1860.
Ar, 56.

792 LIFE OF COBDEN. {oae®
postal facility. The question arises naturally, why should
not our Foreign Office accomplish some good of this kind !
I do not want to throw any blame on Lord Cowley, but ca?
it be doubted that much more of the same kind might be
done if there was a will ?
This letter to Persigny was Cobden’s last act before
leaving Paris. On the 9th of December, accompanied bY
his wife and eldest daughter, he left Paris on his way 0
Algiers. He had never quite shaken off the effects of the
illness which had attacked him in the previous winter:
He used to say of himself that he was wholly the creature
of atmosphere and temperature. His throat was constantly
 troublesome, and when cold and damp weather
came, his hoarseness returned with growing severity. He
had a nervous dread of the London fog, from which he had
suffered the autumn before, and from which he was suffering
even now, and he had an irresistible craving for the sunshine
of the warm south. His doctor warned him that a single
speech to a large audience might destroy his voice for ever;
and he was beset with invitations to public meetings and con
gratulatory banquets. We cannot wonder at his eagerness for
rest. “When I began last winter,” he wrote to a friend, “a8
a volunteer in the corps of diplomacy, I little dreamed what 8
year’s work 1 was preparing for myself, Certainly mine
has not been an idle life, but I never had so tough a task it
hand as that which I have just finished. And much as my
beart was in the work, I feel intensely satisfied that it is ab
an end. Nor do I think, if I must confess so much, that I
could again go through the ordeal. It would not be e8sy
to explain to you what it has been, but if I should agsill
have the pleasure of toasting my knees by your fire, 1
could explain it in a few sittings,”
He remained in Algiers until the following May, While
» To William Hargreaves, Nov. 18, 1880,