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LIFH OF COBDEN. [oma

1862. detention. But if is right you should know that there was
fr. 68. a great reaction going on through this country against the
diabolical tone of the Times and Post. (I suspect stockjobbing
 in these quarters.) The cry of arbitration had been
raised and responded to, and I was glad to see the religion?
people once more in the field in favour of peace. Be assured
if you had offered to refer the question to arbitration, there
could not have been a meeting called in England that would
not have endorsed it. The only question was whether We
ought to be the first to offer arbitration. I mean this was
the only doubt in the popular mind. As regards our
Government, they are, of course, feeling the tendency of
public opinion. A friend of mine in London, a little behind
the scenes, wrote to me :— They are busy at the Foreign
Office hunting up precedents for arbitration, very much
against their will.” I write all this because I wish you t0
know that we are not quite so bad as appeared at first on
the surface.”
In the same letter, after arguing for the raising of the
blockade by the North, he says :—
¢ All the reflection 1 have been able to give the subject
confirms me in the view I expressed in my former letter:
Propose to Europe a clean sweep of the old maritime law of
Vattel, Puffendorf, and Co. ; abolish blockades of commercial
 ports on the ground laid down in Cass’s despatch which
you sent. Get rid of the right of search in time of war a8
in time of peace, and make private property exempt from
capture by armed vessels of every kind, whether government
 vessels or privateers. And, as an earncst of your
policy, offer to apply the doctrine in your present war. You
would instantly gain France and all the continent of Europe
to your side. You would enlist a party in England that can
always control our governing class when there is a sufficient
motive for action; and yon would acquire such a noral