28

LIFE  % JOBDEN. Poms?

1848. unwillingly obliged to declare that en amendment in favou® of
ir, 39. Free Trade was carried by a large majority.
“We fought a hard battle at Bedford,” Cobden writ®®
bo his brother, © against brutish squires and bull-frogs, buf
sarried it two to ono, contrary to the expectations of every
man in the county. Lord Charles Russell is the man WE
opposed even his brother John’s fixed duty, declaring ab
she time that it was to throw two millions of acres oub of
cultivation. After Bedford, we can win anywhere ; and 1
is giving great moral power to my movements in the rus)
districts to be always successful. The aristocracy #%°
becoming savage and alarmed at the war going on in thelr
wn camp.’
“On Satorday next,” he continues, “I shall be at By®
where there will be a grand muster from all the eastern part
of our county and from parts of Kent. These county
meetings are becoming provekingly interesting and afr
sractive, so far as the landlords are affected. They begi®
bo feel the necessity of showing fight, and yet when theJ
do come out to meet me, thoy are sure to be beaten O%
their own daaghill. The question of protection is now #°
open one at all the market tables in the counties where 1
have been, and the discussion of the question cannot fail 1
1ave the right issue.”?
This discussion sometimes broke down for lack of repr”
sentatives of the opposite cause :—
“ Our meeting at Rye was a very tame affair for want of
any open spirit of opposition. The audience was almost 3
quiet as a flock of their own Southdowns, I fear the squire?
and parsons will give up the old game of oppositics, and
fry to keep the farmers away, However, we have sown the
seeds in the South of Hngland which nothing will eradicat®

? Tp BT. Cobden, London, True §, 1943,
8 Magiriare Sole, Jene . 1443.