The negotiation was long and tedious.  Cobden had to convert the emperor to his views, and to await the reconciliation of the various French interests that were opposed to freedom of trade.  It was not until November, 1860, that Cobden’s labours were concluded.  England cleared her tariff of protection, and reduced the duties which were retained for revenue on the two French staples of wine and brandy.  France, on her part, replaced prohibition by a series of moderate duties.

Palmerston offered Cobden a choice between a baronetcy and a Privy Councillorship as a reward for his services.  He replied begging permission most respectfully to deny himself the honour.  “An indisposition to accept a title,” he wrote, “being in my case rather an affair of feeling than of reason, I will not dwell further on the subject.”

VI.—­The Last Days of Cobden

When Cobden returned to England his public position had more than recovered the authority and renown which had been seriously impaired by his unpopular attitude on the Russian war.  But he and Bright were soon involved in an almost angrier conflict than before with the upper and middle classes, on account of their championship of the North in the American Civil War.

The remaining years of his life were largely spent in systematic onslaughts upon the policy of Lord Palmerston, and in opposition to military expenditure.  It was with the purpose of resisting a Canadian fortification scheme that he made his last journey to London in March, 1865.  On his arrival he was seized by a sharp attack of asthma; bronchitis supervened, and it became evident that he would not recover.  On the morning of Sunday, April 2, Bright took his place by the side of the dying man.  As the bells were ringing for the morning service the mists of death began to settle heavily on his brow, and his ardent, courageous, and brotherly spirit soon passed tranquilly away.

He was buried by the side of his son in the little churchyard at Lavington, on the slope of the hill among the pine-woods.  “Before we left the house,” Bright has told us, “standing by me, and leaning on the coffin, was his sorrowing daughter, one whose attachment to her father seems to have been a passion scarcely equalled among daughters.  She said, ’My father used to like me very much to read to him the Sermon on the Mount.  His own life was, to a large, extent, a sermon based upon that best, that greatest of all sermons.  His was a life of perpetual self-sacrifice.’”

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SAMUEL PEPYS

Diary