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Rh studied the question, but that he had, in his earnestness and energy, and mastery of appropriate language, and combination of argument, with appeals to high moral principle, the power of deeply interesting an audience.

Dr. Bowring was to pass through Manchester, on the 10th September, on his way from Liverpool to Blackburn, where a public dinner was to be given in his honour. He had recently returned from a mission to promote more free commercial intercourse with some of the European powers, and with the Viceroy of Egypt; and I, thinking that the relation of his experience would be useful at a time when men began to talk one with another about the absurdity as well as the iniquity of the corn monopoly,sent out a hundred circulars, saying that some friends of free trade would meet him at the York Hotel on the evening of that day. About sixty responded to the very hasty invitation. I was called upon to take the chair, and Philip Thomson the vice-chair. Mr. Dr. Bowring being introduced to the meeting, was received with great enthusiasm. After alluding to the desolation he had witnessed, the result of the long war between Turkey and Egypt, and to the prospects that would be opened out by a more general recognition of the principles of peace, he said:—

"It is impossible to estimate the amount of human misery created by the Corn Laws, or the amount of human pleasure overthrown by them. In every part of the world I have found the plague-spot. Some years ago I was sent to agitate—for our government is sometimes engaged in the work of honourable agitation—France in the interest of free trade; and so strong was the excitement that the south of France menaced the north of France with a separation, unless the commercial code was modified. It was modified to some extent, and I have had the pleasure of seeing the exports of France trebled in consequence of the change. (Loud cheers.) But when I went into Normandy and Brittany, what said the Normans and the Britans? Why, said they, corn, and then we'll see whether anybody can prevent the importation of your manufactures into France.' (Cheers.) 'We are millions,' said they, 'willing to clothe ourselves in the garments you