tm] BXUITEMERT OF PUBLIO OPINION. 595

childlike simplicity with which every absurd and improbable 1852.
"Wour wag believed, unless it were the stolid scepticism Zr. 48.
With which all offers to demonstrate their falsehood was
rejected, !
Cobden was proud to recall that he and his friends in face
of this outery took the part which had been taken by the
8reat political leaders who addressed our forefathers half a
century before, and who bore the most honoured names in
thie history of English Liberalism. Nothing pleased him
hotter than to remind those who taunted him with his
lliance with the Peace Society, that the Society of Friends
C0-opersted with Mr. Fox in trying to prevent the war of
1793, and that Mr. Fox was not at all ashamed to write to
Me, Gurney, of Norwich, begging him to get up county
Destings, and to send petitions whether from Quakers or
Others to the House of Commons. Cobden spent the autumn
Setween the general election and the meeting of Parliament
W turning over these things. His industrious meditations
“ok shape in a pamphlet which he intended to do something
 to appease the perturbation of the popular spirit.
Before he actually sat down to composition, he wrote
"U interesting letter to his friend, Mr. Thomasson, of
Bolton 1m
“ Midhurst, Sept. 27.—The course pursued by Brougham
ind all the Whig party at the close of the war, in opposition
bo the large standing armaments proposed to be maintained
2y the Tories, was precisely that which the Peace party are
Bow taking in opposition to both Whigs and Tories. The
former have since that time been in power, and there is
Perfect truth in the sarcasm that the Whigs are Tories in
office, and the Tories are Whigs when out of office. But the
Misfortune is that. after having been in power and committed

. ! Ses Oobden's mocount in his pamphlet, written in 1862, The Thres
Mies. Polikical Writings, ii, 285--270.