the men whose rank, wealth, and personal virtues gave them an influence irresistible when exerted in a good cause, and too often resistless in a bad one? Surely they might have turned the tide of action if not of opinion. Surely they might have arrested in some degree, the progress of dangerous principles in their various localities. Why did not they appear? The truth seems to be that they were ashamed to appear in the companionship of men who admitted that the Corn Laws were passed to raise rents, and retained to pay off mortgages, to fulfil marriage settlements, and to keep honourable baronets in their proper station in society. They had their title-deeds in their own family chests, and would not appear in company with men mortgaged to the lips by extravagant, perhaps profligate expenditure; they could fulfil their marriage settlements without robbing the community and they could sustain; their station in society, without putting their hands into other men's pockets they would not make common cause with the desperate of fortune, who urged their private engagements as an excuse for public robbery. Besides, there was, at the bottom, a growing conviction that the Corn Laws were doomed to destruction; and men of wealth, rank, and a character for justice and humanity, would not hazard the diminution of their legitimate influence by exerting it in so doubtful a cause.
Seeing then that farmers and farm labourers were beginning to discover that "protection" had been of no benefit to them; that tradesmen in what are called agricultural towns did not identify their interest with that of the landowners; and that the really respectable members of the aristocracy would take no active part in a cause of doubtful justice; it was not surprising that the course of the able, eloquent, and indomitable leaguers, should be a course of triumph from the first small meeting with the farmers at Over in Cheshire, to the last great meeting at Canterbury in Kent. And yet the strength of the free
