DA 
 
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 UC-NRLF 
 
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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 IE UNIVERSITY 
 F CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 '.CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 S. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
[ME MOIRS 
 WM. COBBETT, ESQ. M.P. 
 
 W 
 
 I'^H @[L16)'J^Ali!fl I 
 
 THE CELEBRATED AUTHOR OF THE 
 
 POLITICAL REGISTER 
 
 ■»»»♦ — 
 
 LEEDS : 
 
 PRT ; "'^D AND PUBLISHED BY A. MANN ; AND SOLD 
 BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
MEMOIRS 
 
 THE 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLI A xM COBBETT, ESQUIRE, M.P. 
 
 ■»»♦ 
 
 WiLLiA3i CoBBETT, the illustrious subject of 
 this brief memoir, was born on the 9th of March, in 
 the year 17G2/"' at Farnham,t in Surrey. He could 
 not boast that he was descended from an illustrious 
 family. All that he could boast of in his birth, is 
 that he was born in Old England. With respect to 
 his ancestors, we can go no farther back than his 
 grandfather, indeed nothing is known of them prior 
 to him. He was a day. labourer, and worked for one 
 farmer from the day of his marriage to that of his 
 death, upwards of forty years. He died before Mr. 
 
 * Mr. Cobbett never appeared to be certain of the exact 
 time of his birth. His sons, however, inform us that he was 
 born on the 9th of March, 1762, as above, and not in 1766, as 
 the newspapers have it. 
 
 ■f- Farnham is the neatest spot in England. All there is a 
 garden. The neat culture of the hop extends its influence to 
 the fields round about. Hedges cut with shears, and everj'^ 
 other mark of skill and care strike the eye at the birth-place of 
 our hero. 
 
 m3G7536 
 
2 . THE MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Cobbett was born, but he often slept beneath the 
 roof that had sheltered him, and where his widow 
 dwelt for several years after his death. It was a little 
 thatched cottage, with a garden before the door. It 
 had but two windows ; a damson-tree shaded one, and 
 a clump of filberts the other. He and his brothers 
 went a visiting here every Christmas and Whitsuntide, 
 and staid a week or two, tormenting the old woman 
 with their continual noise and mischievous tricks. She 
 used to give them bread and milk for breakfast, an 
 apple-pudding fof^heir dinner, and bread and cheese 
 for supper. Her fire was made of turf, cut from the 
 neighbouring heath ; and her evening light was a rush 
 dipped in grease. As Mr. Cobbett in his life-time 
 said — How much better is it thus to tell the naked 
 truth than to descend to such miserable shifts as Dr. 
 Franklin had recourse to, in order to persuade people 
 that his forefathers were men of wealth and consider- 
 ation. 
 
 iMr. Cobbett's grandfather was no philosopher. 
 Indeed he was not. " He never made a lightning- 
 rod, nor bottled up a single quart of sunshine, in the 
 whole course of his life. He was no almanack- 
 maker, nor quack, nor chimney-doctor, nor soap- 
 boiler, nor ambassador, nor printer's devil : neither 
 was he a deist ; and all his children were born in 
 wedlock." The legacies he left were his scythe, his 
 reap-hook, and his flail ; he bequeathed no old and 
 irrecoverable debt? to .\\\ hospital ; he never cheated 
 
WM. COBBKTT, ESQ. .i 
 
 the poor during his life, nor mocked them at his 
 death. 
 
 His father was a farmer, an honest, industrious, 
 and frugal man, and happy in the possession of a wife 
 of his own rank, who, like himself, was beloved and 
 respected by all. The reader will easily believe, from 
 the poverty of his parents, that he had received no 
 very brilliant education ; he was, however, learned 
 for a man in hi.rs rank of life. When a little boy, he 
 drove plough for twopence a day; and these, his 
 earnings, were appropriated to the expenses of an 
 evening school. What a village schoolmaster could 
 be expected to teach, he had learnt ; and had, besides, 
 considerably improved himself in several branches of 
 the mathematics, he understood land-surveying well, 
 and was often chosen to draw the plans of disputed 
 territory ; in short, he had the reputation of possessing 
 experience and understanding, which never fails, in 
 England, to give a man in a country -place, some little 
 weight with his neighbours. So much for his ancestors 
 
 Mr. Cobbett had three brothers: George, Thomas, 
 and Anthony ; one of whom was a shop-keeper, the 
 second a farmer, and the youngest in the service of the 
 East India Company. 
 
 He went to an old woman who kept a school, 
 but she did not succeed in learning him his alphabet. 
 In the winter evenings, his father taught them all to 
 read and write, and gave them a tolerable knowledge 
 
4 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of arithmetic. Grammar he did not perfectly under- 
 stand himself, therefore his endeavours to learn them 
 necessarily failed. Their religion was that of the 
 Church of England, to which Mr. Cobbett ever re- 
 mained attached.* As to politics they were like the 
 rest of the country-people in England — they neither 
 knew nor thought anything about the matter. The 
 shouts of victory or the murmurs of a defeat^ would 
 at times break in upon their tranquility for a moment. 
 
 After, however, the American war had continued 
 for some time, and the cause and nature of it began 
 
 * Much has been said of late, respectii^ the religious opi- 
 nions of Mr. Cobbett : jhis name has been coupled with those 
 of the most notorious atheists : many good christians have ab- 
 horred the very mention of his name on this account. Now 
 Mr. Cobbett was a Churchman from the day of his birth to that 
 of his death. He has left us sufficient proofs to destroy all 
 such erroneous impressions as that he was an unbeliever. 
 
 He taught his cliildren the Christian precepts not only by 
 word-of mouth, but by example. And in what portion of his 
 voluminous productions can there be found a single immoral, 
 unchtistian expression ? He was as versant with the Scriptures 
 as, perhaps, many preachers — and he quoted them as often. 
 However, to all?iy the fears of his admirers, we sliall here 
 insert his belief, from a Register published by him on the '23d of 
 October, 1813. 
 
 " In a few words the Christian System is this : — That the 
 Maker of all things, having, many thousands of years back, 
 created a Man and a "Woman, and placed them in a very de- 
 lightful garden, told them, that they might eat of all the fruits 
 thereof except the fruits of one particular tree ; that the 
 Woman was tempted by the Devil to taste that forbidden fruit ; 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. O 
 
 to be understood by the lower classes of the people of 
 England, they became a little better acquainted with 
 subjects of this kind. His father was a partizan of 
 the Americans, and used frequently to dispute on the 
 subject with the gardener of a nobleman who lived 
 near them. This was generally done with good 
 
 that she tempted her husband to do the same ; that God there- 
 upon drove them out of the garden ; that they and all their 
 posterity did, by that act, justly incur the penalty of being 
 burnt in fire to all eternity ; that God, in his infinite mercy, 
 found out a way of satisfying his justice without enforcing this 
 tremendous penalty ; that he found one, who offered up his 
 life as an atonement ; that this was his own Son, who alone 
 could be a sufficient sacrifice ; that, in order to effectuate this 
 purpose, a Virgin, viz. the blessed Mary, was chosen as the 
 means of bringing the Son of God into the world ; that the 
 Holy Ghost was employed in the work of impregnation ; that 
 that Mary who was still a virgin, was with child, in consequence 
 of this divine intercourse; that Joseph, who was now become 
 the husband of Mary, and who, for some cause not stated, had 
 had no consummation with her, perceiving her with child, was 
 minded to put her away ; that the angel of the Lord appeared 
 to him in a dream, and assured him that his wife was still 
 worthy of his love and esteem, for that her pregnancy arose not 
 from any connection with man, but from the cause, stated above; 
 that, in due time, Mary was delivered ; that Jesus Christ was 
 the issue ; that he, the Son of God, was put' to death by the 
 Jews at Jerusalem ; that his life was accepted by his Father, as 
 an atonement for the sins of the world in which he had been 
 murdered Tliis is the Christian system ; and this the Unita- 
 rians deny. They deny openly, that Christ was any thing more 
 than a mere man. The author of Ecce Homo, (a work pub- 
 lished about this time, in London, and purporting to be a true 
 history of Jesus Chrisi, and of the Christian religion) is profane 
 enough to say, that he was the son of some soldier, and is^ 
 
 B 3 
 
t) MEMOIRS or 
 
 humour, over a pot of their best ale; yet the dispu- 
 tants sometimes grew warm, and gave way to language 
 that could not fail to attract the attention of his sons. 
 Their father was worsted, without doubt^ as he had for 
 his antagonist, a shrewd and sensible old Scotchman, 
 
 pleased to be jocular upon the manner in which Joseph was 
 satisfied of his wife's innocence. I greatly blame this levity of 
 expression ; and, as a churchman, hold the opinion in abhor- 
 rence ; but, in real substance, what "^difference is there between 
 this writer and the Unitarian Preachers ? If Christ was not 
 the Son of God, what is it to us whose son he was ? If he v/as 
 a mere man^ he might as well be the son of a soldier as of any 
 
 body else The Jews, who have the traditionary impudence to 
 
 gay that our blessed Saviour was an artful impo&tor do not go an 
 inch beyond the Unitarians. The latter eay, indeed, that he 
 was a very good man ; but, they deny all about his orifiin ; they 
 make him the son of a Carpenter^ and, if that had been the 
 fact, as it was not, he would have been an impostor and his 
 Apostles, who wrote the Gospels, most impudent liars — The 
 author of Eccr Homo has, at any rate, the merit of being con- 
 sistent. He denies miracles, resurrection and all ; whereas the 
 Unitarians, joining the utmost degree of absurdity with the 
 utmost degree of profanity, deny all that St. Matthew says, all 
 that he so explicitly records, about the impregnation of Mary, 
 while they choose to believe, and to send others to the devil for 
 not believing, that thousands were fed upon a little fish or two 
 and three or four barley loaves, and that the crumbs filled 
 several baskets. They will not believe in the mystery of the 
 Holy incarnation ; and yet they will believe in this miracle of 
 
 the loaves and fishes They tell you with as mxich positiveness 
 
 as the author of Ecce Homo, that it is htconceivable that God 
 should have recourse to such means ; that the maker of the 
 world should, through any instrumentality, have intercourse 
 with a woman ; that, even supposing this to have been the case, 
 it is inconceivable how the Son could be God himself; and that, 
 if he was God himself, it is inconceivable how the world should 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ, 7 
 
 far his superior in political knowledge; but he pleaded 
 before a partial audience ; they thought there was but 
 one wise man in the worlds and that that one was their 
 father. 
 
 Our hero's first occupation was driving the small 
 birds from the turnip seed, and the cocks from the 
 pease. When he first trudged a field, with his wooden 
 bottle, and his satchel swung over his shoulder, he 
 was hardly able to climb the gates and stiles ; and, at 
 
 have existed while God was dead upon the cross, and they pre- 
 tend to be horrified at the idea of the creatures' killing the 
 creator ; their whipping him, mocking him, and hanging him 
 up betwixt a couple of thieves — Oh, the modest gentlemen ! 
 It is inconceivable is it, and is it any more inconceivable than the 
 miracles and the resurrection 9 Yet, in these they profess to 
 believe ! — Why, these are all mysteries. As mysteries they are 
 given to us by our Church ; and as mysteries we must receive 
 them. We cannot conceive how they could be ; but, as the 
 Major of Artillery very shrewdly observes, that is an argument 
 in support of their divine origin rather than otherwise, because 
 
 it shews that they are above our mundane comprehension 
 
 They ask us Trinitarians, why he could not have saved men 
 from everlasting flames without first letting man add the murder 
 of himself to all the rest of their sins ; ivhy he did not come 
 at once and assume the form of man without the tedious pro- 
 cess of incarnation, pregnancy, delivery, and growing up to 
 manhood ? In answer, we might ask them, why a chicken came 
 out of an egg instead of being born as puppies are ; why trees 
 do not have their fruit at once and ripe too, without going 
 through the process of budding and blooming ; why they them- 
 selves, the Unitarians and Mr. Ecce Homo, were not made with, 
 out the aid of mothers ; and, indeed why they were made at all; 
 it being to most people, I believe, quite inconceivable what use 
 thev can be of in this world." 
 
8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ■ the close of the day, to reach home was a task of in- 
 finite difficulty. His next employment was weeding 
 wheat, and leading a single horse at harrowing barley ; 
 hoeing pease followed ; then he joined the reapers at 
 harvest, driving the team, and holding the plough. 
 And his father used to boast, that he had four boys, 
 the eldest of whom was but fifteen years old, who 
 did as much work as any three men in the parish of 
 Farnham. 
 
 At eleven years of age, he was employed in the 
 gardens belonging to the Bishop of Winchester, at the 
 castle of Farnham, his native town, to clipp box- 
 edging and to weed beds of flowers. He was a great 
 admirer of beautiful gardens. An old gardener, who 
 had been at the King's Gardens at Kew, gave him sucli 
 a description of them, as induced him instantly to 
 resolve to obtain employment there. The next morn- 
 ing, without saying a word to any one, oflf he set, with 
 only the clothes upon his back, and thirteen halfpence 
 in his pocket. He found that he must proceed to 
 Richmond, where he arrived after a long day's march^ 
 enquiring his way as he best could. On his way he 
 had spent threepence in two pennyworth of bread and 
 cheese, and a pennyworth of small beer ; besides which, 
 he had somehow or other, very unfortunately lost a half- 
 penny on the road ; so that he had only threepence 
 left. With this world-beginning fortune, he was 
 trudging, country-lad like, through Richmond, attired 
 
WM. COBBETTj ESQ. 9 
 
 in his fine robes, consisting of a blue smock frock, an 
 excellent pair of strong, but genteel clogs, and red 
 garters tied under his knees. Thus he went staring 
 about him, when, perhaps fortunately, he cast his eye 
 upon a little book, in a bookseller's window, on the 
 outside of which was written : — " Tale of a Tub ; 
 Price 3d." This very odd title excited his curiosity. 
 He certainly had the means to purchase it — he had 
 the threepence, but if spent this way he could have 
 no supper. His curiosity, however, proved stronger 
 than his appetite. In he went and bought the book, 
 which he was so impatient to read, that he got into a 
 field, at the upper corner of Kew Gardens, where 
 stood a stack of hay. On the shady side of this stack 
 he sat down to read. The book was so different from 
 anything that he had ever read before ; it was some- 
 thing so new to him, that, though he could not at all 
 understand some part of it, yet it delighted him 
 beyond measure ; and produced what he always con- 
 sidered a sort of new birth of intellect. He read on 
 till it was dark, without any thought of supper or bed. 
 When he could see no longer, he put his book, the 
 first he ever purchased, into his pocket, and laid down 
 by the side of the stack, where he slept till the birds 
 in Kew gardens awoke him in the morning ; when 
 off he started to Kew, reading his little book as he 
 walked. The singularity of his dress, the simplicity 
 of his manner, his confident and lively air, and, doubt- 
 less, his own compassion besides, induced the gardener. 
 
10 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 who was a Scotchman, to give him victuals, find him 
 lodging, and set him to work. During the period that 
 he was at Kew, George the I'hird and two of his bro- 
 thers, laughed at the oddness of his dress, while he was 
 sweeping the grass plat round the foot of the Pagoda. 
 The gardener, observing that he was fond of books, 
 lent him some on gardening ; but these were not 
 relished by him, after the delicious treat afforded him 
 by the Dean of St. Patrick, which he carried with 
 him wherever he went, but which he unfortunately 
 lost, when he was about twenty years of age, in a box 
 that fell overboard in the bay of Funday, in North 
 America ; the loss of this little book gave him more pain, 
 than he ever after felt at losing thousands of pounds. 
 This circumstance, trifling as it may seem, always 
 endeared the recollection of Kew to him. It was thus 
 this most powerful and original writer since the days 
 of Defoe and Demosthenes, commenced his useful and 
 splendid career. 
 
 After this time, he never cost his parents a farth- 
 ing in expence ; he was a most dutiful son, never 
 having, in his whole life, wilfully or deliberately dis- 
 obeyed his father or mother. He treasured in his 
 mind their precepts against drinking and gaming ; he 
 was never drunk ; nor did he ever gamble in his life. 
 When in the army he was often tempted to take up 
 cards. But the cautions of his father always recurred 
 to his mind, and rescued him from peril. Exposed, 
 as the army generally is, to temptations, and the object 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 11 
 
 of this notice, young, strong, adventurous, uncom- 
 monly gay, and greatly given to talk, yet, never in his 
 perilous career was he brought before a magistrate. 
 And notwithstanding the multitude, and endless variety 
 of affairs in which he was engaged, about five oaths 
 were all he had ever taken. 
 
 After leaving Kew Gardens, he went on a visit to 
 a relation living in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth. 
 From the top of Portsdown, he, for the first time, be- 
 held the sea, and wished to be a sailor. The grand 
 fleet was riding at Anchor at Spithead. He had heard 
 of the Wooden Walls of Old England ; he had formed 
 his ideas of a ship and of a fleet ; but what he now 
 beheld so far surpassed what he had ever been able to 
 form a conception of that he stood lost between aston- 
 ishment and admiration. He had heard talk of the 
 glorious deeds of our admirals and sailors, of the defeat 
 of the Spanish Armada, and of all those memorable 
 combats, that good and true Englishmen never fail to 
 relate to their children many times a year. The brave 
 Rodney's victories over the French and Spaniards had 
 oft been the theme of their conversation. The sight 
 of this fleet brought all these into his mind, in confused 
 order, but with irresistible force. His heart was infla- 
 ted with national pride. The sailors were his conntrv- 
 nien ; the fleet belonged to his country ; of course he 
 claimed part in it, and in all its honours ; yet these 
 honours he had not earned ; he reproached himself for 
 
12 MEMOIRS or 
 
 possessing what he had no right to^ and resolved to have 
 a just claim, by sharing in the hardships and dangers. 
 
 Late in the evening he arrived at his uncle's with 
 his mind full of the sea-faring project. Though he 
 was much wearied, having walked thirty miles, yet he 
 could not close his eyes. It was no sooner day-light, 
 than he arose, and walked to the old castle, on the beach 
 of Spithead. For sixpence given to an invalid, per- 
 mission was granted him to go upon the battlements, 
 where he had a closer view of the fleet, and at every 
 glance his impatience to be on board increased. In short, 
 he went from the Castle to Portsmouth, got into a boat, 
 and in a few minutes was on board the Pegasus man- 
 of-war, and offered himself. But the Captain (Berke- 
 ley) a more generous and compassionate man, than is 
 generally met with in his profession, represented to 
 him the toils he must undergo, and the severity 
 of the punishment the least disobedience or neglect 
 would subject him to, persuaded him to return home, 
 and sent him on shore : at length he quitted Portsmouth, 
 but not before an application was made to the Port Ad- 
 miral Evans, to enrol his name among those who were 
 destined for the service. Somehow or other, the ad- 
 miral was acquainted with what had passed on board 
 the Pegasus, consequently, the request was refused, 
 and he happily escaped, though much against his will, 
 from the most toilsome and perilous profession in the 
 Avorld. 
 
WM. COSBETT, ESQ. 13 
 
 He once more returned to the plough, but was 
 spoiled for a farmer ; he longed fcr a sight of the 
 ^vorld ; and those things in which he formerly delighted 
 were neglected ; the singing of the birds grew insipid ; 
 and even the heart-cheering cry of the hounds, which 
 he formerly delighted to follow, leaving his work, boun- 
 cing o'er fields, and dashing through brakes and coppi- 
 ces, was heard with the most torpid indifference. Pie 
 remained at home till the following spring; when on 
 the 6th of May, 1783, he sallied forth to seek adven- 
 tures. He accompanied two or three females to Guil- 
 ford-fair, and had to meet them at a house two or three 
 miles from home ; in the way he had to cross the Lon- 
 don turnpike road. The stage coach had just turned 
 the summit of a hill. At this moment he determined to 
 go to London, mounted the Coach, and arrived there 
 the same evening. 
 
 It was by mere accident that he had money enough 
 to defray the expences of the day. Being rigged out 
 for the fair, he had three or four crown and half cro\^'n 
 pieces (which most certainly he had not intended to 
 have spent) besides a few shillings and half-pence. This 
 his little all, which had taken years to amass together, 
 melted away, like snow before the sun, u-hen touched 
 by the fingers of the inn-keepers and waiters. In short, 
 on his arrival at Ludgate Hill, he had only about half 
 a crown in his pocket. 
 
 By a commencement of that good luck, by which he 
 C 
 
14 MEMOIRS or 
 
 was attended through all the situations in which for- 
 tune had placed him, he was preserved from ruin. A 
 gentleman who had been one of the passengers, fell in- 
 to conversation with him at dinner. This gentleman 
 was a hop-merchant, in the borough of Southwark ; and 
 it appeared, had often dealt with his father. This 
 gentleman's house became his home, and in the mean- 
 time, information was forwarded to his parents. IMr. 
 Cobbett would willingly have returned home according 
 to liis father's wish, but pride would not suffer him to 
 do it. He feared the scoffs of his acquaintances more 
 tlian tlie real evils which threatened him. 
 
 His generous preserver, finding that his obstinanc}' 
 could not be overcome began to look out for some suit- 
 able employment for him. Just as he was preparing 
 an advertisement for the newspaper, an acquaintance 
 of his, an attorney called in. Mr. Cobbett's adventure 
 was related to this gentleman, whose name was Holland; 
 liappening to want an understrapping quill-driver, our 
 hero was engaged ; and the next day he was perched 
 upon a great high stool, in an obscure chamber in Gray's 
 Inn, endeavouring to decipher the crabbed draughts of 
 liis employer. 
 
