Page:History of the Anti corn law league - Volume 2.pdf/429

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£60,000 SUBSCRIBED.
415

upon ourselves. This meeting will afford to any administration the best possible support in carrying out its principles. If Sir Robert Peel will go on in an intelligible and straightforward course-if he will promulgate plainly and candidly that he purposes fully to carry out the principles of free trade, he will see that there is strength enough in the country to support him; and I should not be speaking the sentiments of the meeting if I did not say, that if he takes the straightforward, honest course, he shall have the support of the League and the country as fully and cordially as any other prime minister."

The subscriptions again poured in: Mr. Bright, Mr. James Heywood, Mr. Brotherton, and Mr. Wylie, of Liverpool, filling up the intervals with brief addresses. Mr. Bright was hailed with great cheering. He said he could not command words to express the delight he felt in the proceedings. He was surrounded by gentlemen, some of whom had attended meetings in Manchester for thirty or forty years, but they had never seen in all their experience any to compare with that they had been witnesses to now. No man, even amongst their enemies, could now say that there was anything unsubstantial, anything insincere in the character of the great movement. The past meetings had demonstrated that the supporters of the League were in earnest, and this meeting, if any confirmation were required, furnished that confirmation; and he was convinced that it would have a powerful effect on public opinion. At the close of the meeting, the Chairman announced that the amount subscribed was Fifty-nine thousand, one hundred and sixty-five pounds. Before the day closed, the amount had increased to Sixty thousand pounds! The following is a list of some of the subscriptions:—

£1000 each.—S. Greg and Song; James Chadwick; T. Thomasson Bolton; Kershaw, Leese, and Co.; T. Hoyle and Sons; John Brooks; Robert Ashton, Hyde; W. Bailey and Brothers, Stalybridge; Robert Platt, Stalybridge; Robert Lees and Son, Dukinfield; J. Whitaker and