Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE HEROIC METHOD AND THE HEROES. " I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist who, from less honorable motives, clamors for protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit ; but it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good-will in the abodes of those whose lot it is to labor, and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by the sense of injustice." Sir Egbert Peel. The Men Who Fought The Fight—Slr Robert Peel—Charles Villiers—Richard Cobden—John Bright—Daniel O'con- Nell—Ebenezer Elliott. THE men who fought the fight for the'repeal of the corn laws make up a singularly notable company. There is a long roll of these worthies, and some of them are not Englishmen. The anti-slavery men here, as well as the free-traders on the continent sympathized with the movement. Cobbett was not less enthusiastic than Archibald Prentice,—the League's historian. W. J. Fox, Hume, Dr. Bowring, Sir Thomas Potter, Earl Ducie and Brown of Liverpool,—but why make the catalogue ? Is it not enough to say that Cobden was its chief orator andthat Carlyle was one of its heroes? A few peaks stand out,—" in mien and gesture proudly eminent." Sir Robert Peel, the potential head of the government, with one courageous stroke, ending with the splendid sentiment at the head of this chapter, carried free trade. He destroyed himself politically —and made his name forever great on the scroll of the world's benefactors. His action in the crisis was a fitting crown to his noble career. A man as reserved as he was profound, he had reasoned his way through traditional bondage to an enlarged belief, ...