After the rejection in the following year by a large majority of Mr. Villiers’ motion that the House of Commons should consider the act regulating the importation of corn, the association developed into a League of Federated Anti-Corn-Law Associations in different towns and districts.  The repealers began the work of propagandism by sending out a band of economic missionaries, who were not long in discovering how hardly an old class interest dies.  In many districts neither law nor equity gave them protection.  The members of the league were described in the London Press as unprincipled schemers, as commercial and political swindlers, and as revolutionary emissaries, whom all well-disposed persons ought to assist the authorities in putting down.

Before he entered Parliament, Cobden re-settled his business by entering into partnership with his brother Frederick, and married (May, 1840) a young Welsh lady, Miss Catherine Ann Williams.  In Parliament Cobden was instantly successful.  His early speeches produced that singular and profound effect which is perceived in English deliberative assemblies when a speaker leaves party recriminations, abstract argument, and commonplaces of sentiment, in order to inform his hearers of telling facts in the condition of the nation.

But Cobden’s parliamentary work was at this time less important than his work as an agitator.  If in one sense the Corn Laws did not seem a promising theme for a popular agitation, they were excellently fitted to bring out Cobden’s peculiar strength.  It was not passion, but persuasiveness, to which we must look for the secret of his oratorical success.  Cobden made his way to men’s hearts by the union which they saw in him of simplicity, earnestness, and conviction, with a singular facility of exposition.  Then men were attracted by his mental alacrity, by the instant readiness with which he turned round to grapple with a new objection.

His patience in acquiring and shaping matter for argument was surpassed by his inexhaustible patience in dealing with the mental infirmities of those whom it was his business to persuade.  He was wholly free from the unmeasured anger against human stupidity which is itself one of the most provoking forms of that stupidity.

III.—­Cobden and Bright

In the autumn of 1841, Cobden and Bright made that solemn compact which was the beginning of an affectionate and noble friendship that lasted without a cloud or a jar until Cobden’s death.

“On the day when Mr. Cobden called upon me,” said Bright, “I was in the depths of grief, I might almost say of despair; for the light and sunshine of my house had been extinguished.  All that was left on earth of my young wife, except the memory of a sainted life and of a too brief happiness, was lying still and cold in the chamber above us.  Mr. Cobden called upon me as a friend, and addressed me, as you might suppose, with words of condolence.  After a time he looked up, and said, ’There are thousands of houses in England at this moment where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger.  Now,’ he said, ’when the first paroxysm of your grief is past, I would advise you to come with me, and we will never rest till the Corn Law is repealed.’  I accepted his invitation.”