Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/77

 tact that was well calculated to leave a favourable and friendly feeling in the audience towards those delegates of the Anti-Corn Law League, whom Lord Dalhousie went to Glasgow to meet, and designated the apostles of Free Trade.

One remark of General Thompson's I remember was the impression made on him as an old soldier by the appearance of the men he saw working on the roads. They looked, he said, like veteran soldiers—old Grenadiers—for they were, he said, tall, tough, wiry, weather-beaten men—just the sort of men to stand the wear and tear of a soldier's life. He added: "To judge from the appearance of those labourers working on the roads, I am inclined to think that the English must in the old time have had rather tough work in their fights with them, notwithstanding the general superiority of the English armour and horses."

General Thompson used to mention an expression made use of by a minister in a sermon he heard when on his Free Trade expedition in Scotland. The preacher used the words "a fund of righteousness," which furnished food or materials for thinking to General Thompson's acute and inquiring mind. Did the word "fund" mean a capital stock of "righteousness" on which the owner might draw as occasion might require? Had it