 IMr. Coblett could -write a good plain hand, but 
 could not read the pot-hooks and hangers of Mr. Hol- 
 land. It was a month before he had learnt to copy, and 
 even then he wrote a snail's pace, forthe want of a know- 
 ledge of orthography gave him infinite trouble ; so 
 
AVM. COBBETT, ESQ. lO 
 
 that for the first two months he was a dead-weight 
 upon his hands. Time, however, rendered usefulness 
 visible ; and Mr. Holland was pleased to say that he 
 was well satisfied with him, just at the very moment 
 when Mr Cobbett began to grow extremely dissatisfied 
 with his employer. 
 
 The following is his own account of this part of 
 his life. It is characteristic and amusing : — " No })urt 
 of my life was wholly unattended with pleasure, ex- 
 cept the eight or nine months I passed in Gray's Inn. 
 The office (for so the dungeon where I wrote ^^as call- 
 ed) was so dark, that on cloudy days we were obliged 
 to burn candles. I worked like a galley-slave from five 
 in the morning till eight or nine at night, and some- 
 times all night long. How many quarrels have I assist- 
 ed to foment and perpetuate between those poor inno- 
 cent fellows, John Doe and Richard Roe ! How many 
 times (God forgive me !) have I set them to assault eacli 
 other with guns, swords, staves, and pitchforks, and 
 then brought them to answer for their misdeeds before 
 our Sovereign Lord the King, seated in his Court of 
 Westminster ! When I think of the saids and so-Jhrths, 
 and the counts of tautology that I scribbled over; when 
 I think of those sheets of seventy-two words, and those 
 lines two inches a-part, my brain turns — Gracious hea- 
 ven ! if I am doomed to be ^vretched, bury me beneath 
 Iceland snows, and let me feed on blubber ; stretch me 
 under the burning line, and deny me thy propitious 
 C 2 
 
16 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 dews ; naj, if it be thy will, suffocate me with the in- 
 fected and pestilential air of a democratic club-room : 
 but save me from the desk of an attorney ! 
 
 " Mr. Holland was but little in the chambers him- 
 self. He always went out to dinner, while I was left 
 to be provided for by the laundress, as he called her. 
 Those gentlemen of the law, who have resided in the 
 Inns of Court in London, know very well what a Iaii?i- 
 dress means. Our's was, I believe, the oldest and ugliest 
 of the sisterhood. She had age and experience enough 
 to be Lady Abbess of all the nuns in all the convents 
 in Irishtown. It would be v/ronging the Witch of 
 Endor to compare her to this hag, who Avas the only 
 creature who deigned to enter into conversation with 
 me. All except the name, I was in prison, and this 
 weird sister was my keeper. Our chambers v/ere, to 
 me, what the subterranean cavern was to Gil Bias ; his 
 description of the dame I^eonarda exactly suited my 
 laundress ; nor were the professions, or rather the prac- 
 tice, of our masters altogether dissimilar. 
 
 I never quitted this gloomy recess, except on Sun- 
 days, when I usually took a walk to St. James's Park, 
 to feast my eyes with the trees, the grass, and the wa- 
 ter. In one of these walks, I happened to fix my eyes 
 on an advertisement, inviting all loyal young men, who 
 had a mind to gain riches and glory, to repair to a cer- 
 tain rendezvous, where they might enter into his Ma- 
 jesty's marine service, and have the peculiar happiness 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 
 
 17 
 
 and honour of being enrolled in the Chatham division. 
 I was not ignorant enough to be the dupe of this mor- 
 sel of military bombast; but a change was what I want- 
 ed ; besides, I knew that marines went to sea, and my 
 desire to be on that element had rather increased than 
 diminished by my being penned up in London. In 
 short, I resolved to join this glorious corps ; and to 
 avoid all possibility of being discovered by my friends, 
 I went down to Chatham, and enlisted into the marines, 
 as I thought ; but the next morning I found myself 
 before a captain of a marching regiment. There was 
 no retreating ; 1 had taken a shilling to drink his Ma- 
 jesty's health, and his further bounty was ready for my 
 reception. 
 
 " When I told the Captain (who was an Irishman, 
 and who has since been an excellent friend to me), 
 that I thought myself engaged in the marines : *' By 
 Jasus ! my lad, " said he, " and you have had a narrov/ 
 escape." He told me, that the regiment into which I 
 had been so happy as to enlist was one of the oldest 
 and boldest in the whole army, and that it was at that 
 moment serving in that fine, flourishing, and plentiful 
 country. Nova Scotia ! He dwelt long on the beauties 
 and riches of this terrestrial paradise, and dismissed 
 me perfectly enchanted with the prospect of a voyage 
 thither. 
 
 "I enlisted early in 1784; and as peace had then 
 taken place, no great haste was made to send recruits 
 C 3 
 
18 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 otF to their regiments. I remained upwards of a year 
 at Chatham, during which time I was employed in 
 learning my exercise, and taking my turn in the duty 
 of tlie garrison. IMy leisure time, which was a very 
 considerable portion of the twenty, four hours, was 
 spent, not in the dissipations common to such a way of 
 life, but in reading and study. In the course of this 
 year I learnt much more than I had ever done before. 
 I subscribed to a circulating library at Brompton, the 
 greatest part of the books in which I read more than 
 once over. The library was not very considerable it is 
 true ; nor in my reading was I directed by any degree 
 of taste or choice. Novels, plays, history, poetry, all 
 were read, and nearly with equal avidity. 
 
 '' Such a course of reading could be attended with 
 very little profit ; it was skimming over the surface 
 of every thing. One branch of learning, however, I 
 went to the bottom with, and that the most essential 
 branch too — the grammar of my mother tongue. I 
 had experienced the want of a knowledge of grammar 
 during my stay with INIr. Holland : but it is very 
 probable that I never should have thought of encount- 
 ering the study of it, had not accident placed me 
 under a man whose friendship extended beyond his 
 interest. Writing a fair hand procuredi me the honor 
 of being copyist to General Debeig, the commandant 
 of the garrison. I transcribed the famous correspon- 
 dence between him and the Duke of Richmond, which 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 19 
 
 ended in the good and gallant old colonel being stripped 
 of the reward bestowed on him for his long and meri- 
 torious servitude. 
 
 "Being totally ignorant of the rules of grammar, I 
 necessarily made many mistakes in copying, because 
 no one can copy letter by letter, nor even word by 
 word. The Colonel saw my deficiency, and strongly 
 recommended study. He enforced his advice wdth a 
 sort of injunction, and with a promise of reward in 
 case of success. 
 
 " I procured me a Lowth's Grammar, and applied 
 myself to the study of it with unceasing assiduity, 
 and not without some profit : for thoMgh it was a con- 
 siderable time before I fully comprehended all that I 
 read, still I read and studied with such unremitted 
 attention, that at last I could write without falling 
 into any very gross errors. The pains I took cannot 
 be described: I wrote the whole grammar out two or 
 three times ; I got it by heart ; I repeated it every 
 evening ; and when on guard, I imposed on myself 
 the task of saying it all over once every time I was 
 posted sentinel. To this exercise of my memory I 
 ascribe the retentiveness of which I have since found 
 it capable; and to the success with which it was 
 attended I ascribe the perseverance that has led to the 
 acquirement of the little learning of which I am 
 master. 
 
 This study was, too, attended with another ad- 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 vantage : it kept me ont of miscliief . I was always 
 sober^ and r^nlar in my attendance ; and, not being 
 a domsy fdlow^ I met with none of those reproofs, 
 which disgust so many yonng men with the service/' 
 
 While at his studies, Mr. Cobbett received much 
 annoyance fix)m the soldiers in the barracks. Besides 
 which^ he had many difficulties to contend against. 
 He says — ^ I learned grammar when I was a private 
 soldier on the pay of sixpence a day. The edge of 
 my berth, or that of my guard bed, was my seat to 
 study in ; my knapsack was my book-case ; a bit of 
 board, lying on my lap was my writing table ; and 
 the task did not demand any tldng like a year of my 
 life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil ; in 
 winter time it was rarely that I could get any eveuing- 
 light but that of the fire^ and only my turn even of 
 that.**** To buy a pen or a sheet of paper^ I was 
 compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a 
 state of half-starvation ; I had not a moment of time 
 that I could call my own ; and I had to read and to 
 write amidst the talking, laughing, singing, whist- 
 ling, and brawling of at least half a score of the most 
 thoughtless of men, and that, too, in the hours of their 
 freedom from all controul. Think not lightly of the 
 farthing that I had to give, now and then, for ink, 
 pen, or paper ! That farthing was, alas ! a great sum 
 to me ! I was as tall as I am now; I had great health 
 and great exercise. The whole of the money, not 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 21 
 
 expended for us at market^ was twopence a week fur 
 each man. I remember^ and well I may, that upon 
 one occasion, I, after all absolutely necessary expences, 
 had, on Friday, made shift to save a halfpenny in 
 reserve, Avhich I had destined for the purchase of a 
 red-herring in the morning ; but when I pulled off 
 my clothes, at night, so hungry then as to be hardly 
 able to endure life, I found that I hid lost my half- 
 penny ! I buried my head under the miserable sheet 
 and rug, and cried like a child !" 
 
 There is no situation where merit is so sure to 
 meet with reward as in a well-disciplined army. Those 
 who command are obliged to reward it for their own 
 ease and credit. jMr. Cobbett was soon raised to the 
 rank of corporal, which brought him in twopence per 
 diem J besides putting a very clever worsted knot upon 
 his shoulders, which he thought was a distinction not 
 to be laughed at. 
 
 As promotion began to da^Ti, he grew impatient 
 to get to his regiment, where he expected soon to bask 
 under the rays of royal favour. He at length sailed 
 for Nova Scotia, where he arrived, after a short 
 and pleasant passage, and remained till the month of 
 September, I7OI. When he first beheld the barren, 
 not to say hideous rocks at the entrance of the 
 harbour, he began to fear that the master of the vessel 
 had mistaken his way ; for he could perceive nothing 
 of that fertility that his good recruiting captain had 
 dwelt on with so much delight. 
 
22 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Nova Scotia had no other charm for him than that 
 of novelty. Every thing he saw was new : bogs, 
 rocks, and stumps, musquitoes and bull frogs ; thou- 
 sands of captains and colonels without soldiers, and 
 of 'squires without stockings or shoes. In England 
 he had never thought of approaching a 'squire without 
 a most respectful bow ; but in this new world, though 
 he v/as but a corporal, he often ordered a 'squire to 
 bring him a glass of grog, and even to take care of his 
 knapsack. 
 
 While his regiment was abroad, he received the 
 public and official thanks of the Governor of the Pro- 
 vince for his zeal in the King's service ; an honour 
 which no other officer in the regiment received.'"'' 
 
 During this period of service, that is, from the 
 age of sixteen to twenty-five, he was never once ac- 
 cused of a fault of any kind. At the age of nineteen, 
 he was promoted from a corporal to the rank of serjeant- 
 major over the heads of nearly fifty others. 
 
 The regiment arrived at Portsmouth, on the 3d 
 of November, ]791j, and on the 19th of the same 
 month, he obtained, at his own request, his discharge, 
 by two highly testimonials, from Lord Edward Fitz- 
 gerald and Lieutenant General Frederick — after having 
 served not quite eight years, and after having, in that 
 
 * Many years after this, the same governor (General Carle- 
 ton) came to see him, and to claim the pleasure of his acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 23 
 
 short space, passed through every rank, from that of 
 private to that of sergeant-major, without being dis- 
 graced, confined, or even reprimanded. 
 
 The following testimonial will exhibit the nature 
 of his discharge : — 
 
 '' By the Right Hon. Lord Edward Fitzger- 
 ald, commanding the 54th Regiment, of which 
 Lieutenant-General Frederick is Colonel — 
 
 " These are to certify, that the bearer hereof, 
 William Cobbett, Sergeant-Major in the aforesaid 
 regiment, has served honestly and faithfully for the 
 space of eight years, nearly seven of which he has 
 been a non-commissioned officer, and of that time he 
 has been five years Sergeant-Major to the regiment ; 
 but, having very earnestly applied for his discharge, 
 he in consideration of his good behaviour, and the 
 services he has rendered the regiment, is hereby dis- 
 charged. Given under my hand and the seal of the 
 regiment, at Portsmouth, this 29th day of December, 
 1791. Edward Fitzgerald." 
 
 We shall now add the orders issued in the gar- 
 rison of Portsmouth, on the day of his discharge : — 
 
 " Portsmouth, I9th Dec. 1791. 
 
 " Sergeant-Major Cobbett having most press- 
 
 ingly applied for his discharge, at Major Lord Edward 
 
 Fitzgerald's request. Gen. Frederick has granted 
 
 it. General Frederick has ordered Major Lord 
 
24 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Edward Fitzgerald to return the Sergeant-Majoi' 
 thanks for his behaviour and conduct during the time 
 of his being in the regiment; and Major Lord Edward 
 adds his most hearty thanks to those of the General." 
 
 These highly honourable testimonials of his be- 
 haviour in the regiment, will have the tendency^ it is 
 hoped, to destroy those flagitious assertions which have 
 but too often received credence/'' 
 
 During that part of his life he spent in the army 
 he had lived amongst, and was compelled to associate 
 A\'ith, the most beastly of drunkards, where liquor was 
 so cheap, that a soldier might be drunk every day ; yet 
 he never, during the whole time, tasted liquor. His 
 father's, and more especially his mother's precepts 
 were always at hand to protect him. His early 
 rising — his cleanliness — good behaviour — exactness — 
 and superior intellect, (acquired by unweared exer- 
 tions) not only v/on him the favour of his officers, but 
 also the good- will of the soldiers, above Avhose heads 
 he had been so extraordinarily promoted. Another 
 quotation from his own writings will present to us a 
 striking illustration of his general character ; in speak- 
 ing of himself in the army, he says : — ^' I was always 
 ready ; if I had to mount guard at ten, I was ready 
 at nine, never did any man or any thing, wait one 
 moment for me. Being at an age under twenty years, 
 
 * It has been asserted more than once, that he was flogged 
 in his regiment for thieving, and afterwards deserting. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 2S 
 
 i-aised from corporal to sergeant-major at once, over 
 the heads of thirty sergeants, I naturally should have 
 been an object of envy and hatred ; but this habit of 
 early rising, and of rigid adherence to the precepts 
 which I have given you, really subdued these passions; 
 because every one felt, that what I did he had never 
 done, and never could do. Before my promotion, a 
 clerk was wanted to make out the morning report of 
 the regiment. I rendered the clerk unnecessary; and, 
 long before any other man was dressed for the parade, 
 my work for the morning was all done, and I myself 
 was on the parade, walking, in fine \A'eather, for an 
 hour perhaps. My custom was this : to get up in 
 summer, at day-light, and in winter at four o'clock ; 
 shave, dress, even to the putting of my sword-belt 
 over my shoulders ; and having my sword lying on the 
 table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I 
 ate a bit of cheese, or pork, and bread. Then I pre- 
 pared my report, which was filled up as fast as the 
 companies brought me in the materials. After this, I 
 had an hour or two to read, before the time came for 
 any duty out of doors, unless, when the regiment, or 
 part of it went out to exercise in the morning. When 
 this was the case, and the matter was left to m,e, I 
 always had it on the ground in such time as that the 
 bayonets glistened in the rising sun, a scene which 
 gave me delight, of which I often think, but which 
 
26 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 I should in vain endeavour to describe. If the officers 
 were to go out, eight or ten o'clock was the hour, 
 sweating the men in the heat of the day, breaking in 
 upon the time for cooking their dinner, putting all 
 things out of order, and all men out of humour. 
 When I was commander, the men had a long day of 
 leisure before them : they could ramble into the town 
 or into the woods ; go to get raspberries, to catch 
 birds, to catch fish^ or to pursue any other recreation, 
 and such of them as chose, and were qualified, to 
 work at their trades." So that here arising solely from 
 the early habits of one very young man, were pleasant 
 and happy days given to hundreds. In speaking of 
 the benefits derivable from early rising and assiduity, 
 he says : — " The adjutant, under whom it was my 
 duty to act, wlien I was a sergeant-major, was, as 
 almost all military officers are, or, at least, were, a very 
 illiterate man, perceiving that every sentence of mine 
 was in the same form and manner as sentences in print, 
 became shy of letting me see pieces of his writing. 
 The writing of orders, and other things, therefore, 
 fell to me ; and, thus, though no nominal addition was 
 made to my pay, and no nominal addition to my 
 authority, I acquired the latter as effectually as if a 
 law had been passed to confer it upon me." Every 
 moment of the life of Mr. Cobbett was spent to ad- 
 vantage — and his whole career has been that of unre- 
 mitting industry and perseverance, such as few men 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 27 
 
 are capable of. While in the army, in Nova Scotia, a 
 British province of North America, and which, until 
 1784, included the province of New Brunswick, he 
 first saw his future wife ; she was then thirteen years 
 of age, and he was twenty-one. She Avas the daughter 
 of a Sergeant of Artillery, and he was the Sergeant- 
 ]Major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in forts 
 near the city of St. John, in New Brunswick. He 
 sat in the same room with her for about an hour, in 
 c .mpany with others, and he made up his mind, with 
 his usual promptitude, that she was the girl for him. 
 He describes this interesting part of his life in his 
 advice " To a Lover;" and as it will be neither tedi- 
 ous, nor uninteresting^ we shall introduce it in this brief 
 memoir : — "^ That I thought her beautiful is certain, 
 for that I always said should be an indispensable 
 qualification ; but I saw in her what I deemed marks 
 of that sobriety of conduct of which I have said so 
 much, and which has been by far the greatest blessing 
 of my life. It was now dead of winter, and of course, 
 the snov/ several feet deep on the ground, and the 
 weather piercing cold. It was my habit when I had 
 done my morning's writing to go out at break of day, 
 to take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our bar- 
 racks lay. In about three mornings after I had first 
 seen her, I had, by an invitation, to breakfast with 
 me, got up two young men, to join me in my walk; 
 and our road lay by the house of her father and mother. 
 D 2 
 
28 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow, 
 scrubbing out a washing-tub. " That's the girl for 
 me/' said I, when we had got out of her hearing. 
 One of these young men came to England soon after- 
 wards; and keeps an inn in Yorkshire, he came to 
 Preston, at the time of the election, to verify whether 
 I was the same man. When he found that I was, he 
 appeared surprised ; but what was his surprise, when 
 I told him, that those tall young men, whom he saw 
 around me, were the sons of that pretty girl that he 
 and I saw scrubbing out the washing-tub on the snow 
 in New Brunswick at day-break in the morning. 
 
 " From the day that I first spoke to her, I never 
 had a thought of her being the wife of any other man, 
 more than I had a thought of her being transformed 
 into a chest of drawers ; and I formed my resolution 
 at once, to marry her as soon as we could get per- 
 mission, and to get out of the army as soon as I could. 
 So that this matter was, at once, settled as firmly as if 
 written in the book of fate. At the end of about six 
 months, my regiment, and I along with it, were re- 
 moved to Frederickton," a distance of a hundred miles, 
 up the river of St. John ; and, which was worse, 
 the artillery was expected to go oflf to England a year 
 or two before our regiment ! The artillery went, and 
 she along with them ; and now it was that I acted a 
 
 * Or Firederictown, which is the capital of New Brunswick. 
 
■VVM. COBBETT, ESQ. 29 
 
 part becoming a real and sensible lover. I was 
 aware, that, when she got to that gay place, Wool- 
 wich, the house of her father and mother, necessarily 
 visited by numerous persons not the most select, might 
 become unpleasant to her, and I did not like besides, 
 that she should continue to work hard. I had saved 
 a hundred and fifty guineas, the earnings of my early 
 hours, in writing for the pay-master, the quarter- 
 master and others, in addition to the savings of my 
 own pay. I sent her all my money before she sailed; 
 and wrote to her to beg of her, if she found her home 
 uncomfortable, to hire a lodging with respectable 
 people ; and, at any rate, not to spare the money, by 
 any means ; but to buy herself good clothes, and to 
 live without hard work, until I arrived in England ; 
 and I, in order to induce her to lay out the money, 
 told her that I should get plenty more before I came 
 home. 
 
 " As the malignity of the devil would have it, 
 we were kept abroad two years longer than our time, 
 Mr. Pitt (England not being so tame then as she is 
 now) having knocked up a dust with Spain about 
 Nootka Sound. Oh, how I cursed Nootka Sound, and 
 poor bawling Pitt too, I am afraid ! At the end of 
 four years, however, home I came ; landed at Ports- 
 mouth, and got my discharge from the army by the 
 great kindness of poor Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who 
 was then the Major of my regiment. I found my 
 D3 
 
30 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 little girl a servant of all work (and hard work it 
 was), at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain 
 Brisac ; and without 'hardly saying a \vord about the 
 matter, she put into my hands, the whole of my hun- 
 dred and Jifty guineas unbroken!" What effect this 
 must have produced on his feelings ! Admiration of her 
 conduct, and self-gratulation on this indubitable proof 
 of the soundness of his own judgment were now added 
 to his love of her beautiful person. Ke would not say 
 that there are not many young women of this country 
 who would, under similar circumstances, have acted us 
 his wife did in this case ; on the contrary, he hoped, 
 and sincerely believed, that there was. But when her 
 age is considered ; when we reflect that she v/as living 
 in a place crov/ded, literally crowded, with gaily- 
 dressed and handsome young men, many of whom were 
 far richer and in higher rank than himself, and many 
 of them ready to offer her marriage ; when we recollect 
 that she was living amongst young ^^'omen who put 
 u])on their backs every shilling that they earned ; 
 when we see her keeping the bag of gold untouched, 
 and working hard to provide herself with but mere 
 necessary apparel, and doing this while she was pass- 
 ing from fourteen to eighteen years of age ; when we 
 view the whole of the circumstances, we must say that 
 this is an example, which, while it reflects honour on 
 her sex, ought to have a corresponding influence upon 
 every female who may become acquainted with this 
 splendid example of economy, and industry. 
 
