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“count, as Cobden said, it was because Manchester 2s
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Ut have its fair representation in parliament, that
Sbligeq to organive a League and raise an agitation through
the length and breadth of the land, in order to make itself
felt Tt was just because the sober portion of the House
of Commons were aware from how limited and exclusive a
Source they drew their authority, that the League repreented
 go formidable, because so unknown, a force.
The same thought was present to the reflective mind
of Peel, Cobden tells a story in one of his speeches which
Wustrateg this, One evening in 1848 they were sitting in
the Houge of Commons, when the news came that the
Bovernment of Louis Philippe had been overthrown and a
*epublic proclaimed. When the buzz of conversation ran
Yound the House, as the startling intelligence was passed
from member to member, Cobden said to Joseph Hume,
Who sat beside him, ¢ Go across and tell Sir Robert Peel”
Hume went to the front bench opposite, where Sir Robert
Was sitting in his usual isolation. “This comes,” said Peel,
When Hume had whispered the catastrophe, ¢ this comes of
trying to govern the country through a narrow representation
 in Parliament, without regarding the wishes of those
Outside. It is what this party behind me wanted me to do
0 the matter of the Corn Laws, and I would not do it.”*

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1848.

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Now that the work was finally dons, Cobden was free to
et out on that journey over Europe, which the doctors had
ged upon him as the best means of repose, and which he
Promised himself should be made an opportunity of dili-Bently
 preaching the new gospel among the economic
Gentiles, Before starting on this long pilgrimage, he went
to stay for a month with his family in Wales. Two days
after the final meeting of the League, he thus describes to
Y Speeches iil 482. July 6, 1848. 8 Speeches, iL. 548. Aug. 18, 1859.