xx] OOBDEN’S PRIVATE OIROUMSTANCES. 749

A day or two after, Cobden returned to England. And 1860.
hero we may for a moment turn from his public activity to zn. 56
%y so much as may be necessary about some of his private
Concerns, The subject is painful enough, just as it is painful
 even at, this distance of time to think of Burke’s genius
being humiliated and impeded by the straits of embarrassed
Yircumstances. So much publicity, however, was given to
Cobden’s affairs, partly by the spleen of political adversaries,
“nd partly by the indiscretion of friends, that it is proper to
leseribe the transaction of this period as it really was. A
fow lines fortunately will suffice. We have seen that of the
Ym raised in 1846 as a proof of the public gratitude for his
%rvices in the cause of Free Trade, the bulk had been
“ployed in meeting the heavy losses incurred in Cobden’s
‘Usiness, during the time when he was absorbed in the
‘Gitation against the Corn Laws. What happened to the
balance which had been invested in the shares of the Illinois
Contra) Railway, we have also seen. There was, moreover,
the continued drain of the chief rent on the unhappy pur-‘hase
 of land at Manchester. The upshot was that after
U8 return from the United States Cobden found his re-Sources
 practically exhausted, and his position had become
*ztremely serious.
Under these circumstances he applied to one of his oldest
"0d most confidential friends in Manchester for aid and
“Avice. What he sought was that a few men who could
“lord to wait for a return on their money, might be induced
' buy the building land from him ab a certain valuation,
Which should include some of that prospective value which
he insisted on seeing in it. In this letter he said to his
riend, in words that will touch all who can think gently of a
Ran for taking too little heed of his own interests, for the
“ake of the commonwealth : « My hair,” he said, “has been
4 Vol. i. p. 169,