1860.
AT. BE.

754

LIFE OF COBDEN. (oma?

toms. The latter was represented by Mr. R. A. Ogilvie, the
late Surveyor General of Customs, and the Board of Trade
was represented by Mr. Louis Mallet, who speedily impressed
Cobden, as the diaries show, by his strong intelligence and
efficiency, and who afterwards became one of the most
eminent advocates of Cobden’s principles to be found among
English statesmen. The Government thought that ib would
be beneath Cobden’s dignity to accept the office of chief
commissioner and to correspond with the Board of Trades
after having been a plenipotentiary and having corresponded
with the Foreign Office. Cobden began to fear that the
chief who might be appointed would not prove quite a 18°
after his own heart, so, he says, “ as I felt no concern what
gver about the loss of dignity, I volunteered to come out #0
Paris myself as chief commissioner, and to sign the sop”
plementary treaty as plenipotentiary when it is completed
I am afraid I have undertaken a very difficult and tedio™
task. But having begun the good work, I must pursue it
to the end, and probably I could not transfer it to other
hands without damage to the canse,”’!
In fact, it was clear that though the diplomatic or political
part of the work had been effectually done, the more difficult
commercial part still remained. The Treaty was hardly mor
than a rough and provisional sketch. When it reached the
Board of Trade the amazement of that office was nob alto”
gether pleasurable, for a department is capable of gelf-loves
and the officials privately felt that they had been made rathe”
light of. It was soon perceived that from the point of view
of their office the Treaty did not carry things far. In the
first article the Emperor had engaged that in no case should
the duties on a long list of articles of British production 854
manufacture exceed thirty per cent. This was to be the
limit. But a duty of thirty per cent. was nearly as bad 88
1 To M, Chevalier. April 14, 1860.