THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE.

SECTION 1.-ARCHIBALD PRENTICE, OF MANCHESTER.

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In the memoir of the Right Hon. William Pitt, we have seen how Manchester made a vigorous and successful opposition to the Free Trade measures of that statesman. It falls not within the scope of the present work to trace the tortuosities of that public opinion in Manchester which, in all its windings, commotions, and changes, was rather the turbid Irwell of unclean errors, than a clear expression of well defined principles. In Manchester, France was held to be the natural enemy of England," when monopoly was in danger because Fox and Francis pronounced that accursed dictum out of opposition to Pitt, and in defence of the narrow-mindedness of this town, and the manufacturing monopolists generally. But when Pitt, to stem, as he thought, the tide of revolution, and the wreck of Europe, waged war with France, (an unfortunate policy, but one which he might have hoped to be supported by the opposition which so recently had declared inherent enmity to that nation,) than the cry of political opposition which sat, or rose, or raved,

the opposite benches of the Parliament House, and supported nothing because its leaders were not Cabinet Ministers, was "fraternity with France." This was re-echoed by the adherents of the Fox policy in Manchester; the same men who, five years before, had held the "naturalenemy" policy. The Fox party obtained place and power in 1806, and, imitating the absurdest errors of Napoleon Buonaparte, issued Orders in Council relating to continental commerce, which had the immediate effect of laying the trade of Manchester prostrate. When Fox died, and his party sank to rise no more for nearly a quarter of a century, the Tories, who first opposed the Orders in Council in Manchester, supported them; and the Liberals, so called, who first supported, now inveighed against them. The Corn Law of 1818, was opposed and defended by the same parties who changed sides on the same question in five years, with the exception of a very few persons (Mr. John Shuttleworth and friends) named in this memoir.

Yet all the while there was a large store of strong mental power in Manchester, fit for the accomplishment of

great intellectual purposes. Politics, morals, science, religion, education, from whence have they drawn their nourishment more abundantly than from this town in later years? And from what order of men? From those strong-minded men who for half a century or more laid their heads together in wisdom in the private matters of cotton, iron, and spinning mules, but knocked their heads together like idiots in matters of public policy. To bring those men to their senses on public affairs, to direct them in the study of political science, to save the intellectual waste, and out of it to form and give to Manchester a political mind, no single man has done so much as Archibald Prentice.

He was born on the 17th November, 1792, being the third son of Mr. Archibald Prentice, tenant-farmer, popularly known in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire as the "Gude man of Covington Mains." In the "Life of Alexander Reid, a Scottish Covenanter, written by himself, and edited by his great grandson," we find that amongst the combatants for religious liberty at the battle of Bothwell Brig, fought in June, 1679, were Archibald Prentice, Laird of Stane, in the Upper Ward of Lanarkshire, and Alexander Reid, farmer, in Easter Mains of Broxburn, in the county of Linlithgow, both of them somewhat remarkable in descent. Prentice's father. by great bravery in the civil wars, raised himself to be the right hand man of Cromwell's ambassador, General Lockhart, under whom he was Deputy-Governor of Dunkirk, and was literally the last man who, by giving up the keys of that fortress, after all England had given in its adhesion, who submitted to the "restored" Charles II. Reid's mother was a Hamilton, a woman of high and noble mind, who chose rather to be the wife of a pious Presbyterian farmer than to marry a Prelatist of her own (much higher) rank of life.

Prentice's son, David, married Reid's daughter, Agnes, and of their numerous issue were Archibald, born in 1734, and Thomas, born in 1740. Thomas, who resided in Lanark, married Beatrice Bell, niece to James Thomson, the author of "The Seasons," and their son David, a man of vast literary acquirements, sound political opinions, and perfect integrity, was the founder of the Glasgow Chronicle, which he conducted from its commencement in 1811, greatly to the promotion of liberal political principles throughout the west of Scotland, until his death in 1837.

Archibald Prentice, father of the subject of this memoir, combined mental and corporeal strength in an extraordinary degree. When he appeared in the streets of Edinburgh or

Glasgow, men turned round to gaze upon him and ask “who is that?" Such a man had an influence greatly beyond that of an ordinary farmer. The Gudeman of Covington Mains" was known far and wide for his active benevolence, his hatred to every kind of oppression, his sound judgment and extensive information. We have heard his son remark, "I am very forbearant myself, but I will not permit the son of the Gudeman of the Mains to be treated disrespectfully." Among his friends he reckoned the brilliant Henry Erskine, and the poet Robert Burns, the Earl of Hyndford, and Hope Vere, Esq., of Craigie Hall, and was almost the universal arbitrator of his neighbourhood.

By his second marriage he had five sons and three daughters. His eldest son, David, had early shown a genius for mechanics, and after being a millwright for several years, in his native place, emigrated to the United States. Ultimately he settled at Louisville and was the first to build and fill with machinery (of his own construction) boats of sufficiently light draught to navigate the Ohio in the summer. He was regarded as the Fulton of the West, and ere his death, had acquired a considerable degree of influence, which he exercised in promoting the public good.

