3. Linnaeite, or cobalt pyrites, is analogous in composition to copper pyrites, being represented by the formula Co 2 S + Co 2 S 3 , with 58 per cent, of cobalt and 42 of sulphur. As a general rule a portion of the base is replaced by copper, nickel, or iron. It is a rare mineral, being found only in the Siegen district in Prussia and in Sweden. Cobalt bloom is a hydrated arseniate produced by the action of air and water upon the above minerals; the composition is Co 2 As 2 O 8 + 8H 2 O, i.e., 37⅜ per cent, of oxide of cobalt. Earthy cobalt ore is a variety of bog manganese, or wad, a mineral of indefinite composition, but containing at times as much as 8 or 10 per cent, of oxide of cobalt with oxides of manganese, iron, and copper. Cobaltic bismuth ore is a mixture of finely crystalline speiss cobalt with native bismuth, found occasionally in the Schneeberg mines.

The materials from which cobalt is produced by the smelter consist generally of iron or arsenical pyrites, containing a minute quantity of the two metals cobalt and nickel, or various products derived from the smelting of the ores of silver and copper in which these metals are concentrated as sulphur or arsenic compounds.

When in a compact form cobalt is a steel grey metal with a slightly reddish tint, taking a very high lustre when polished, and breaking with a finely granular fracture. The specific gravity is variously stated at from 8 , 52 to 8 ’ 70. It is slightly malleable, and when quite pure of a higher degree of tenacity than iron, according to Deville. The brittle character attributed to it by former observers is due to impurities, such as arsenic and manganese. It melts at about the same temperature as iron, or a little lower, requiring the strongest heat of a wind furnace. The specific heat is 040696 (Régnault). It is susceptible of being magnetized by touch, and retains its magnetism at temperatures below a strong red heat when free from arsenic. Chemically it belongs to the same group as iron, zinc, nickel, manganese, and chromium, which cannot be separated as sulphides by H o S from an acid solution. It is diatomic; its atomic weight is 08 ’ 6, and its symbol Co. Like iron it may be reduced from its oxides by heating with charcoal or in hydrogen gas; in the former case a small quantity of carbon is retained, forming a substance analogous to cast-iron. When reduced by hydrogen at a low temperature it forms a black powder which is pyrophoric, or ignites spontaneously in the air, especially if mixed with finely-divided alumina. At a red heat it decomposes water vapour, producing hydrogen and oxide of cobalt.

There are two principal oxides. The protoxide, CoO, is obtained as a black powder by calcining the hydrate CoH 2 O 2 ∙ The latter is a red substance obtained by precipitation with alkalies from the solution of a cobalt salt. The higher, or sesquioxide, Co 2 O 3 , is produced in a hydrated form from the hydrated protoxide by the action of chlorine, bromine, chloride of lime, or similar oxidizing agents. It may be rendered anhydrous by careful heating, but at a red heat it decomposes, giving off part of its oxygen, and produces a compound analogous in composition to magnetic oxide of iron, Fe 3 O 4 .

The protoxide forms numerous salts, which are usually of a fine rose-red colour. A weak solution of the nitrate or chloride forms the so-called sympathetic ink, which gives a colourless writing when cold, but appears of a bluish-green colour when heated, and fades again on cooling. This effect may be reproduced a great number of times if the writing is not too strongly heated, in which case the colour becomes permanent from the formation of a basic salt. With ammonia the oxides of cobalt form a series of compound bases, which give rise to salts of great interest and complexity; these may be regarded as ammonium salts, in which part of the hydrogen is replaced by ammonium and another part by cobalt in various conditions of atomicity corresponding to the oxides.

The alloys of cobalt are not of much importance. It combines most readily with arsenic or antimony, forming the highly crystalline compounds known by the general name of speiss, which can scarcely be considered as alloys. With gold and silver it forms brittle compounds, with mercury a silver-white magnetic amalgam. With copper and zinc the alloy is white, resembling the corresponding compounds of the same metals with nickel and manganese. With tin it forms a somewhat ductile alloy of a violet colour. The presence of cobalt in the alloy of copper, zinc, and nickel, known as German silver, is objectionable, as it renders it hard and difficult to roll.

