The rapid spread of Free-Trade principles, resulting from the organized efforts of the League, and from the demonstration, which actual occurrences confirmed, that the farming monopoly could not continue, gave the leaders of the League much importance in Parliament. The Whigs, nay, even the more moderate Tories, began to profess conversion to Free-Trade doctrines. When Parliament was dissolved in 1841, both parties went to the country on the issue of Free-Trade or Protection. Sir Robert Peel, who afterward became the patriotic instrument by which the Corn-Laws fell, represented those who adhered to Protection and the agricultural interest. Lord Melbourne came forward as the advocate of those principles which the League had been the first to avow, and which as Premier he had not been anxious to put in practice. Notwithstanding the Reform of 1832, the landed nobility still retained a large control in the composition of the House of Commons. Peel had organized the Conservatives with great tact, and the ministry of Melbourne was suffering from the weakness of internal dissension. The result of the election was, that Peel's candidates were so generally successful that he gained a clear working majority in the House, and he consequently became Prime-Minister. It was soon after the Conservatives thus attained office that John Bright came forward as a candidate for Parliament in the northern city of Durham. The Free-Traders were wise enough to seek the assistance of the best men their ranks could furnish. Bright, it was universally thought, would be a valuable auxiliary, coming as he did from the mercantile class, and possessing a clear mind and ready tongue. Durham was conservative by tradition. In 1843 the city rejected Bright; but in 1844, so rapid was the growth of Liberalism, that the same constituency returned him to the House of Commons by a handsome majority.