TVM. COBBETT, ESQ. 31 
 
 On the return of the regiment to England, he 
 demanded a court-martial upon some of the officers ; 
 but the tricks and manoeuvres resorted to, and the im- 
 pediments to the course of a fair enquiry so disgusted 
 him, that he did not await the issue ; but, in March, 
 1792, left England for France, where he staid till the 
 Ijeginning of September following, comprising six of 
 the happiest months of his life. He went to that 
 country full of prejudices against the French and their 
 religion ; but a few weeks convinced him that he had 
 been deceived with respect to both. He met every 
 where with civility and even hospitality, in a degree 
 that he had never been accustomed to. The people 
 amongst whom he lived, with few exceptions, were 
 honest, pious, and kind to excess. It was his intention 
 to stay in France till the spring of 1793, as well to 
 perfect himself in the French language, as to pass the 
 winter at Paris. But, perceiving the storm gathering, 
 
 I and that a war with England vras inevitable, he resolved 
 to leave that country. Having, however, a great desire 
 to see Paris, he hired a coach to proceed thither ; and 
 was on his way, when he heard at Abbeville that the 
 king was dethroned, and his guards murdered. This 
 intelligence made him turn off towards Havre-de-Grace, 
 whence he embarked for the United States of America, 
 where he maintained himself for some time by teaching 
 English to Frenchmen. It was about this time, in and 
 near Philadelphia, that he began his young marriage 
 days. Owing to the heat of the weather;^ being in the 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 middle of the burning-hot month of July, his wife 
 had become very ill — and consequently, got little rest. 
 Mr. Cobbett was much afraid of fatal consequences 
 to his wife for want of sleep. All great cities in hot 
 weather are full of dogs, which during the night, keep 
 up a horrible barking, and fighting and howling.- 
 Upon this particular occasion, they made a noise so 
 terrible and so unremitted that it was next to impossi- 
 ble that even a person in good health should obtain 
 a minute's sleep. He was, about nine in the evening 
 sitting by the bed : — " I do think," said his wife, 
 " that I could go to sleep now, if were not for the 
 dogs." Down stairs he went, and sallied out, in his 
 shirt and trowsers, and without shoes or stockings ; 
 and going to a heap of stones lying beside the road, 
 set to work upon the dogs, going backward and for- 
 Avard, and keeping them at two or three hundred 
 yards distance from the house. He walked thus the 
 whole night barefooted, lest the noise of his shoes 
 might reach her ears ; the bricks on the causeway, 
 were so hot as to be disagreeable to his feet. These 
 exertions produced the desired eifect : a sleep of several 
 hours was the consequence ; and at eight o'clock in 
 the morning, off he went to a day's business, which 
 was to end at six in the evening. Though he had 
 business to occupy the whole of his time, Sundays and 
 week-days, except sleeping hours ; he made time to 
 assist his wife in the taking care of the baby, and in 
 all sorts of things : get up, light her fire^ boil her tea- 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 33 
 
 kettle, carry her up warm water in cold weather, take 
 the child while she dressed herself and got the break- 
 fast ready ; then breakfast, get her in water and wood 
 for the day, then dressed himself neatly, and sallied 
 forth to his business. The moment that was over he 
 hastened back again ; and no more thought of spending 
 a moment away from her, unless business compelled 
 him, than he thought of quitting the country and 
 going to sea. 
 
 The thunder and lightning are tremendous in 
 America, compared with what they are in this country. 
 His wife was, at one time, very much afraid of thunder 
 and lightning ; and, as is the feeling of all such women, 
 and, indeed, all men too, she wanted company, and par- 
 ticularly her husband, in those times of danger, though 
 of course he well knew that his presence would not 
 diminish that danger ; but, be doing what he might, if 
 within reach of home, he hastened to her, the moment 
 he perceived a thunder storm approaching. Scores of 
 miles has he run on this errand, in the streets of Phila 
 delphia ! The Frenchmen, who were his scholars, used 
 to laugh at him exceedingly on this account ; and some- 
 times when making an appointment with them, they 
 would say, with a smile and a bow, "^ Sauve la toriJiere 
 toujours, Monsieur Cohhett. " 
 
 He never dangled about the heels of his wife ; 
 very seldom tvalked out, as it is called, with her ; he 
 never " went a walking ' in the whole course of his 
 
o4 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 life; that is^ never v/ithout having some object in view 
 other than the walk ; and, as he never could walk at a 
 slow pace, it would have been difficult for her to have 
 kept up with him. He detested this " walking out, " 
 as it made a person more like a footman than a husband. 
 
 In the United States he became a winter, thougli 
 comparatively, he understood very little at that time ; 
 the utmost of his ability, however, was exerted on the 
 side of his country ; and although he forgave, he could 
 not forget the injustice done to him at the court-mar- 
 tial. Every thing of this sort was forgotten when the 
 honour of his country was concerned. The French or 
 democratic party were fierce in their abuse of his na- 
 tive country and her institutions. With Mr Cobbett 
 this was unbearable. The love of his country was not 
 merely a settled feeling ; it partook of the ardour of a 
 passion, which, upon a careful perusal of his works will 
 be found to have continued unabated throughout his 
 long life, and ever influenced, both his pen and tongue. 
 His public career was commenced by publishing a pe- 
 riodical under the assumed name of "Peter Porcupine," 
 which, being written with great force and vivacity, soon 
 excited attention, and were even re-printed in England, 
 The first of these pamphlets was '^ The TartufFe detec- 
 ted, or Observations on the emigration of a Martyr to 
 the Cause of Liberty," meaning Dr. Rush, who subse- 
 quently prosecuted the author for Libel, and obtained 
 heavy damages. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 35 
 
 The French war had just then begun^ (1784,) and 
 he was according to his own account twenty-eight years 
 of age. He knew nothing at all of the merits of the 
 French revolution, or of the war in England against it ; 
 this, however, did not deter him, from taking up his 
 pen in defence of the character, and what he then 
 deemed the cause of his country. The people of Amer- 
 ica, still sore from the wounds of their war against 
 England for liberty, were so loud and so enthusiastic 
 in the cause of the French, that the far greater part of 
 the young men hoisted the famous tri- coloured cockade; 
 and every thing seemed to indicate that the government 
 would be forced into a war with England, in aid of the 
 French. He then, by occasional pamphlets, and the 
 periodical noticed above, took the English side. The 
 force of his writings gave them effect ; that effect was 
 prodigious ; it prevented that which both governments 
 greatly dreaded ; and peace between England and 
 America was preserved. His exertions at this time 
 excited considerable hostility against him, and produced 
 unjust and almost ruinous prosecutions; one of which 
 we have already mentioned. The expence of this par- 
 ticular prosecution was generously defrayed by some 
 public-spirited men (chiefly Scotchmen) in Canada, the 
 weight of the rest feel upon himself. 
 
 As this was the commencement of a literary career, 
 
 ^unexampled, taken in the whole, in the republic of 
 
 'tters, and was, in itself, moreover, of rather a curious 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 description, we shall give the author's account of it. 
 There was great difficulty, it seems, in obtaining a 
 publisher for this work, in consequence of its unpopu- 
 lar character, and it was not till after the title was alter- 
 ed, by the suppression of the first part of it, that the 
 author could succeed in bringing it before the public. 
 It was then taken by a bookseller : and the result was 
 any thing but satisfactory. We shall insert the author's 
 own story : — 
 
 "The terms on which Mr. Bradford took the 'Observations,' 
 were what booksellers call publishing it together. I beg the rea- 
 der if he foresees the possibility of his becoming author, to re- 
 collect this prase well. Publishing it together is thus managed : 
 the bookseller takes the work, prints it, and defrays all expences 
 of paper, binding, &c. •, and the profits, if any, are divided be- 
 tween him and the author. Long after the 'Observation's' were 
 sold off, Mr. Bradford rendered me an acccunt (undoubtedly a 
 very just one) of the sales. According to this account, my share 
 of the profits (my share only) amounted to the sum of one shil- 
 ling and sevenpence half-penny currency of the state of Pennsyl- 
 vania (or, about eleven-pence three farthings sterling,) quite clear 
 of all deductions whatsoever ! " 
 
 What a hopeful beginning for a sanguine writer, 
 who had committed himself to the championship of a 
 great cause, and who had made choice of literature as 
 a profession for his livelihood ! After the Observations , 
 however, Mr Cobbett and Mr Bradford '^ published it 
 together " no longer. The author bargained for each 
 of his subsequent pamphlets, until he became publish- 
 er himself, and thus secured both shares. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Mr Cobbett escaped 
 
WM. Ci)BBETr, ESQ. 37 ' 
 
 the imputation of having written four interested and 
 sordid notices. In a pamphlet which he published in 
 America, in 1797, he completely vindicated himself 
 against the accusation of having been in the pay of the 
 British government, and demonstrated the purity of his 
 motives, if he did not succeed in evidencing the sound- 
 ness of his judgment. 
 
 In the year 1800, he left Philadelphia, stripped 
 of a fortune, leaving thousands of pounds in small 
 debts, scattered all over that immense country. He 
 did not forget to leave behind him his curses on the 
 corrupt and tyrannical government of Pennsylvania. 
 He left also his blessings on some very kind friends, 
 and those friends Quakers, one of whom, Paul, (after 
 whom he named his own son, James, four years after- 
 wards,) he always cited as an example for all man- 
 kind. 
 
 He, his wife, and two little children, came home 
 from New York, in the post-office packet, for which 
 he paid very high. Stopping at Halifax, he was very 
 graciously received by the Duke of Kent, then Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, in the province of Nova Scotia. 
 On his arrival at Falmouth, he was most kindly lodged 
 and entertained by the Collector of the Customs, Mr. 
 Samuel Pellew, Lord Exmouth's brother. For his 
 fame had, even then, spread very widely amongst all 
 persons connected with the government. Arrived in 
 London, (July, 1800,) he took a hired lodging; all the 
 
 E 
 
38 MEMOIRS or 
 
 money he had, amounted to only about £500, the pro- 
 ceeds of the sale of his goods and books at New York. 
 
 We must not omit to add, that, while at Philadel- 
 phia, making his gallant and most effectual stand 
 against the French influence. Sir Robert Liston, 
 our envoy there, offered Mr. Cobbett, in the presence 
 of Lord Henry Stuart, on the part of our govern- 
 ment, great pecuniary reward ; this he refused, though 
 it was generally rumoured at the time, that he accepted 
 of it. It was then proposed that provision should be 
 made for any of his relatives in England who might 
 need it ; but this he also refused, saying that, they 
 might not be made happier by it ; besides, they had 
 rendered no public service, and, therefore, had no right 
 to live on the taxes paid by the labouring people. 
 What is stated here was often repeated in the life-time 
 of Sir Robert Liston, and who, in 1803, when called 
 as a witness on a trial of Mr. Cobbett, for a libel on 
 Lord Hardwicke, stated the substance of the 
 above in the Court of King's Bench, on his oath. It 
 cannot be said that the government did wrong in 
 making this offer ; he had merited a reward ; his ser- 
 vices to England were great and manifest, and had 
 this offer not been made, after his severe losses on 
 account of our country, the government would have 
 been culpable indeed. 
 
 There is one important incident which took place 
 at Philadelphia, wc must not by any means overlook. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 39 
 
 It has been said, and repeatedly too, that IMr. Cobbett 
 was keen of money. 
 
 So far as we have proceeded, the reverse of this 
 will be the better impression made on all who may 
 read this '' Life ;" but further to convince that this 
 was not his disposition we shall relate the following 
 fact, which for honour and generosity remains unpar- 
 alleled. Mr. Cobbett rented a house at more than £300 
 sterling a year, of Mr. John Olden, of the city men- 
 tioned above, who was a very rich man,, a Quaker, 
 having a wife, two sons, and a daughter. He was a 
 free Quaker, liked to laugh, and delighted to hear 
 Cobbett's " slap-dash" conversation. He offered to 
 give him the house. In spite of all that was said he 
 would not accept of it. It was then offered to Mrs. 
 Cobbett, but she also refused. Mr. Olden, died sud- 
 denly in 1799 ; and his eldest son was surprised that 
 Mr. Cobbett did not claim the house, his father having 
 said that no one else should have it. This he did not 
 do. The son, Mr. Olden, is now alive, and receiving 
 the benefit accruing from this property. 
 
 On Mr. Cobbett's arrival in London,* all who 
 knew his energetic and powerful exertions in America, 
 supposed as a matter of course, that gold would shower 
 upon him. Many persons will recollect that, in 1803, 
 
 * He opened a bookseller's shop in Pall- Mall, with the sign 
 of the Bible, the Crown, and the Mitre. 
 
 E 2 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Mr Wyndham went so far as to say in the House of 
 Commons, that for Mr. Cobbett's services rendered to 
 England, " a statue of gold ought to be erected 
 to him.' His health was drunk at Tory dinners 
 throughout the island. His letters on the subject of 
 the Treaty of Amiens, produced a great sensation 
 both here and on the continent. Of this production 
 it was said by the celebrated Swiss historian, Muller, 
 that it was more eloquent than anything that had 
 appeared since the days of Demosthenes. Mr. Wynd- 
 ham, who was then Secretary.at-War, invited Mr. 
 Cobbett to dine at his house, with a party, of whom 
 Pitt and Canning were two. He was of course proud 
 of this invitatitation ; and felt more than ever disposed 
 to use his talents in support of " the system," as it 
 was then going on. Indeed it needed support — real 
 support, for Napoleon was making fearful progress. 
 
 He established a morning paper under the title of 
 The Porcupine, in which he warmly supported Mr. 
 Pitt, who was then at the head of aifairs. This 
 paper was soon gone and with it more than all that 
 he possessed in the money way ; and if he had not 
 been aided by a private subscription, set on foot by 
 Mr. Wyndham and Dr. Lawrence, it is probable he 
 would have been ruined. He, however, with the kind 
 aid of these individuals, subsequently published the 
 Register. Still, treated as he had been, by the govern- 
 ment, he gave it all the support in his power as far 
 as related to the war, though he opposed Addington, 
 
I 
 
 WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 41 
 
 who, in 1801, had become Minister. He opposed the 
 peace of Amiens^ which was nothing but a disgraceful 
 and hollow truce ; but when the war began again, and 
 when, in 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte threatened to 
 invade England, which Cobbett was foolish enough to 
 believe was intended, he wrote an article entitled, 
 "Important Considerations for the People of England." 
 This was given to Sir Charles Yorke, then Secretary 
 of State, who caused it to be printed to the extent, it 
 is said, of two millions and upwards ; and were sent 
 through the general post-office to all parts of the king- 
 dom, besides being read from almost every pulpit in 
 England. The service thus rendered to the Minister 
 was incalculable — the effect was prodigious. The 
 apology offered for his thus being instrumental in the 
 work of delusion, is, that he was inexperienced — his 
 zeal out-ran his knowledge. 
 
 Mr. George Hammond, the under Secretary of 
 State for Foreign affairs, sent for Mr. Cobbett to his 
 office, and made him an offer of a government paper. 
 The government had two. The True Briton, and The 
 Sun ; the former a morning and the latter an evening 
 paper. They were their property, office, types, lease 
 of houses, and all ; the former was offered to him as a 
 gift, with all belonging to it. His refusal of Sir 
 Robert Liston's offer, convinced them — that to offer 
 money, was of no use. Tliis course, therefore, was 
 resorted to. I\Ir. Cobbett's answer to Mr. Hammond 
 was conveyed in reminding him of the fable of the 
 E 3 
 
42 MEMOIRS OY 
 
 Wolf and the Mastiff', the latter of which, having, one 
 night, when loose, rambled into a wood, met the former 
 all gaunt and shagged, and said to him, '' ' Why do 
 you lead this sort of life ? See how fat and sleek I 
 am ! Come here with me and live as I do, dividing 
 your time between eating and sleeping.' The ragged 
 friend having accepted the kind offer, they then trotted 
 on together till they got out of the wood, when the 
 wolf, assisted by the light of the moon, the beams of 
 which had been intercepted by the trees, spied a crease, 
 a little marh, round the neck of the mastiff. ^ What 
 is your fancy,' said he, '■ for making that mark round 
 your neck V ' Oh,' said the other, ' it is only the mark 
 of my collar that my master ties me up with.' ' Ties 
 you up!' exclaimed the wolf, stopping short at the 
 same time _; ' Give me my ragged hair, my gaunt belly 
 and my freedom ;' and so saying, he trotted back to 
 the wood." At the same time he was much obliged 
 to Mr. Hammond and the other gentlemen for the 
 offer; but, though he was very poor, his desire was to 
 render the greatest possible service to his country, and, 
 he was convinced, that, by keeping himself wholly 
 free, and relying upon his own meansj, he should be 
 &ble to give the government much more efficient sup- 
 port, than if any species cf dependence could be traced 
 to him. At the same time, he did not wish to cast 
 blame on those who were thus dependent. Mr. Ham- 
 mond did not appear at all surprised at his answer, 
 and upon hearing it said to ]Mr. Cobbett : — " Well, I 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 43 
 
 must say, that I think you take the honourable course, 
 and I most sincerely wish it may also be the most pro- 
 fitable one." 
 
 From that moment all belonging to the govern- 
 ment looked on him with suspicion. He, however, 
 established a daily paper of his own, but knowing 
 nothing of such a business^ which demanded consider- 
 ably more money than he vvas worth — it soon failed; 
 indeed the advertisements of the government which 
 were given even to their opponents, were never, in one 
 single instance given to him. 
 
 At the time of his return the great government 
 writers and political agents, were John Reeves; who 
 had been chairman of the " Loyal Association against 
 Republicans and Levellers ;" John Bowles ; John 
 Gifford; William Gifford; Sir Frederick Mob- 
 ton Eden, Bart. ; the Reverend Mr. Ireland, the 
 Dean of Westminster; the Reverend John Brand; 
 the Reverend Herbert Marsh, now Bishop of 
 Peterborough; Mallet du Pan; Sir Francis 
 D'lvERNois; and Nicholas Vansittart. These 
 were all pamphlet fvriters supporting Pitt and the 
 war through thick and thin. They, looking upon Mr. 
 Cobbett as a fellow -labourer, had sent all their pamph- 
 lets to him at Philadelphia ; and all of them, except 
 Marsh, Vansittart, and the two Frenchmen, 
 had written to him laudatory letters. All but the 
 Parsons called themselves 'Squires, in the title-pages 
 of their pamphlets. 
 
44 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 The remainder of this story we shall finish in 
 Cobbett's own interesting language : — " Look at me 
 now : I had been bred up with a smock-frock upon my 
 back ; that frock I had exchanged for a soldier's coat ; 
 I had been out of England almost the whole of my 
 timej from the age of sixteen; we used to give in 
 those times^ the name of 'Squire to none but gentle- 
 men of great landed estates, keeping their carriage, 
 hounds, and so forth : look at me then, in whose mind 
 my boyish ideas of a 'Squire had been carried about 
 the world with me : look at 7ne, I say, with letters from 
 four 'Squires, and from Reverends on my table ; and 
 wonder not that my head was half-turned ! Only 
 think of me (who just about twelve years before, was 
 clumping about with nailed shoes on my feet and with 
 a smock-frock on my back) being in literary corres- 
 pondence with four 'Squires, two Reverends, and 
 a Baronet ! Look at me, and wonder that I did not 
 lose my senses ! and, if I had remainded in America, 
 God knows what might have happened. 
 
 " Luckily I came to England, and that steadied 
 my head pretty quickly. To my utter astonishment 
 and confusion, I found all my Squires and Rever- 
 ends and my Baronet too; all in one way or other, 
 dependents on the Government, and, out of the public 
 purse profiting from their pamphlets. John Reeves, 
 Esquire, who was a barrister, but never practised, I 
 found joint patentee cf the office of King's printer, a 
 sinecure worth to him about ^4,000 a year, which he 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 45 
 
 hail got for thirty years, just then begun. John 
 Bowles, Esquire, (also a briefless barrister,) I found a 
 Commissioner of Dutch property. John Gipford, 
 Esquire, I found a Police Magistrate, with a pension 
 of J6300 a year besides. William Gifford, Esquire, 
 I found sharing the profits of Canning's Anti-Jacobin 
 newspaper, (set up and paid for by the Treasury), 
 and with a sinecure of .£329 a year besides. My 
 Baronet I found with rent-free apartments, in Hamp- 
 ton Court Palace. My Reverend John Brand, I 
 found with the living of St. George, Southwark, 
 given him by Lord Loughborough, (then Chancellor), 
 he already having a living in Suflfblk. My Reverend 
 Ireland, I found with the living of Croydon, or the 
 expectancy of it, and also found that he was looking 
 steadily at Lord Liverpool. The Reverend Herbert 
 Marsh, I found a pension-hunter, and he soon suc- 
 ceeded to the tune of £514 a year. Mallet du Pan 
 I found dead; but I found that he had been a pensioner, 
 and I found his widow a jiensioner, and his son 
 in one of the public offices. Sir Francis D'Ivernois, 
 I found an emigrant pensioner. And, Nicholas 
 Vansittart, Esquire, who had written a pamphlet 
 to prove that the war enriched the nation, I found, 
 O God ! a '' Coinmissioner of Scotch Herrings I" Hey 
 dear ! as the Lancashire men say : I thought it would 
 have broken my heart !" 
 
