This remarkable prophecy was now to have a startling fulfilment. The autumn of 1845 was a long succession of rains. Disquieting rumors and even portents of actual famine came from all parts of the islands. On the last day of October the cabinet met in great haste; and three other meetings took place within a week. Peel was in favor of calling a meeting of Parliament at once, and suspending for a limited period the duty on importation. Others declared that it would be impossible to restore the duty when it was once removed; and the cabinet separated on the 6th of November without coming to any decision. But on the 22d of the same month the public was thrown into great commotion by an address launched from Edinburgh by Lord John Russell to his constituents of London. He declared that “procrastination might produce a state of suffering that was frightful to contemplate.” “Let us all unite,” cried he, “to put down a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter division among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people. If this end is to be achieved, it must be gained by the unequivocal expression of the public voice.” This was the first announcement that Lord John Russell was a convert to the doctrines of the league. As the old reformer was on his way to London, Mr. John Bright met him at a railway station in Yorkshire, and said: “Your letter has now made the total and immediate repeal of the Corn Law inevitable; nothing can save it.” Another cabinet meeting was called, but still there was no agreement as to the policy of convoking Parliament. The public distress and excitement were such that the Prime-Minister now felt it his duty to resign. That event took place on the 5th of December. It was universally understood that the strenuous opposition was in the Duke of Wellington and Lord Stanley. In a great gathering at Birmingham, Cobden exclaimed: “The Duke is a man whom all like to honor for his high courage, his firmness of resolve, his indomitable perseverance; but let me remind him,” added the orator, in a magnificent outburst and amidst a storm of approval, “that notwithstanding all his victories in the field, he never yet entered into a contest with Englishmen in which he was not beaten.”