resolution condemning the action of Sir John Bowring (who, by the way, was Cobden's personal friend) was passed in the House by a vote of 263 to 247. Palmerston appealed to the selfishness of the country on the subject of Chinese trade, and was sustained. These were the days when Gladstone and Disraeli lay down together. Cobden, Bright, Gibson, Cardwell, Layard, Fox, Miall, and others, all lost their seats. To this interval we are indebted that John Bright recovered strength in a foreign land, and that we received in the United States the second visit of Cobden. Whilst they were absent, the reaction set in: Bright was elected by Birmingham, Cobden by Rochdale. Nay, so strong was the feeling in Cobden's case, that Palmerston found it to his purpose to invite him into the Cabinet; and when, returning from America, Cobden sailed up the Mersey, he was met by a deputation from Liverpool who informed him of his appointment among the new Ministry. He at once declined the appointment, for reasons which have not hitherto been given to the public. Since his death a personal friend of his has written, that, on this occasion, "he told Lord Palmerston, in answer to remonstrances against his decision to decline the honor, that he had always regarded his Lordship as one of the most dangerous ministers England could possibly have, and that his views had not undergone the slightest change. He felt that it would be doing violence to his own sense of duty, and injuring his own character for consistency in the eyes of his countrymen, to profess to act with a minister to whom he had all along been opposed on public grounds." Mr. Cobden's next great service was in bringing about the treaty of free commerce with France, a service which has endeared him to the French beyond all English statesmen, and which brought him from the Queen the offer of a Baronetcy, which he declined, as he also did in January last Mr. Gladstone's offer of the chairmanship of the Board of Audit, at a salary of two thousand pounds. Well might Gladstone say of him, as he did,--"Rare is the privilege of any man who, having fourteen years ago rendered to his country one signal and splendid service, now again, within the same brief span of life, decorated neither by rank nor title, bearing no mark to distinguish him from the people whom he loves, has been permitted to perform a great and memorable service to his sovereign and to his country."