arly twelve months' incessant labour, the work was
completed in November 1860. "Rare," said Mr Gladstone, "is the privilege
of any man who, having fourteen years ago rendered to his country one
signal service, now again, within the same brief span of life, decorated
neither by land nor title, bearing no mark to distinguish him from the
people he loves, has been permitted to perform another great and
memorable service to his sovereign and his country."

On the conclusion of this work honours were offered to Cobden by the
governments of both the countries which he had so greatly benefited.
Lord Palmerston offered him a baronetcy and a seat in the privy council,
and the emperor of the French would gladly have conferred upon him some
distinguished mark of his favour. But with characteristic
disinterestedness and modesty he declined all such honours.

Cobden's efforts in furtherance of free trade were always subordinated
to what he deemed the highest moral purposes--the promotion of peace on
earth and goodwill among men. This was his desire and hope as respects
the commercial treaty with France. He was therefore deeply disappointed
and distressed to find the old feeling of distrust still actively
fomented by the press and some of the leading politicians of the
country. In 1862 he published his pamphlet entitled _The Three Panics_,
the object of which was to trace the history and expose the folly of
those periodical visitations of alarm as to French designs with which
England had been afflicted for the preceding fifteen or sixteen years.

When the Civil War threatened to break out in the United States, Cobden
was deeply distressed. But after the conflict became inevitable his
sympathies were wholly with the North, because the South was fighting
for slavery. His great anxiety, however, was that the British nation
should not be committed to any unworthy course during the progress of
that struggle. And when relations with America were becoming critical
and menacing in consequence of the depredations committed on American
commerce by vessels issuing from British ports, he brought the question
before the House of Commons in a series of speeches of rare clearness
and force.

For several years Cobden had been suffering severely at intervals from
bronchial irritation and a difficulty of breathing. Owing to this he had
spent the winter of 1860 in Algeria, and every subsequent winter he had
to be very careful and confine himself to