 Of all these i^reat and titled writers, Reeves and 
 
■4f) -MI'MOIRS OV 
 
 Giiford were the only men of talent. Amongst the 
 first things that Reeves said to Cobbett, was : — " I tell 
 you what, Cobbett, we have only two ways here ; we 
 
 must either or kick them : and you must make 
 
 your choice at once." JMr. Cobbett resolved to kick. 
 Of Reeves, Mr. Cobbett always spoke in the kindest 
 manner ; he was a really learned lawyer, and, politics 
 aside, as good a man as ever lived. As to the rest of 
 his 'Squires and other dignified pamphleteers, they 
 were a low, talentless, place and pension-hunting crew ; 
 he was so disgusted with them, that he trembled at 
 the thought of falling into their ranks. Love of such 
 a life was not in him ; the very idea of becoming rich 
 had never entered his mind. The thought of selling 
 his talents for money, and of plundering [the' country 
 with the help of the means that God had given him 
 wherewith to assist in supporting its character, filled 
 him with horror not to be expressed. 
 
 His first desertion of the tory party has been 
 ascribed to a gratuitous insult offered him by Mr. Pitt, 
 who, with a superciliousness that . crowded ^ his great 
 qualities, affected so much of aristocratic morgite^^s^to 
 decline the introduction of Mr, Wyndham's protege. 
 This is the common version of IMr.' Cubbett's [aban- 
 donment of Tory politics. But^this>was not the^^case — 
 we are told in some portion of Mr. Cobbett's^ writings 
 that Mr. Pitt was extremely free and agreeable — and 
 held conversation with him the whole of the time ; 
 indeed Mr, Cobbett so admired his politeness and 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ, 47 
 
 manners, that he felt more than ever disposed to use 
 his talents in support of " the system" as it was then 
 going on. 
 
 It has been asserted too_, that when he came home 
 he was disappointed ; that the government did not 
 receive and reward him agreeably to his desert, and 
 that, therefore he turned against it. At this dinner, 
 besides the brave and honest (though misguided host,) 
 were Mr. Canning, iVIr. Frere, IMr. George Ellis, and 
 some others. He was never presumptuous in his life, 
 and he regarded this as a great act of condesension on 
 the part of Mr. Pitt, of whose talents, and integrity 
 he had then the highest possible opinion. 
 
 What reception could be more flattering to a man 
 who had been in such humble circumstances as Mr. 
 Cobbett — who, but a few years before had been a 
 private soldier, and, who, even then, had not more 
 than about five hundred pounds in the world } We 
 are well aware that Mr. Pitt never admitted news- 
 paper^ writers' to"such an honour. What reason, there- 
 fore, was there^to be^discontented with this reception ? 
 
 ;And, as to Government favours, plenty were 
 offered — ^but none — not a solitary one accepted — he had 
 money offered in'' America — he had money offered in 
 England, besides j a daily paper, together with the 
 types, '^ presses,'^: and lease of the premises — and, no 
 doubt^more than ever came to the knowledge of the 
 public — all of which^offers were refused ! It mat- 
 
48 MKMOIRS OF 
 
 tered not how great and considerable, or how trivial 
 and inconsiderable the favours of the Government 
 might be ; Mr. Cobbett was not the man to be bribed. 
 Had he been to be bought, how rich and even how 
 high he might have been. But he always refused to 
 take one single penny from government. We shall 
 here relate an occurrence which will show how careful 
 he was to guard his fingers against touching the jjublic 
 money. He had brought home with him a large trunk 
 or two of old books. These, when he arrived at Fal- 
 mouth, the collector, Mr. Pellew, told him he ought 
 not to pay duty for ; as they were merely library books 
 and for private use, and not intended for sale ; but 
 that he could not remit the duty ; that the trunks 
 must go round to London ; and that a memorial to the 
 Treasury would obtain the books untaxed. This he 
 did, and received for answer, that the duty must be 
 paid, but that the Treasury would give him the amount. 
 " No, thank ye," said Mr. Cobbett, and he immediately 
 paid the duty. 
 
 When he established his newspaper he discovered 
 that to carry it on was not an affair of talent but of 
 trick. He could not sell paragraphs. He could not 
 throw out hints against a man's or woman's reputation, 
 in order to bring the party forward to pay him for 
 silence. He could not do these mean and infamous 
 things — by which the far greater part of the press in 
 London was at this time supported. After the failure 
 of this paper, he was for a short time without writing 
 
 -gfjk 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 49 
 
 at all ; but at the suggestion of Mr. Wyndham, he 
 started a weekly paper. Mr. Cobbett had not the 
 means to do this, but Mr. Wyndham, with Dr. Law- 
 rence, advanced him the means. But these advances 
 were made and expended upon the express and written 
 conditions, that he should never be under the influence 
 of any body. The money was to be looked upon as 
 sunk in the risk ; and without any sort of obligation 
 to any of the parties. Indeed, never did any one of 
 the persons who advanced the money, attempt, in the 
 slightest degree, to influence his opinions, which were 
 frequently opposed to their own. 
 
 When the Whigs came into oflice again ; and 
 when IMr. Wyndham came to fill the high oflice of 
 Secretary of State for the War and Colonial Depart- 
 ments, every one thought that Mr. Cobbett would 
 get " a snug berth ;" he was importuned by many 
 persons to take care of himself. But when informed 
 by Mr. Wyndham, that he was actually in oflSce, he 
 told him, " Now, Sir, to make all smooth with regard 
 to me, I beg you to be assured, that it is my resolution 
 to have no place, and not to touch one single farthing 
 of the public money, in any shape whatever, and 
 justice to Mr. Wyndham's memory demands that we 
 should say, that he, upon that occasion, told him, that 
 he should never forfeit any part of his esteem by 
 opposing the ministry ; '' no," continued he, (address- 
 ing Mr. Cobbett,) '' nor even by any censure that you 
 
60 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 may think it your duty to pass upon my own conduct." 
 Yes, Mr. Cobbett might at this time (1806) have 
 been under Secretary of State to Mr. Wyndham. Mr, 
 Cobbett mentioned to Mr. Wyndham, as a condition, 
 that the interest of the debt should be ^reduced, and 
 that Sir Francis Freeling should not be turned out of 
 the post-office; at this Mr. Wyndham could not avoid 
 laughing — ^which so provoked Mr. Cobbett that he de- 
 termined to have notliing at all to do with the matter. 
 
 The following is a portion of a lecture delivered 
 at Manchester, two or three years ago — and referring 
 to the point in hand : — " When I came from America, 
 in the year 1800, I was looked upon by the govern- 
 ment people as likely to become one of their vigorous 
 partizans. It was the custom in those glorious times 
 of Pitt and paper, to give to the literary partizans of 
 the government what were called " slices" of a loan. 
 For instance, Moses was the loan monger; and, as 
 the scrip, as it used to be called, was always directly 
 at a premium, a bargain was always made with the 
 loan-monger that he should admit certain 'favourites 
 of the government to have certain portions of the 
 scrip at the same price that he gave for it ; I was 
 offered such portion of scrip, which, as I was told, 
 would put a hundred pounds or two into my pocket at 
 once. I was frightened at the idea of becoming re- 
 sponsible for the immense sum, upon which this would 
 be the profit. But I soon found that the scrip was 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 51 
 
 never even to be shown to me, and that I had merely 
 to pocket the amount of the premium. I positively 
 refused to have^ anything to do with the matter, for 
 which I got heartily laughed at. But this was of great 
 utility to me ; it opened my eyes with regard to the 
 matter of these transactions ; it set me to work to 
 understand all about the debt, and the funds and the 
 scrip and the stock, and every thing belonging to it. 
 At every step I found the thing more and more black, 
 and more and more execrable ; and it soon brought my 
 mind to a conclusion, that the system was what the 
 accursed thing was in the camp of the Israelites, 
 and that the nation never could be happy again until 
 it was got rid of ; in which opinion I have remained 
 from that day to this. 
 
 " Now, if I had pocketed this money, it must 
 have come out of the estates, skill, and labour, of the 
 people. I should have been a robber indeed; this 
 would have been real robbery, and a great deal more 
 worthy of the gallows, than the forging of a bank 
 note, or the stealing of a sheep. From this, you may 
 judge what loan-making was. If I did not get the 
 hundred pounds or two, some body else did ; and we 
 have had to pay interest, and compound interest upon 
 it, from that day to this. I should have thus taken 
 from the nation enough to support four or five labourers 
 and their families for one year at any rate ; and if I 
 had taken it, and had bought stock with it, as k is 
 
 F 2 
 
52 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 called;, would it not have been right to pay me with a 
 halter, instead of paying me in money ? If certain 
 proprietors of newspapers, whom I could name, were 
 brought to a strict account, what, good God ! are the 
 sums which they have got in this way ! How soon 
 they would come tumbling from their chariots, and lie 
 by the way-side, food for kites and carrion-crows, 
 unless out of pure benevolence, taken up by the grave- 
 robbers and Burkers, and carried " for the benefit of 
 science," to the humane Mr. Warburton's shools of 
 anatomy !" 
 
 In the year 1810, Mr. Cobbett was tried and con- 
 victed for the publication of a libel, for expressing 
 his indignation, in the Register, at the flogging of 
 English local-militia-men in the Isle of Ely, under a 
 guard of Hanoverian soldiers, and was sentenced to 
 be imprisoned for two years in Newgate, to pay^Mti 
 thousand pounds to the King, to give security for his 
 good behaviour for seven years, himself in £3,000, 
 and two sureties in £1,000 each. On the 24th 
 June, 1809, the following article was published in a 
 London newspaper, called the Courier : — " The mutiny 
 amongst the Local Militia, which broke out at 
 Ely, was fortmiately suppressed on Wednesday, by 
 the arrival of four squadrons of the German Legion 
 Cavalry from Bury, under the command of General 
 Auckland. Five of the ring-leaders were tried by a 
 Court-Martial, and sentenced to receive Jive hundred 
 
TVM. COBBETT, ESQ. 53 
 
 lashes each, part of which punishment they received 
 on Wednesday, and a part was remitted. A stoppage 
 for their knapsacks was the grounds of the complaint 
 that excited this mutinous spirit, which occasioned 
 the men to surround their officers, and demand what 
 they deemed their arrears. The first division of the 
 German Legion, halted yesterday at Newmarket, on 
 their return to Bury." On the perusal of this para- 
 graph, ]Mr. Cobbett was induced to publish in the 
 Register of July, 180i>, an article censuring in the 
 strongest terms, these proceedings ; for so doing, the 
 Attorney-General prosecuted, as seditious libellers, 
 his printer, publisher, and one of the princip^il retailers 
 of the Political Register ; he was brought r;o trial on the 
 15th June, 1810,^ and was by a Special Jury, that is 
 to say, by twelve men out of forty-eight appointed by 
 the master of the Crown-office, found Guilty ; on the 
 20th of the same month, he was compelled to give 
 bail for his appearance to receive judgment ; and, as 
 he was coming up from Botley, (to which place he had 
 returned to his family and his farm, on the evening of 
 1,5th) a Tipstaff went down from London in order to 
 seize him, personally. On the 9th of July, he, toge- 
 ther with his printer, publisher, and the newsman, 
 were brought into the Court of King's Bench to receive 
 judgment; the three persons were sentenced to be 
 imprisoned for some months in the King's Bench 
 prison, and Mr. Cobbett was sentenced as above — i. e. — 
 to be imprisoned two years in Newgate, the great re- 
 F 3 
 
54 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ceptacle for malefactors, and the front of wliich is the 
 scene of numerous hangings in the course of every 
 year ; that part of the prison in which he was sentenced 
 to be confined, is sometimes inhabited by felons, in- 
 deed, felons were actually in it at the time he entered, 
 and one man was taken out to be transported in about 
 forty-eight hours after ; besides this imprisonment he 
 had to pay a thousand pounds to the king, and to give 
 security for his good behaviour for seven years, himself 
 in the sum of £3,000, and two sureties in the sum of 
 c€l,000 each ; the whole of this sentence was executed 
 upon him : he was imprisoned the two years, paid the 
 thousand pounds to the king, and gave the required 
 sureties ; the Attorney-General was Sir Vicary Gibbs ; 
 the judge who sat at the trial Lord EUenborough ; 
 the four judges who sat at passing sentence, were 
 Ellenborough, Grose, de Blanc, and Bailey. Spencer 
 Percival was Prime IMinister during the time, until 
 he was shot by John Bellingham, and after him Robert 
 B. Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool. During his im- 
 prisonment, he wrote and published 364 essays and 
 letters upon political subjects, and during the same 
 time, he was visited by per^sons from 137 cities and 
 towns, many of them as a sort of deputies from various 
 societies. At the expiration of his imprisonment, the 
 ninth of July, 1812, a great dinner was given in 
 London for the purpose of receiving him, and at which 
 600 persons were present, — Sir Francis Burdett was 
 the President ; dinners and other parties were held on 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 65 
 
 the same occasion in many other places in England, 
 On his way home, he was received at Alton, the first 
 town in Hampshire, with the ringing of the Church 
 belJs, and a respectable company met him and gave 
 him a dinner at Winchester. He was drawn for more 
 than the distance of a mile into Botley, by the people, 
 and on his arrival in the village he found all the people 
 assembled to receive him. He addressed them — and 
 explained the cause of his imprisonment, and gave 
 them clear notices respecting the flogging of Local 
 Militia-men at Ely, and respecting the employment 
 of German troops. 
 
 Soon after this transaction, a person opposed to 
 Mr. Cobbett, published the following charges :— First, 
 that when sentence was about to be passed, IMr. Cobbett 
 made a proposition to the government to this effect ; 
 that, if the proceedings were dropped ; that is to say, 
 if he were not brought up for judgment, but suffered 
 to remain unmolested, he would never publish another 
 Register or any other thing. Suppose this to have been 
 true, there could not be the least blame attached to 
 him. He had a right do it if he thought proper; 
 he was under no obligation to continue to ^vrite ; he 
 was in no way bound to sacrifice himself and family if 
 he could avoid it. But the charge is false. No pro- 
 position of any sort was ever made by him, or by his 
 authority to the government. The grounds of the 
 charge were as follows : a few days before he was 
 brought up for judgment, he went home to pass the 
 
56 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 remaining short space of personal freedom with his 
 family. He had a daughter fifteen years of age^ whose 
 birth-day was just then approaching, and, destined to 
 be one of the happiest and one of the most unhappy of 
 his life, on that day his dreadful sentence was passed. 
 One son eleven years old, another six years, another 
 daughter five years old, and another child nearly at 
 hand. The public will easily believe, that under the 
 apprehension of an absence for years, and the great 
 chance of loss of health, if not of- life, in a prison, 
 produced indescribable grief. It was at this crisis, 
 that iMr. Cobbett wrote to his attorney, Mr. White, 
 in Essex-Street, to make the proposition stated above. 
 But fits of despair were never of long duration in his 
 family. The letter could scarcely have arrived at the 
 Post-office at Southampton, before the courage qf his 
 wife and eldest daughter returned. Indignation and 
 resentment took place of grief and alarm ; and they 
 cheerfully gave consent to stop the letter. Mr. Peter 
 FiNNERTY was at Mr. Cobbett's house at the time ; 
 a post-chaise was got , and he went off to London, 
 during the night, and prevented Mr. White from 
 acting on the letter. So much for this charge. He 
 suffered his heavy punishment, and preserved his 
 health and the use of his pen — besides this his family 
 enjoyed uninterrupted health. 
 
 Every one at the time regarded the sentence as a 
 sentence of death. He was followed to the prison by 
 
■WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 57 
 
 his excellent friend INIr. Peter Walker, Major 
 Cartwright, and Mr. Asbury Dickens, an Ameri- 
 can, whom he had known in Philadelphia, and who, 
 casting his eyes round the gloomy yard, and on the 
 infamous wretches, who were to be Cobbett's com- 
 panions, exclaimed, " Is this the way. that they 
 repay all your services, and all your sacrifices in Ame- 
 rica !" His wife arrived in about half an hour after ; 
 but, before that time, he had bought himself out of the 
 company of felons ; by great favour he finally obtained 
 leave to occupy two rooms in the jailor's house, paying 
 for them twelve guineas a week, besides eight 
 MORE that was required to fee various persons, and to 
 gel leave to walk an hour on the leads of the prison 
 in the morning ; so that here were £2,080, during the 
 two years, exclusive of the £1,000 paid to the Regent. 
 These direct losses were, however trifling, compared 
 with the indirect. He was engaged in the publishing 
 of two works, called the State Trials and the Par- 
 liamentary History. There had been a great out- 
 lay for these works ; several thousands of pounds were 
 due to the paper-maker and the printer. These works 
 were now, as far as regarded INIr. Cobbett ruined. He 
 had bought land in 1806 and 1807. This land, about 
 500 acres, was in hand. Plantations were made, be- 
 sides preparations for others. He had then a trifling 
 mortgage to pay oflf; but quite within the reach of his 
 earnings ; and, in short, if it had not been for this 
 savage sentence, he would, by the year 1814, have had 
 
58 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 liis estate entirely clear of every sort of inijumbrance. 
 At this critical momenta every debt that he owed, 
 of every description^ poured in for payment : — " The 
 whole nation was cowed down at the time, and under 
 the sway of Percival^ Gibbs, and EUenborough, and 
 with several parts of the country actually under 
 the command of Hanoverian generals, the people 
 seemed like chickens, creeping and piping to find a 
 hiding place, while the kite was hovering in the air. 
 The sons and daughters of corruption openly chuckled 
 at what they deemed my (Mr. Cobbett's) extinguish- 
 ment ; those pretenders to patriotism, the Whigs, 
 congratulated each other in secret, on the fall of theii 
 detector ! even soine ' reformers' thought I had ^ go7ii 
 a little too far/ they, poor souls, not perceiving, that 
 this miserable apology for theii cowardice and selfish, 
 ness only added contempt to that hatred which th( 
 boroughmongers entertained towards them. Almosi 
 every one stood aloof, except my creditors (never th( 
 last to visit you in such a season,) who pressed or 
 amain ; so that I really forgot that I was in prison, s( 
 great and so ruinous were the torments arising fron 
 my pecuniary concerns, which, if I had been at large 
 would have given me no trouble and no care at all 
 I was looked upon as a man given over hy the doctors . 
 and every one to whom I owed a shilling, brought m( 
 sighs of sorrow, indeed; but, along with these, brough 
 me his bill. Look at me, reader, (proceeds Mr. Cob 
 bett,) behold me within a prison walls, paying twenti 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. o9 
 
 guineas sHufeek to redeem myself from the society of 
 felons ; see me dragged from my garden, and my fields, 
 and flowers and trees, and shut up in a stinking jail ; 
 see me, who had spent a life of ardeht and uninterrupted 
 love, with my wife and children always around me ; 
 see me harassed incessantly by dunnings, which must 
 necessarily make me fear, that after all the hopes so 
 fondly entertained of being able to provide for wife and 
 children, I might be snatched away, leaving them to 
 be turned out into the high-road: behold me thus, and 
 wonder how I had the fortitude, the calmness, the 
 clearness of mind and the spirit, and the profundity of 
 thought, so conspicuous in '^ Paper against Gold,'' 
 which I wrote in that prison, over and above the 
 writing of the Register. Why, the truth is, that had 
 it not been for one thing, I should not have been able 
 to bear under this accumulation of evil ; and that one 
 thing was, that I had a friend to whom, on the third 
 day after I entered the accursed jail, I wrote, request- 
 ing him, in case of my death, to send for, and take 
 care of my wife and children, and from whom, I, as 
 quickly as possible, received an answer, containing, 
 amongst others, these words: — ^ Give thyself no trouble 
 about Nancy and the children. If thee should die, 
 which I hope thee Avill not for years to come, thy dear 
 family shall find a home under my roof, and shall be 
 to me and all^^ us as our own Idndred.' At sixty- 
 four years of age, I feel the tears of gratitude on my 
 cheeks as I transcribe his words. And who was tliis 
 
60 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 man ? It was James Paul, a quaker :5^mer, of 
 Lower Dublin township, in the State of Pennsylvania ; 
 a native American, from a Yorkshire father and 
 mother; a man on whom I had never conferred a 
 favour to the amount of the value of a pin ; but under 
 whose hospitable roof I and my wife had spent many 
 and many a happy day, always treated as a son and 
 daughter of the family, though both of us English, 
 and in no way related to this family. 
 
