Coupling these expressions with the language frequently held at the meetings of the Anti-Corn Law League, and by the press in connection with it, Sir Robert Peel in replying to Mr Cobden charged him with holding language calculated to excite to personal violence.
Footnote 14: To go into Committee on the depression of the manufacturing industry. The debate turned mainly on the Corn Laws.
Footnote 15: To this attack Peel replied with excessive warmth, amid the frantic cheering of his party, who almost refused to hear Cobden's explanation in reply. Peel, alarmed at the fate of Drummond, thought (or affected to think) that Cobden was singling him out as a fit object for assassination. For years Cobden resented this language of Peel most deeply. "Peel's atrocious conduct towards me ought not to be lost sight of," he wrote in February 1846. A rapprochement was effected by Miss Martineau—see her letter to Peel (Parker, vol. iii. p. 330)—and a reference to the matter by Disraeli in the House of Commons led to satisfactory explanations on both sides.
Queen Victoria to the Earl of Lincoln.16
Buckingham Palace, 18th February 1843.
The Queen, immediately on her arrival yesterday, went to look at the new Chapel, with which she is much pleased, but was extremely disappointed to find it still in such a backward state. As it is of the utmost importance to the Queen to be able to use it very soon, she wishes Lord Lincoln would be so good as to hurry on the work as much as possible; perhaps Lord Lincoln could increase the number of workmen, as there seemed to her to be very few there yesterday.
Footnote 16: Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests.
Viscount Melbourne to Queen Victoria.
FANNY BURNEY'S DIARY
Brocket Hall, 21st February 1843.