The chief use of cobalt in the arts is for the preparation of colours. The protoxide has an intense colouring power when vitrified, and forms the basis of all the blue colours used in glass and porcelain manufacture. The purity of the tint is much affected by traces even of other metallic oxides, especially those of iron, nickel, or copper. Another preparation, known as smalts, is a glass formed by melting cobalt oxide with pure quartz sand and carbonate of potassium. Sometimes the first two substances are subjected to a preliminary heating to produce fritted silicate of a reddish or purple colour, known as zaffre, which when fused with the alkaline carbonate in an ordinary glass furnace produces a deep blue glass. This is rendered friable by running it into water, and is then ground between granite millstones, and finally levigated in water. The various products of the lévigation are classified into different qualities according to the fineness of the grain and the strength of the colour,— the best being those occupying a medium position, the colour diminishing as the fineness of the grain increases. The coarsest variety, known as strewing blue, consisting of rough angular fragments up to about ⅜ inch diameter, is used for the ground-work of the old-fashioned blue and gold signboards, a very effective and durable kind of surface ornamentation. The highest coloured varieties contain from 6 to 7 per cent, of oxide of cobalt. Glass containing only o ∣ π th part of the oxide is of a distinct blue; with more than Ï8 per cent, it is black.

The principal use of smalts is for bluing paper; it was formerly employed almost exclusively for this purpose, but has now been to a very considerable extent superseded by the use of artificial ultramarine, which is cheaper and .more easily applied, but is less permanent, as the colour is easily discharged by acids, which is not the case when smalts is used. The pigment known as cobalt blue, used both in oil and water-colour painting, is obtained by mixing the solutions of a cobalt salt and alum, precipitating with ar alkaline carbonate, and strongly heating the gelatinous precipitate of the hydrated oxides of the two metals. Thenard’s blue, a phosphate of cobalt and alumina, is produced in a similar manner, by precipitation with an alkaline phosphate. Cobalt green, or Rinman’s green, is a mixture of the oxides of zinc and cobalt produced from the solutions of their sulphates by precipitation with carbonate of sodium and ignition.

In analysis cobalt is always determined as protoxide, but the separation from the metals with which it is usually associated, especially nickel, is a difficult and tedious operation. Many different processes have been devised, but the most accurate are those of H. Rose and Liebig. The former depends upon the power possessed by chlorine (or bromine) of converting protoxide of cobalt when in solution into sesquioxide, while the corresponding oxide of nickel is not changed. The solution when completely saturated with chlorine is precipitated by carbonate of barium, which carries down the whole of the cobalt as sesquioxide; the precipitate is redissolved in hydrochloric acid, the whole of the barium salt separated by sulphuric acid, and the cobalt finally precipitated by means of hydrate of potassium. In Liebig’s method the oxides of the two metals are heated with cyanide of potassium and boiled, which produces cobalticyanide of potassium, K 2 Co 2 Cy 6 , and cyanide of nickel and potassium, KNiCy 2 . By the addition of finely-divided red oxide of mercury the whole of the nickel is precipitated, partly as cyanide and partly as hydrate, while the cobalt compound remains in solution, and is afterwards separated by means of sulphate of copper as cobalticyanide of copper, which is redissolved; the copper is separated by sulphuretted hydrogen, and the cobalt then obtained as oxide by boiling with caustic potash. The complexity of the composition of the ores, and the high value of the two metals, has led to the application of more refined methods of chemical analysis in their investigation than are required in the assay of the ores of the commoner metals. Plattner’s method of dry assay of cobalt and nickel ores is much more rapidly performed than an analysis, and in practised hands is susceptible of considerable accuracy. It depends upon the fact that when a speiss or arsenical compound, containing the four metals—iron, cobalt, nickel, and copper—is melted with a vitreous flux such as borax in an oxidizing atmosphere, the metals will be oxidized and pass into a slag with the borax in the order indicated above, no cobalt being taken up until the iron has been entirely removed, and similarly the nickel remaining until the cobalt has been completely oxidized. The steps in the process may be easily recognized owing to the difference in the characteristic colour of the oxides, the dark green or black of the iron slag being rendered distinctly blue by the faintest trace of cobalt, and the blue of the latter being similarly affected by nickel, which has a strong brown colouring power. The arsenides of cobalt and nickel, being of a constant composition, are weighed at each step of the process in the proportion of the metal removed calculated from the difference. Cobalt may be readily detected by the blow-pipe even when in very small quantity, or by the characteristic blue imparted to a bead of borax or salt of phosphorus.

