With a view to improving his position, young Cobden, before long, removed to another firm in Watling Street. Here he served his master faithfully, and was in due time changed from an indoor to an outdoor servant. One of the regular travellers of the firm being sick, it fell to the lot of Richard to undertake his duties. At first he received but a very moderate salary, but on the "road" he was soon much respected. He sent home large orders, and made his services too valuable to his employers to be dispensed with. Many a tradesman now living remembers his interesting, gentlemanly, afterdinner conversations and discussions in the commercial rooms, where he not only knew how to "take orders," but to talk Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." Already the young commercial traveller was an enthusiastic advocate of Free Trade, and at the same time a favourite with his employers, who in course of time, wishing to withdraw from the business, offered it to young Cobden and two other of their young servants.

In his business transactions young Cobden, by his skill and affability, had won the respect and admiration of a London commercial gentleman-a Mr. Lewis. The three young men to whom was offered the interest and good-will of the business above referred to were required to find £1,500 in cash as their part of the bargain. None of the three had the command of money, but all resolved to look round for friends. Each indulged the hope that he would fall on the right man. Cobden seems to have had the least prospect of success, but he applied, with trembling no doubt, to Mr. Lewis, who readily promised to advance £500 as young Cobden's share. So far there was a bright prospect, but soon young Cobden had to return to Mr. Lewis with the sad tale that his colleagues had been unable to raise their proportion of £500 each. This looked gloomy enough, for £500 was but a third of £1,500, nor was young Cobden hopeful that Mr. Lewis would advance the £500 against the empty purses of his proposed partners. The retiring firm, however, at length agreed to accept £500, and Mr. Lewis found the money. The three young men were soon launched and fairly afloat on the sea of business. They opened three establishments; one at Sabden, near Clitheroe, for the printing of calicoes, in which they dealt, and two others, one in London and another in Manchester, for the sale of goods. The Manchester house, under the name of "Richard Cobden and Co.," was situated in Mosley Street, a street now almost devoted to warehouses, but at that time mainly occupied by the medical profession, one or two of whom still stand the whirl of business and the racket of lurries and busses, and hold their ground amid crammed warehouses and interminable cotton bales.

At this time (1830) Richard Cobden was scarcely twenty-six years old, but soon after his new start in life he began to take an interest in public questions, and to attract the attention of some of the local leaders of public opinion. In the meantime his business flourished, and he began to accumulate money. With energy and courage combined with rare judgment and tact, Cobden pushed his business. Selecting a few new designs, he rapidly supplied the home market with such prints as met home tastes, and at once shipped to foreign markets such as failed to meet a ready sale in this country.

Rapidly he took the lead in calico-printing. "Cobden's prints" were known everywhere, and later on, when he was becoming famous throughout Europe as a politician, servant girls and duchesses, mechanics' wives and young Queen Victoria, were seen dressed in "Cobden's prints."

Richard Cobden was not the man to be long content with merely reading and talking politics. He tried his pen, modestly and anonymously in a Manchester paper, as do most intelligent young men, especially where they can find an editor who has sense enough and manliness enough to treat them with respect. His letters on the incorporation of Manchester, and other public questions, under the signature of "Libra," at least made an impression on the editor of the Manchester Times of that day, who, after a time, believing there was a new man starting up in the Liberal ranks of the cotton metropolis, asked one morning, in his "Notices to Correspondents," to have an interview at the office of the journal with his new contributor. About noon of the same day a young gentleman introduced himself as "Richard Cobden," a name which was strange to the editor, who at once inquired his business. The young man had to explain that he was "Libra," and that he understood the editor "wished to see him." The two were soon on good terms, and a long and warm friendship grew up between Messrs. Cathrall and Prentice, the proprietors and editors of the Manchester Times, and Mr. Richard Cobden, the young Manchester tradesman. After complimenting Cobden on the ability displayed in his letters, and marking a certain "diffidence" and "timidity" associated with a more than "average" ability in "the young man," the two editors invited him to take part in a public meeting to be held that evening on the question of the incorporation of Manchester. Though the meeting was but a small and unimportant affair, the natural timidity of Cobden induced him to decline the invitation, nor did he consent till Messrs. Prentice and Cathrall overcame his scruples by repeated and urgent solicitations. Cobden pleaded that, except an after-dinner address at a "commercial table," he had never made a speech; but it was at length arranged that he should, on that evening, make his "maiden" speech at the "Cotton-Tree Tavern," in Ancoats, Manchester. Cobden appeared on the platform, and the chairman called upon him to move the first resolution, stating, at the same time, that the mover was no other than the "Libra" of the Manchester Times. Cobden, no doubt, felt very nervous when he faced his audience, for he never, to his last speech, addressed a public meeting without some trepidation. However, he obeyed the call of the chair, but only to perpetrate as grand a failure as ever green and inexperienced orator did perpetrate. Mr. Cobden's début was a thorough break-down, for which the chairman saw it necessary to apologise, expressing full confidence, however, in the success of " Libra's" future efforts. In most of Cobden's early attempts, he got into very uncomfortable mazes. He described his own

