796 Lr
1861. “Yet he had far stronger grounds for suspecting the
Ar. 57. French king of hostile designs, or of feeling resentment
towards him, for we had only three years previously closed
» disastrous war with our American colonies, whose successful
 revolt was greatly the result of the unwarrantable
assistance rendered to them by the French Government:
On the other hand, Palmerston had nob one hostile act
lowards us to allege against the sovereign with whom I was,
with his sanction, engaged in negotiating the Treaty, The
whole affair is so shockingly gross and offensive to serious
minds, that, unless we are to degenerate to a nation of
political mountebanks, it cannot be much longer tolerated
that we are to be governed and represented by such
persons.”
The Government proposed no vote of money, but they
did not intend to leave the negotiator of the Treaty without
 honourable recognition. While he was in Algiers,
Cobden received the following letter from the Prime
Minister sw

"7 GOBDEN, {oms2

“94, Piccadilly, 26 March, 1861.
“My pzar Mz. CospeN,~—The Queen being desirous of
marking the sense she entertains of the public service
rendered by you during the long and laborious negotiations
in which you were engaged on the subject of the Commercial
 Treaty with France, her Majesty has authorized
me to offer to you either to be created a Baronet, or to be
made a Privy Councillor, whichever of the two would be
most agreeable to you
“I am aware that you might not perhaps attach any great
intrinsic value to distinctions of this kind, but as an acknowledgment
 of public services they would not fail to be appre
piated.

“My dear Mr. Cobden, yours sincerely,
“PL MERETON,