On the large scale cobalt is produced chiefly as an accessory in the treatment of nickel ores. These consist chiefly of mixtures of small quantities of the purer minerals with pyrites, sulphuretted copper ores, or lead and silver ores, which require to be subjected to concentrating processes in order to get rid of the bulk of the iron, sulphur, and arsenic, and produce a small amount of enriched regulus or metal, in which the more valuable metals are in combination with sulphur and arsenic. This is done by calcination, which drives off the sulphur and arsenic combined with the iron, the latter being oxidized and subsequently converted into slag by fusion with fluxes containing silica. Small quantities of cobalt, nickel, and copper ores, when associated with lead and silver ores, are in like manner gradually accumulated in a regulus by passing the regulus of the first fusion several times through the smelting furnace, whereby the lead and silver are in great part removed. The treatment of these purified and enriched products is conducted on the large scale in a somewhat similar manner to a chemical analysis, in order to obtain both cobalt and nickel. The speiss, or regulus, is calcined and treated with strong hydrochloric acid to dissolve the oxides formed. By the addition of caustic lime, iron and arsenic are precipitated, and the clear liquid is treated with sulphuretted hydrogen so long as metallic sulphides are produced, the precipitate being allowed to settle. The solution then containing only cobalt and nickel compounds, the former is separated by the addition of bleaching powder and caustic lime as sesquioxide, Co 2 O 3 , and the latter as hydrated oxide by a subsequent precipitation with lime.

In making smalts the purer arsenical ores are used. They are first calcined in a reverberatory or muffle furnace provided with chambers for condensing the arsenical fumes as completely as possible. The roasted ore, if it does not contain quartz, is mixed with a proportion of fine glasshouse sand and carbonate of potassium, but when it is sufficiently siliceous, as in the mixtures of cobalt ore and silica known as zaffre, only the alkaline carbonate is required. The fusion takes place in pots like those used in plate-glass making, and requires about eight hours. The blue glass is led out into water till the pot is nearly empty, when a speiss containing the whole of the nickel of the ore is found at the bottom. The blue glass is then ground and levigated as already described.

The chief localities producing cobalt ores are Modum in Norway, Tunaberg in Sweden, Schneeberg in Saxony, Musen in Rhenish Prussia, and Mine Lamotte in Missouri; a con siderable amount has also been obtained from Bolivia. In the Transvaal in South Africa a very pure variety of speiss cobalt free from nickel has been recently discovered. Smaller quantities of speiss or regulus are obtained from the smelting of silver and lead ores, at Freiberg, in the Harz, in Bohemia, and elsewhere. (h. b.)

In the previous February Cobbett had married the daughter of a sergeant-major of artillery; he had met her some years before in New Brunswick, and had proved her to be endowed with energy and self-control equal to his own. In September of the same year (1792) he crossed to the United States, and for a time supported himself at Wilmington by teaching English to French emigrants. Among these was Talleyrand, who employed him, according to Cobbett’s story, not because he was ignorant of English, but because he wished to purchase his pen. Cobbett made his first literary sensation by his Observations on the Emigration of a Martyr to the Cause of Liberty, a clever retort en Dr Priestley, who had just landed in America complaining of the treatment he had received in England. This pamphlet was followed by a number of papers, signed “Peter Porcupine,” and entitled Prospect from the Congress Gallery, the Political Censor, and the Porcupine's Gazette. In the spring of 1796, having quarrelled with his publisher, he set up in Philadelphia as bookseller and publisher of his own works. On the day of opening, his windows were filled with prints of the most extravagant of the French Revolutionists and of the founders of the American Republic placed side by side, along with portraits of George III., the British ministers,and any one else he could find likely to be obnoxious to the people; and he continued to pour forth praises of Great Britain and scorn of the institutions of the United States, with special abuse of the French party. Abuse and threats were of course in turn showered upon him, and in August, for one of his attacks on Spain, he was prosecuted, though unsuccessfully, by the Spanish ambassador. Immediately on this he was taken up for libels upon American statesmen, and bound in recognizances to the amount of $4000, and shortly after he was prosecuted a third time for saying that a certain Dr Rush, who was much addicted to bleeding, killed nearly all the patients he attended. The trial was repeatedly deferred, and was not settled till the end of 1799, when he was fined $5000. After this last misfortune, for a few months Cobbett carried on a newspaper called the Rushlight; but in June 1800 he set sail for England.

