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LI¥E OF COEDEN. fr

1858. A few months before this, Cobden had felt for an instent
wr 54. that he would have liked to be in the House. Mr. Gibso®
who bad 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 eleve?
months before, suddenly saw himself compelled to resig®
“ When I read,” said Cobden to Mr. Lindsay, “the aceon?
of Bright and Gibson walking up to the table of the Hon
bo pass sentence upon that venerable political sinner, 1 could
not help thinking what a fine historical picture the artis?
missed. There was surely something more than chance
bringing back these two men to inflict summary punish”
ment on the man who flattered himself a few months 88°
that he had put his heel on their political necks. For th?
first time I felt regret at not being thers to witness that
scene of retributive justice.”
On the feeling between England and France which hed
arisen in connexion with the circnmstances of the Conspiracy
to Murder Bill, he wrote to his friend, Michel Chevalier i=«
 July 18.—It is useless our pursuing the tu quoque arg"
went, otherwise I should remind you that our estrang®
ment 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 0
widen the responsibility of that mad outrage by making it
the ground of domestic legislation of a restrictive characte’
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 conrs®s
and should have loudly proclaimed his belief that men of all