effective as were his forensic abilities, these did not place him at the head of the Anti-Corn-Law movement. He was as wise in council as he was resolute in action; and his well-balanced mind, his sturdy common sense, made him proof against the importunities of short-sighted coadjutors, and the snares of long-headed antagonists. A radical without rashness, a leader without arrogance, he carried straight forward to victory a constantly increasing host, never committing a blunder, nor sustaining an unnecessary reverse during a long conflict of peculiar excitement and temptation.
Next to Mr. Cobden, in popular estimation, among the League champions, stood the enthusiastic, eloquent Quaker, John Bright. He entered Parliament in 1843, and, like Cobden, was from the manufacturing class. For some years, he had been distinguished among the anti-rate paying dissenters of Central and Northern England, for his vigorous support of religious freedom. He had resisted the extortions of some persecuting dignitaries of the Establishment, and subjected them, on two or three occasions, to most mortifying defeats. He brought into Parliament a high reputation as an advocate of the League before popular assemblies, and an intimate knowledge of the subject of protection and free trade. His ready, bold, inspiring style of oratory partook more of the fervor of the platform than the calmness of the forum. But shrewdness and tact soon enabled him to catch the key-note of the House, where he displayed skill and courage as first lieutenant of the League, and won as much popularity from the aristocratic sections as so radical a democrat could reasonably expect.
Colonel Perronet Thompson, a liberal of the old school, was an efficient member of the League. The incidents of his life would furnish materials for a dozen novels. He had served and commanded, both in the navy and army, in two hemispheres, going through storm and flame in contests with Frenchmen in the Peninsula, South Americans at Buenos Ayres, slave-traders on the coast of Africa, Arabs around the Persian Gulf, and Hindoos among the sources of the Ganges. In the midst of moving accidents by flood and field, he mastered the French, Spanish, and Arabic languages, wrote pamphlets on Law and Morals, read the works of Jeremy Bentham, and negotiated commercial treaties, one of which is remarkable for being the first public act that declared the slave-trade piracy. Retiring on half pay in 1824, he turned his attention exclusively to politics and literature. He gave full scope to his democratic tendencies, and became a leader among the radicals. For ten years he wrote many of the ablest papers on current public questions that appeared in the Westminster Review, of which journal he was for some time the joint editor and proprietor with Dr. Bowring. His style is remarkable for its originality and vigor, combining the pith of Lacon, the raciness of Franklin, and the liberality of Jefferson. His speeches are distinguished for the same sententious and suggestive qualities that mark his writings. I am tempted to quote, though I spoil it by mutilation, his definition of a radical. "What," asks the Colonel, "is a radical? One that has got the root of the matter in him. One that knows his ills, and goes to work the right way to remove them. Every man is a radical that shuts his mouth to keep out flies. Does any man go to a doctor, and ask for a cure that is not radical? All men have been radicals who ever did any good since the world began. Adam was a radical when he cleared the first place from rubbish, for Eve to spin in. Noah was a radical, when, hearing the world was to be drowned, he went about such a common-sense proceeding as making himself a ship to swim in. An antediluvian Whig would have laid half a dozen sticks together for an ark, and called it a virtual representation." Colonel T. had high claims—a preëmption title—to the position he occupied in the corn law-struggle; for, twelve years before that controversy begun, he wrote "The Catechism of the Corn Laws," which contained the substance of all that was subsequently elaborated by Cobden and his coadjutors.
Mr. Villiers was the Free-Trade leader in Parliament till Cobden appeared; and, indeed, on account of his early services, he was called by courtesy the leader until the victory was won. His annual motion for repeal was a thermometer to measure the rise of public opinion; and his annual speech, laden with facts and arguments, converted thousands beyond the walls, if it failed to win majorities within. The multifarious learning and diligent pen of Dr. Bowring were often in requisition. A disciple of Bentham, an early advocate of Free Trade, acquainted with the commercial systems of foreign countries beyond most men, with a mind ripened by study and enlarged by extensive travel, he rendered important aid throughout the controversy. William J. Fox, a Unitarian minister in London, a refined gentleman, a classic scholar, an original thinker, an enlightened philanthropist, added eclat to the Drury-Lane and Covent-Garden meetings. He now represents Finsbury in Parliament.