At home he found himself regarded as the champion of order and monarchy. Windham invited him to dinner, introduced him to Pitt, and begged him to accept a share in the True Briton. He refused the offer and joined an old friend, John Morgan, in opening a book shop in Pall Mall. For some time he published the Porcupine's Gazette, which was followed in January 1802 by the Weekly Political Register. In 1801 appeared his Letters to Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards earl of Liverpool) and Mr Addington, in opposition to the peace of Amiens, the terms of which had been agreed to by the former on behalf of Great Britain in the October of that year, but which was not finally concluded till 1802. On the conclusion of the peace Cobbett made a still bolder protest; he determined to take no part in the general illumination, and— assisted by the sympathy of his wife, who, being in delicate health, removed to the house of a friend—he carried out his resolve, allowing his windows to be smashed and his door broken open by the angry mob. The Letters to the Rt. Hon. Henry Addington are among the most polished and dignified of Cobbett’s writings; but by 1803 he was once more revelling in personalities. The government of Ireland was singled out for wholesale attack; and a letter published in the Register remarked of Hardwicke, the lordlieutenant, that the appointment was like setting the surgeon’s apprentice to bleed the pauper patients. For this, though not a word had been uttered against Hardwicke’s character, Cobbett was fined £500; and two days after the conclusion of this trial a second commenced, at the suit , of Plunkett, the solicitor-general for Ireland, which resulted in a similar fine. About this time he began to write in support of Radical views; and to cultivate the friendship of Sir Francis Burdett, from whom he received considerable sums of money, and. other favours, for which he gave no very grateful return. In 1809 he was once more in the most serious trouble. He had bitterly commented on the flogging of some militia, because their mutiny had been repressed and their sentence carried out by the aid of a body of German troops, and in consequence he was fined £1000 and imprisoned for two years. His indomitable vigour was never better displayed. He still continued to publish the Register, and to superintend the affairs of his farm; a hamper containing specimens of its produce and other provisions came to him every week; and he amused himself with the company of some of his children and with weekly letters from the rest. On his release a public dinner, presided over by Sir F. Burdett, was held in honour of the event. He returned to his farm at Botley in Hampshire, and continued in his old course, extending his influence by the publication of the Twopenny Trash, which, not being periodical, escaped the newspaper stamp tax. Meanwhile, however, he had contracted debts to the amount of £34,000 (for it is said that, notwithstanding the aversion he publicly expressed to paper currency, he had carried on his business by the aid of accommodation bills to a very large amount); and in March 1817 he fled to the United States. But his pen was as active as ever; from Long Island the Register was regularly despatched to England; and it was here that he wrote his clear and interesting English Grammar, of which 10,000 copies were sold in a month.

His return to England was accompanied by his weakest exhibition—the exhuming and bringing over of the bones of Tom Paine, whom he had once heartily abused, but on whom he now wrote a panegyrical ode. Nobody paid any attention to the affair; the relics he offered were not purchased; and the bones were reinterred.

Cobbett’s great aim was now to obtain a seat in the House of Commons. He calmly suggested that his friends should assist him by raising the sum of £5000; it would be much better, he said, than a meeting of 50,000 persons. He first offered himself for Coventry, but failed; in 1826 he was by a large number of votes last of the candidates for Preston; and in 1828 he could find no one to propose him for the office of common councillor. In 1830, that year of revolutions, he was prosecuted for inciting to rebellion, but the jury disagreed, and soon after, through the influence of one of his admirers, Mr Fielden, who was himself a candidate for Oldham, he was returned for that town. In the House his speeches were listened to with amused attention. His position is sufficiently marked by the sneer of Peel that he would attend to Mr Cobbett’s observations exactly as if they had been those of a “respectable member;” and the only striking part of his career was his absurd motion that the king should be prayed to remove Sir Robert Peel’s name from the list of the privy council, because of the change he had proposed in the currency in 1819. In 1834 Cobbett was again member for Oldham, but his health now began to give way, and in June 1835 he left London for his farm, where he died on the 16 th of that month.

