. Whether
you establish my principle or your own, good will come out of the
inquiry; and I do therefore beg and entreat you not to refuse it."

The effect of this speech in the House and throughout the country was
very great. The anti-Corn Law League printed it by the million and
scattered it broad-cast over the land; it was even said that it had no
inconsiderable effect on Sir Robert Peel himself, and many of his
friends believed that Mr. Cobden exercised, on the occasion, "a real
influence over him." The Premier refused the Committee, but remained
silent; Sidney Herbert it was whom his chief entrusted with the arduous
duty of replying to the great Leaguer. In the course of his speech he
said, "it would be distasteful to the agriculturists to come whining to
Parliament at every period of temporary distress; but in adverse
circumstances they would meet them manfully, and put their shoulder to
the wheel."[73]

On the 9th of August the Parliamentary Session of 1845 closed, leaving
Sir Robert Peel still at the head of that imposing majority which had
sustained him since 1841. Not long after commenced those gloomy reports
of potato blight which continued to increase, until the fact was placed
beyond the possibility of doubt.

It was not originally Sir Robert Peel's desire to propose a repeal of
the Corn Laws in the session of 1846; he would have much preferred the
postponement of the question for a year or so, in order to prepare the
public mind for his altered opinions; besides, he not unreasonably hoped
that the success of the changes of 1842 would have so enlightened his
party as to induce them to accept further and greater changes in the
commercial tariff. Meantime, he could be feeling his way with them by
the aid of trusted friends, and be making them, in various ways,
familiar with the new sacrifices he was about to require at their hands.
Hence, the potato blight was, in more senses than one, an untoward event
for himself and his Cabinet, since it hurried him into the doing of
that, which he hoped to have done without giving any very violent shock
to the opinions or prejudices of his Tory supporters.

Sir Robert, if not a man of great forecast or intuition, was certainly
one to make the most of circumstances as they arose, provided he had
time for reflection. When the news of the potato failure in Ireland
became an alarming fact, he recast his plan, and put that failure
foremost amongst his reasons for repealing