1848,
Xr 44,

176

LIFE OF OOBDEN. {om

Examiner, upon the subject, and equally sorry to observe
that our good friend, James Wilson, had been carried 8%
by the current. I wrote to him from Madrid. I fear it
boo much to expect any man to live in London it the
atmosphere of the clubs and political cliques, and preser™®
the independent national tone in his paper, which We had
hoped for in the Feonomist.”*
Lord Palmerston’s intervention in the affairs of Portugh!
was more active, and even more wantonly prepostero’®
All that Cobden said on this subject was literally true. The
British fleet was kept in the Tagus for many months in order
bo protect the Queen of Portugal against her own subject®
What had England to gain? Portugal was one of the
smallest, poorest, most decayed and abject of Europes”
countries. As for her commerce, said Cobden, if that is what
you seek, you are sure of that, for the simple reason that you
take four-fifths of all her port wine, and if you did not, 2°
one else would drink it. Our statesmen, he went on, actually
undertook to say who should govern Portugal, and they
stipulated that the Cortes should be governed on constitd”
tional principles. The Cortes was elected, and what haP”
pened? The people returned almost every man favoursbl®
to the very statesman who, as Lord Palmerston insisted, 73°
to have no influence in Portugal.’
What Cobden heard from Bastiat made him all the m0®
anxious to bring England round to a more sedate policy ’
The chief obstacles to the propagandism of Free Trade
France. said Bastiat. come from your side of the Channel

{ To Mr. Bright. Oot. 24, 1846.
§ Speeches, i. 466, Jan. 27, 1848. Res for the other side of the matte”
Mr. Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, ii. 14—80. Lord Palmerston’s ref®
once (p. 16) to the anxiety and uneasiness of the Queen and the Prif®
Consort at Windsor shows, among many other proofs, how well-founded
were Cobden’s notions of the particular forces that were at work pahind
the policy of Intervention.