Cobbett’s account of his home-life makes him appear singularly happy; his love and admiration of his wife never failed; and his education of his children seems to have been distinguished by great kindliness, and by a good deal of healthy wisdom, mingled with the prejudices due to the peculiarities of his temper and circumstances. Cobbett’s ruling characteristic was a sturdy egotism, which had in it something of the nobler element of self-respect. A firm will, a strong brain, feelings not over-sensitive, an intense love of fighting, a resolve to get on, in the sense of making himself a power in the world—these are the principal qualities which account for the success of his career. His opinions were the fruits of his emotions. It was enough for him to get a thorough grasp of one side of a question, about the other side he did not trouble himself; but he always firmly seizes the facts which make for his view, and expresses them with unfailing clearness. His argument, which is never subtle, has always the appearance of weight, however flimsy it may be in fact. His sarcasm is seldom polished or delicate, but usually rough, and often abusive, while coarse nicknames were his special delight. His style is always extremely forcible, and marked by unusual grammatical correctness.

Cobbett’s contributions to periodical literature occupy 10C volumes, twelve of which consist of the papers published at Philadelphia between 1794 and 1800, and the rest of the Weekly Political Register, which ended only with Cobbett’s life (June 1835). An abridgment of these works, with notes, has been published by his sons, John Μ. Cobbett and James P. Cobbett. Besides this ha published— An Account of the Horrors of the French Revolution, and a work tracing all these horrors to “the licentious politics and infidel philosophy of the presentage” (both 1798); A Year's Residence in the United States; Parliamentary History of England from the Norman Conquest to 1800 (1806); Cottage Economy; Roman History; French Grammar, and English Grammar, both in the form of letters; Geographical Dictionary of England and Wales; History of the Regency and Reign of George IV., containing a defence of Queen Caroline, whose cause he warmly advocated (1830-4); Life of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States (1834); Legacy to Labourers; Legacy to Peel; Legacy to Parsons, an attack on the secular claims of the Established Church; Doom of Tithes; Rural Rides; Advice to Young Men and Women; Cobbett' s Corn; λvΛ History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, in which he defends the monasteries, Queen Mary, and Bonner, and attacks the Reformation, Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and all who helped to bring it about, with such vehemence that the work was translated into French and Italian, and extensively circulated among Roman Catholics.

In 1798 Cobbett published in America an account of his early life, under the title of The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine; and he left papers relating to his subsequent career. These materials were embodied in an anonymous Life of Cobbett which appeared soon after his death. See also Sir Henry Bulwer’s Historical Characters; Biographies of John Wilkes and William Cobbett by Rev. John Watson; and the abridged and annotated edition of the Register.

The educational advantages of Richard Cobden were not very ample. There was a grammar school at Midhurst, which at one time had enjoyed considerable reputation, but which had fallen into decay. It was there that he had to pick up such rudiments of knowledge as formed his first equipment in life, but from his earliest years he was indefatigable in the work of self-cultivation. When fifteen or sixteen years of age he went to London to the warehouse of Messrs Partridge and Price, in East Cheap, one of the partners being his uncle. His relative noting the lad’s passionate addiction to study, solemnly warned him against indulging such a taste, as likely to prove a fatal obstacle to his success in commercial life, Happily the admonition was unheeded, for while unweariedly diligent in business, as his rapid after success abundantly proved, he was in his intervals of leisure a most assiduous student. During his residence in London he found access to the London Institution, and made ample use of its large and well-selected library.

When he was about twenty years of age he became a commercial traveller, and throwing into that, as he ever did into whatever his hand found to do, all the thoroughness and vigour of his nature, he soon became eminently successful in his calling. But never content to sink into the mere trader, he sought to introduce among those he met on the “road” a higher tone of conversation than usually marks the commercial room, and there were many of his associates who, when he had attained eminence, recalled the discussions on political economy and kindred topics with which he was wont to enliven and elevate the travellers’ table. In 1830 Cobden learnt that Messrs Fort, calico printers at Sabden, near Clitheroe, were about to retire from business, and he, with two other young men, Messrs Sheriff and Gillet, who were engaged in the same commercial house as himself, determined to make an effort to acquire the succession. They had, however, very little capital among them. But it may be taken as an illustration of the instinctive confidence which Cobden through life inspired in those with whom he came into contact, that Messrs Fort consented to leave to these untried young men a large portion of their capital in the business. Nor was their confidence misplaced. The new firm had soon three establishments,—one at Sabden, where the printing works were, one in London, and one in Manchester for the sale of their goods. This last was under the direct management of Cobden, who, in 1830 or 1831, settled in the city with which his name became afterwards so closely associated. The success of this enterprize was decisive and rapid, and the “Cobden prints” soon became known through the country as of rare value both for excellence of material and beauty of design. There can be no doubt that if Cobden had been satisfied to devote all his energies to commercial life he might soon have attained to great opulence, for it is understood that his share in the profits of the business he had established amounted to from £8000 to £10,000 a year. But he had other tastes, which impelled him irresistibly to pursue those studies which, as Lord Bacon says, “serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.” Mr Prentice, the historian of the Anti-Corn-Law League, who was then editor of the Manchester Times, describes how, in the year 1835, he received for publication in his paper a series of admirably written letters, under the signature of “Libra,” discussing commercial and economical questions with rare ability. After some time he discovered that the author of these letters was Cobden, whose name was until then quite unknown to him.

