Ixy.)

THEIR STEADFASTNESS, 621

luence an Administration ; delusion may mislead a people; 155%
Vatte] may afford you a law and a defence; but no respect I Zr. 50
have for men who form a Government, no regard I have for
Soing with the stream, and no fear of being deemed wanting
M patriotism, shall influence me in favour of a policy which
my conscience I believe to be as criminal before God, as
tis destructive of the true interests of my country.” ®
With equal firmness and equity, when disasters came and
People were beginning to talk at meetings against the arisbocracy
 and the Crown, Cobden would not consent to remove
the blame of disaster from the nation itself. «So far as I
® concerned,” he said, «I will never truckle so low to the
Popular spirit of the moment as to join in any cry which
Shall divert the mass of the people from what I believe
should be their first thought and consideration, namely, how
fe they themselves are responsible for the evils which may
all upon the land, and how far they should begin at home
defore they begin to find fault with others.”
It has often been asked how it happened that these two
frenuoys, eloquent, logical, well-informed men, with their
3teat popular prestige and their consummate experience in
ramming arguments that should tell, failed so abyolutely at
“his crigis in making any impression on the minds of their
®Ountrymen, The historian of the Crimean War, in a classic
Passage,! has said that the answer is very simple. They
ould make mo stand because they had forfeited their hold
pon the ear of the country by the immoderate and indisriminate
 way in which they had put forward some of the
Qore extravagant doctrines of the Peace Party. They had
00 weight as opponents of a particular war. because they

Written in October, 1854. The whole of this admirable letter is given
he end of the first volume of Mr. Bright's Speeches.
Speeches, ii., 64. June 5, 1855.
Mr. Kinolake’s Invasion of the Crimea, vol. ii., chapter vii, pp. 69—71.