Richard Cobden sprang from a long line of plain Sussex yeomen. His father was a farmer who became bankrupt in 1813, and the lad Richard, one of twelve children, was sent by a well-meaning relative to a Yorkshire boarding-school--a sort of Dotheboys Hall. From such a rough school he passed into the rougher one of life, becoming the lad of all work in the London warehouse of the same kinsman, later a clerk, and at twenty-one a traveling salesman, or "drummer," a position for which his untiring energy and engaging sociability were high qualifications. A great reader, he was also a superior converser and a "mixer" as the present-day phrase goes, adapting himself to his company with unusual facility. John Morley records that all his friends agree that "they have never known a man in whom this trait of a sound and rational desire to know and to learn was so strong and so inexhaustible." "To know the affairs of the world was the master- passion of his life," and the knowledge which he gained and assimilated not merely in his early contact with men in his business, but in the wider journeys of observation to which he treated himself in later years, contributed much to the enrichment of his speeches and writings. At the age of twenty-four, with two other young men, whose capital like his own was little more than energy, probity, and business knowledge, he founded a firm in London for the sale of Manchester cotton prints on commission. Soon the firm was printing its own goods in Lancashire, and Mr. Cobden, prospering greatly from the first, took up his residence in Manchester, to watch over that end of the business. Though as full of affairs as any man in that hive of industry, Cobden found time to store his mind by reading and by reflection upon the knowledge gained by intercourse with his fellowmen. He visited France, Switzerland, and in 1835, America, where he foresaw a growing market for his wares, and where, as he wrote, he fondly hoped "would be realized some of those dreams of human exaltation if not of perfection" with which he loved to console himself. In 1836-37 he visited the Mediterranean countries, and on his return was an unsuccessful candidate for a seat in the House of Commons. In May, 1838, Richard Cobden wrote to his brother concerning the political outlook in the nation, the Chartist agitation, the Radical demands, and the general disorganization which existed among the opponents of Tory government. The letter includes these significant words: "I think the scattered elements may yet be rallied round the question of the Corn Laws. It appears to me that a moral, and even a religious, spirit may be infused into that topic, and if agitated in the same manner that the question of slavery has been, it will be irresistible."