In 1835 he published his first pamphlet, entitled England, Ireland, and America, by a Manchester Manufacturer. It attracted great attention, and ran rapidly through several editions. It was marked by a breadth and boldness of views on political and social questions which betokened an original mind. In this production Cobden advocated the same principles of peace, non-intervention, retrenchment, and free trade to which he continued faithful to the last day of his life. Immediately after the publication of this pamphlet, he paid a visit to the United States, landing in New York on the 7th June 1835. He devoted about three months to this tour, passing rapidly through the seaboard States and the adjacent portion of Canada, and collecting as he went large stores of information respecting the condition, resources, and prospects of the great Western Republic. Soon after his return to England he began to prepare another work for the press, which appeared towards the end of 1836, under the title of Russia. It was mainly designed to combat a wild outbreak of Russophobia which, under the inspiration of Mr David Urquhart, was at that time taking possession of the public mind. But it contained also a bold indictment of the whole system of foreign policy then in vogue, founded on ideas as to the balance of power and the necessity of large armaments for the protection of commerce. While this pamphlet was in the press, delicate health obliged him to leave England, and for several months, at the end.of 1836 and the beginning of 1837, he travelled in Spain, Turkey, and Egypt. During his visit to Egypt he had an interview with the redoubtable ruler of that country, Mehemet Ali, of whose character as a reforming monarch be did not bring away a very favourable impression. He returned to England in April 1837. From that time Cobden became a conspicuous figure in Manchester, taking a leading part in the local politics of the town and district. Largely owing to his exertions, the Manchester Athenaeum was established, at the opening of which he was chosen to deliver the inaugural address. He became a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and soon infused new life into that body. He threw himself with great energy into the agitation which led to the incorporation of the city, and was elected one of its first aldermen. He began also to take a warm interest in the cause of popular education. Some of his first attempts in public speaking were at meetings which he convened at Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Rochdale, and other adjacent towns, to advocate the establishment of British schools. It was while on a mission for this purpose to Rochdale that he first formed the acquaintance of Mr John Bright, who afterwards became his distinguished coadjutor iu the free trade agitation. Nor was it long before his fitness for parliamentary life was recognized by his friends. In 1837, the death of William IV. and the accession of Queen Victoria led to a general election. Cobden was candidate for Stockport, but was defeated, though not by a large majority.

In 1838 an Anti-Corn-Law Association was formed at Manchester, which, on his suggestion, w as afterwards changed into a national association, under the title of the Anti-Corn-Law League. This is not the place to recount the history of that famous association, of which from first to last Cobden w as the presiding genius and the animating soul. During the seven years between the formation of the league and its final triumph, he devoted himself wholly to the work of teaching his countrymen sound economical doctrines, for the agitation which he and his associates conducted with such signal ability and success was preeminently an educational agitation. His labours were as various as they were incessant,—now guiding the councils of the League, now addressing crowded and enthusiastic meetings of his supporters in London or the large towns of England and Scotland, now invading the agricultural districts, and challenging the landlords to meet him in the presence of their own farmers, to discuss the question in dispute, and now encountering the Chartists led on by Feargus O’Connor, wsho had deluded a portion of the w orking classes into fanatical opposition to free frade. But whatever was the character of his audience he never failed, by the clearness of his statements, the force of his reasoning, and the felicity of his illustrations, to carry conviction to the minds of his hearers.

