C B D E N 87 in advocacy of the doctrines to the triumph of which he had so much contributed at home. Writing to a friend in July 184G, he says, " I am going to tell you of a fresh project that has been brewing in my brain. I have given up all idea of burying myself in Egypt or Italy. I am going on an agitating tour through the continent of Europe." Then, referring to messages he had received from influential persons in France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Spain to the effect mentioned above, he adds: "Well, I will, with God s assistance, during the next twelve months, visit all the large states of Europe, see their potentates or statesmen, and endeavour to enforce those truths which have been irresistible at home. Why should I rust in inactivity? If the public spirit of my countrymen affords me the means of travelling as their missionary, I will be the first ambas sador from the people of this country to the nations of the Continent. I am impelled to this by an instinctive emotion such as has never deceived me. I feel that I could succeed in making out a stronger case for the prohibitive nations of Europe to compel them to adopt a freer system than I had here to overturn our protection policy." This programme he fulfilled. He visited in succession France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia. He was received everywhere with marks of distinction and honour. In many of the principal capitals he was invited to publicbanquets, which afforded him an opportunity of propagating those principles of which he was regarded as the apostle. But beside these public demon strations he sought and found access in private to many of the leading statesmen, in the various countries he visited, with a view to indoctrinate them with the same principles. During his absence there was a general election, and he was returned for Stockport and for the West Riding of Yorkshire. He chose to sit for the latter. When Cobden returned from the Continent he addressed himself to what seemed to him the logical complement of free trade, namely, the promotion of peace and the reduc tion of naval and military armaments. His abhorrence of war amounted to a passion. Throughout his long labours in behalf of unrestricted commerce he never lost sight of this, as being the most precious result of the work in which he was engaged, its tendency to diminish the hazards of war and to bring the nations of the world into closer and more lasting relations of peace and friendship with each other. He was not deterred by the fear of ridicule or the reproach of Utopianism from associating himself openly, and with all the ardour of his nature, with the peace party iu England. In 1849 he brought forward a proposal in Parliament in favour of international arbitration, and in 1851 a motion for mutual reduction of armaments. He was not successful in either case, nor did he expect to be. In pursuance of the same object, he identified himself with a series of remarkable peace congresses international assemblies designed to unite the intelligence and philanthropy of the nations of Christendom in a league against war which from 1848 to 1851 were held succes sively in Brussels, Paris, Frankfort, London, Manchester, and Edinburgh. On the establishment of the French empire in 1851-2 a violent panic took- possession of the public mind. Without the shadow of producible evidence the leaders of opinion in the press promulgated the wildest alarms as to the intentions of Louis Napoleon, who was represented as con templating a sudden and piratical descent upon the English coast without pretext or provocation. Shocked by this pitiful display of national folly, Cobden did not hesitate to throw himself into the breach and withstand the madness of the hour. By a series of powerful speeches in and out of Parliament, and by the publication of his masterly pamphlet, 1793 and 1853, he sought to calm the passions of his countrymen. By this course he sacrificed the great popularity he had won as the champion of free trade, and became for a time the best abused man in England. Immediately afterwards, owing to the quarrel about the Holy Places which arose in the east of Europe, public opinion suddenly veered round, and all the suspicion and hatred which had been directed against the emperor of the French were diverted from him to the emperor of Russia. Louis Napoleon was taken into favour as our faithful ally, and in^a whirlwind of popular excitement the nation was swept into the Crimean war. Cobden, who had travelled in Turkey, and had studied the condition of that country with great care for many years, utterly discredited the outcry about maintaining the independence and integrity of the Ottoman empire which was the battle-cry of the day. He denied that it was possible to maintain them, and no less strenuously denied that it was desirable even if it were possible. He believed that the jealousy of Russian aggrandizement and the dread of Russian power to which our countrymen delivered themselves at that time were absurd exaggerations. He maintained that the future of European Turkey was in the hands of the Christian population, and that it would have been our wisdom to ally ourselves with them rather than with the doomed and decaying Mahometan power. " You must address your selves," he said in the House of Commons, " as men of sense and men of energy, to the question what are you to do with the Christian population ? for Mahometanism cannot be maintained, and I should be sorry to see this country fighting for the maintenance of Mahometanism You may keep Turkey on the map of Europe, you may call the country by the name of Turkey if you like, but do not think you can keep up the Mahometan rule in the country/ The reader may be left to judge how far his sagacity and statesmanship have been vindicated by the event. But for the time the torrent of popular sentiment in favour of war was irresistible; and Messrs Cobden and Bright, who with admirable courage and eloquence with stood what they deemed the delusion of the hour, were overwhelmed with obloquy. At the beginning of 1857 tidings from China reachcsd England of a rupture between the British plenipotentiary in that country and the governor of the Canton provinces in reference to a small vessel orlorcha called the " Arrow," which had resulted in the English admiral destroying the river forts, burning 23 ships belonging to the Chinese navy, and bombarding the city of Canton. After a careful investigation of the official documents, Cobden became con vinced that those were utterly unrighteous proceedings. He brought forward a motion in Parliament to this effect, which led to a long and memorable debate, lasting over four nights, in which -he was supported by Mr Sydney Herbert^ Sir James Graham, Mr Gladstone, Lord John Russell, and Mr Disraeli, and which ended in the defeat of Lord Palmerston by a majority of sixteen. But this triumph cost him his seat in Parliament, On the dissolu tion which followed Lord Palmerston s defeat, Cobden became candidate for Hucldersfield, but the voters of that town gave the preference to his opponent, who had supported the Russian war and approved of the proceedings at Canton. Cobden was thus relegated to private life, and retiring to his country house at Dunford, l;e spent his time In perfect contentment in cultivating his land and feeding his pigs. He took advantage of this season of leisure to pay another visit to the United States. During his absence the general election of 1859 occurred, when he was returned unopposed for Rochdale. Lord Palmerston was again prime minister, and having discovered that the advanced liberal party was not so easily " crushed " as he had
apprehended, he made overtures of reconciliation, and invited