The life of Richard Cobden Author:John Morley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III TRAVELS IN WEST AND EAST On May i, 1835, Cobden left Manchester, took his 1835. passage in the Britannia, and after a boisterous and " tiresome... more » voyage of more than five weeks in the face "' 3'' of strong west winds, arrived iri the port of New York on June 7. His brother, Henry, who had gone to America some time previously, met him on the wharf. In his short diary of the tour, Cobden almost begins the record by exclaiming, "What beauty will this inner bay of New York present centuries hence, when wealth and commerce shall have done their utmost to embellish the scene!" And writing to his brother, he expresses his joy at finding himself in a country, "on the soil of which I fondly hope will be realized some of those dreams of human exaltation, if not of perfection, with which I love to console myself."1 It is not necessary to follow the itinerary of the thirty-seven days which Cobden now passed in the United States. He visited the chief cities of the Eastern shore, but found his way no farther west than Buffalo and Pittsburg. Cobden was all his life long remarkable for possessing the traveller's most priceless resource, patience and good-humour under discomfort. He was a match for the Americans 1 To F. C., June 7, 1835. VOL. I 33 D 1835. themselves, whose powers of endurance under the small tribulations of railways and hotels excite the ' 3I- envy of Europeans. " Poland [in Ohio]," Cobden notes in his journal, "where we changed coaches, is a pretty thriving little town, chiefly of wood, with two or three brick houses, quite in the English style. We proceeded to Young's Town, six miles, and there again changed coaches, but had to wait three hours of the night until the branch stage arrived, and I lost my temper for the first time in America, in consequence...« less