preserving to the tenant. A bill for the repeal of the game laws, founded upon his draft report, was introduced by him into the House of Commons on 23 March 1848. But, as he subsequently explained (letter of 16 Nov. 1879), he found that 'farmers dared not or would not make any combined effort to do themselves justice,' and turned his attention to other questions.
The question which, in the session of 1845, most stirred the public mind was that of the Maynooth grant. On 3 April Peel proposed its augmentation. Bright spoke on the 16th, opposing the grant upon the general principle of disapproval of ecclesiastical endowment by the state. This was one of the two occasions in the course of twenty- five years in which Bright and Cobden voted against each other. The other was on a question of expenditure for the South Kensington Museum. The Maynooth bill was carried by 323 to 176 votes.
In September 1845 Bright, then recruiting his health at Inverness, received from Cobden a letter announcing the imminence of his retirement from public life as a consequence of financial embarrassment. Bright replied pleading for delay, and in the meantime addressed himself, in conjunction with one or two friends, to the task of raising a fund to relieve Cobden's immediate difficulties. It was a critical moment. 'The rain that rained away the corn laws' had already set in. Famine had announced its advent in Ireland, The prime minister, already a convert to repeal, was calculating how far he could carry his colleagues on the way. On 22 Nov. Lord John Russell published his 'Edinburgh letter' to his constituents of the city of London. It declared his conversion to the doctrine of the league. 'Your letter,' said Bright, meeting him by chance a few days later, 'has now made the total and immediate repeal of the corn law inevitable: nothing can save it.' On 4 Dec. the 'Times' announced that parliament would be summoned in January, and that the prime minister himself would introduce a bill for total repeal. Meanwhile the league was redoubling its activity. Writing from Stroud in Gloucestershire on the same date, Cobden says: 'Bright and I are almost off our legs: five days this week in crowded meetings.' On 9 Dec. Peel resigned, and Lord John Russell endeavoured to form a ministry. Pending these negotiations a great meeting of the league was held (19 Dec.) at Covent Garden Theatre. During the preceding month. Bright told his audience, he had on behalf of the league addressed meetings in nine counties of England.
In this speech Bright took occasion to vindicate Cobden's device for augmenting the repealers' forces by the creation of forty-shilling freeholders. When challenged in after years to distinguish between this franchise and the modern faggot vote he replied that 'the votes obtained by friends of free trade in 1845 were obtained by the possession of a real property,' not by deeds of fictitious rent-charges (letter of 20 Dec. 1879). A meeting was held in Manchester (23 Dec. 1845) to raise funds for the league. The firm of John Bright & Brothers subscribed 1,000l. On 27 Jan. 1846 Peel proposed the repeal of the corn laws. Bright spoke on the 28th in vindication of Peel's position. Peel was observed to be moved by Bright's generous feeling. At the end of the session he sought Bright's acquaintance. On 17 Feb. Bright expounded, in connection with repeal, the principles of free trade policy. The other measure of first-rate importance on which Bright spoke this session was Lord Ashley's ten hours factories bill. Bright spoke against the bill on the motion for leave to introduce it (29 Jan.) and on the second reading (22 May), when it was defeated by a majority of ten. On 7 Aug. he supported Dr. Bowring's motion for the abolition of flogging in the army. Peel's ministry had fallen on 29 June upon the Irish coercion bill; but the league was triumphant, and on 2 July, at the Manchester Town Hall, Bright seconded Cobden's resolution suspending its operations, prior to its dissolution upon the expiration of the corn law in 1849, as fixed by the repealing statute.
Public gratitude now began to manifest itself. On 15 Aug. the repeal was celebrated at a banquet given to Bright by the mayor and inhabitants of Durham. A subscription of 5,000l. was raised from 3,647 subscribers to present him with a library of twelve hundred volumes in a bookcase appropriately carved with emblems of free trade. The Manchester Reform Association on 14 Oct. invited him to become a candidate for parliament. The invitation was accepted. During the session of 1847 Bright renewed his activity in the House of Commons. On 10 Feb. he unsuccessfully opposed the second reading of Fielden's [see Fielden, John] factory bill. His vigorous individualism disclosed itself again in his opposition to the government scheme of -education on 20 April. In his speech he declined, on behalf of the nonconformists, the proposal to make grants for religious teaching in denominational schools. Education, he maintained, was not the state's business at all. If it were ad-