 '' Having written this letter to Mr. Paul, I was 
 quite tranquil on the score of provision for Avife and 
 children ; I wanted not to wait for an answer : all that 
 was necessary was, to make sure of his getting my 
 letter ; and of that I took care. So that, the truth is, 
 the greatest load of all was oif from my mind at the 
 end of three days. I wanted no answer to my letter : 
 I was sure that my family would be provided for ; I 
 was sure that the tigers would never be able to make 
 them beg their bread, nor to cram them into a work- 
 house ,• and it is curious, but not more so than true, 
 that I took delight in reflecting on the innocent and 
 happy life that my children would lead in case of my 
 perishing in the hellish jail. If my friend had died 
 before my letter reached him, no, matter ; there were 
 sons, daughters, plenty of relations ; all, or any of 
 them, would have been eager to fulfil mv wishes, and 
 to receive my wife and children as their own. How 
 snugly "hidden causes lie, while effects are so glaring ! 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 61 
 
 Looking rightly at the matter, my friends in Pennsyl- 
 vania were, in great part, the cause of Paper against 
 Gold, which laid the axe to the root of the paper money 
 system, and which will be admired for ages to come ; 
 for it was my reliance on those friends that gave me 
 the spirit and the tranquility of mind that enabled me 
 to write that celebrated series of letters. 
 
 " Such was the friendship of James Paul. No 
 wonder that I named a son after him, and no wonder 
 that that son should, when he signs, never fail to stick 
 the Paul into his name ; a name that will be honoured 
 by my children's children, as synonymous with all that 
 is frank, sincere, benevolent, kind, and generous. Such 
 was the friendship of my friend Paul." 
 
 Upon one occasion, JMrs. Cobbett, who was in the 
 family way, was discovering a strong desire to have 
 some chesnuts (which were not then ripe enough to 
 fall, seeing her hankering about under the tree (which 
 was not far from the house) and, looking up at the 
 chesnuts, JMr. Paul took his axe, and without saying 
 a word, went and felled the tree, containing a load 
 or more of timber ; and when Mr. Cobbett deplored 
 the loss of the beautiful tree, and the spoiling of the 
 timber by cutting it at that season, " Poh," said he, 
 " what is a tree compared to a woman or a child ?" 
 Such was the friendship of the farmer of f ennsylvania. 
 
 There <l one circumstance connected with his im- 
 prisonment, we must by no means overlook : that is 
 Mrs. Cobbett's conduct during her husband's coniine- 
 G 
 
62 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ment. The sentence, though it certainly did not prove 
 to be one of death, was in effect one of rui?ij as far 
 as then-possessed property went. " But this," says Mr. 
 Cobbett, " really appeared as nothing, compared with 
 the circumstance, that I must have a child born in a 
 felons jailj or be absent from the scene at the time of 
 the {birth. My wife who had come to see me for the 
 last time previous to her lying-in, perceiving my deep 
 dejection on the approach of her departure for Botley, 
 resolved not to go; and actually went and took a 
 lodging as near to Newgate as she could find one, in 
 order that the communication between us might be as 
 speedy as possible ; and in order that I might see the 
 doctor, and receive assurances from him relative to her 
 state. The nearest lodging that she could find was in 
 Skinner-Street, at the corner of a street leading to 
 Smithfield. So that there she was, amidst the inces- 
 sant rattle of coaches and butchers' carts, and the noise 
 of cattle, dogs, and bawling men, instead of being in 
 a quiet and commodious country-house, with neigh- 
 bours and servants, and every thing necessary about 
 her. Yet, so great is the power of the mind in such 
 cases, she, though the circumstances proved uncom- 
 monly perilous, and were attended with the loss of 
 the child, bore her sufi*erings with the greatest com- 
 posure, because, at any minute, she could send a mes- 
 sage to, and hear from me. If she had goiH to Botley, 
 leaving me in that state of anxiety in which she saw 
 me, I am satisfied she would have died ; and that 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 63 
 
 event taking place at such a distance from me, how 
 was I to contemplate her corpse, surrounded by her 
 distracted children, and to have escaped death, or mad- 
 ness myself." 
 
 His imprisonment which ended in July, 1812, 
 gave him a terrible blow as to money-matters — a blow 
 not easily recovered. The peace came too, in a few 
 months afterwards, which was greatly injurious to him 
 as a farmer^ and at the same time as a writer. Mr. 
 Cobbett besides, under such heavy bonds, did not dare 
 to be the proprietor of the Register; it was trans- 
 ferred to another in order to screen him, which de- 
 prived him of the far greater share of the profits. 
 About the year 1816, his pecuniary affairs had become 
 so embarrassed, that he determined on selling his land, 
 and every other sort of jiroperty he possessed, and on 
 beginning the world afresh. 
 
 But, before the year 1816 had expired, his affaii-s 
 began to take a different turn. Agricultural distress 
 began to make the nation listen to the call for Par- 
 liamciiiary Reform; and the latter part of 1816, saw 
 the kingdom agitated from one end to the other. Now 
 was the time for Cobbett to exert himself ; and he in 
 November, 1816, commenced by reducing the price of 
 his Register to a low sum, publishing it without a 
 stamp, and keeping himself sheltered from the law by 
 not being tile legal proprietor. This altogether changed 
 the aspect of his pecuniary affairs. The sale of the 
 Register was prodigious, being about forty or fifty 
 G 2 
 
64 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 thousand copies a week.* In short, clear of all ex- 
 pences, and making due allowance for bad debts, he 
 derived a weekly profit of £200, and more than that ; 
 so that had he been let alone ; had no law been passed 
 to stop and to ruin him, his estate would have been 
 clear at the end of two years, and he would have been 
 as rich as he ever wanted to be. The government at 
 this time, kept a steady eye upon his movements, and 
 the parliament too, saw that his writings had the 
 desired effect — they saw that he would, by the com- 
 bination of wealth and talent, be too powerful an 
 antagonist. At this moment, therefore, they deter- 
 mined to impede his growing influence ; the Habeas 
 Corpus Corpus Act was suspended, that they might 
 be enabled to shut him up in prison at their leisure — 
 prevent him from seeing wife, child, or friend; deprive 
 him of the use of pen, ink, and paper, and to keep 
 him confined as long as they pleased. 
 
 In the month of March, 1817, Lockhart, the 
 Brave, attempted to draw Mr. Cobbett into an " affair 
 of honor." Mr. Lockhart charged Mr. Cobbett with 
 having made use of insulting and offensive language to 
 him at a meeting at Winchester, on the 11th of March, 
 1817. Soon after the meeting, Lockhart the Brave, 
 proceeded to Mr. Cobbett, who was in the Grand Jury 
 
 • Besides the Paper against Gold which was selling in 
 weekly numbers, at the rate of from twenty to thirty thousand 
 « week. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 65 
 
 Room, and said to Iiim that he had not been accus- 
 tomed to receive such language as, had that day been 
 applied to him. Mr. Cobbett told him to come when 
 he was less engaged — when the business was over. 
 As Mr. Cobbett and his friends, however, were going 
 out of the room, he paid another visit, and said he 
 was determined to have no delay. He v/as answered 
 by being told, that he would be waited upon at the 
 Inn ; whither he proceeded accompanied with two men 
 as witnesses; and was then told that Mr. Cobbett 
 would have no communication with him except in 
 writing. They wanted to sit down in the room, where 
 Mr. Cobbett, Mr. Hunt, and other gentlemen were, 
 but this they were not suffered to do, but ordered out 
 of the room. They went : and then a correspondence 
 took place, which is inserted below word for word, 
 and will no doubt be read with interest : 
 
 *' Sir, 
 
 As you requested me to put in writing the 
 object of my requesting a meeting with you, I beg to 
 inform you, it was with a view to your retracting the 
 word foul which you applied to me, by stating I had 
 been guilty of a " foul misrepresentation." I did not 
 hear whether you said of your language or intentions, 
 
 I am. Sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 J. J. LOCKHAI^T," 
 
 To Wm. Cobbett, Esq. 
 G 3 
 
66 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 (Answer.) Winchester, llik March, 1817- 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I did not say that it was a Jbul misrepresen- 
 tation whidi yon had made, but " ihejoulest mis- 
 representation that ever was made by mortal man," an 
 opinion which I still entertain, and always shall, until 
 yon shall fiilly express your sorrow for the effects of 
 that mortification, which I hope, led your tongue be- 
 yond the cool dictates of your mind. 
 
 I am. Sir, your most humble 
 
 And most obedient Servant, 
 
 William Cobbett. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I have received your answer, which leaves no 
 alternative except that of my insisting on the satis- 
 faction which you owe me as a gentleman, and which 
 I wish you would empower some friend to arrange this 
 evening. 
 
 I am. Sir, your obedient Servant, 
 
 J. J. LOCKHART. 
 
 March 11, 1817. 
 I shall remain in Winchester this evening for this 
 pirpose until eight o'clock, and a friend will deliver 
 this letter to you, to accept your arrangement. 
 
 To William Cobbbtt, Esq. 
 
WM. COBBKTT, ESQ. 67 
 
 (Answer. J Winchester, llth March, 1817. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 If I could stay here another day, I would amuse 
 myself with some fun with you, but having business 
 of more importance on hand, I must beg of you to 
 renew your pleasant correspondence, upon our arrival 
 in town. In the meanwhile I remain. 
 Your most obedient, 
 
 And most humble Servant, 
 
 William Cobbett. 
 
 Now, this ]\Ir. Lockhart knew that Mr. Cobbett 
 had written many essays reprobating, in the strongest 
 terms, the practice of duelling. He knew, that Mr. 
 Cobbett held it as a species of suicide for a man 
 (in his situation especially) to fight a duel. Besides, 
 Lockhart the Brave, knew well, that, if his challenge 
 had been accepted, Mr. Cobbett would instantly have 
 to forfeit ^/ive thousand pounds sterling, — for he knew 
 that INIr. Cobbett had been bound in recognizances 
 for seven j/carx, from the year 1812. 
 
 An American paper published on the 10th of July, 
 1815, contained the following article: — 
 
 " Cobbett. — Cobbett is silenced : — We are sorry 
 for it; his price was £1500 per annum. It was given 
 him, and he writes no more. This we have from 
 passengers who lately arrived from London. This new 
 instance of a corrupt heart, will make the friends of 
 England chuckle ; they ought not ; it is not only a 
 proof of Cobbett's venality, but also of the corrupt 
 
68 MEMOIRS or 
 
 means used by the Government of Great Britain to 
 procure the silence of its adversaries. The great 
 Burke was purchased. Why then feel surprised at 
 Cobbett's tergiversation; both were worth buying, 
 both told unwelcome truths, in a style of irresistible 
 language. We repeat that we are sorry for it. Inde- 
 pendent of the facts he descanted upon, his language 
 was fascinating. Americans, therefore, have lost much 
 newspaper amusement. If the truths disclosed by 
 Cobbett had not galled the ministry, the ministry 
 would have suffered Cobbett to sink into oblivion." 
 Of course, this was afterwards discovered to be erro- 
 neous. Mr. Cobbett considered himself injured by 
 the insertion of this paragraph, and imposed upon 
 the Editor a penalty — not a very heavy one — it was 
 this : that he send by the earliest opportunity to the 
 office of the Register, in London, about 100 grains 
 of tobacco seed, and about 50 seeds from a fine water 
 melon. 
 
 On the 5th of March, the Suspension of the 
 Haleas Corpus Act received the Royal assent — it 
 became law — and the people were to submit. Mr. 
 Cobbett was too wary not to perceive that this despotic 
 act was an attempt to entrap him. At this critical 
 moment he used every possible means to rouse the 
 nation to make all the legal efforts in their power to 
 obtain a repeal of this terrible law of suspension ; the 
 first thing he did ^as to make them acquainted with 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 69 
 
 its despotic power/ and, secondly, to make them 
 clearly understand the grounds on which it had been 
 passed. Every man at this time was liable to be seized, 
 at any moment, and to be put into a prison, and kept 
 there for any length of time, cut off from communi- 
 cation with friends, wife, and children ; deprived of 
 
 • According to the laws of our country, no man can be sent 
 to prison until he has been brought before a Magistrate ; and 
 then the Magistrate cannot send him to prison unless there be 
 evidence upon oath against the accused party, nor until the 
 accused party be made fully acquainted with the nature of his 
 alledged crime, and has been heard in his defence, and con- 
 fronted or placed face to face with his accuser before the Magis- 
 trate. Then, when the man is, after all this, sent to prison, 
 there must be a written warrant of committment sent with him ; 
 and in that warrant the nature of the man's alledged crime 
 must be clearly expressed. 
 
 This is the law of the land, and most excellent is this 
 law ; for if a man could be seized and sent to prison without 
 these precautions, who would be safe ? and, in order that this 
 most necessary law may be duly attended to, there is another law 
 for preventing any neglect of the observance of all these mat- 
 ters ; and this law is usually called the Habeas Corpus Act. It 
 is so called because the writ begins with these two latin words. 
 Habeas Corpus. This act makes any man who may be put into 
 prison, or confined in any manner, to apply to a Judge for what 
 is called a to'it, or command, to bring such man before the Judge, 
 that the Judge may hear his complaint ; and then the Judge if 
 he finds that the man has been sent to prison, or confined, with- 
 out all the necessary evidence and forms before mentioned, is 
 obliged to order the prisoner to be discharged ; and the prisoner 
 may then prosecute the persons who have imprisoned him. 
 This act of Parliament, is justly called the Personal Safety Act; 
 for, without it no man's person is safe, except accidentally ; for, 
 
70 MEMOIRS or 
 
 jsen, ink> paper,, books^ and, in short, any man or 
 woman might be taken up, sent to any prison in the 
 kingdom, however distant, without any charge being 
 
 if Magistrates or any body else can, take up any man they 
 choose, and send him to prison without evidence upon oath, with- 
 out his being heard in his defence, without his being confronted 
 with his accusers, without any limit of time, and without being 
 able to get a vncit to be brought out before a Judge to have the 
 cause of this imprisonment inquired into : if this be the case, what 
 man can possibly regard his person as being in safety. This is 
 the state in which every man is placed by the Suspensio7i of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act, that is to say, by making that act of no 
 force while the Suspension lasts, and by enabling the Ministers 
 to imprison, and to keep in piison, any body that they shall 
 think proper. This was the case in France before the Revolu- 
 tion. A man, woman, any body is taken up, put into prison, 
 and there kept as long as the persons in power choose. In 
 Spain, during the existence of the Inquisition, the wives or 
 children of the unfortunate creatures so seized, did not dare to 
 enquire after the husband or father. They went into mourning, 
 and always spake of the poor wretch as being dead ! In France, 
 there was one particular prison, called the Bastile, in Avhich 
 wretched victims of power used to be confined. One person, a 
 Scotchman, had been confined in this Bastile, for more than 
 twenty years, without ever having been told for what he was 
 confined. He was forgotten, and it was by mere accident, that 
 he was at last released at the request of an English Ambassador. 
 People used to be confined in this cruel manner in virtue of 
 what is culled a Lettre de Cachet, that is to say, a Secret Letter, 
 in which the devoted victim was merely named and ordered to 
 be shut up. This was carried to such a length, that these Secret 
 Letters, were, at last, actually sold in the reign of Louis XV. to 
 any itidividuals who would pay a sufficient sum for them ; so that, 
 any rich man, or woman, Avho had a spite against another man, 
 or woman, might get such person shut up in a cold prison for 
 any length of time. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 71 
 
 made known to them, without knowing what was 
 alledged against him, without having any idea of who 
 'was the accuser: without having a hearing from any 
 body, and without their very children knowing how 
 they were treated, or what prison they were in. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett did not stay after this became law ; 
 with all possible expedition he prepared to make a 
 Jlight. Three Registers were all he had time to write, 
 and these contained no intimation of his intention to 
 leave his native country — though he must have been 
 busily engaged in making necessary preparations from 
 the very first day of the suspension. On the 28th of 
 March, however he wrote a leave-taking address to 
 his countrymen, to be published after his departure. 
 The following is extracted : — 
 
 My Beloved Countrymen, 
 
 Soon after this reaches your eyes, those of the 
 writer will, possibly, have taken the last glimpse of the 
 land that gave him birth, the land in which his parents 
 lie buried, the land of which he has always been so 
 proud, the land in which he leaves a people, whom 
 he shall to his last breath, love and esteem beyond 
 all the rest of mankind. 
 
 Every one, if he can do it without wrong to 
 another, has a right to pursue the path to his own 
 happiness ; as my happiness, however, has long been 
 inseparable from the hope of assisting in restoring 
 the rights and liberties of my country, nothing could 
 have induced me to quit that country, while there 
 
MEMOIRS OF 
 
 remained the smallest chance of my being able, by 
 remaining, to continue to aid her cause. No such 
 chance is now left. The laws, which have just been 
 passed, especially if we take into view the real objects 
 of those laws, forbid us to entertain the idea, that 
 it would be possible to write on political subjects 
 according to the dictates of truth and reason, with- 
 out drawing down upon our heads certain and swift 
 destruction. It was well observed by Mr. Brougham, 
 in a late debate, that every writer, who opposes the 
 present measures, " must now feel, that he sits down 
 to write " with a halter about his neck ;" an obser- 
 vation the justice of which must be obvious to all 
 the world. 
 
 Iieaving, therefore, all considerations of personal 
 interest, personal feeling, and personal safety ; leaving 
 even the peace of mind of a numerous and most affec- 
 tionate family wholly out of view, I have reasoned 
 thus with myself : What is now left to be done ? We 
 have urged our claims with so much trnth ; we have 
 established them so clearly on the ground of both law 
 and reason, that there is no ansAver to us to be found 
 other than that of a Suspension of our Personal Safety. 
 If I still write in support of those claims, I must be 
 blind not to see that a dungeon is my doom. If I 
 write at all, and do not write in support of those 
 claims, I not only degrade myself, but I do a great 
 injury to the rights of the nation by appearing to 
 abandon them^^ If I remain here, I must, therefore, 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 73 
 
 cease io write, from compulsion or from a sense of duty 
 to my countrymen ; therefore, it is impossible to do 
 any good to the cause of my country by remaining in 
 it ; but, if I remove to a country where I can write 
 with perfect freedom, it is not only possible but very 
 probable, that I shall, Sooner or later, be able to render 
 that cause important and lasting services. 
 
 Upon this conclusion it is that I have made my de- 
 termination ; for, though life A^^ould be scarcely worth 
 preserving with the consciousness that I walked about 
 my fields or slept in my bed merely at the mercy of a 
 Secretary of State ; though, under such circumstances, 
 neither the song of the birds in spring, nor the well- 
 strawed homestead in winter, could make me forget 
 that I and my rising family were slaves, still there is 
 something so powerful in the thought of country and 
 neighbourhood and home and friends, there is some- 
 thing so strong in the numerous and united ties with 
 which these and endless other objects fasten the mind 
 to a long-inhabited spot, that to tear oneself away 
 nearly approaches to the separating the soul from the 
 body. But, then, on the other hand, when I asked 
 myself, " What ! Shall I submit in silence ? Shall I 
 '^ be as dumb as one of my horses ? Shall that indigna- 
 " tion which burns within me be quenched ? Shall I 
 " make no effort to preserve even the chance of assist- 
 " ing to better the lot of my unhappy country ? Shall 
 " that mind, which has communicated its light and 
 " warmth to millions of other m.inds, now be extin- 
 H 
 
74 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " guislied for ever; and shall those, who, with thousands 
 '' of pens at their command, still see the tide of opi- 
 " nion rolling more and more heavily against them, 
 '' now be for ever secure from that pen, by the 
 '' efforts of which they feared being overwhelmed ? 
 '' Shall truth never again be uttered ? Shall her voice 
 "^ never again be heard, even from a distant shore ?" 
 
 Though I quit my country, far be it from me to look 
 upon her cause as desperate, and still farther be it 
 from me to wish to infuse despondency into your minds. 
 I can serve that cause no lo?iger by remaining here; 
 but, the cause itself is so good, so just, so manifestly 
 right and virtuous, and it has been combatted by means 
 so unusual, so unnatural, and so violent, that it must 
 triumph in the end. 
 
 Let us hope, however, that our country is yet to be 
 freed of the millstone that hangs around her neck. As 
 for me, I shall never cease to use the best of my en- 
 deavours to save her from the dangers which threaten 
 her utter destruction ; and, I hope you will always 
 bear in mind, that, if I quit her shores for a while, it 
 is only for the purpose of being still able to serve her. 
 It is impossible for any man not to see clearly, that the 
 sole choice is between silence and retreat. Corruption 
 has put on her armour and drawn her dagger. We 
 must, therefore, fall back and cover ourselves in a way 
 so as to be able to fight her upon more equal terms. — 
 The Giffords, the Southeys, the Walters, the Stuarts, 
 the Stoddarts, and all thQ hireling crew, who were 
 
■WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 75 
 
 unable to answer with the pen, now rush at me with 
 their drawn knife, and exclaim, " write on J" To use 
 the words of the Westminster Address, they shake 
 the halter in my face, and rattle in my ears the keys 
 of the dungeon, and then they exclaim with a malig- 
 nant grin : " Whi/ do you not continue to write on, yon 
 " coward ?" A few years ago, being at Barnet Fair, 
 I saw a battle going on, arising out of some sudden 
 quarrel, between a Butcher and the servant of a west- 
 country Grazier. The Butcher, though vastly supe- 
 rior in point of size, finding that he was getting the 
 worst of it, recoiled a step or two, and drew out his 
 knife. Upon the sight of this weapon, the Grazier 
 turned about and ran off till he came up to a Scotchman 
 who was guarding his herd, and out of whose hand the 
 former snatched a good ash stick, about four feet long. 
 Having thus got what he called a long arm, he returned 
 to the combat, and, in a very short time, he gave the 
 Butcher a blow upon the wrist, which brought his 
 knife to the ground. The Grazier then fell to work 
 with his stick in such a style as I never before witness- 
 ed. The Butcher fell down and rolled and kicked ; 
 but, he seemed only to change his position in order to 
 insure to every part of his carcase a due share of the 
 penalty of his baseness. After the Grazier had, appa- 
 rently, tired himself, he was coming away, when 
 happening to cast his eye upon the knife, he ran back 
 and renewed the basting, exclaiming every now and 
 then, as he caught his breath : "dra thy knife wot!" 
 
