Lord Ellenborough caught the contagion and exclaimed;— "My Lords, it is not safe for the country to remain unarmed in the midst of armed nations."

Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the author of the Crimean War, declared ;—

"It was a just cause of shame, and an intolerable humiliation that a great empire like ours should appear, though it were only for an hour, to exist by suffrance, and at the good pleasure of a forbearing neighbour."

In the House of Commons Mr. Horsman delivered a downright panic speech in which he said ;

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"The Emperor of the French acted for the interests of France; it was ours to guard the safety of England. moment must be lost in making the country safe against any accident, and until it was so we must act as if the crisis were upon us. No human tongue could tell how soon or how suddenly it might arise."

It was under such a fusillade of abusive speeches such as these, hurled at the Ruler of a Great and Friendly Power, so recently our ally, that Mr. Cobden visited Paris for the express purpose of negotiating a Treaty of Commerce, which was intended to bind the two nations in amity and concord, and he observed that this popular delusion might have been an element of danger to the peace of the two countries, had it not been for the character of the Emperor, who throughout those provocations displayed a perfect equanimity and self-control.

On the 23rd July, 1860, Lord Palmerston brought forward the Government measure for the construction of works for the defence of the Royal dockyards and arsenals and of the ports of Dover and Portland, and for the creation of a central arsenal, at the cost of £11,000,000, when he delivered one of the most serious and alarming speeches ever delivered by a Minister of the Crown in a time of peace, and the following alarmist utterance will suffice ::

"It is impossible for any man to cast his eyes over the face of Europe, and to see and hear what is passing, without being convinced that the future is not free from danger. It is difficult

to say where the storm may burst; but the horizon is charged with clouds which betoken the possibility of a tempest, and in the main I am speaking of our immediate neighbours across the Channel, and there is no use in disguising it."

It was at this critical and important moment, writes Mr. Cobden ;

"When a commercial Treaty with France upon the liberal arrangement of which depended the whole success of the measure, that this speech burst upon the negotiators in Paris. Had its object been to place the British Commissioners at the greatest possible disadvantage, it could not have more effectually accomplished the purpose. *

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"It cut the ground from under their feet of seeking to strengthen the friendly relations of the two countries as represented by their Governments.

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"Had the Emperor seized the occasion for instantly suspending the negotiations, he would have undoubtedly performed a most popular part, but on this, as on other occasions, his habitual calmness and self-mastery prevailed, and to these qualities must be mainly attributed the successful issue of the Treaty."

Well might Mr. Disraeli to his great credit exclaim ;—

"What is the use of diplomacy? What is the use of Governments? What is the use of cordial understandings if such things can take place?

“Truly there is a vacant niche in the Temple of Fame for the Ruler or Minister who shall be the first to grapple with this monster evil of the day."

Early in the incipient stages of this Palmerstonian alarm of invasion from France, Mr. Richard, in December 1859, came to the front, and assisted by his valued colleague, Mr. Edmund Fry, endeavoured to counteract the suicidal folly which Ministers and Parliament were plunging, scared as he said by an article in the Times, with not a fragment of justification save

"The baseless fabric of a vision."

On the one hand, in France this monomania rested on the shallow foundation of a restless faction, who cherished the hope of scrambling into Power by a political convulsion that might shake the authority of the Emperor, and on the other hand, encouraged and supported in England by a formidable

combination of Whigs and Tories, who hoped thereby to divert the thoughts and aspirations of the people from Parliamentary Reform and other remedial legislation by a craven fear of France and sinister designs of her Ruler, and the absurd cry of "England in danger."

During 1860 and 1861 Mr. Richard by the press and

platform laboured hard to stem the rising tide of terror of France, and alarm at the defenceless condition of England. Article after article from his active pen followed one another in rapid succession on the Armaments of Europe, especially their costliness, in which he shewed that from the year 1815 to 1860 Great Britain had spent the enormous sum of £821,000,000 in preparations for War, and the equally

enormous sum of £915,634,000 for the interest of her National Debt, contracted for War and by War, making the immense total of £1,737,186,000 poured into the unfathomable abyss of War; and yet in spite of this gigantic outlay for securing the strength of the Empire, England was still in danger, and that therefore greater sacrifices and a greater military outlay must be made, not born of any actual necessity, but born of passion and greed, from personal considerations of the Military Classes. Well might Mr. Richard strive at this juncture to expose the ruinous folly of such a gormandising system, and to rouse the nation to demand that the Government should enter into negotiations with the other Governments of Europe, and especially of France, with a view to the mutual and simultaneous reduction of those armaments which oppress the people, and fill Europe with so much alarm and disquietude.

He was stimulated in this action, in the belief, well founded, that there was a coalition in France and in England of the Military with the Protectionist party, to circumvent the noble and disinterested efforts of Mr. Cobden, to bind England and France in the bonds of amity and goodwill by a Treaty of Peace, through Commerce, and if possible to defeat and crush the great scheme, lest peradventure, to their eternal shame be it said, this noble Treaty of Free Trade and Bond of Union, should bar the way of those two great and mighty Nations from plunging into the unspeakable horrors of a bloody War.

Mr. Richard, on the contrary, highly eulogised that Treaty, and the great Statesman who had so skilfully and successfully negotiated it, as having done more, yes, a thousand times more, to prevent War between these two countries, than all the iron-cased vessels, all the rifled cannon, all the bristling fortifications, and all the heroic volunteers in knickerbockers and shakos that the panic-mongers can produce; and further, adopting the eloquent language of Lord John Russell, that as ;—

"This Treaty of Commerce would tend to lay broad and deep foundations in common interest, and in friendly intercourse, for the confirmation of the amicable relations that so happily exist between the two countries, and thus make a provision for the future which will progressively become more and more solid and efficacious."

Therefore such being the case to make an attempt for France and England to come to some accord, in the language of Mr. Disraeli;—

"To terminate this disastrous system of wild expenditure by mutually agreeing, with no hypocrisy, but in a manner and under circumstances which admit of no doubt, by the reduction of armaments, that peace is really our policy.”

The activity of Mr. Richard, by the press and platform, on this question was remarkable, keeping two objects steadily in view, the one to inform and arouse the popular mind in England on the absurdity and folly of the military panic, and the other to bring to bear the reciprocal feeling of friendship and good neighbourhood with France, and shatter thereby the foundation for the unworthy alarmist fears of the War party in England.

During the years of 1861 and 1862 he laboured hard on the platform, and delivered Lectures and addressed Public Meetings in various parts of the country; and amongst other places, at Leeds, Bradford (2), Huddersfield, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Southwark, York, Highflatts, Selby, Halifax, Tottenham, Barnsley, Dewsbury, Darlington, Newcastle-on-Tyne (2), Sheffield, Hull, Brighton, at all of which memorials or resolutions to the Government and the representatives of those towns were adopted, deprecating the mistrust of France, and in favour of disarmament.

In the month of April, 1861, Mr. Richard, accompanied by Mr. Joseph Cooper (an ardent and devoted friend of freedom for the slave, and peace amongst nations), formed a deputation on behalf of the Peace Society to France, carrying a conciliatory Address to the People of France, which referred with satisfaction to the recent Treaty of Commerce negotiated by Mr. Cobden, as evidence of the mutual