to their shop, and no other shop in the world, to buy their bread. Sometimes it was salt in which the monopoly was set up. When Strafford was attempting to make Charles I. a free, that is, an absolute monarch, he recommended that the King should be "sole merchant" of salt because, like bread, it is "of absolute necessity, and may at all times be raised in price—witness the gabelles of salt in France."[1] Witness also some other things which such statesmen as Strafford leave out of their reckoning.
On the 8th of April, 1844, a deputation of the League, including Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and Colonel Thompson, and accompanied by the two borough Members, Mr. Villiers and Mr. Thornley, visited Wolverhampton, where a meeting was held in a large pavilion erected for the occasion, it having been evident from the interest manifested that no building in the town was large enough to contain the numbers assembled.
Mr. Villiers began his speech by expressing the great pleasure he experienced in observing the numbers assembled to receive and welcome and give cordial thanks to the distinguished men present,
- ↑ Strafford's Letters and Despatches, vol. i., p. 193.
