its duty, in carrying into effect the unanimous resolution of the delegates, three times reiterated in London and Manchester, and adopted as the fundamental object of the League," and to say that it "would continue in the same course which had hitherto been followed with such satisfactory results." Numerous anti-corn-law associations separately testified their approbation of the course pursued by the League, and in about ten days addresses to the electors of Walsall, recommending the election of a thoroughly free-trade candidate were voted at meetings held at Rochdale, Kendal, Carlisle, Mitcham, Nantwich, Stourbridge, Bolton, Chorley, Great Torrington, Loughborough, Macclesfield, Uxbridge, Longtown, Stalybridge, Edinburgh, Bridgenorth, Sunderland, Bradford (Wilts), Kidderminster, Leek, Congleton, and Liverpool and thus a movement which, to those who disliked the "dogmas called principles," seemed to promise the dissolution of the League, or to render it powerless, was the means of establishing it more firmly in the confidence of the public, as giving an assurance that it would not abate one jot or tittle from its declared purpose, whatever temptations a temporarizing expediency might offer.
Mr. Smith, finding that the electors were unable to find any local candidate likely to be successful, yielded to their urgent solicitations to come forward himself, and, until the time of election, Walsall was a school in which he, Richard Cobden, and other free traders taught the principles which they had undertaken to teach to the nation. Amongst their opponents was Mr. Forster, the father of the gentleman who would have been candidate and member but for the exercise of parental authority. He was a banker, and exercised all the influence which his position gave him to procure the return of Mr. Gladstone; while the whig Hatherton and Lyttelton families held aloof from the contest, the liberalism of Mr. Smith not being sufficient recommendation to overcome their distaste to his
