the free traders expected in the speech. There was to be a change in the Corn Laws, and an alteration in the tariff, and intense curiosity was excited as to what those changes might be.
Nothing concerning the intentions of the ministers was elicited in the debates on the Address. It was moved in the Lords, by the Marquis of Abercorn, who hinted to the manufacturers that much of their prosperity depended upon the prosperity of agriculture. Lord Melbourne, who, in office, had said that it would be madness to think of total repeal, expressed himself as equally opposed to the sliding scale. Lord Brougham, for himself and Earl Spencer (who was absent), declared that the only way to deal with the Corn Laws was to get rid of them altogether. Earl Fitzwilliam drew from the Duke of Buckingham the admission that he had retired from the ministry because a measure was to be proposed that he could not sanction; but he did not say what that measure was to be. In the Commons Sir Robert Peel announced, that on the following Wednesday he would state what his intentions were. There was a week of intense curiosity to intervene. The Duke of Richmond had refused to allow his son, the Earl of March, to move the address, and the agriculturists were in great alarm. The thorough free traders were everywhere girding up their loins, believing that what displeased the Dukes of Buckingham and Richmond might still be a very wretched measure for the country.
The following is a list of the appointment of deputies from conferences and anti-corn-law associations, who met at the Crown and Anchor, on Tuesday, 8th February, all with instructions to entertain no proposal for any compromise, but to demand perfect freedom to import that food for the want of which her Majesty acknowledged that her people were enduring severe distress. The list contains all the appointments communicated to the Council in Manchester but it is necessarily defective, as great numbers of