Mr. Prentice gives a different account from this of Mr. Cathrall, of his first introduction to Cobden, which, he states, was brought about through his receiving from a friend a copy of Cobden's "England, Ireland, and America," in which was written "From the Author." It is possible that Prentice may have forgotten the incidents related by Cathrall.

mind as being on these occasions a complete blank.. Self-consciousness seems to have left him; he could recollect nothing, see nothing, hear nothing. From the day of the break-down, had he been allowed his own way, Cobden would have closed for ever his oratorical career. Yet, with all this loss of self-reliance and self-control, Cobden usually said something worth saying, and something very respectable. Some men are so constituted that they are about as incompetent to talk folly as others are to talk sense. Even men of decent powers, with any amount of self-sufficiency and control, will sometimes stand up with perfect self-complacency and talk half an hour, or an hour, without saying half-a-dozen sentences which anybody cares to hear; but Cobden did not know how to do this; he had no talent for it, and therefore even his early speeches were marked throughout by unusual intelligence and strong common sense.

No doubt these early editors of the Manchester Times were men of discernment. They saw something worth calling forth in their new correspondent, and though quite ignorant of his position and whereabouts-unlike many modern charlatans who sit perched at their desks imagining they can do all the work for this world and perhaps a little for some other; snarling like terriers at all who presume to help them-they introduced Cobden to the political circles of Manchester, where he was soon found taking an active part in all public questions. Having borne a prominent part in the incorporation of Manchester, Cobden was chosen one of the first members in the council, and was at once elected alderman. Until now, Manchester, the third town in the kingdom, with its vast industry and wealth, had been under the Lord of the Manor, who, through a borough-reeve and his constables, administered the laws, laid taxes, collected various duties, and granted patents. But from this vassalage of ancient feudalism-perhaps good and fitting in its day-Mr. Cobden, by unceasing labours, and by the publication of a pamphlet entitled "Incorporate your Borough," was, more than any other man, instrumental in delivering it. Notwithstanding his early "break-down," Cobden soon became an effective public speaker in Manchester. Before he was thirty-one he became, locally, a man of mark, for we find him the main instrument in erecting and establishing the Manchester Athenæum, in Mosley Street, at the opening of which substantial edifice (1837) he was chosen to deliver the inaugural address. At present, this institution has a library of the choicest works on all subjects, numbering from 16,000 to 20,000 volumes, and it regularly supplies its members, in addition to numerous other educational facilities, with about 100 periodicals-home and foreign-in the shape of quarterlies, monthlies, and weeklies; while from the subscriptions of its members, its annual income reaches about £2,000. Though by this time quite accustomed to public speaking, Mr. Cobden stated that during the delivery of this inaugural address, he could not "see or hear anything," and only learnt what he had said next day from the public papers. About this time Mr. Cobden began to take an interest in the question of "National Education," and on the platform frequently appeared as its advocate.

Ever since the passing of the Reform Bill Manchester had been

Its first two members

the head-quarters of a "Free Trade Party." of Parliament, Mr. Mark Phillips and Mr. Poulett Thomsonafterwards Lord Sydenham-went up pledged to Free Trade, and aided by Mr. Hume, Lord Carlisle, and the present Lord Grey, did good service; but a succession of good harvests and commercial prosperity produced carelessness and apathy on the part of the people. In the meantime, Cobden was quietly preparing himself for the future struggle, by gaining enlarged commercial experience, by extensive historical reading, by the reading of travels, and by the study of works on political economy. The profits of his calico-printing business were now becoming considerable, and, by the time he fairly entered public life, had reached about £9,000 a year. Thus much it may be necessary to say, in reply to those mean and cowardly political slanderers, who, to lessen the great man's honour and fame, have whispered that Cobden, at the outset, was a mere political adventurer who, finding his business unsuccessful, took to politics. It may be further stated that, had Richard Cobden kept to his business, according to all human probability, he would have become one of the wealthiest men in Lancashire.

