His hesitation in this respect, which was now beginning to be denounced in Ireland in very emphatic terms, appeared to Lord John Russell to offer a fitting opportunity for effecting the restoration of the Whigs to office. By this time, Lord Melbourne had almost retired from public life, and everybody knew that, if the Liberals again came into power, the Premiership would fall to the most able, energetic, and resolute of Melbourne’s lieutenants. Lord John Russell saw a great career before him, and on the 22nd of November he addressed a letter from Edinburgh to the electors of the City of London. It will be recollected that the Whig statesman, shortly before the destruction of the Melbourne Cabinet, had been in favour of a fixed, though a low, duty on corn, while his great rival, Sir Robert Peel, had adopted what was known as the Sliding Scale. The views of both leaders had altered since those days. Each had abandoned his hobby; but Lord John Russell was the first to proclaim unequivocally that he was a convert to the views of Mr. Cobden. In his Edinburgh letter, he wrote:--“It is no longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty. In 1841, the Free Trade party would have agreed to a duty of 8s. per quarter on wheat, and after a lapse of years this duty might have been further reduced, and ultimately abolished. But the imposition of any duty at present, without a provision for its extinction within a short period, would but prolong a contest already sufficiently fruitful of animosity and discontent. Let us, then, unite to put an end to a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter division amongst classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people.”