Cobden; and Mr. Bright. June 5th.—Mr. Geo. Wilson in the chair. Speakers; Mr. E. Bouverie (son of the Earl of Radnor), who a few days before had been elected for Kilmarnock; Mr. Milner Gibson and Mr. R. R. Moore. June 19th.—Mr. G. Wilson in the chair. Speakers: Mr. Cobden; the Rev. Thomas Spencer and Mr. W. J. Fox.
The death of Mr. R. B. Wilbraham, a conservative and protectionist, had occasioned a vacancy for South Lancashire. It was felt by the free traders that to gain a seat for that most important division of the county was of still greater consequence than to retain, in spite of the undisguised and active exercise of ministerial influence, a seat for London. Conferences were held of the leading reformers of Liverpool and Manchester, and it was resolved to invite a free-trade candidate. On the 12th May an address to the electors was published by Mr. Wm. Brown, a merchant of Liverpool, and an extensive landed proprietor, the head of a firm whose mercantile transactions influenced not only the commerce of Lancashire but of the world. In his address he said that in South Lancashire, if anywhere, the cause of free trade ought to triumph, and that he offered himself as its most strenuous advocate. The tories did not think it prudent to put forward a thorough obstructive, believing that they would be safer with Mr. Entwisle, a conservative of the Peel school, who would support Peel's tariff reforms while they continued to exclude corn. A vigorous contest ensued, and at the close of the poll the numbers were:—
| For Entwisle | 7,571 |
| For Brown | 6,963 |
The conservatives and monopolists professed greatly to exult in the result—professed, for they must have felt a strong conviction that at the next election they would be defeated. The free traders were not depressed—on the contrary, they rejoiced in the experiment because it promised the certainty of success at the next trial. At the