76 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 He came away a second time, and a second time re - 
 turned, and set upon the caitiif again : and this he 
 repeated several times, exclaiming always when he 
 re-commenced the drubbing : " dra thy knife wo't !" 
 'Till, at last, the butcher was so bruized, that he was 
 actually unable to stand or even to get-up; and yet, 
 such, amongst Englishmen, is the abhorrence oi foul 
 fighting, that not a soul attempted to interfere, and 
 nobody seemed to pity a man thus unmercifully beaten. 
 It is my intention to imitate the conduct of this 
 Grazier ; to resort to a long arm, and to combat cor- 
 ruption, while I keep myself out of the reach of her 
 knife. Nobody called the Grazier a cojvard, because 
 he did not stay to oppose his fists to a pointed and cut- 
 ting instrument. My choice, as I said before (leaving 
 all considerations of Personal Safety out of the ques- 
 tion) lies between silence and retreat. If I remain 
 here, all other means will hefrst used to reduce me to 
 silence ; and if all those means fail, then will come the 
 dungeon. Therefore, that I may still be able to write, 
 and to write with freedom, too, I shall write, if I live, 
 from America; and, my readers may depend on it, 
 that it will not be more than ybz^r months from the date 
 of this address, before the publication of the Weekly 
 Pamphlet will be resumedJ,n London, and will be con- 
 tinued very nearly as regularly as it has been for years 
 past. ]\Iy main object will be to combat corruption ; 
 but, I shall also be able to communicate some very use- 
 ful information ; especially as I shall now have, at one 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. U: 
 
 aiid the same time, the situation of both countries 
 under my eye. If it be said, that I cannot expect to 
 get any one here to print, or publish, what I write in 
 America, I ask, then, what is the use of writing here, 
 seeing that the same obstacle would exist as to what 
 should be written in England. 
 
 I will go, where I shall not be as the shoes upon 
 Lord Sidmouth's and Lord Castlereagh's feet. I will 
 go where I can make sure of the use of pen, ink, 
 and paper ; and, these two Lords may be equally sure, 
 that in spite of every thing that they can do, unless 
 they openly enact -or proclaim a censorship on the 
 Press, or cut off all commercial connection with Ame- 
 rica, you, my good and faithful countrymen, shall be 
 able to read what I write. In my letter to Earl 
 Grosvenor, I said, that something very near to the 
 chopping off of my hand, or \}\q poking out of your eyes, 
 should be done, before I would cease to write and 
 you would cease to read. Whit has been done would 
 not be very far from this, if I were to remain here ; 
 but when I wrote that sentence, I had a, full know- 
 ledge of what rvas going to he done, and, I had also 
 resolved upon the course to pursue in order, as far as 
 related to myself, to defeat its intentions. 
 
 A mutual affection, a powerful impulse, equal to 
 that out of which this wonderful sagacity arises, will, 
 I hope, always exist between me and my hard used 
 countrymen ; an aifection, which my heart assures me, 
 no time, no distance, no new connections, no ne\y 
 H3 
 
78- MEMOIRS OF 
 
 association of ideas however enchanting, can ever de- 
 strojj or, in any degree enfeeble or impair. The sight 
 of a free, happy, well fed and well clad, people will 
 only tend to invigorate my efforts to assist in restoring 
 you to the enjoyment of those rights and of that hap- 
 piness, which are so well merited by your honesty, 
 your sincerity, your skill in all the useful arts, your 
 kind-heartedness, your valour, and all the virtues 
 which you possess in so super- eminent a degree. A 
 splendid mansion in America will be an object less dear 
 to me than a cottage on the skirts of Waltham Chace 
 or Botley Common. Never will I own as my friend 
 him who is not a friend of the people of England. I 
 will never become a Subject or a Citizen in any other 
 state, and will always be a foreigner in every country 
 but England. 
 
 Wm. Cobbett, 
 Liverpool 2Sth March, 1817. 
 
 On the evening of the 5th of May, he landed at 
 New York, but only remained there twenty-four hours, 
 and then proceeded to Long Island, distant thirteen 
 miles from New York. Mr. Cobbett took with him 
 his two sons, William and John ; they set off from 
 London, early in the morning of Saturday, the 22nd 
 of March, and reached Litchfield the same night, and 
 Liverpool the next night about ten o'clock. Of his 
 reception here, Mr. Cobbett spoke with pleasure and 
 gratitude^ On Wednesday evening, the 27th of March, 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 79 
 
 they embarked on the ship Importer, bound to New- 
 York, where they arrived on the 5th of May. Their 
 passage in every respect, was disagreeable ; and, upon 
 one occasion very perilous from lightning, which struck 
 the ship twice, shivered two of the masts, killed a man, 
 struck several people slightly, between two of whom 
 Mr. Cobbett was sitting without at all feeling the 
 blow. 
 
 All that Mr. Cobbett saw around him here was 
 well calculated to attract the attention and to please 
 the sight of one like himself, brought up in the country, 
 always greatly delighted with, and somewhat skilled 
 in, its various pleasing and healthful pursuits. The 
 people were engaged busily in planting their Indian 
 Corn. He observed the cherry trees, of which there 
 were multitudes, planted in long avenues, or rows, or 
 round the fields, had dropped their blossom, and were 
 beginning to show their loads of fruits. The apple and 
 pear orchards, in extent from one to twenty acres on 
 each farm, were in full and beautiful bloom. Pro- 
 visions of every description might be had in abundance, 
 and at a very cheap rate. 
 
 They were at this time at an Inn, 13 miles from 
 New York. It is on the main road to that city. They 
 lodged and boarded at this Inn, had each a bed-room 
 and good bed, had a room to sit in to themselves. They 
 had smoaked fish, chops, butter and eggs, for break- 
 fast. For dinner they had the finest of fish, bass, 
 mackarel, lobsters; of meat, lamb, veal, ham, &c. 
 
80 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Asparagus in plenty ; apple-pies though in the mid- 
 dle of May ; and finished with a supper like the break- 
 fast, with preserved peaches and other things. And 
 for all this an excellent cider to drink, with the kind- 
 est and most obliging treatment on the part of the 
 Landlord and Landlady and their sons and daughters, 
 they paid no more than twenty-two shillings and six. 
 pence a week each. In England the same food 'and 
 drink and lodging would have cost them nearly the 
 same every day. Mr. Cobbett was highly delighted 
 with this sort of living ; they had not all these excel- 
 lent things just for a show, or just enough to smell to ; 
 but in loads. Not an egg, but a dish full of eggs. 
 Not a snip of meat or of fish ; but a plate full. Lump- 
 sugar for their tea and coflfee ; not broke into little bits 
 the size of a hazle-nut ; but in good thumping pieces 
 Besides, there were two things which no money can 
 purchase anywhere. The first is, no grumbling on 
 the part of the landlady, except on acoount of their 
 eating and drinking too Utile, and the other is, that 
 Mr. Wiggins, (the landlord) had no fastening but a 
 hit of a chip run in over the latch of a door to a house 
 which was full of valuable things of all sorts, and about 
 which they left all their things much more carelessly 
 than they would have done in their own house in any 
 part of England. 
 
 Though driven again across the Atlantic, the 
 people of England were not bereft of the powerful 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 81 
 
 assistance of their able Champion. He still adhered 
 faithfully to his native^ his beloved^ though oppressed 
 and miserable country. He conquered every difficulty; 
 and, though living in America — he struck heavy blows 
 at home ; his writings were published regularly once 
 a week in London. Though on the other side of the 
 sea, he never did any act or uttered any word, that 
 should seem to say, that he had abandoned England. 
 If he had preferred tranquility and ease and comfort 
 to duty, he would not have returned ; but have sent 
 for his family. This he did not do. He never had an 
 idea of happiness* distinct from the happiness and 
 honour of his country. He considered that the greater 
 her distress, the more necessary the presence of those 
 of her sons, who possessed abilities to assist in saving 
 her. 
 
 No sooner had he quitted England, than the 
 greater part of the London press, commenced their 
 calumnies. Suspecting that he had gone for ever, no 
 assertion, however wicked or false, was too bad for 
 them to make use of. He was exhibited as a frau- 
 dulent debtor, and yet as being without a shilling. If 
 either had been true, he certainly would not volun- 
 tarily have come home, when he could live so com- 
 fortably abroad. It is very true, that the sudden 
 breaking up of his affairs on his departure, following 
 a total loss of six thousand pounds and upwards, arising 
 from the imprisonment and fine he had to endure in 
 1810 ; it is verv true that these things, together with 
 
^^^•. 
 
 S2 ^^P MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the expences attending his flight, left him comparatively 
 destitute of immediate pecuniary means. But, was it 
 ever before heard of in the world, that, in answer to a 
 man's political writings, his books of account are to 
 be produced ; a list of his pecuniary engagements pub- 
 lished ; and what is more, his private letters, written 
 in confidence many years before, obtained from a base 
 and treacherous agent, and published to the world, 
 and that too, in a partial and garbled state ? Yet, alJ 
 this was done in the face of his wife and daughters 
 who were in this country, and who had to bear up i?i 
 silence against all the reproaches, all the scoffs, all the 
 taunts, and all the savage insults of this cov/ardly band 
 of literary ruffians. 
 
 These cowardly men represented him as being a harshj 
 tyrannical, passionate, merciless, and even a greedy man 
 We have said before that, in the whole course of his 
 life, he never was once before a magistrate in any crimi- 
 nal case, either as accuser, or accused ; and this is a 
 great deal to say for a man v/ho lived to the age of ^3. 
 and having had no one to protect or advise him since he 
 was eleven years old. He never in the whole course oJ 
 his life brought an action against any man for debt. He 
 never could find in his heart to oppress any man merel} 
 because he had not the ability to pay. Nor ever had 
 he an action brought against him for debt in all his life 
 time, except just after his return to England; when 
 an Attorney at Bishop's Waltham in Hampshire, had i 
 writ served on him, without any notice ; without ever 
 
^ 
 
 VTM. COBBETT, ESQ. ^^W 83 
 
 writing to him for the money ; and, what is worse still, 
 the Sheriff's Oificer was sent to a public meeting, at the 
 Crown and Anchor, and desired to arrest him there ^ at 
 the very time he should be addressing the meeting. The 
 Officer had more decency and more honour than to lend 
 himself to such a base purpose. He followed Mr. Cob- 
 bett to his lodging ; called out a gentleman who was 
 with him, and requested that he would call at his house 
 next day, which he did. The debt was thirty pounds, 
 for malt which had been delivered the year before he 
 went to America, and which had been forgotten. This 
 was the only action that was ever brought against him. 
 Reemployed, for a great many years, numerous servants 
 and labourers at Botley. He seldom had less than 
 seventeen, altogether ; and he never had to complain 
 of any of them to a magistrate, but three times in his 
 life ; and of all his servants and labourers, no one even 
 went to a magistrate to complain of him. When the 
 printers turned out for wages in London, his then prin- 
 ter, Mr Hansard, in order, as he said, to break the 
 conspiracy of the men, asked him to suspend the publi- 
 cation of his Register for a week. Mr Cobbett's ans- 
 wer was, "No : the men have a right to as much wages 
 as they can get : give the men their wages; and, if you 
 must raise your price, I must pay accordingly." Yet, at 
 this very time one of his principal calumniators was 
 cramming printers into jail by half dozens, on a charge 
 of conspiracy to raise their wages. Such are the men, 
 who represented him as a harsh and tyrannical man. 
 
84 ^ MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Mr Cabbett had seven children. He never struck 
 one of them in anger, in his life ; and in only one single 
 instance did he speak to one of them in a really angry 
 tone and manner. Are there many men who can say as 
 much as this ? To his servants, he was one of the most 
 kind and indulgent masters, and was in general repaid 
 as he deserved to be, by their fidelity and attachment. 
 Two of them, however, proved themselves unworthy 
 of such a master. These fellows had in their possession 
 a number of Mr. Cobbett's private letters, which 
 they pulled out and exhibited to the newspaper propri- 
 etors, as occasion might serve ; though he had been to 
 these men a most generous benefactor. Mrs. Cobbett 
 always suspected these two wretches : the one she cal- 
 led " a simpering knave j' the other ^^ a down looking 
 rogue." Over and over again, a thousand times, she 
 told her husband to take care of these men ! 
 
 Another calumny was, that his son (who was pro- 
 prietor of the Register) owed eighty thousand pounds* 
 sterling to the government for siajiips. Again ; that 
 Mr. Cobbett had craftily removed to his own house at 
 Botley, out of Sir James Kempt's house, in order 
 to defraud Sir James of the rent due to him for his 
 house and farm. As to the charge about the debt 
 owing to the Stamp-ofiice, every bocy knows that there 
 is no credit given there. The stamps for the Register 
 amounted to about 1,500 pounds a year. So that here 
 are upwards oi Jifiy years' stamps due for, and his son 
 had only been proprietor about fifteen months. Besides, 
 
TTM. COBBETT, ES<i. 86 
 
 they never had one single stamp \vithout- paying for it 
 before it was taken from the Stamp-Office, And, as 
 for the rent that he owed to Sir James Kempt, it 
 was for only half a year, that is, 150 pounds. A pretty 
 sum for him to run away from, who was receiving a 
 profit of 200 pounds a week ! Besides there were 20 
 acres of Swedish turnips on the farm, pulled up and 
 laid in rows. There was a stack of hay worth nearly 
 a hundred pounds. There was a threshing machine 
 for which he had paid Mr. Kempt himself 60 pounds, 
 and fixtures in the house for which he had paid him a 
 deal more than GO pounds, exclusive of what was added 
 by Mr. Cobbett. The turnips were worth near 200 
 pounds ; the hot-bed frames, were worth 30 pounds. 
 It was pretended he had removed his residence from 
 Kempt's place to his own, with the design of being off. 
 And for what purpose ? Could not his goods be seized, 
 in one place as well as the other. The facts are these : 
 when ]Mr. Cobbett left prison, in 1812, he thought it 
 prudent to quit so large a house as his own was, and 
 to lessen all his expences. He, therefore, took Mr. 
 Kempt'^ place, which had a neat little gentleman's 
 house on it, and the best gardens in the country, having 
 nearly three quarters of a mile of high walls, for fruit 
 trees. But, not having either sold, or let, his own, 
 which he had kept in very good order, and where his 
 plantations and shrubberies had grown up to fine height, 
 he resolved in 1816, to return to his own spacious 
 .house. Of Sir James Kempt's property, he had a 
 
 I 
 
86 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 lease for 14 years. It had cost him considerable sums 
 of money in purchasing and planting the walls and 
 garden with all the finest sorts of peaches, nectarines, 
 apricots, plumbs, cherries, pears and apples ; and the 
 fruit of that very year he took his flight would be worth 
 more than the rent of the whole farm. The vines 
 against the walls which bore nothing scarcely before 
 Mr. Cobbett went to the place, he made, by his man- 
 agement, bear half a ton of grapes. We have digressed 
 perhaps too much in relating minutely these facts ; but 
 we have done it merely to carry a stronger conviction 
 to the minds of all who peruse this Memoir, that the 
 motive for IMr. Cobbett leaving England is not that 
 which has so oft been imputed to him ; and to prove 
 how groundless the base assertions of his enemies 
 were, who attempted to inake us believe that Mr. 
 Cobbett was a fraudulent man ; and minute as these 
 facts are, their necessity every one will easily perceive. 
 These and thousands of other calumnies were circu- 
 lated without the least regard for the feelings of those 
 whom ]\Ir. Cobbett had left behind. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett was not idle in America; he was 
 not satisfied with being merely a writer; he was a farmer 
 also, and an outline of his agricultural observations 
 and proceedings in this fine and well-governed country 
 will not prove uninteresting to the reader. We shall 
 first give a portion of a Journal kept by himself from 
 the 5th of May, 1817, to the 20th of April, 1818. 
 
 1817, M^J/ 5. — Landed at New York. — 6. Went 
 
!* 
 
 WM. COBBETT, ESQ, 87 
 
 ever to Long Island. IC. The weather has been dry 
 for some time. The grass is only beginning to grow 
 a little. 18. Warai and iine. Grass pushes on. 23. 
 Fine and warm. Things grow away. Saw kidney 
 beans up and looking pretty well. Saw some beets 
 coming up. Not a sprig of parsley to be had for love 
 or money. Saw some cabbage plants up and in the 
 fourth leaf. 27. Spaded up a corner of ground and 
 sowed (in the natural earth) cucumbers and melons. 
 Just the time they tell me. 
 
 June 16. Fine, beautiful day. Never saw such 
 fine weather. Not a morsel of dirt. The ground 
 sucks up all. I walk about and work in the land in 
 shoes made of deer skin. They are dressed rvhitej like 
 breeches-leather. I began to leave off my coat-to-day, 
 and do not expect to put it on again till October. My 
 hat is a white chip, with broad brims. Never better 
 health. 17. Fine day. The partridges (mis-called 
 quails) begin to sit. I'he orchard full of birds' nests ; 
 and amongst others, a dove is sitting on her eggs in 
 an apple tree. 19. Fine day. But, now comes my 
 alarm! The musquiioes, and still worse, the common 
 house-fly, which used to plague us in Pennsylvania, 
 and which were the only things I ever disliked belong- 
 to the climate of America. Musquitoes are bred in 
 stagnant water of which here is none. Flies are bred 
 in filth of which none shall be near me as long as I can 
 use a shovel and a broom. 20. Fi;je days. Carrots 
 and parsnips, sown in the 3d and 4th instant, all up 
 I 2 
 
MEMOIRS OI 
 
 and in rough leaf. Onions up. The whole garden 
 green in 18 days from the sowing. 
 
 July 9. — Fine hot days. Apples to make pud- 
 pings and pies ; but our housekeeper does not know 
 how to make an apple-pudding. She puts the pieces 
 of apple amongst the batter. She has not read Peter 
 Pindar. 10. Fine hot days. I work in the land 
 morning and evening, and write in the day in a north 
 room. The dress is now become a very convenient, oi 
 rather, a very little inconvenient affair. Shoes, trow- 
 sers, shirt and hat. No plague of dressing and un- 
 dressing ! 12. Very hot day. The common blaci 
 cherries, the little red honey cherries, all ripe now. 
 and falling and rotting by the thousands of pounds 
 weight. But the place which I rent is remarkable foi 
 abundance of cherries. Some early peas sown in the 
 second week in June, fit for the table. This is thirty 
 days from the time of sowing. No Jlies yet ! No 
 musquitoes ! 13. Hot and heavy, like the pleading oi 
 a quarter- sessions lawyer. 24. Fine hot day. Harvest 
 (for grain) nearly over. The main part of the wheat, 
 &c. is put into Barns, which are very large and com- 
 modious. Some they put into small ricks, or stacks, 
 out in the fields, and there they stand without any 
 thatching, till they ate wanted to be taken in during 
 the winter, and, sometimes they remain out for a whole 
 year. Nothing can prove more clearly than this fact 
 the great diifference between this climate and that of 
 England, where, as every body knows, such stacks 
 
\VM. COBBETT, ESQ, 
 
 89 
 
 would be mere heaps of muck by January, if they were 
 not, long and long before that time, carried clean off 
 the farm by the wind. The crop is sometimes threshed 
 out in the field by the feet of horses, as in the South 
 of France. It is sometimes carried into the barn's 
 floor, where three or four horses, or oxen, going abreast, 
 trample out the grain as the sheaves or swarths, are 
 brought in. And this explains to us the humane pre- 
 cept of Moses, " not to muzzle the ox as he treadeth 
 out the grain" which we country people in England 
 cannot make out. I used to be puzzled too, in the 
 story of Ruth, to imagine how Boaz could be busy 
 amongst his threshers in the height of harvest. — The 
 weather is so fine, and the grain so dry that, when the 
 wheat and rye are threshed by the flail, the sheaves 
 are barely united, laid upon the floor, receive a few 
 raps, and and are then tied up, clean threshed for 
 straw, without the order of the straws being in the 
 least cVanged. The straw is as bright as burnished 
 gold. 28. Very, very hot. The Thermometer Q5 
 degrees in the shade j but a breeze. Never slept better 
 in all my life. No covering. A sheet under me, and 
 a straw bed. And then so happy to have no clothes 
 to put on but shoes and trowsers ! My wi^idow looks 
 to the east. The moment the aurora appears, I am in 
 the orchard. 29. Still the same degree of heat. I 
 measured a water-melon runner, which grew eighteen 
 inches in the last 48 hours. The dews now are equal 
 to showers; I frequently, in the morning, >vash hands 
 
90 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and face, feet and legs, in the dew on the high igrass; 
 The Indian corn shoots up now so beautifully ! 
 
