XXXVII. 1839. vous. CHAP. directed, opened a continued and sustained fire both upon the insurgents without and those in the lobby within, and with such effect that, after a few rounds, during which twenty fell, the whole broke and fled. Frost himself was not seen on the theatre of conflict, but he was arrested in Newport that evening, as were Jones and Williams, who had arrived ten minutes too late at the point of rendezThese three persons were afterwards indicted for high treason, and found guilty; but their lives were spared, though with great difficulty, by the leniency of the Crown, in consequence of a technical legal difficulty on which the judges were divided. Mr Phillips, who recovered from his wound, was with great propriety knighted by the Queen for his gallantry on the occasion. Every rightthinking man must rejoice at the honour thus worthily bestowed; for what said Napoleon?" There is one death 1839, 315, more glorious than that of a soldier on the field of battle; it is that of a magistrate on the threshold of the hall of justice in defence of the law."1* 1 Ann. Reg. 316; Mart. ii. 413. 70. Origin of the Anti League. Sept. 18, 1838. This decided defeat suppressed for a time any similar Chartist outbreaks, though it was far from putting an Corn-Law end to the profound feelings of discontent in which it originated, and which broke out, three years after, in alarming strikes and combination riots amounting to insurrection, both in England and Scotland. But meanwhile another movement was commencing under wiser directions, and supported by greater wealth, which was not destined to be of such ephemeral duration, and which, springing up from small beginnings, ere long acquired such consistency and strength as enabled it to modify, in a most important respect, the commercial policy of the country. On the 18th September 1838, a public dinner * Frost was, after his transportation, restored to Great Britain by the general amnesty passed on occasion of the glorious peace with Russia in 1856. The first use he made of his liberty, on his release, was to make a decided, though happily abortive, attempt to renew the Chartist agitation in London; a proceeding on his part which both demonstrated how righteous had been his previous sentence, and undeserved the lenity which led to its relaxation. CHAP. XXXVII. 1839. was given to Mr Bowring, whose labours in behalf of an unrestrained commercial intercourse among nations had long attracted attention, at Manchester, which was attended by only sixty persons. Though so few in number, they were united in conviction and resolute in spirit, and they at once formed themselves into a society for promoting the principles of Free Trade. They commenced operations in the most business-like way, and soon showed that they well knew how the foundations of a great national superstructure are to be laid. They opened subscription lists, when large sums were put down by the leading firms, obtained the sanction of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and recommended the formation of similar societies in all the great manufacturing towns of the kingdom. With such success were their efforts attended, that, before February 1839, associations of the same sort were established in London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, and other great towns, which soon became connected together, and formed a great association for establishing the principles of Free Trade, especially in grain. Such was the origin of the ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE, which gradually drew to itself nearly all the 1 Mart. ii. commercial and manufacturing industry of the country, 415; Ann. and worked such wonders in the modifications of its 201. future policy.1 Reg. 1839, 71. Cause of the success the Anti Corn-Law League. The reason of this rapid progress, as of success in all similar changes, is to be found in the fact that as the AntiCorn-Law League proposed to rectify the great existing evil of generally felt, so it originated in the experience of suffering universally diffused. It sprang from the same source as the Chartist agitation among the operative masses. Both arose from the ruinous effects of the fall of prices produced by the contraction of the currency necessarily induced under the existing system by the bad seasons, and each was intended to throw the effects of that fall off themselves and upon their neighbours. The Chartists proposed to do this by establishing a frame of govern VOL. VI. X XXXVII. 1839. CHAP. ment which, by giving them, through the force of numbers, the command of the State, should enable them to abolish the entire class of employers and capitalists, and to divide, on the Communist principle, the whole profits of stock among those engaged in labour. The Anti-CornLaw League proposed to extricate the masters out of the difficulty arising from the fall of prices by diminishing the price of food, without any regard to the effect of such reduction upon those engaged in its production, and thus effecting a considerable diminution in the cost of the production of manufactured articles. Both parties felt the pressure, and each, after the usual fashion of human nature, proposed to ease itself by throwing it upon its neighbour. And neither saw, what the event ere long proved, and what was clearly demonstrated in 1852 and 1853, that the existing evil was entirely artificial, and of human creation, and that without tearing society to pieces by rousing the antagonism of class against class, the whole existing evils might be remedied by the simple expedient of arresting the fall of prices by the establishment of a currency not liable to be drawn away, and adequate to the increasing wants of the nation. 