and at which resolutions were passed, asserting the deep distress of the manufacturing districts occasioned by the Corn Laws, and a petition to the Queen was adopted, prayaing her Majesty not to prorogue Parliament until such time as that portion of her speech, at its opening, relating to the Corn Laws should be fully deliberated upon. In the borough of Salford and the populous township of Hulme similar demonstrations were made. At this time, also, was the design originated of holding a great Anti-Corn-Law Bazaar, at Manchester, a new kind of agitation, and the precursor of a great Art Exposition, held afterwards in Covent Garden, that probably furnished the idea for the grand Exhibition, which drew together visitors from almost every nation on earth, with the prospect of binding them together in the bonds of peace and amity after the alienating effects of wars, and "orders in council," and Corn Laws.
While in almost every town in Great Britain the people were expressing their opinions in favour of free trade in food, the first number appeared of a very useful series of tracts, written by Mr. Scott, of the firm of Webster, Geary, and Scott, published in London. In 1791, Sir John Sinclair commenced the publication of his "Statistical Account of Scotland," and it was completed in 1796. A new edition was commenced in 1832, and was still in course of publication in 1841. The account of each parish was written by each parochial minister, and the rent of land was given at each period. I had been enabled to make use of some of those statements, to show the great advance in rents in that part of the kingdom, and, by analogy, to judge of the increase in England, but I had not access to the whole of the last edition of the work. Mr. Scott, in his tract, "A Plea for the Total and Immediate Repeal of the Corn Laws, "gave a table of the rental of one hundred parishes in Scotland, showing that there had been an increase of more than one hundred and fifty per