 Augiist 1. — Still melting hot. I take off two shirts 
 a day wringing wet. I have a clothes-horse to hang 
 them on to dry. No ailment. Head always clear. 
 Oo to bed by day-light very often. Just after the hens 
 go to roost, and rise again with them. 2. Hotter and 
 hotter. Not a single micsquito yet. 8. Fine rain. It 
 comes pouring down. 9. Rain still, which has now 
 Jasted 60 hours. Killed a lamb, and, in order to keep 
 it fresh, sunk it down into the well. 14. Very hot in- 
 deed. 80 degrees in a north aspect at 9 in the evening 
 Three wet shirts to-day. Obliged to put on a dry 
 shirt to go to bed in. 23. Fine hot day. I have now 
 got an English woman-servant, and she makes us famous 
 apple-puddings. She says she has never read Peter 
 Pindar's account of the dialogue of the king and the 
 cottage woman ; and yet she knows very well how to 
 get the apples within side of the paste. 28. Windy 
 and rather coldish. Put on cotton stockings and a 
 waistcoat with sleeves. Do not like this weather. 
 31. Fine hot day. Prodgious dews. 
 
 September 3. — Famously hot. Fine breezes. Be- 
 gan imitating the Disciples, at least in their diet ; foTj 
 to-day we began '* plucking ike ears of corn" in a patch 
 planted in the garden on the seccnd of June. But, 
 we J in imitation of Pindar's pilgrim, take the liberty 
 to boil our corn. We shall not starve now. 9. Rather 
 hotter. We amongst seven of us eat about 25 ears of 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 91 
 
 torn a-day. With me it wholly supplies the place of 
 bread. It is the choicest gift of God to man, in the 
 way of food. I remember that Arthur Young ob- 
 serves, that the proof of a good climate is that Indian 
 corn comes to perfection in it. Our corn is very fine* 
 I believe, that a wine-glass full of milk might be 
 Squeezed out of one ear. No wonder the Disciples 
 were tempted to pluck it when they were hungry, 
 though it was on the Sabbath-day ! 10. Appearances 
 for rain ; and it is time ; for my neighbours begin to 
 cry out, and our rain-water cistern begins to shrink. 
 The well is there, to be sure ; but, to pull up water 
 from 70 feet is no joke, while it requires nearly as 
 much sweat to get it up as we get water. 18. Beau- 
 tiful day. Not very hot. Wear stockings now and 
 a waistcoat and neck -handkerchief. 28. Very fine 
 and warm. If eft off the stockings again. 
 
 October 7- — Very fine and warm, 60 degrees in 
 shade at seven o'clock this morning. Windy in the after- 
 noon. The wind is knocking down the fall-pippin s 
 for us. One picked up to-day weighed 12i ounces 
 avoirdupois weight. The average weight is about nine 
 ounces, or, perhaps, ten ounces. This is the finest of 
 all apples. Hardly any core . Some none at alL The 
 richness of the pine-apple without the roughness. If 
 the king could have seen one of these in a dumpling I 
 This is not the Newtown Pippin, which is sent to 
 England in such quantities. That is a winter apple. 
 Very fine at Christmas ; but far inferior to this fall. 
 
92 V£M0IRS or 
 
 pippin, taking them both in their state of perfection. 
 It is useless to send the trees to England, unless the 
 heat of the sun and the rains and the dews could be 
 sent along with the trees. 11. Beautiful day, 61 de- 
 grees in shade. A little white frost this morning. It 
 just touched the tips of the kidney bean leaves ; but 
 not those of the cucumbers or melons, which are near 
 fences. 12. Beautiful day. Have not put on a coat 
 yet. Wear thin stockings, or socks, waistcoat with 
 sleeves, and neckcloth. Same day precisely. Finished 
 Buck-wheat threshing and winnowing. The men have 
 been away at a horse-race ; so that it has laid out in 
 the field, partly threshed and partly not, for five days. 
 If rain had come, it would have been of no conse- 
 quence. All would have been dry again directly after- 
 wards. What a stew a man would be in in England, if 
 he had his grain lying about out of doors in this way I 
 The cost of threshing and winnowing 60 bushels was 
 seven dollars, £1 lis. 6d. English money, that is to 
 say, 4s. a quarter, or eight Winchester bushels. But, 
 then, the carting was next to nothing. Therefore, 
 though the labourers had a dollar a day each, the ex- 
 pense upon the whole, was not so great as it would 
 have been in England. So much does the climate do ! 
 25. Rain, and warm, like a June rain in England. 
 .57 degrees in shade. The late frosts have killed, or, 
 at least, pinched the leaves of the trees ; and they are 
 red, yellow, russett, brown, or of a dying green. Never 
 was anything so beautiful as the bright sun, shining 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. Mii 
 
 through these fine lofty trees upon the gay verdure 
 beneath. 28. Fine day. 56 degrees in shade. Pulled 
 up a Radish, that weighed 12 pounds ! I say, twelve, 
 and measured 2 feet 5 inches round. From common 
 English seed. 
 
 November 4. Very, very fine. Never saw such 
 
 .pleasant weather. Digging potatoes. 11. Very fine. 
 
 When I got up this morning, I found the thermometer 
 
 hanging on the Locust-trees, dropping with dew, at 
 
 62 degrees. Left of my coat again. 
 
 December 1. Fine warm and beautiful day; but 
 we begin to fear the setting in of winter, and I am 
 very busy in covering up cabbages, mangel wurzel, 
 turnips, beet, carrots, parsnips, parsley, &c. the mode 
 of doing which (not less useful in England than here, 
 though not indispensably necessary) shall be described 
 when I come to speak of the management of these 
 several plants. Ip. We kill mutton now. Ewes 
 brought from Connecticut, and sold to me here at two 
 dollars each in July, just after shearing. I sell them 
 now alive at three dollars each from the grass. Killed 
 and sent to market, they leave me the loose fat for 
 candles, and fetch about three dollars and a quarter 
 besides. A hardish frost. 21. Very sharp indeed. 
 Makes us run, where we used to walk in the fall, and 
 to saunter in the summer. It is no new thing to me ; 
 but it makes our English people shrug up their shoul- 
 ders. 25. Had some English friends. Surloin of own 
 beef. Spent rhe evening in light of own candles, as 
 
94 MKMOiHs oy 
 
 handsome as ever I saw, and I think the very best I 
 ever sa\v. 
 
 January 4. — A frost that makes us jump and 
 skip about like larks. Very seasonable for a sluggish 
 fellow. Prepared for winter. Patched up a boarded 
 building, which was formerly a coach-house , but, 
 which is not so necessary for me, in that capacity, as 
 that of a fowl-house. The neighbours tell me, that 
 the poultry will roost out on the trees all the winter, 
 which, the weather being so dry in winter, is very 
 likely ; and, indeed, they must if they have no house, 
 which is almost universally the case. However, I mean 
 to give the poor things a choice. I have lined the said 
 coach.house with corn-stalks and leaves of trees, and 
 have tacked up cedar-boughs to hold the lining to the 
 boards, and have laid a bed of leaves a foot thick all 
 over the floor. I have secured all against dogs, and 
 have made ladders for the fowls to go in at holes six 
 feet from the ground. I have made pig-styes, lined 
 round with cedar-boughs and well covered. A sheep- 
 yard, for a score of ewes to have lambs in spring, 
 surrcunded with a hedge of cedar boughs, and with 8 
 shed for the ewes to be under if they like. The oxer 
 and cows are tied up in a stall. The dogs have a place 
 well covered, and lined with corn stalks and leaves 
 And now, I can, without anxiety, sit by the fire, oi 
 lie in bed and hear the North-Wester Whistle. 9. A 
 harder frost, and snow at night. The fowls which 
 have been peeping at my ladders for two or three 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 96 
 
 evenings, and partially roosting in their bouse, made 
 their general entry this evening ! They are the best 
 judges of what is best for them. The turkeys boldly- 
 set the weather at defiance, and still roost on the top, 
 the ridge of the roof of the house. Their feathers 
 prevent their legs from being frozen, and so it is with 
 all poultry ; but, still, a house mjist, one would think, 
 be better than the open air at this season. 10. Snow, 
 but sloppy. I am now at New York on my way to 
 Pennsylvania. 12. Very sharp frost. Set oiF for 
 Philadelphia. Broke down on the road in New Jersey. 
 13. Very hard frost still. Found the Delaware which 
 divides New Jersey from Pennsylvania, frozen ov:er. 
 Arrived at Philadelphia in the evening. 15. Same 
 weather. The question eagerly put to me by every 
 one in Philadelphia is, '' Don't you think the city 
 greatly improved ?" They seem to me to confound 
 augmentation with improvement. It always was a fine 
 city, since I first knew it ; and it is very greatly 
 augmented. It has, I believe, nearly doubled its ex- 
 tent and number of houses since the year 1799. But, 
 after being, for so long a time, familiar with London, 
 every other place appears little. After living within 
 a few hundreds of yards of Westminster Hall and the 
 Abbey Church, and the Bridge, and looking from my 
 own windows into St. James's Park, all other buildinsrs 
 and spots appear mean and insignificant. I went to- 
 day to see the house I formerly occupied. How small ! 
 It is always thus ; the words large and small are car- 
 
98 ■ MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ried about with us in our minds, and we forget real 
 dimensions. The idea, such as it was received, remains 
 during our absence from the object. When I returned 
 to England, in 1800, after an absence from the country- 
 parts of it, of sixteen years, the trees, the hedges, even 
 the parks and woods, seemed so small. It made me 
 laugh to hear little gutters that I could jump over, 
 called Rivers I The Thames was but a "Creek!" But, 
 when in about a month after my arrival in London, I 
 went to Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my 
 surprise ! Everything was become so pitifully small ! 
 I had to cross, in my post-chaise, the long and dreary 
 heath of Bagshot. Then, at the end of it, to mount a 
 hill, called Hungry-hill ; and from that hill I knew 
 that I should look down into the beautiful and fertile 
 vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered with impatience, 
 mixed with a sort of fear, to see all the scenes- of my 
 childhood ; for I had learnt before, the death of my 
 father and mother. There is a hill, not far from the 
 town, called Crooksbury-Hill, which rises up out of a 
 flat,- in the form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch 
 fir-trees. Here I used to take the eggs and young ones 
 of crows and magpies. This hill was a famous object 
 in, the neighbourhood. It served as the superlative 
 degree of height. " As high as Crooksbury Hill " 
 meant, with us, the utmost degree of height. There- 
 fore, the first object that my eyes sought vras this hill. 
 / could not believe w;// ej/es ! Literally speaking, I, for 
 a moment, thought the famous hill removed, and a lit . 
 
-WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 97 
 
 tie heap put in its stead ; for I had seen in^New Bruns- 
 wick, a single rock, or hill of solid rock, ten times as 
 big, and four or five times as high ! The post-boy, go- 
 ing down hill, and not a bad road, whisked me, in a 
 few minutes, to the Bush Inn, from the garden of M'hich 
 I could see the prodigious sand-hill, where I had begun 
 my gardening works. What a nothing ! But now came 
 rushing into my mind, all at once, my pretty little gar- 
 den, my little blue smock-frock, my little nailed shoes, 
 my pretty pigeons, that I used to feed out of my hands, 
 the last kind words and tears of my gentle and tender- 
 hearted and affectionate mother ! I hastened back into 
 the room. If I had looked a moment longer, I should 
 have dropped. When I came to reflect, what a change! 
 I looked down at my dress. What a change ! What 
 scenes I had gone through ! How altered my state ? 
 I had" dined the day before at the Secretary of State's 
 in company with Mr. Pitt, and had been waited upon 
 by men in gaudy liveries ! I had nobody to assist me 
 in the world. No*. teachers of any sojRfe. ISfobody to 
 shelter me from the consequence of bad, and no one to 
 counsel me to good, behaviour. • I felt proud. The 
 distinctions of rank) birth, and wealth, all became no- 
 thing in my eyes ; and from that moment (less- than a 
 ^onth after my arrival in England) I resolved nev-t^ 
 |o bend before them. 16. Same weather. Weat to 
 see my old Quaker- friends at Bus^leton, and particularly 
 my beloved friend Ja3ies Paul, who is very ill. 17 
 I returned* to Philadelphia. 22. Hard frost ^^ 
 K 
 
98 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 business in Pennsylvania is with the legislature. It is 
 sitting at Harrishurgh. Set off to-day by stage. Fine 
 country; fine barns; fine farms. Got to Lincaster. 
 The largest inland town in the United States. A very 
 clean and good town. No beggarly houses, All look 
 like ease and plenty. 27. Thaws. Warm. Tired to 
 death of the tavern at Harrisburgh, though a very good 
 one. The cloth spread three times a day. Fish, fowl, 
 meat, cakes, eggs, sausages ; all sorts of things in 
 abundance. Bread, lodging, civil but not servile wait- 
 ing on, beer, tea, coflfee, chocolate. Price, a dollar and 
 a quarter a day. Here we meet altogether : Senators, 
 judges, lawyers, tradesmen, farmers, and all. I am 
 weary of the everlasting loads of meat. Weary of 
 being idle. How few such days have I spent in my 
 whole life ! 28. Thaw and rain. jMy business not 
 coming on, I went to a country tavern, hoping there 
 to get a room to myself, in which to read my English 
 papers, and sit down to writing. I am now at M'Allis- 
 ter's tavern, situate at the foot of the first ridge of 
 mountains ; or rather, upon a little nook of land, close 
 to the river, where the river has found a way through 
 a break in the chain of mountains. Great enjoymen t 
 here. Sit and read and write. My mind is again 
 in England. Mrs. M'Allister just suits me. Lets 
 me eat and drink what I like, and when I like, and 
 gives mugs of nice milk. I find here, a very agreeable 
 and instructive occasional companion, in Mr. M'Allis- 
 ter the elder. 29. Very hard frost this morning. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 99 
 
 Change very sudden. All about the house a glare of 
 ice. 30. Not so hard. Icicles on the trees on the 
 neighbouring mountains like so many millions of spark- 
 ling stones, when the sun shines, which is all the day. 
 31. Same weather. Two farmers of Lycoming 
 county had heard that William Cobbett was here. 
 They modestly introduced themselves. What a con- 
 trast with the " yeoman cavalry !" 
 
 February 4. — Little snow. Not much frost. This 
 day, thirty-three years ago, I enlisted as a soldier. I 
 always keep the day in recollection. 5. Having been 
 to Harrisburgh on the second, returned to Mr. M'Allis- 
 ter's to-day in a sleigh. The river begins to be frozen 
 over. It is about a mile wide. 8. A real Jrost. 9. 
 Sharper. They say, that the thermometer is down. 
 10 degrees below nought, 11. Went back again to 
 Harrisburgh. Mild frost. 12. Not being able to bear 
 the idea of dancing attendance, came to Lancaster, in 
 order to see more of this pretty town. A very fine 
 tavern (Slaymaker's); room to myself ; excellent accom- 
 modations. Warm fires. Good and clean beds. Civil 
 but not servile landlord. The eating still more over- 
 done than at Harrisburgh. Never saw such profusion. 
 I have made a bargain with the landlord ; he is to give 
 me a dish of chocolate a day instead of dirmer. 16. 
 A hard frost. Lancaster is a pretty place. No ^7ie 
 buildings ; but no mean ones. Nothing splendid and 
 nothing beggarly. The people of this town seem to 
 have had the prayer of Hagar granted them : " Give 
 K2 
 
100 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 me^ O Lord, neither poverty nor riches." Here are 
 none of those poor, wretched habitations, which sicken 
 the sight at the outskirts of cities and towns in Eng- 
 land; those abodes of the poor creatures, who have 
 been reduced to beggary by the cruel extortions of 
 the rich and powerful. And, this remark applies to 
 all the towns of America that I have ever seen. This 
 is a fine part of America. Big barfis, and modest 
 dwelling-houses. Barns of stone a hundred feet long 
 and forty wide, with two floors, and raised to go into 
 them. So that the waggons go into the first floor up- 
 stairs. Below are stables, stalls, pens, and all sorts 
 of conveniences. Up stairs are rooms for threshed 
 corn and grain ; for tackles for meal, for all sorts of 
 things. In the front (South) of the barn is the cattle 
 yard. These are very fine buildings. And, then, all 
 about them looks so comfortable, and gives such mani- 
 fest proofs of ease, plenty, and happiness ! Such is 
 the country^ of William Penn's settling! It is a 
 curious thing to observe ih^farm-houses in this coun- 
 try. They consist almost without exception, cf a con- 
 siderably large and a very neat house, with sash 
 windows, and of a small house, which seems to have 
 been tacked on to the larger one ; and, the proportion 
 they bear to each other, in point of dimensions, is, as 
 nearly as possible, the proportion of size between a 
 cow and her calf, the latter a month old. But, as to 
 the cause, the process has been the opposite of this 
 instance of the works of nature, for it is the large 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 101 
 
 house which has grown out of the small one. The 
 
 father J or grandfather, while he was toiling for his 
 
 children, lived in the small house, constructed chiefly 
 
 by himself, and consisting of rude materials. The 
 
 means accumulated in the small house, enabled a son 
 
 to rear the large one ; and, though, when pride enters 
 
 the door, the small house is sometimes demolished, 
 
 few sons in America have the folly, or want of feeling 
 
 to commit such acts of filial ingratitude, and of real 
 
 self-abasement. For, what inheritance so valuable 
 
 and so honourable can a son enjoy as a proof of his 
 
 father's industry and virtue ? The progress of wealth 
 
 and ease and enjoyment, evinced by this regular increase 
 
 of the size of the farmer's dwellings, is a spectacle, 
 
 at once pleasing, in a very high degree, in itself, and, 
 
 in the same degree, it speaks the praise of the system 
 
 of government, under which it has taken place. What 
 
 a contrast with the farm-houses in England ! There 
 
 the little farm-houses are falling into ruins, or, are 
 
 actually become cattle sheds, or, at least, cottages, as 
 
 they are called, to contain a miserable labourer, who 
 
 ought to have been a farmer, as his grandfather was. 
 
 Five or six farms are there now levelled into one, in 
 
 defiance of the law ; for, there is a law lo prevent it. 
 
 The farmer has, indeed, a Jine house ; but what a life 
 
 do his labourers lead ! The cause of this sad change 
 
 is to be found in the crushing taxes ; and the cause of 
 
 them, in the Borough- usurpation, which has robbed 
 
 the people of their best right, and, indeed, without 
 K 3 
 
102 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 which right they can enjoy no other. They talk of 
 the augmented populatioji of England ; and, when it 
 suits the purpose of the tyrants, they boast of this 
 fact, as they are pleased to call it, as a proof of the 
 fostering nature of their government ; though, just 
 now, they are preaching up the wild and foolish doc- 
 trine of Parson Malthus, who thinks, that there 
 are too many people, that they ought (those who labour, 
 at least) to be restrained from breeding so fast. But, 
 as to the fact, I do not believe it. There can be nothing 
 in the shape of proof ; for no actual enumeration was 
 ever taken till the year 1800. We know well, that 
 London, INIanchester, Birmingham, Bath, Portsmouth, 
 Plymouth, and all Lancashire and Yorkshire, and 
 some other counties, have got a vast increase of miser- 
 able beings huddled together. But, look at Devon- 
 shire, Dorsetshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, and other 
 counties. You will there see hundreds of thousands 
 of acres of land, where the old marks of the plough 
 are visible, but which have not been cultivated for, 
 perhaps, half a century. You will there see places, 
 that were once considerable towns and villages, now 
 having, within their ancient limits, nothing but a few 
 cottages, the Parsonage, and a single Farm-house. 
 It is a curious and a melancholy sight, where an ancient 
 ciiurch, with its lofty spire or tower ; the church suffi- 
 cient to contain a thousand, or two or three thousand 
 of people conveniently, now stands surrounded by a 
 score; ^r half a score of miserable mud-houses, with 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 103 
 
 floors of earth, and covered with thatch; and this 
 sight strikes your eye in all parts of the five Western 
 counties of England. Surely these churches were not 
 built without the existence of a population somewhat 
 proportionate to their size ! Certainly not ; for the 
 churches are of various sizes, and, we sometimes see 
 them very small indeed. Let any man look at the 
 sides of the hills in these counties, and also in Hamp- 
 shire, where downs, or open lands, prevail. He will 
 there see, not only that those hills were formerly cul- 
 tivated ; but that hanks, from distance to distance, 
 were made by the spade, in order to form little flats 
 for the plough to go, without tumbling the earth down 
 the hill ; so that the side of a hill looks, in some sort, 
 like the steps of a stairs. Was this done without 
 hands, and without mouths to consume the grain raised 
 on the sides of these hills } The Funding and Manu- 
 facturing and Commercial and Taxing System has, 
 by drawing wealth into great masses, drawn men also 
 into great masses. London, the manufacturing places, 
 Bath, and other places of dissipation, have, indeed, 
 wonderfully increased in population. Country seats. 
 Parks, Pleasure -gardens, have, in like degree, increased 
 in number and extent. And, in just the same pro- 
 portion has been the increase of Poor-houses, Mad- 
 houses, and Jails. But the people of England, such 
 as FoRTEscuE described them, have been swept away 
 by the ruthless hand of the Aristocracy, who, making 
 their approaches by slow degrees, have at last, got into 
 
104 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 their grasp the substance of the whole country. 19. 
 Frost, not very hard. — Quitted Harrisburgh, very much 
 displeased; but, on this subject, I shall, if possible 
 keep silence, till next year, and until the people of 
 Pennsylvania have had time to reflect ; to clearly un- 
 derstand my afl*air ; and when they do understand it, 
 I am not at all afraid of receiving justice at their 
 hands, whether I am present or absent. Slept at Lan- 
 caster. One night more in this very excellent Tavern. 
 28. Very warm. — I hate this weather. Hot upon my 
 back, and melting ice under my feet. The people 
 (those who have been lazy) are chopping away with 
 axes the ice, which has grown out of the snows and 
 rains, before their doors during the winter. The hogs 
 (best of scavengers) are very busy in the streets seek- 
 ing out the bones and bits of meat, which have been 
 flung out and frozen down amidst water and snow, 
 during the two foregoing months. I mean including 
 the present month. At New York, (and I think at 
 Philadelphia also) they have corporation laws to pre- 
 vent hogs from being in the streets. For what reason, 
 I know not, except putrid meat be pleasant to the 
 smell of the inhabitants. But, corporations are seldom 
 the wisest of lawmakers. It is argued, that, if there 
 were no hogs in the streets, people would not throw 
 out their orts of flesh and vegetables. Indeed, what 
 would they do with those orts then } Make their 
 hired servants eat them } The very proposition would 
 leave them to cook and wash for themselves. Where, 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ, lOO 
 
 then, are they to fling these effects of superabundance ? 
 Just before I left New York for Philadelphia, I saw 
 a sow very comfortably dining upon a full quarter part 
 of what appeared to have been a Jine leg of rnutton. 
 How many a family in England would if within reach, 
 have seized this meat from the sow ! And, are the 
 tyrants, who have brought my industrious countrymen 
 to that horrid state of misery, never to be called to 
 account ? Are they always to carry it as they now do? 
 Every object almost, that strikes my view, send my 
 mind and heart back to England. la viewing the ease 
 and happiness of this people, the contrast fills my soul 
 with indignation, and makes it more and more the 
 object of my life to assist in the destruction of the 
 diabolical usurpation, which has trampled on king as 
 well as people. 
 