In 1841, Sir Robert Peel having defeated the Melbourne ministry in Parliament, there was a general election, when Cobden was returned for Stockport. His opponents had confidently predicted that he would fail utterly in the House of Commons. He did not wait long, after his admission into that assembly, in bringing their predictions to the test. Parliament met on the 19th August. On the 24th, in course of the debate on the Address, Cobden delivered his first speech. “It was remarked,” says Miss Martineau, in her History of the Peace, “that he was not treated in the House with the courtesy usually accorded to a new member, and it was perceived that he did not need such observance.” With perfect self-possession, which was not disturbed by the jeers that greeted some of his statements, and with the utmost simplicity, directness, and force, he presented the argument against the cornlaws in such a form as startled his audience, and also irritated some of them, for it was a style of eloquence very unlike the conventional style which prevailed in Parliament.

From that day he became an acknowledged power in the House, and though addressing a most unfriendly audience, he compelled attention by his thorough mastery of his subject, and by the courageous boldness with which he charged the ranks of his adversaries. He soon came to be recognized as one of the foremost debaters on those economical and commercial questions which at that time so much occupied the attention of Parliament; and the most prejudiced and bitter of his opponents were fain to acknowledge that they had to deal with a man whom the most practised and powerful orators of their party found it hard to cope with, and to whose eloquence, indeed, the great statesman in whom they put their trust was obliged ultimately to surrender. On the 17 th of February 1843 an extraordinary scene took place in the House of Commons. Cobden had spoken with great fervour of the deplorable suffering and distress which at that time prevailed in the country, for which, he added, he held Sir Robert Peel, as the head of the Government, responsible. This remark, when it was spoken, passed unnoticed, being indeed nothing more than one of the commonplaces of party warfare. But a few weeks before, Mr Drummond, who was Sir Robert Peel’s private secretary, had been shot dead in the street by a lunatic. In consequence of this, and the manifold anxieties of the time with which he was harassed, the mind of the great statesman was no doubt in a moody and morbid condition, and when he arose to speak later in the evening, he referred in excited and agitated tones to the remark, as an incitement to violence against his person. Sir Robert Peel’s party, catching at this hint, threw themselves into a frantic state of excitement, and when Cobden attempted to explain that he meant official, not personal responsibility, they drowned his voice with clamorous and insulting shouts. But Peel lived to make ample and honourable amend for this unfortunate ebullition, for not only did he “fully and unequivocally withdraw the imputation which was thrown out in the heat of debate under an erroneous impression,” but when the great free trade battle had been won, he took the wreath of victory from his ow n brow, and placed it on that of his old opponent, in the following graceful words :—“The name which ought to be, and will be associated with the success of these measures, is not mine, or that of the noble Lord (Russell), but the name of one who, acting I believe from pure and disinterested motives, has, with untiring energy, made appeals to our reason, and has enforced those appeals with an eloquence the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned; the name which ought to be chiefly associated with the success of these measures is the name of Richard Cobden.” Cobden had, indeed, with unexampled devotion, sacrificed his business, his domestic comforts, and for a time his health to the public interests. His friends therefore felt, at the close of that long campaign, that the nation owed him some substantial token of gratitude and admiration for those sacrifices. No sooner was the idea of such a tribute started than liberal contributions came from all quarters, which enabled his friends to present him w ith a sum of £80,000. Had he been inspired with personal ambition, he might have entered upon the race of political advancement with the prospect of attaining the highest official prizes. Lord John Russell, who, soon after the repeal of the corn laws, succeeded Sir Robert Peel as first minister, invited Cobden to join his Government. But he preferred keeping himself at liberty to serve his countrymen unshackled by official ties, and declined the invitation. He withdrew for a time from England. His first intention was to seek complete seclusion in Egypt or Italy, to recover health and strength after his long and exhausting labours. But his fame had gone forth throughout Europe, and intimations reached him from many quarters that his voice would be listened to everywhere with favour, in advocacy of the doctrines to the triumph of which he had so much contributed at home. Writing to a friend in July 1846, he says,—“I am going to tell you of a fresh project that has been brewing in my brain. I have given up all idea of burying myself in Egypt or Italy. I am going on an agitating tour through the continent of Europe.” Then, referring to messages he had received from influential persons in France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Spain to the effect mentioned above, he adds:—“Well, I will, with God’s assistance, during the next twelve months, visit all the large states of Europe, see their potentates or statesmen, and endeavour to enforce those truths which have been irresistible at home. Why should I rust in inactivity? If the public spirit of my countrymen affords me the means of travelling as their missionary, I will be the first ambassador from the people of this country to the nations of the Continent. I am impelled to this by an instinctive emotion such as has never deceived me. I feel that I could succeed in making out a stronger case for the prohibitive nations of Europe to compel them to adopt a freer system than I had here to overturn our protection policy.” This programme he fulfilled. He visited in succession France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia. He was received everywhere with marks of distinction and honour. In many of the principal capitals he was invited to publicbanquets, which afforded him an opportunity of propagating those principles of which he was regarded as the apostle. But beside these public demonstrations he sought and found access in private to many of the leading statesmen, in the various countries he visited, with a view to indoctrinate them with the same principles. During his absence there was a general election, and he was returned for Stockport and for the West Riding of Yorkshire. He chose to sit for the latter.

