Cobden, Richard
£3,840
Rare Books, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: 16 January 2008 at 11:00 GMT
Description
69 autograph letters and notes signed to W.S. Lindsay, with interleaved notes by Lindsay, relating to the best way of preserving health, many discussing the failure of "the Safety [Life Assurance Co.]", the principle of limited partnerships "legislators & theorists overrate the extent to which the actual possession of capital affords a guarantee to the creditor", the death of his son, investments in the Illinois Central Railway Co., "the discovery of that correspondence by Walker has enabled him to appeal to the people of the U.S. for assistance against England", his wife's need for emotional support "there is something in the atmosphere of a clergyman's family which harmonises with the feeling of invalids", digestion and alcohol, international maritime law "why should a man's property be given up to pillage at sea when it would be held inviolate on land ?", Palmerston "now we have a prime minister who although he pretends to have a liberal policy for exportation is as avowedly an anti-reformer in home politics as any Tory", Bright's health, suggesting Lindsay pass a motion for a copy of Mr Marcy's letter to the French government, referring to the government's failure to accept the American offer which "gives the Senate a loophole for withdrawing Marcy's offer", garrulousness of British politicians "listening for two and a half hours to Disraeli… a man can say all that he ought at one 'standing' in one hour. The Sermon on the Mount may be read in 20 minutes. The Lord's Prayer takes one minute to repeat", instructions to Mr Lindsay "what you have to do is to ask for information respecting the actual state of negotiations affecting our maritime rights in case of war", the state of the country "I forsee very great financial & commercial difficulties ahead… we must raise loan after loan to make up enormous deficits in our Asiatic empire", Indian government "no one who knows our governing class as well as he [Bright] can ever have a lively hope that Palmerston, Vernon Smith & Co. will manage the affairs of Hindustan better than Hogg & Co.", with 15 letters from Michel Chevalier to Lindsay, three from Lord Clarence Paget, Secretary to the Admiralty, to Lindsay, three A.L.S. from W.E. Gladstone, referring to meetings, 1861; nine A.L.S. from Earl Cowley, British Ambassador to France, to Lindsay, 2 A.L.S. from Mrs Cobden, 1866, and several from Mr. E Hammond and Mr Layard, and manuscript copies of several other letters, some letters merely short notes, the longest 6 pages, mounted on guards, some with integral blank pasted onto album leaf, most with the guard pasted on top of the letter obscuring some of the text, some detached from guard with slight loss of text, some frayed, a few holed or torn, some adhesions affecting text, glue from guards occasionally affecting text, old half morocco, worn, hinges split
Footnote
Note: Although no supporter of Palmerston the Prime Minister had invited Cobden to join his ministry in 1859 as president of the Board of Trade. Cobden declined but worked consistently for a commercial treaty with France in the belief that increased international trade was essential if war between Britain and France was to be avoided. After Cobden's meeting with the French emperor in October 1859, Eugène Rouher drew up a commercial plan with sixty pages of favourable arguments. The treaty, signed in 1860 and sometimes referred to as the Cobden-Chevalier treaty, reduced the tariff on a number of goods, and caused Anglo-French trade to boom in the 1860's. William Schaw Lindsay, (1816–77), Liberal M.P., Tynemouth and North Shields, 1854–9; M.P. for Sunderland, 1859–65.