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The Gudeman's" second son, John, succeeded him in the farm, but left it and became contractor for some of the extensive improvements then planned and carried out at Edinburgh. He resided in that city when the Reform Bill was in progress. The present writer, in his Autobiography of a Working Man, gives a somewhat detailed account of the popular commotion of that period in Edinburgh. He remembers Mr. John Prentice as one of the leading men on the popular side, possessing an extraordinary influence over the local public opinion, an influence which might have been dangerous but for his strong sound sense. He obtained it by his aptness of address, stern integrity of purpose, and open sympathy for the fullest measure of political liberty to all classes. He also emigrated to America, and now (when we write, 1850) resides at Louisville. The younger son, Thomas, gave promise of good ability, but died just as he attained manhood.

Archibald, the third son, of whom we now especially write, was born as already noted, 17th November, 1792. He was sent to the parish school for six years, and has said that although he learned to read and write, he never was taught anything, and in after life he has always denounced the parochial school system of Scotland, so much lauded by sectchmen, as an institution much behind the requirements of

the time. As a first start he was for two or three years in a clothier's warehouse in Edinburgh. But in 1809 he was sent to Glasgow to receive a regular education as a manufacturer, and was apprenticed for five years to Mr. Thomas Grahame, brother of the amiable J. Grahame, author of "The Sabbath." During the two years which he remained there he read much, and had the privilege of being a listener to the conversation of well-informed and liberal men at the tables of his cousin, of the Glasgow Chronicle, and of Mr. Charles Tennant, the great manufacturing chemist, who had procured him his situation.

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That his cultivation of literature did not take his attention from business was proved by his salary of the first year being raised from £15 to 22 10s., and of £20, the second, being raised to £70, and his being sent out to travel at the beginning of the third year at a salary of £100, instead of the £25 which he was to have had under his indenture of apprenticeship. After three years of travelling he became, at the age of twentythree, a partner, and settled in Manchester, as the entire manager of the branch established in that town. In his Historical Sketches and Personal Recollections of Manchester," partly published in the Manchester Times, (and which, we understand, will be extended and re-published,) he gives the following as the reason for removing from Glasgow: My residence in Manchester was the result not of accident but of deliberate choice, while yet in a position where choice is not often allowed. I had been only two years in a warehouse in Glasgow, when, near the close of 1811, my master resolved that I should become the traveller in England, to receive orders for the muslins he had manufactured. My journey extended from Carlisle, through the western counties, to Plymouth, and then through the southern and midland counties to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. After three years of such employment another traveller was employed in my stead, and my time was devoted to the wholesale houses of London and Manchester. In Manchester I found that I met accidentally in the street in one day more country drapers than I could, with the utmost industry, meet in their own shops in two, and it struck me that if we kept our manufactured stock in Manchester we could considerably increase our business, and at a great saving in travelling expenses. One evening in September, 1815, while sitting with my master at his house, I mentioned the concourse of drapers to Man chester, and expressed my conviction that if there were to be a continuance of peace, that town would become so much

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the market for all kinds of goods, in cotton, woollen, linen, and silk, as to attract every respectable country draper in England several times in the year. The subject was long and earnestly discussed between us. At length he asked: "Is this a sudden conviction, or have you thought long about it?" I told him that a very recent visit to Manchester had confirmed the opinion I had formed soon after I had been there for the first time. I spoke of the coal of Lancashire, and the industry, the enterprise, and the hard-headed shrewdness of its inhabitants. He said: "We have coal, and industry, and shrewdness, and intelligence here." Yes," I replied, “you have, but you have no centrality; you are in a corner; you have nothing but Glasgow and Paisley here; Manchester has about a dozen of Paisleys-Wigan, Preston, Blackburn, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Ashton, Stockport, and numerous fast growing villages, all increasing in importance, and likely, some time or other, if fair play is given to their industry, to form one enormous community." But they have the Corn Law to retard that prosperity. So have you. After a long pause, he asked: "When can you go to take a warehouse?" "I would go to-night if there was a coach," I replied, "but I can go by to-morrow's mail." I did go next day, made a bargain for the warehouse No. 1, Peel-street, and in three weeks I opened it with the whole stock transferred from the Glasgow warehouse, with all the responsibility on my young shoulders of, in those days, a large business. It may be supposed I had not much leisure for politics. I had to make all the sales myself-execute all the orders received from two travellers myself; and to instruct my young men in what was to them a new business; but I made a point of pushing on work in the early part of the day, so that I had the evenings to myself; and I began to look around me to ascertain what was the state of the society in which I was placed, and the opinions which prevailed amongst my future fellow-townsmen."

He thus refers to the imposition of the Corn Law in 1815:

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"My forefathers for three generations had taken the field in defence of the religious freedom of their country, and I had a strong dislike to church intolerance and exaction; my father had narrowly escaped the prosecution directed against the Scotch patriots in 1794, and I saw, with indignation, the arbitrary stretches of power continued to be exercised by the Government; and I had seen the rottenness of the English boroughs, and yearned for Parliamentary Reform; but the event which had excited my deepest detestation was the passing of the Corn Bill.