announced that the Council of the League had resolved that the Bazaar, in aid of the funds, would he held in London, on the following May.
Before the close of the year, meetings were held in Liverpool, Bradford, Sheffield, Kotherham, Wakefield, Barnsley, Bolton, Keighley, Pontefract, and other towns, attended by deputations from the League; and everywhere the proposal to increase the number of forty-shilling freeholds was hailed as a constitutional and effective means of rescuing counties from the thraldom of the landowners.
A number of letters had appeared in The League paper, with the signature, "A Norwich Weaver Boy," written by Mr. W. J. Fox, which had been read with deep interest; and I think I may appropriately close my notice of the proceedings in 1844 by copying his fourteenth letter:—
"TO THE RIGHT HON. SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART., M.P., FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY, ETC., ETC.
"Sir,—Any attempt to prove to you the truth of free-trade principles or the importance of their practical application, would be a superfluous procedure. You have made repeated profession of those principles. In various ways you have applied them, although it may be but partially. From the proposition of your tariff to the recent admission of Venezuelan sugar at the reduced duty, there has been a slow and cautious, but a distinctly perceptible, advance in the measures of your government towards free trade. The question to be argued with you is not one of principle but of policy; not one of object, but of time, mode, and degree. You are afraid of injuring existing interests by sudden changes. And you are also not unobservant of the influence of your measures on the strength of your political position. This wariness has marked your whole public career, and is deeply inwrought into your personal character. The danger is, lest you should be too wary, and pass the point at which boldness is the safest caution. Did such peril only affect yourself, with yourself its consideration might be left; but it involves the condition and prospects of millions. Those who participate in your connexion as to principles; who are thankful for every step, however small, which you have taken in their application; and who are anxious for that immensity of national good which would arise from their consistent and complete adoption, have claims on your attention,