The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-21 00:00:00

ness. When the British Auxiliary Legion was
formed, Mr. Somerville volunteered into it as
a non-commissioned officer, and in that capa-
city distinguished himself. When the Legion
was disbanded he was its historian, and the
account he wrote of that unfortunate corps
was most interesting. Soon after his return
to England, Mr. Somerville, whose literary
powers are considerable, began to write for
newspapers, and in the year 1842 a series of
letters appeared in the Morning Chronicle
under the signature of " One who has Whistled
at the Plough" :
Those letters attracted public attention. Mr. Cobden
applied in August to the editor of the newspaper for an
introduction to the writer. This being effected, an engage-
ment was made that I, the writer, should collect statistical
and other information for Mr•. Cobden for a period of three
months. This engagement extended to five years. Mr.
Cobden himself shall be witness of the spirit in which I
conducted this business. Writing at the end of 1842, he
said, " Yon do quite right to treat the aristocracy with
respect." I did treat the aristocracy with respect. I did
so from principle; from conviction that they had a right to
be so treated. With Mr. Cobden [as will presently appear]
it was only a policy, which he approved in me because I
was writing for agricultural readers. None know but
myself what persuasions were used by the Manchester men
to make me wr►te otherwise—particularly to damage Lord
Ashley, whom they hated for his exertion in behalf of
factory operatives. This solicitation came chiefly from the
Lancashire Quakers.
We have thought it right to let Mr. Somer-
ville relate in his own words how his connec-
tion with Mr. Cobden and the Manchester•
school commenced, because it seems to us
that information acquired in consequence of
that engagement should have been sacred ;
yet much of this publication is occupied with
details of Mr. Somerville's transactions with
the chiefs of the League. Still, coming before
us as it does, we have no alternative but to
comment upon the statements it contains.
The work is so desultory that it is impossible
to weave a connected narrative from the
materials it affords. The first chapter opens
with a pungent sketch of the modern men of
peace :
No institution is too venerable to be wailed ; no rank
too illustrious, nor honour too pure, to be sneered at and
slandered. No refugee, fleeing from his own revolutions,
is ton sanguinary to be an honoured guest and brother, if
he has been sufficiently distinguished as the enemy of
crowns and of crowned heads. Mr. Cobden left bed and
basin of gruel at Midhurat to welcome the arrival of one
at Southampton. Three hundred Quakers, and other
men of peace in thousands, surrounded the same repre-
sentative of rebellion and intestine war at Manchester, to
give him welcome there. With their applause ringing in
his ears, he wont to Mr. Cobden's " homely men ' of a
" homely senate which minds its own affairs, and shares
in no foreign interventions." There they loaded him
with envulry, saddles, swords, state muskets, ammunition,
and the most effective of a warrior's implemenot—the
sinews of war. Be returned to his English allies, our
mcn of peace, and has given such snatches of his time as
were not devoted to treasonable plots abroad to the
manufacturers of war rockets here. These, the cavalry
saddles, muskets, cartridges, and rockets, have been the
objects of his solicitude since Cobden and the Peace
Societists first crowded around him, as treason to his
Sovereign and Government, and chiefship in the most
accursed of all wars—a war of races after centuries of
inter-marriage—were his only titles to distinction before.
Mr. Cobden, the chief of this party, the
author asserts is " the most ambitious and
" secretive of living public men," although he
is continually asserting his humility and candour;
playing " homely man " of the senate with such nicety
that he stays humbly at home [but takes care the world
hears it from platforms several times a year, and that his
private visitors, who are compelled to listen. hear it. every
day], rather than put on as much " barbaric pomp " as
would admit him to the levies of the Speaker of the House
of Commons.

In consequence of some of the statements
of Mr. Somerville respecting the Peace So-
ciety, we thought it only right to look into
a few of their pamphlets. Generally they take
the high ground that war is against the tenets
of our holy religion, but occasionally they base
their opposition to it on the lower ground that,
whether England be conquered by a foreign
foe, or remain governed as she is at present,
the condition of the bulk of the people would
remain unchanged. The following extract is
from a tract purporting to be the speech of a
working man, published by the Peace Society :
Like friend Burns, I have no objection to the French
coming over, and, if they can find aught in our house that
they think worth their while, they're welcome to it. They'll
not find a deal in poor people's houses who stand in the
same position as me, and I stand in the same position as
the principal part of the working classes. What need we
care—the ass was right it doesn't matter who follows to
drive us if we have no more panniers to carry.