A BIOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE PIONEERS OF FREEDOM OF OPINION, IN BRITAIN, FROM THE TIMES OF SERFDOM ΤΟ THE AGE OF FREE TRADE IN MANUFACTURES, BY ALEXANDER SOMERVILLE. ("ONE WHO HAS WHISTLED AT THE PLOUGH.") VOL. II. MANCHESTER: JAMES AINSWORTH, 93 PICCADILLY. 1853. 232.x. 98. FREE TRADE AND THE LEAGUE. SECT. 1. THE RIGHT HONOURABLE POULETT THOMSON, LORD SYDENHAM, To bring the services rendered to the progress of free trade by this eminent statesman before the public in an enduring form is at once a very desirable and agreeable task. For the events of his early life, we are indebted to the affectionate memoir published by his brother, Poulett Scrope, Esq., M.P., in 1843; for the latter portions, we are indebted to the public records of fifteen years; for some particulars more immediately relating to his connection with Manchester and the free trade party there, we are indebted to various persons for documents and information not before made public. The space devoted to his life and services will not be deemed unduly large when it is borne in mind that," without any peculiar advantages of birth, rank, fortune, or connection, by the unaided exertions of his talents, industry, and tact, he had, before the age of forty, sat for fifteen years in parliamentten of them as the spontaneously selected representative of the great manufacturing capital of the country, Manchester -had been minister of state ten years, in the cabinet five, and occupied the station of Governor-General of all the British North American Colonies; being rewarded for his brilliant administration of this high office by a peerage and the order of the Bath."* Charles Edward Poulett Thomson was the third son and youngest child of John Poulett Thomson, Esquire, of Waverley Abbey and Roehampton, in Surry, the head of the old and respected mercantile firm of J. Thomson, T. Bonar, & Co., which had been for several generations engaged in the * Preface by Poulett Scrope, Esq. |