Cobden and Bright
grown indifferent to public matters in proportion as they are well fed. I rely on the newspaper press, now for the first time really free, giving a more intellectual tone to our political life.
"I am much obliged to you for the perusal of the enclosed. I have often observed some very candid and able articles in the B. Journal upon questions in which I have been in most quarters greatly misrepresented. I am glad to know to whom I am indebted for them.
"The allusion in Mr. Thos. Crossland's letter was to an old pamphlet of mine published twenty-two years ago in opposition to the Russophobia of that day, in which I showed that Poland had fallen from her own inherent vices and misgovernment, and that the mass of the people were better treated by their conquerors than they had been by their own aristocratic rulers. Of course, I took care to guard myself from being supposed to justify Russia and the other partitionists. On the contrary, although showing that Poland had brought her extinction on herself by her own internal corruptions, I said I did not justify the instrument, or, as I called it, her 'hangmen.'
"However, this fine discrimination was too much for Crossland (an old Free Trade colleague of mine now acting with the Tories), who, I expect, wrote this letter whilst under the inspiration of something much stronger than your ordinary potations. The obvious answer to his accusation, if it needed a defence, is, Why did he elect me for the West Riding and allow me to sit for ten years as its member, and why did he follow me as his chief during the League agitation, if I had committed such an outrage on his sense of justice towards Poland ten years previously? They must have been terribly in want of a fit and proper man among themselves. However, these things are not worth notice.—Believe me, very truly yours,There is one note from John Bright which, though merely an answer to Cassell's request for a photograph, is characteristic:
41
