Nevertheless, the country put up with this system down to the close of
the year 1836. At that time there was a stagnation of trade and a
general depression of business. Severe poverty prevailed in many
districts. Inevitably, therefore, the question arose in the minds of
most men, in distressed or depressed places, whether it could be a good
thing for the country in general to have the price of bread kept high by
factitious means when wages had sunk and work become scarce. An
Anti-Corn-Law association was formed in London, It began pretentiously
enough, but it brought about no result. London is not a place where
popular agitation finds a fitting centre. In 1838, however, Bolton, in
Lancashire, suffered from a serious commercial crisis. Three-fifths of
its manufacturing activity became paralyzed at once. Many houses of
business were actually closed and abandoned, and thousands of workmen
were left without the means of life. Lancashire suddenly roused itself
into the resolve to agitate against the corn laws, and Manchester became
the headquarters of the movement which afterward accomplished so much.

The Anti-Corn-Law League was formed, and a Free-Trade Hall was built in
Manchester on the scene of that disturbance which was called the
"massacre of Peterloo." The leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law movement were
Richard Cobden, John Bright, and Charles Villiers. Cobden was not a
Manchester man. He was the son of a Sussex farmer. After the death of
his father he was taken by his uncle and employed in his wholesale
warehouse in the city of London. He afterward became a partner in a
Manchester cotton-factory, and sometimes travelled on the commercial
business of the establishment. He became what would then have been
considered a great traveller, distinct, of course, from the class of
explorers; that is, he made himself thoroughly familiar with most or all
of the countries of Europe, with various parts of the East, and with the
United States and Canada. He had had a fair, homely education, and he