the Earl of Ducie. The League had also with them Earl Spencer. That noblemen continually resided upon his property, and frequently presided at agricultural meetings. He was for a repeal of those laws. There was also the Duke of Bedford—a family who, notwithstanding the backsliding of Lord John Russell, had occasion to be proud of their lineage. At the time Mr. Villiers brought forward his motion in the House of Commons, for the repeal of those laws, he (Mr. Cobden) believed that the largest landowners, and some of the best agriculturists of England and Ireland were for that measure. There was Mr. Sharman Crawford, who was an enthusiastic opponent of those laws. There was Mr. Gore Langton, one of the members for Somersetshire; he opposed them also. There, too, was Mr. Villiers Stuart, member for the county of Waterford. He (Mr. Cobden) never heard a better speech than that delivered by that gentleman, the last time Mr. Villiers brought the subject forward. He viewed it as a moral question, and gave utterance to the most acute piece of reasoning that ever was put forth upon the subject. Then there was Mr. Grantly Berkeley, the member for Gloucestershire. He (Mr. Cobden) mentioned those names to show what a bug-bear it was to name the aristocracy as being totally opposed to the repeal of these laws."
Previous to the breaking up of the meeting, it was announced that the subscription to the League fund was £320, and that it would probably amount to £600 in a few days.
While the leading members of the League were thus indoctrinating the country—for the press was spreading every where the truths they uttered, and giving prompt answer to every fallacy that was, from time to time, advanced; and while hundreds of less prominent voluntary labourers in the cause were working hard in all the business details of the agitation, the lecturers were, at some forty meetings a week, giving effective instructions to the people. Even the working men of their number were a match in argument to the few educated persons who, here and there, attempted to defend monopoly. But two or three of them had encountered a fierce physical opposition, from their pressing, perhaps a little too vehemently, the injustice of sacrificing the manufacturing to the agricultural interest, so as to give farmers some suspicion that the demand for the repeal of the Corn Laws was only that the
