A 
POLITICAL MEMOIR. 
The statesman by whom the speeches contained in this 
volume were delivered holds the unique position of having 
uninterruptedly represented the same constituency, the con 
stituency of Wolverhampton, for nearly half a century. And 
during that long period he has enjoyed a triumph that no 
other statesman has ever before enjoyed. He has seen all 
the leading men of the empire become converts to the prin 
ciples of a great commercial policy which, fulfilling to the 
utmost his reiterated predictions, has freed the people from 
the heaviest burden of injustice that ever pressed upon a 
nation, and completely changed the financial and economical 
intercourse of England with foreign nations ; but which at the 
beginning of his Parliamentary career, ‘almost alone in the 
House of Commons, and without support in the country,’ he 
advocated in the face of the scorn and ridicule of all parties, 
and afterwards continued to advocate and inculcate with 
unfaltering fidelity and consistency through years of deter 
mined and opprobrious opposition until the cause of Free 
Trade was gained, and the blessing of untaxed bread secured 
for the people. 
In 1815 the Corn Laws were passed at the point of the 
bayonet, and their course was marked by scenes of violence 
resulting, on more than one occasion, in the execution of 
some of those who had been driven to desperation by the 
sufferings they endured from want of bread. 
In 1846 the pressure of famine wrung from a reluctant 
Legislature the repeal of the Corn Laws, which the pleas of 
justice and expediency had been equally powerless to win 
from successive Governments blinded by self-interest and the 
superstitions of custom.