'Punch' signalising the event by a cartoon entitled 'A "Friend" at Court' (19 Dec.) The pages of 'Punch' at this time attest the place occupied by Bright in the public mind as a principal author of the leading measure of the session of 1869, the bill for the disestablishment of the Irish church. On the second night of the second reading (19 April 1869) Bright delivered a speech in its favour, which excited universal admiration. After Irish disestablishment was carried the Irish land question survived. The remedy of state-aided purchase for the insecurity of Irish tenants had long been advocated by him. But a division of opinion in the cabinet prevented the adoption of the larger measure he proposed, the purchase clauses of the land bill of 1870 being but an imperfect concession to views which a breakdown in health in January 1870 prevented his pressing with success upon his colleagues. A long illness, like that of 1856, followed, necessitating his absence from parliament during the debates on the bill. He sought health at Norwood, at Brighton, and at Llandudno, returning in October to his house at Rochdale. On 19 Dec. he resigned the board of trade, receiving on the occasion the honour of a sympathetic autograph letter from the queen. The details of departmental work did not greatly interest him. His presidency is chiefly remembered by the incident of the bottle-nosed whale and the attack on him by James Anthony Froude [q. v. Suppl.] A Scottish enthusiast, in January 1869, vainly endeavoured to enlist his financial aid in a scheme for the 'destruction of bottle-nosed whales and other ponderous monsters' destructive to the sea-fisheries. The correspondence was made public. Naturalists justified Bright's refusal, and 'Punch' seized the occasion to dedicate to him (23 Jan. 1869) a 'Song of the Bottle-nosed Whale.' In the December number of 'Fraser's Magazine' for 1870, Froude, in an article 'on progress,' imputed to Bright a justification of cheating as 'reasonable competition' and 'false weights' as 'venial delinquencies.' Bright took no notice of the attack, but a dissenting minister, Samuel Clarkson, wrote a letter in his defence. Froude replied, relying on a distorted meaning assigned to some expressions by Bright in his speech on 5 March 1869, in answer to Lord Eustace Cecil's motion on adulteration and false weights and measures. The correspondence, published by Clarkson, together with Bright's speech, in a pamphlet entitled 'The Censor censured' (1871), completely exonerates Bright from the accusation.
Bright spent 1871 for the most part in Scotland, too prostrate even to hear political news. It was not until 11 April 1872 that he once more entered the House of Commons. This illness marked the turning-point of his life. It stamped itself upon his physique, for his hair, which had before been of iron grey, had become silvery white. His speeches, though still eloquent, henceforth lost their invigorating vitality, becoming chiefly reminiscent, and his influence upon the public was impressed rather by his pen than by his tongue. On 30 Sept. 1873 he was so far recovered that he accepted the office of chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. He was re-elected for Birmingham on 20 Oct., and two days afterwards addressed his constituents at a great meeting at the Bingley Hall, after an interval of nearly four years. His speech chiefly consisted of a review of the work of the liberal government. But what attracted public attention was that it attacked the Education Act of his own colleagues as a measure for the encouragement of denominationalism. Forster, the author of the act, charged Bright with having assented to his proposals, and a controversy ensued between them, which added to the incipient disintegration of the liberal party.
Parliament was dissolved on 26 Jan. 1874, and on 31 Jan. Bright was re-elected for Birmingham without opposition and delivered an address. The liberal ministry resigned on 17 Feb. Bright was now free from official trammels. He was unequal to the exertion of public speaking (Letter of 3 March), and remained silent during 1874; but he exercised influence over opinion by answers to inquiring correspondents, which were regularly published in the newspapers. By this method he expressed disapproval of the permissive bill (5 June 1874), preferring to entrust the power of licensing to municipal authority (27 Nov. 1873); of successive vaccination penalties (5 Oct. 1874), afterwards adding a doubt as to compulsion (27 Dec. 1883); of the solicitation of votes by parliamentary candidates (26 Oct. 1874); and of working-men candidates (13 Feb. 1875). Home rule for Ireland he had condemned in a letter of 20 Jan. 1872, on the ground that 'to have two legislative assemblies in the United Kingdom would be … an intolerable mischief.' To the proposal of 'home rule all round' he replied that 'nobody wants a third imperial parliament' (25 Feb. 1875). In December 1874 he wrote that he was much better than he had been for five years. He had recovered strength enough both for the public platform and the House of Commons. Consistently with his disapproval of the intervention of the state in
