Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/57

 with peculiar, and intense weight." We have likewise to remember against Mr. Roebuck, when taunting the House of Commons for its dislike of physical force chartism, his famous definition of moral force—that it is only the fear of physical force. Why was no notice taken of this language at the time? Simply because Mr. Roebuck was not Mr. Cobden. Sir Robert Peel had not been beaten by the lawyer as he was beaten by the "Manchester Manufacturer."

Mr. Roebuck thought that the League leader had been put down. Taking advantage of the feeling of the House, he rose to complain that Mr. Cobden bad threatened to send the League to his electors of Bath; and the three hundred men who, with all manner of savage cries and yells, had welcomed Peel's interpretation of responsibility to his country, renewed their cries and yells of indignation against Mr. Cobden for reminding Mr. Roebuck of his responsibility to his constituents. What if Mr. Cobden had told him, jocularly and in private, that the League would visit his constituents? Why should not every member be told, publicly, and from the house tops, that his back-slidings would be exposed to the voters who send him to parliament? It is the business of every man, to the extent of his means and influence, to instruct constituents upon every question affecting their own and the nation's interests. It was the especial business of the League to instruct the constituencies, throughout the kingdom, that they might be enabled to make a right choice of representatives when elections occurred, and to judge correctly of the conduct of those who represented or misrepresented them.

In giving a description of this unhappy scene, I have expressed what I felt when I read the newspaper reports at the time. I have regarded Peel as the partizan, not as the statesman which he afterwards became. He was then but a leader led. His better nature afterwards emancipated him from a thraldom which he could not but feel as deeply