When Cobden returned from the Continent he addressed himself to what seemed to him the logical complement of free trade, namely, the promotion of peace and the reduction of naval and military armaments. His abhorrence of war amounted to a passion. Throughout his long labours in behalf of unrestricted commerce he never lost sight of this, as being the most precious result of the work in which he was engaged,—its tendency to diminish the hazards of war and to bring the nations of the world into closer and more lasting relations of peace and friendship with each other. He was not deterred by the fear of ridicule or the reproach of Utopianism from associating himself openly, and with all the ardour of his nature, with the peace party in England. In 1849 he brought forward a proposal in Parliament in favour of international arbitration, and in 1851 a motion for mutual reduction of armaments. He was not successful in either case, nor did he expect to be. In pursuance of the same object, he identified himself with a series of remarkable peace congresses—international assemblies designed to unite the intelligence and philanthropy of the nations of Christendom in a league against war—which from 1848 to 1851 were held' successively in Brussels, Paris, Frankfort, London, Manchester, and Edinburgh.

On the establishment of the French empire in 1851-2 a violent panic took· possession of the public mind. Without the shadow of producible evidence the leaders of opinion in the press promulgated the wildest alarms as to the intentions of Louis Napoleon, who was represented as contemplating a sudden and piratical descent upon the English coast without pretext or provocation. Shocked by this pitiful display of national folly, Cobden did not hesitate to throw himself into the breach and withstand the madness of the hour. By a series of powerful speeches in and out of Parliament, and by the publication of his masterly pamphlet, 1793 and 1853, he sought to calm the passions of his countrymen. By this course he sacrificed the great popularity he had won as the champion of free trade, and became for a time the best abused man in England. Immediately afterwards, owing to the quarrel about the Holy Places which arose in the east of Europe, public opinion suddenly veered round, and all the suspicion and hatred which had been directed against the emperor of the French were diverted from him to the emperor of Russia. Louis Napoleon was taken into favour as our faithful ally, and in a whirlwind of popular excitement the nation was swept into the Crimean war. Cobden, who had travelled in Turkey, and had studied the condition of that country with great care for many years, utterly discredited the outcry about maintaining the independence and integrity of the Ottoman empire which was the battle-cry of the day. He denied that it was possible to maintain them, and no less strenuously denied that it was desirable even if it were possible. He believed that the jealousy of Russian aggrandizement and the dread of Russian power to which our countrymen delivered themselves at that time were absurd exaggerations. He maintained that the future of European Turkey was in the hands of the Christian population, and that it would have been our wisdom to ally ourselves with them rather than with the doomed and decaying Mahometan power. “You must address yourselves,” he said in the House of Commons, “as men of sense and men of energy, to the question—what are you to do with the Christian population? for Mahometanism cannot be maintained, and I should be sorry to see this country fighting for the maintenance of Mahometanism . . . . . You may keep Turkey on the map of Europe, you may call the country by the name of Turkey if you like, but do not think you can keep up the Mahometan rule in the country.” The reader may be left to judge how far his sagacity and statesmanship have been vindicated by the event. But for the time the torrent of popular sentiment in favour of war was irresistible; and Messrs Cobden and Bright, who with admirable courage and eloquence withstood what they deemed the delusion of the hour, were overwhelmed with obloquy.

At the beginning of 1857 tidings from China reached England of a rupture between the British plenipotentiary in that country and the governor of the Canton provinces in reference to a small vessel orlorcha called the “Arrow,” which had resulted in the English admiral destroying the river forts, burning...