In this summary, I must not omit the iron poet of Sheffield. Like the Ayrshire plowman, he sprung from the working class. Like him, his songs are the lays of labor. But, unlike him, his muse did not draw her inspiration from the breath of the open fields, perfumed with daisies and adorned with hawthorn, but from the hot atmosphere of furnaces, ringing with the clang of anvils and the hoarse grating of machinery. Burns was the bard of yeomen. Elliott is the bard of artisans. Both have touched the deepest chords of human feeling, and waked echoes that shall vibrate till human hearts cease to pulsate. Wandering a few years ago in the suburbs of Sheffield, my eye fell upon a building, blackened with the blackest smoke of that most somber town, whose front showed a sign running, I think, thus: "Elliott & Co.'s Iron and Steel Warehouse." I inquired of a young man, dressed in a frock, besmeared with iron and coal, for the head of the establishment. "My father," said he, "is just gone. You will find him at his house yonder." I repaired thither. The "Corn-Law Rhymer" stood on the threshold in his stocking feet, holding a pair of coarse shoes in his hand. His frank "walk in" assured me I was welcome. I had just left the residence of Montgomery. The transition could hardly be greater than from James Montgomery to Ebenezer Elliott. The former was polished in his manners, exquisitely neat in his personal appearance, and his bland conversation never rose above a calm level except once, when he spoke with an indignation that years had not abated of his repeated imprisonment in York Castle, for the publication, first in verse and then in prose, of liberal and humane sentiments, which offended the Government. And now I was confronted with a burly iron-monger, rapid in speech, glowing with enthusiasm, putting and answering a dozen questions at a breath, eulogizing American republicanism and denouncing British aristocracy, throwing sarcasms at the Duke of Wellington, and anointing General Jackson with the oil of flattery, pouring out a flood of racy talk about Church Establishments, Biddle and the Bank, poetry, politics, the price of iron and the price of corn, while ever and anon he thrust his damp feet into the embers, and hung his wet shoes on the grate to dry. A much shorter interview than I enjoyed would be sufficient to prove, even if their works were forgotten, that of the two Sheffield poets, Elliott's grasp of intellect was much the stronger, his genius far the more buoyant and elastic. Yet has the milder bard done and suffered much for civil and religious liberty. But the stronger! Not corn-law repealers only, but all Britons who moisten their scanty bread with the sweat of the brow, are largely indebted to his inspiring lays for the mighty bound which the laboring mind of England has taken in our day. Some of his poems are among the rarest and purest gems that shine on the sacred mount. Others are as rugged, aye, and as strong, as the iron bars in his own warehouse. They break out in denunciations of privileged tyrants and titled extortioners, with sounds like the echoes of a Hebrew prophet. The genius that animates and the humanity that warms every line, carry them where more fastidious and frigid productions would never find their way. Elliott has been called harsh and vindictive. He may be pardoned for hating institutions which reduce every fourth man to beggary, while a great heart beats in his bosom. Against meanness and oppression, his muse has rung out battle-songs, charged with indignation, defiance, sarcasm, and contempt; but into the ears of the lowly and wan sons of toil, it has breathed the sweetest murmurs of sympathy, consolation, and hope. The key which unlocks his harmony he has furnished in these angry lines:
"For thee, my country, thee, do I perform,
Sternly, the duty of a man born free, Heedless, though ass, and wolf, and venom'd worm,
Shake ears and fangs, with brandished bray, at me."
It is impossible to even name a tithe of the men of might and genius whose public services gave energy to this conflict, and splendor to this victory. Behind these stood a host whose less conspicuous, but not less efficient labors, gave aim to that conflict and certainty to that victory. Only two will be mentioned—Mr. Paulton, the able editor of "The League" newspaper, who was one of the earliest actors in the enterprise, and weekly sent forth from his closet arguments which, when reïterated by eloquent tongues on the rostrum, made the land echo the cry of "Cheap Bread;" and Mr. George Wilson, who officiated as Chairman of the League from its creation to its extinction. Some estimate may be formed of the extent of his services by a fact stated by Mr. Cobden in his speech at the dissolution. It appeared from the official records of the League, that, during the seven years of its existence, Mr. Wilson had attended its meetings one thousand three hundred and sixty-one times, and had never received one penny for his labor. Such devotion bankrupts all eulogy.