CHAPTER XV.

THE AUTUMN OF 1845.

Ti story of the avtumn of 1845 has often been told, 1845
nd it ig not necessary that it should be told over again in “En 4.
ay detail in these pages. It constitutes one of the most
Memorable episodes in the history of party. It was the
burning. point in the career of one of the most remarkable of
English Ministers. It marked the decisive step in the
Breatost of all revolutions in our commercial policy. And it
temaing the central incident in the public life of the statesman
 who is the subject of these memoirs.
In his powerful speech in 1844 Cobden bad reminded the
House of Commons, for men were apt to forget ¥, he said,
that in Ireland there was a duty st that day of eighteen
Shillings a quarter upon the import of foreign wheat. Will
it be believed in future ages, he cried, that in & country
Periodically on the pointi of actual famine—at a time when
its inhabitants svbsisted on the lowest food, the very
foots of the earth—there was a law in existence which
Virtually prohibited the irzportation of bread? The crisis
bag now arrived. The session was hardly at an end before
disquieting rumours began to come over from Ireland.
AS the autumn advanced, it became certain that the potato
€Top was a disastrous failure. The Prime Minister had, in
his own words, devoted almost every hour of his time, after