Cobden, previous to the opening of the Athenæum, had made a tour through Europe, passing through Turkey and Greece into Egypt. Here he gathered, for use at a future day, stores of knowledge on commercial, social, and political subjects. Afterwards, he extended his information by a tour through the United States of America. The results of these travels were given in two powerfully written pamphlets, which appeared in 1835-6. These literary efforts-long since out of print-came forth under the signature of "A Manchester Manufacturer," and were respectively entitled, "Russia," and " England, Ireland, and America." At the time Russia was ruthlessly overrunning Poland, and trampling out the life of her insurgent people; an outcry was raised in England, led by the Press, that British armies should be sent on a crusade in defence of Poland and Turkey. Ireland, too, seemed on the verge of rebellion, the result of physical suffering brought on largely by misgovernment. Cobden showed that it was not our province to force Russia to do right, nor to defend Poland and Turkey, but that it was pre-eminently our duty to look after our own concerns, and especially to relieve Ireland of her miseries. These pamphlets contained doctrines, then new to our statesmen, but which they have since been compelled to learn and endorse. That which called forth in the House loud laughter and very earnest sneers, in 1835, is now, in 1866, and is very likely to remain, the political alphabet of even Benjamin Disraeli. The distinction will ever remain to Mr. Cobden and to Mr. Bright too-that he has changed and apparently fixed, in some important particulars, the political creed of his political opponents. Richard Cobden's doctrine of "non-intervention was precisely the same in 1835 as it was in 1865. He came forth at once-for he seemed to lay hold of great truths, and to see them in all their bearings, at a single effort-with the doctrine full and ripe, but which it took others many years to appreciate and embrace. The spirit of

the two books above referred to has now become, and is likely to remain, the key-note of our English foreign policy. With close reasoning and a keen observation, he there discourses on Russia, on Poland, on Turkey, on Mahometanism, on Ireland, on the United States, on our Colonial and Foreign Policy, and on Free Trade, where, with the eye of inspiration, he sees and forecasts with surprising precision the glorious results of the abolition of the corn laws. Here it is, too, that he recommends the formation, in all large towns, of "Chambers of Commerce," under the name of "Smithian Societies," devoted to "the purposes of promulgating the beneficent truths of the Wealth of Nations.""

The "Manchester Manufacturer" was well handled, abused without measure, on all hands; but he sent forth stirring replies, which thoroughly indoctrinated the manufacturing population of the Northern Counties with his commercial policy, and prepared them for the formation and operations of the "League."

So early as 1836 London had an Anti-Corn Law Association," but its influence and results were only of a limited character. Amongst its members were Messrs. Brotherton, Buckingham, Hume, Roebuck, Ebenezer Elliot, Schofield, Wakley, William Howitt, Prentice, Colonels Thompson and Stanhope, Tait, Sir W. Molesworth, Blanchard, and Thomas Campbell, the poet. During the following year the Chartists began their agitation, and, amid great commercial distress, many bankruptcies, in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow, and thousands of unemployed and starving Lancashire operatives, loudly and openly preached sedition. But the people now began fairly to see that their miseries were the result of the Corn Laws, and in the House a fixed duty of 10s. a quarter was proposed. In the meantime, the KingWilliam IV. died, which made necessary a "general election." Manchester and other towns elected Anti-Corn Law men, and the Free Trade ranks were somewhat strengthened. While Cobden was absent on the Continent, he was proposed as member for Stockport, and only lost the seat by a few votes. The new Parliament now numbered thirty-eight "Free-traders ;" and though their numbers were relatively small, they carried weight, representing, as they did, 5,000,000 of people. At a banquet held to celebrate the return of Mr. Brotherton for Salford, Cobden spoke on the necessity of the ballot, which he predicted would give them great power in the House.

Mr. Cobden now sought to move the Manchester Chamber of Commerce to enter on an agitation, but that body, for the present, contented itself with a formal protest against the Corn Laws. The relief and reforms of the last reign did very little to relieve the distress which one class or other were constantly suffering. The Corn Laws were passed to give relief to the farmer, but they prevented British manufacturers from exchanging their goods for foreign produce, and thereby crippled trade; so that those who should have bought and consumed the farmer's grain had no money with which to purchase. If the farmer had abundant crops, he was distressed by cheapness; and if his crops were small, the people were starved by high prices. Mr. C. P. Villiers repeatedly brought the subject before Parliament, and asked for an inquiry into the operation of the Corn