2

pry

COBEN,

[osAR

1846. every day. I don’t wish bo make it a task. But tell me al
Jr. 42. the gossip.”
“May 15./—There is at last a prospect of reading the Bills
third time to night. The Protecticuists promise fairly enough
but I have seen too much of their tactics to foel certain taf
they will not have another adjournment. There is a revivél
of rumours again that the Lords will alter the Bill in co®"
mittee, and attempt a fixed-duty compromise, or a perpet®
bion of the reduced scale. It is certain to pass the second
reading by o majority of thirty or forty, but it is not ufo
in the committee, where proxies don’t count. I should not
now be able to leave town till the end of the month
when I shall take a week or ten days for the Whitsuntid®
recess.’’

“May 16.—I last night had the glorious privilege of
giving a vote in the majority for the third reading of the
bill for the total repeal of the Corn Law. The Bill is no¥
out of the House, and will go up to the Lords on Monday:
I trust wo shall never hear the name of Corn’ ag 1
the Commons, There was a good deal of cheering and
waving of hats when the Speaker bad pub the questio™
‘that this Bill do now pass.” Lord Morpeth , Macaulay, and
others came and shook hands with me, and congratulated
me on. the triwmph of onr cause. I did not speak, simply
for the reason that I was afraid that I should’ give more life
to the debate, and afford an excuse for another adjournment’
otherwise I could have made a telling and conciliatory 8F°
peal. Villiers tried to speak at three o’clock this mornitd
but I did not think he took the right tond, He was Hero?
against the protectionists, and only irritated them, and the¥
wouldn’t hear him. The reports about the doings in 1°
Liords are still not satisfactory or conclusive, Many people

P To BW, Coddom.