72. and Mr Mr RICHARD COBDEN was the leader of the movement Mr Cobden in the country, Mr Villiers, the member for WolverVilliers, hampton, in the House of Commons. Both were men of proceedings Vigour and capacity, and eminently fitted for the task ment on the they had undertaken. Possessed of strong good-sense and first in Parlia subject. and powerful natural talents, Mr Cobden had none of the general views or systematic caution which arises from an enlarged acquaintance with human affairs, and the habit of reflecting on their varied and complicated interests. He saw one great evil before his face, which was the fall in the price of manufactured articles, and he saw only one remedy for it, which was to effect a corresponding reduction in the cost of their production. This could only be done by cheapening the price of subsistence, and so reducing the wages of labour; and to this object all his XXXVII. 1839. efforts accordingly were directed. He was sure of a will- CHAP. ing audience wherever he went; cheap bread is a cry to which the working classes, especially when really suffering, are never insensible. The ultimate effect of cheap wages is a remote consequence, to which comparatively few are alive. Cobden was a powerful political fanatic. He pursued his favourite single idea of free trade in corn with the same sincerity and vigour with which Mr O'Connell at the same time was pursuing his chimera of the repeal of the Union, or with which he himself afterwards advocated the disbanding our troops, and selling our ships of the line, and crumpling up Russia like a sheet of paper in his hand. To produce a great public movement, a cry must be simple and single-complication or multiplicity are alike fatal to any general excitement. If the Chartists had had one point in their Charter instead of six, the fate of their movement might have been widely different from what it actually was. 73. movement Connected with these great political agitations, and, though far less important in its consequences, not less Free Kirk characteristic of the temper of the times, a movement in Scotland. took place at this time in Scotland, which has been attended with lasting effects upon the ecclesiastical establishment of that country, and, on account of its singularity, merits a brief notice even in general history. It originated in the passion for independence, and chafing against control, which are in so remarkable a manner inherent in the Scotch character, and which have at different periods produced the most important results in British history. In the fourteenth century it inflicted the most severe defeat upon the arms of England which they ever sustained, and prolonged for three centuries the national independence; in the seventeenth century it gave victory to the English Parliament when its forces were yielding to the increasing vigour of the Royalists; and in the nineteenth it secured the triumph of the same party in working out the Reform Bill, and has returned the XXXVII. -1839. CHAP. Liberal party in power for twenty years, after the majority of the constituencies in England and Wales had decided for the other side. Whether from their remote situation, or the secluded nature of their country, or the character of original descent, the Scotch are singularly tenacious of old ideas; and the principles of the Solemn League and Covenant were as rife in their hills and moors as when, two centuries before, they marched to the support of the sinking English Puritans at Marston Moor. 74. Origin of the seces verance of the Scotch Church. Among a people of such a character, and so situated, it was not to be expected that the many causes which had sion, and se- produced such a ferment in southern Britain should fail in occasioning a serious convulsion. But following the direction of the national temperament, which is eminently, and in a most remarkable manner, prone to theological disputes, the general fervour fastened not upon the State, but the Church, as the theatre for the exercise of its powers. Independence of all temporal authority in spiritual concerns became as general a passion as national independence had been in the days of Wallace and Bruce. Though it was the Church, not the State, which was split asunder, the movement was democratic, not religious. It was not a contest for doctrine, principle, or form of worship, but for the appointment of the clergy. The existing law had vested the right of nomination in the patrons of parishes, but a large portion of the Presbyterians held it should be intrusted to a majority of the congregations in communion with the Church. The General Assembly of the Church, in conformity with early precedent, and yielding to the prevailing fervour of the times, had in 1834 passed an Act, well known under the name of the Veto Act, which empowered presbyteries to refuse to sanction the appointment of ministers who were disapproved of by a majority of the heads of families in the respective congregations. As this Act practically took the appointment out of the hands of the patrons, it was |