The Letters of Richard Cobden (1804-1865) provides, in four printed
volumes, the first critical edition of Cobden's letters, publishing
the complete text in as near the original form as possible. The
letters are accompanied by full scholarly apparatus, together with
an introduction to each volume which re-assesses Cobden's
importance in their light. Together, these volumes make available a
unique source of the understanding of British liberalism in its
European and international contexts, throwing new light on issues
such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, British radical movements, the
Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, Anglo-French relations, and the
American Civil War.
The third volume, drawing on some forty-seven archives worldwide,
reveals the tension between public and private life experienced by
Cobden from 1854 until 1859. As prospects for reform at home
diminished, he became the prototype for the group A. J. P. Taylor
famously called the 'Trouble Makers', articulating a wide-ranging
critique of British foreign policy with regard to the Crimean War,
Anglo-American relations, the Indian 'Mutiny', and British
expansion in Asia. An arch antagonist of the Prime Minister
Palmerston, in early 1857 he dramatically defeated the government
in the House of Commons over British naval intervention in China
(the Arrow incident), and in 1858 played a major part in resisting
Britain's annexation of Sarawak. Privately, Cobden experienced
anguish at the death of his fifteen-year-old son at school in
Germany in 1856, heightened by the inconsolability of his wife
Catherine. He was also beset by financial worries, prompting a
second visit to the United States in 1859 where he was welcomed as
a celebrity, though his primary purpose was to investigate the
prospects of the Illinois Central Railroad following the 1857
global financial crisis. On return to Britain, he found himself
once more at the forefront of British politics, rejecting an
unexpected offer of office in Palmerston's new Cabinet: the first
'modern' Liberal government.
The volume concludes with Cobden's lengthy stay in Paris. There,
with the support of his friend the French economist Michel
Chevalier, and against the background of recent war in Italy and
growing Anglo-French antagonism, he was on the brink of completing
the negotiation of the path-breaking Anglo-French commercial treaty
of 1860: his most important achievement since the repeal of the
Corn Laws in 1846, and a vital step towards free trade and peace in
Europe.
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