t them. It
was not merely the august personages of the Court, nor the
illustrious veterans in Government and diplomacy, nor the most
experienced politicians in Parliament, nor the powerful
journalists, nor the men versed in great affairs of business. It
was no light thing to confront even that solid mass of hostile
judgment. But besides all this, Cobden and Mr. Bright knew that the
country at large, even their trusty middle and industrial classes,
had turned their faces resolutely and angrily away from them. Their
own great instrument, the public meeting, was no longer theirs to
wield. The army of the Nonconformists, which has so seldom been
found fighting on the wrong side, was seriously divided.

Public opinion was bitterly and impatiently hostile and
intractable. Mr. Bright was burnt in effigy. Cobden, at a meeting
in his own constituency, after an energetic vindication of his
opinions, saw resolutions carried against him. Every morning they
were reviled in half the newspapers in the country as enemies of
the commonwealth. They were openly told that they were traitors,
and that it was a pity they could not be punished as traitors.

In the House, Lord Palmerston once began his reply by referring to
Mr. Bright as "the Honourable and Reverend gentleman," Cobden rose
to call him to order for this flippant and unbecoming phrase. Lord
Palmerston said he would not quarrel about words. Then went on to
say that he thought it right to tell Mr. Bright that his opinion
was a matter of entire difference, and that he treated his censure
with the most perfect indifference and contempt. On another
occasion he showed the same unmannerliness to Cobden himself.
Cobden had said that under certain circumstances he would fight, or
if he could not fight, he would work for the wounded in the
hospitals. "Well," said Lord Palmerston in reply, with the sarcasm
of a schoolboy's debating society, "there are many people in this
country who think that the party to which he belongs should go
immediately into a hospital of a different kind, and which I shall
not mention." This refined irony was a very gentle specimen of the
insult and contumely which was poured upon Cobden and Mr. Bright at
this time....

It is impossible not to regard the attitude of the two objects of