I stop here: my letter would reach an improper length if I tried and mentioned all the fruits sprouting from free trade.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 412 to 416 (in French)
January 15th, 1849

Two years before passing away on December 25th, 1850, Frédéric Bastiat had to renounce travelling to Manchester because of his poor health. In this letter to George Wilson, he declines the invitation he received to participate at a banquet on January 31st, 1850, in view of celebrating the implementation of the repeal of the Corn Laws due on February the 1st. He is obviously sad about it.

The first book written by Frédéric Bastiat was Cobden and the League. It is clearly the English fight in favour of free trade that established him firmly as a journalist and then a member of parliament, leading him to write during the last five years of his life what has become his Complete Works, which let him go down in history. In this letter, he expresses his admiration for the achievements of the league and mentions that the repeal of the corn law is only the first direct application. The economic demonstrations that had to be done in favour of free trade constitute, according to him, the basis for immense progress yet to come, be it the abolition of slavery, decolonisation, the end of revolutions and world peace. Conscious of his coming death, he announces “it will thus be the role of somebody else to accomplish the dream of my life; may that person stand up soon!”

Since then, marvellous defenders of liberty have pursued this task like Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek or Milton Friedman but their successes have remained constrained – the works that Frédéric Bastiat dreamt about remain to be accomplished. This will not be done by a single person but if enough of them stand up in the future, it will not remain out of reach.