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Rh the probability of the Penrhyn seats being transferred to Manchester, Mr. Cobbett had been talked of by his disciples as the most fit and proper representative of the new borough; and had he been a man of ordinary prudence, he might have gained a strong body of adherents, for he had many admiring readers within its limits. It was his peculiarity, however, that in brandishing his formidable club he was as apt to strike friend as foe; and on the question of West India slavery be had absolutely gone out of his way to "hit" at a most respectable and influential body of man amongst his anticipated constituents.

In 1828, in advocating, in the Manchester Times, the abolition of slavery, I had stated the great cost of our West India colonies to the mother country, and had expressed my regret that Mr. Cobbett had bestowed much abuse on the abolitionists, and attributed the then distress of the planters to the efforts of the abolition party, when he ought to have known that their embarrassments, proceeding from the gross mismanagement of their estates, had existed long before any strenuous effort had been made for the manumission of their human chattels. In a letter to the electors of Manchester, dated 1st October, 1828—for he was than a candidate for its representation—he said: "How shall I express my contempt of the man who could have put upon paper the falsehood, that I have branded as canters and hypocrites 'all who think that Englishmen ought not to be taxed in order to enable the owners of estates in the West Indies to hold their black brethren in thraldom.'  There is no answer to a falsehood like this, other than that of calling the utterers by a name which need not be put on paper, but which will suggest itself to every man.  But, gentlemen, the thing to admire here is, the profound, the gross, the worse than animal ignorance of this Mr. Prentice, who sets himself up as a teacher of politics to the enlightened people of Manchester.  He does not know, then, that the old West India