the next three or four
days, I should feel greatly obliged to you.'

Again, on the 22d of July, on the point of going down to his
constituents, he was still pursuing his inquiries in the same quarter.'
I want particularly to compare,' he says to Mr. Burn, 'the export of the
last ten weeks of raw cotton with the corresponding ten weeks of '46
and '45, and at the same time to compare the importations and deliveries
into the hands of the manufacturers during these same periods.

'Pray address me, Lynn, Norfolk, where I go on Saturday, and shall
remain till after my election on Thursday.'

He writes again from Lynn, with great thanks for the information which
had been accordingly forwarded to him there. 'Might I ask you to give me
an account of the cotton wool imported weekly into Liverpool, and also
the quantity sold to dealers, exporters, and speculators, in the three
corresponding weeks of '45-46.

'This information by return of post would greatly oblige me.'

On the 23d of July, 1847, the last day of the second Parliament of Queen
Victoria, Lord George went down to the House of Commons early, and took
the opportunity of making a statement respecting the condition of our
sugar-producing colonies, which were now experiencing the consequences
of the unjustifiable legislation of the preceding year. He said there
were appearances in the political horizon which betokened that he should
not be able to obtain a select committee in the present session, and
therefore, if he had the honour of a seat in the next Parliament, he
begged to announce that he would take the earliest occasion to move for
a committee to inquire into the present power of our colonies to compete
with those countries which have still the advantage of the enforced
labour of slaves. The returns just laid upon the table of the House
could leave no doubt, he thought, on any man's mind on that point. Since
the emancipation, the produce of sugar by the colonies, from '31 to '46,
had been reduced one half, and of rum and coffee had been reduced to one
fourth. When the act of last year which admitted slave-grown sugar was
introduced, the allegation of the English colonies, that they could
not compete with the labour of slaves, was denied. The proof of that
allegation was, that they were already overwhelmed.

When one recalls all to which this speech led, the most memorable effort
of that ardent, energetic life to which it was perhaps fatal, one can
scarcely obs