 March 1. — Rain. Dined with my old friend 
 Se VERNE, an honest Norfolk man, who used to carry 
 his milk about the streets, when I first knew him, but 
 who is now a man of considerable property, and, like 
 a wise man, lives in the same modest house where he 
 formerly lived. Excellent roast beef and plum pud- 
 ding. At this house I found an Englishman, and from 
 Botlcy too ! I had been told of such a man being in 
 Philadelphia, and that the man said, that he had heard 
 of me, " heard of such a gentleman, but did not know 
 much of him." This was odd. I was desirous of seeing 
 this man. Mr. Severne got him to his house. JHis 
 name is Vere. I knew him the moment I saw him ; 
 
1 06 MEMOIRS or 
 
 andj I u'oiidered ivhij it was that he k?inv so little of' 
 me. I found that he wanted work, and that he had 
 been assisted "by some society in Philadelphia. He 
 said he was lame, and he might be a little, perhaps. 
 / offered him worh at once. No : he wanted to have 
 the care of a farm ! " Go," said I, for shame, and 
 ask some farmers for work. You will find it imme- 
 diately, and with good wages. What should the peo- 
 ple in this country see in your face to induce them to 
 keep you in idleness } They did not send for you. 
 You are a young man, and you come from a country of 
 able labourers. You may be rich if you will work. 
 This gentleman who is now about to cram you with 
 roast beef and plum pudding came to this city nearly 
 as poor as you are ; and, I first came to this country in 
 no better plight. Work, and I wish you well ; be 
 idle and you ought to starve." He told me, then, that 
 lie was a hoop-maker ; and yet, observe, he wanted to 
 have the care of a farm. N.B. If this book {Years 
 Residence in America,) should ever reach the hands 
 of Mr. Richard Hinxman, my excellent good friend 
 of Chilling, I beg him to show this note to Mr. 
 Nicholas Freemantle, of Botley. He will know 
 well all about this Vere. Tell Mr. Freemantle, 
 that the Spaniels are beautiful, that Woodcocks breed 
 here in abundance ; and tell him, above all, that I 
 frequently think of him as a pattern of industry in 
 business^ of skill and perseverance and good humour 
 as a sportsman, and of honesty and kindness as a neigh- 
 
WM. CUBBETT, ESQ. 107 
 
 bour. Indeed, I have pleasure of thinking of all my 
 Botley neighbours, except the Parson, who, for their 
 sakes, I wish, however, was my neighbour now ; for 
 here he might pursue his calling very quietly. 9. Thaw. 
 Dry and fine. Took leave, I fear for ever, of my old 
 and kind friend, James Paul. His brother and son 
 promised to come and see me here. I have pledged 
 myself to transplant ten acres of Indian corn ; and, if 
 I write, in August, and say that it is good, Thomas 
 Paul has promised that he will come ; for he thinks 
 that the scheme is a mad one. 10. Same weather. — 
 Mr. Varee, a son-in-law of IMr. James Paul, brought 
 me yesterday to another son-in-law's, Mr. Ezra Tuwns- 
 HEND, at Bibery- Here I am amongst the thick of 
 the Quakers, whose houses and families pleased me so 
 much formerly, and which pleasure is all now revived. 
 Here all is ease, plenty and cheerfulness. These peo- 
 ple are never giggling, and never in low-spirits. Their 
 kindness is shown more in acts than in words. Let 
 others say what they will, I have uniformly found 
 those whom I have intimately known of this sect, 
 sincere and upright men ; and I verily believe, that 
 all those charges of hypocrisy and craft, that we hear 
 against Quakers, arise from a feeling of envy ; envy 
 inspired by seeing them possessed of such abundance 
 of all those things, which are the fair fruits of care, 
 industry, economy, sobriety and order, and which are 
 justly forbidden to the drunkard, the glutton, the 
 prodigal, and the lazy. As the day of my coming to 
 
108 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Mr. Townshend's had been announced beforehand, 
 several of the young men, who were babies when I 
 used to be there formerly, came to see " Billy Cob- 
 BETT," of whom they had heard and read so much. 
 When I saw them and heard them, " what a contrast," 
 said I to myself, " with the senseless, gaudy, upstart, 
 hectoring, insolent, and cruel Yeomanry Cavalry in 
 England, who, while they grind their labourers into 
 the revolt of starvation, gallantly sally forth with their 
 sabres, to chop them down at the command of a Secre- 
 tary of State ; and, who, the next moment, creep and 
 fawn like spaniels before theii" Boroughmonger Land- 
 lords ! At Mr. Townshend's I saw a man in his 
 service, lately from Yorkshire, but an Irishman by 
 birth. He had read many of my ^' little books." I 
 shook him by the hand, told him he had now got a good 
 house over his head and a kind employer, and advised 
 him not to move for one year, and to save his wages 
 during that year. 11. Same open weather. — I am now 
 at Trenton, in New Jersey, waiting for something to 
 carry me on towards New York, Yesterday, Mr. 
 TowNSHEND sent me on, under an escort of Quakers, 
 to Mr. Anthony Taylor's. He was formerly a merchant 
 in Philadelphia, and now lives in his very pretty coun- 
 try house, on a very beautiful farm. He has some as 
 fine and fat oxen as we generally see at Smithfield 
 market in London. I think they will weigh sixty score 
 each. Fine farm yard. Every thing belonging to the 
 farm 'joo^, but ^vhat a neglectful gardener! Saw 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 109 
 
 some white thorns here (brought from England) which, 
 if I had wanted any proof, would have clearly proved 
 to me, that they would, with less care, make as good 
 hedges here as they do at Farnham in Surrey. Here 
 my escort quitted me ; but, luckily, Mr. Newbold, 
 who lives about ten miles nearer Trenton than Mr. 
 Taylor does, brought me on to his house. He is a 
 much better gardener, or, rather, to speak the truth, 
 has succeeded a better, whose example he has followed 
 in part. But his farm yard and buildings ! This was 
 a sight indeed ! Forty head of horned cattle in a yard, 
 enclosed with a stone wall ; and five hundred JMerino 
 ewes, besides young lambs, in the finest, most spacious, 
 best contrived, and most substantially built sheds I 
 ever saw. The barn surpassed all that I had seen 
 before. His house (large, commodious, and handsome) 
 stands about two hundred yards from the Turnpike- 
 road, leading from Philadelphia to New York, and 
 looks on and over the Delaware, which runs parallel 
 with the road, and has surrounded it. and at the back 
 of it, five hundred acres of land, level as a lawn, and 
 two feet deep in loam, that never requires a water- 
 furrow. This was the finest sight that I ever saw as 
 to farm -buildings and land. 1 forgot to observe, that 
 I saw in Mr. Taylor's service, another man recently 
 arrived from England. A Yorkshire man. He too 
 wished to see me. He had got some of my " little 
 hooks" which he had preserved and brought out with 
 him. Mr. Taylor was much pleased with bim : an 
 
110 MKMOIRS OF 
 
 active, servant man ; and, if he follow my advice, to 
 remain a year under one roof, and save his wages, he 
 Tvill, in a few years be a rich man. These men must 
 be brutes indeed not to be sensible of the great kind- 
 ness and gentleness and liberality, with which they 
 are treated. Mr. Taylor came this morning to Mr. 
 Newbold's, and brought me on to Trenton. I am at 
 the stage-tavern, where I have just dined upon cold 
 ham, cold veal, butter and cheese, and a peach -pye ; 
 nice clean room, well furnished, waiter clean and 
 attentive, plenty of milk ; and charge a quarter of a 
 dollar ! I thought, that Mrs. Joslin at Princes-town, 
 (as I went on to Philadelphia,) Mrs. Beuler at Har- 
 risburgh, Mr. Slaymaker at Lancaster, and Mrs. 
 M'AUister, were low enough in all conscience; but, 
 really, this charge of Mrs. Anderson beats all. I had 
 not the face to pay the waiter a quarter of a dollar ; 
 but gave him half a dollar, and told him to keep the 
 change. He is a black man. He thanked me. But 
 they never ask for anything. But, my vehicle is come, 
 and now I bid adieu to Trenton, which I should have 
 liked better, if I had not seen so many young fellows 
 lounging about the streets, and leaning against door- 
 posts, with quids of tobacco in their mouths, or segars 
 stuck between their lips, and with dirty hands and 
 faces. 
 
 Brufiswick, J\'\iv Jersey. — Here I am, after a ride 
 of about 30 miles, since two o'clock, in what is called 
 a Jersey waggon, through such ;;??/r/ as I never saw 
 
ATM. COBBETT, ESQ. Hi 
 
 before. Up to the stock of the wheel ; and yet a pair 
 
 of very little horses have dragged us through it in the 
 
 space Qi Jive hours. The best horses and driver, and 
 
 the worst roads I ever set my eyes on. This part of 
 
 Jersey is a sad spectacle, after leaving the brightest 
 
 of all the bright parts of Pennsylvania. My driver, 
 
 who is a tavern -keeper himself, would have been a 
 
 very pleasant companion, if he had not drunk so much 
 
 spirits on the road. This is the great misfortune of 
 
 America ! As we were going up a hill very slowly, I 
 
 could perceive him looking very hard at my cheek for 
 
 some time. At last, he said : — " I am wondering. Sir, 
 
 to see you look so fresh and so young, considering 
 
 what you have gone through in the world ;" though I 
 
 cannot imagine how he had learnt who I was. " I'll 
 
 tell you," said I, " how I have contrived the thing. 
 
 I rise early, go to bed early, eat sparingly, never drink 
 
 anything stronger than small beer, shave once a day, 
 
 and wash my hands and face clean three times a day, 
 
 at the very least." He said that was too much to think 
 
 of doing. 12. Warm and fair. Like an English Jirst 
 
 of May in point of warmth. I got to Elizabeth Town 
 
 Point through beds of mud. Twenty minutes too late 
 
 for the steam-boat. Have to wait here at the tavern 
 
 till to-morrow. Great mortification. Supped with a 
 
 Connecticut farmer who was taking on his daughter to 
 
 Little York, in Pennsylvania. The rest of his family 
 
 he took on in the fall. He has migrated. His reasons 
 
 were these ; he has five sons, the eldest 19 years of 
 L2 
 
1 12 ilEMOmS OF . 
 
 age, and several daughters. Connecticut is thickly 
 settled. He has not the means to buy farms for the 
 sons there. He, therefore, goes and gets cheap land 
 in Pennsylvania ; his sons will assist him to clear it ; 
 and, thus, they will have a farm each. To a man in 
 such circumstances, and " born with an axe in one 
 hand, and a gun in the other," the western countries 
 are desirable ; but not to English farmers, who have 
 great skill in fine cultivation, and who can purchase 
 near New York or Philadelphia. This Yankee (the 
 inhabitants of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachus- 
 etts and New Hampshire, only, are called Ycmkees) 
 was about the age of Sir Francis Burdett, and, if 
 he had been dressed in the usual clothes of Sir Francis, 
 would have passed for him. Features, hair, eyes, 
 height, make, manner, look, hasty utterance at times, 
 musical voice, frank deportment, pleasant smile. All 
 the very facsimile of him. I had some early York 
 cabbage-seed and some cauliflower-seed in my pocket, 
 which had been sent me from London, in a letter, and 
 which had reached me at Harrisburgh. I could not 
 help giving him a little of each. 13. Same weather. 
 A fine open day. Rather a cold May-day for England. 
 Came to New York by the steam-boat. Over to this 
 island by another, took a little light waggon, that 
 wisked me hoE&e over roads as dry and as smooth as 
 gravel walks in an English Bishop's garden in the 
 month of July. Great contrast with the bottomless 
 muds of New Jersev. As I came along, saw those 
 
. AVM. COBBKTT, :ESQ, 113 
 
 fields of rye, which were so green in December, now 
 white. Not a single sprig of green on the face of the 
 earth. Found that my man had ploughed ten acres of 
 ground. The frost not quite clean out of the ground. 
 It has penetrated two feet eight inches. The weather 
 here has been nearly about the same as in Pennsylvania; 
 only less snow and less rain. 15. Open weather. Very 
 fine. Young chickens, I hear of no other in the 
 neighbourhood. This is the effect of my warm fowl- 
 house ! The house has been supplied with eggs all 
 the tvinter, without any interruption. I am toldj that 
 this has been the case at no other house hereabouts. 
 We have noiv an abundance of eggs. JMore than a 
 large family can consume. We send some to market. 
 The fowls, I find, have wanted no feeding except 
 during the snow, or in the very, very cold days, m hen 
 they did not come out of their house all the day. A 
 certain proof that they like the warmth. 21. Same 
 weather. The day like a fine May-day in England. 
 I am writing without fire, and in my waistcoat with- 
 out coat. 33. i\iild and fine. A sow had a litter of 
 pigs in the leaves under the trees. Judge of the weather 
 by this. The wind blows cold ; but she has drawn 
 together great heaps of leaves, and protects her 
 young ones with surprising sagacity and exemplary 
 care and fondness. 26. Very cold wind. We try to 
 get the sow and pigs into the buildings. But the pigs 
 do not follow and we cannot, with all our temptations 
 of corn and our caresses, get the sow to move without 
 
I 14 lilEMOIKS OF 
 
 them by lier side. She must remain 'till Ihey elioose 
 to travel. Kow does nature, through the conduct of 
 this animal, reproach those mothers, who cast off their 
 new-born infants to depend on a hireling's breast ! 
 Let every young man, before he marry, read, upon 
 this subject, the pretty poem of Mr. Roscoe, called 
 "" the nurse ;" and, let them also read, on the same 
 subject, the eloquent, beautiful, and soul-affecting 
 ]>asssge, in Rosseau's " Emile." 31. Fine warm day. 
 As the whiter is now gone, let us take a look back at 
 its inconveniences compared 'v^ith those of an English 
 winter. We have had three months of it ; for, if we 
 had a few sharp days in December, we liave had many 
 very tine and frithor/t fire in March. In England, 
 winter really begins in November, and does not end 
 till Mid-March. Here we have greater cold ; there 
 four times as much wet. I have had my great coat on 
 only twice, except when sitting in a stage, travelling. 
 I have had gloves on no oftener , for, I do not, like 
 the clerks of the House of Boroughmongers, v-rite in 
 gloves. I seldom meet a waggoner with gloves or 
 great coat on. It is generally so dry. This is the 
 great friend of man and beast. Last summer I wrote 
 }i'>me for nails to nail my shoes for winter. I could 
 Snd none here. What a foolish people not to have 
 shoe-nails ! I forgot, that it was likely, that the ab- 
 sence of sboe-iiails argued an absence of the want of 
 them. The nails are not come; and I have not wanted 
 them. There is no dirt, except for about ten days at 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 115 
 
 the breaking up of the fpost. The dress of a labourer 
 does not cost half so much as in England. This dry- 
 ness is singularly favourable to all animals. They 
 are hurt far less by dry cold, than by warm drip, drip, 
 drip, as it is in England. There has been nothing 
 green in the garden, that is to say, above ground , 
 since December : but we have had, all vi^inter, and 
 have now, white cabbages, green savoys, parsnips, 
 carrots, beets, young onions, radishes, white turnips, 
 Swedish turnips, and potatoes ; and all these in abun^ 
 dance (except radishes, which were a few to try,) and 
 always at hand at a minute's warning. The modes of 
 preserving will be given in another part of the work. 
 What can any body want more than these things in 
 the garden way.^ However, it would be very easy 
 to add to the catalogue. Apples, quinces, cherries, 
 currant?, peaches, dried in the summer, and ex- 
 cellent for tarts and pies. Apples in their raw 
 stale, as many as we please. My own stock being 
 gone, I have trucked turnips for apples ; and shall 
 thus have them, if I please, 'till apples come again on 
 the trees. I give two bushels and a half of Swedish 
 turnips for one of apples : and, indeed, this is on the 
 last day of March. I have here stated facts whereby 
 to judge of the winter. 
 
 April 5. Rain all day. Our cistern and pool full. 
 7. Warm, but no sun. My first spring operations in 
 gardening are now going on. 10. Fair, but cold. It 
 rained but yesterday, and we are to-day feeding sheep 
 
116 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and lambs with grain of corn, and with oats, upon the 
 groimd in the orchard. Judge, then, of the cleanness 
 and convenience of their soil ! 19. Cold and raw, with 
 an easterly wind. Just such a wind as that, which, 
 in March, brushes round the corners of the streets of 
 London, and makes the old, u:uffled-up debauchees 
 hurry home with aching joints. Some hail to-day. 20. 
 Same weather, just the weather to give drunkards 
 the " blue devils." 24> Warm night, warm and fair 
 day. And here I close my journal ; for, I am in haste 
 to get my manuscript away ; and there now wants only 
 ten days to complete the year. 
 
 The above copious extract from Mr. Cobbett's 
 Journal of his Years Residence in America will give 
 a pretty tolerable account of the industrious manner 
 in which he passed his time. It must be remembered, 
 also, that he wrote a Register every week during the 
 whole of his stay in America, and forwarded it to 
 England to be published ; beside many other matters 
 of the most importance, and which he could not neg- 
 lect. 
 
 One morning in the summer of 1817, Mr. Cobbett 
 was visited by a Mr. Fearon ; this man went into the 
 hall and introduced himself. (It is necessary to relate 
 this incident because this very person, soon after 
 coming back to England published a book on America, 
 containing some very dirty and false remarks con- 
 cerning Mr. Cobbett.) He breakfasted with Mr. Cob- 
 bett : told them an odd story about having slept in a 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 117 
 
 black woman's hut for sixpence;, though there are ex- 
 cellent taverns at every two miles along the road. He 
 told them, besides, something about his being an 
 envoy from a host of families in London, to look out 
 for a place of settlement in America ; but he took 
 special care not to name any one of those families, 
 though Mr. Cobbett asked him to do it. At first, they 
 took him to be a sort of spy. Mr. William Cobbett 
 took him for a shop-keeper's clerk ; Mr. Cobbett took 
 him for a tailor ; for he observed that he carried his 
 elbow close to his sides, and his arms, below the elbow, 
 in a horizontal position. It came out that he had been 
 with Buchanan, Castlereagh's Consul at New York. 
 He asked some very silly questions about the prices of 
 land, cattle, and other things, which were answered 
 very shortly. He then asked Mr. Cobbett's advice 
 about the families emigrating ; the answer was this : — 
 *' Every thing I can say, in such a case, is to discour- 
 age the enterprize. If Englishmen come here, let 
 them come individually, and sit down amongst the 
 natives: no other plan is rational." 
 
 Some time after this Mr. Cobbett heard that this 
 man spent his time, or great part of it, in New York, 
 amongst the idle and dissolute young Englishmen, 
 whose business and extravagance had put them in a 
 state to make them unnoticed by respectable people. 
 A pretty fellow, to be sure to write a description of 
 America. What could such a man know about Ame-, 
 rica ? He kept no house ; he had no being in any 
 
118 Ml; Mollis OF 
 
 neighbourhood ; he never had any circle of acquain- 
 tances amongst the people; he never vras a guest 
 under any of their roofs ; he knew nothing of their 
 manners^ or their characters ; 3 et this very man had 
 written a book abusing America and Americans in 
 the grossest manner. But here is the rub : — it is Mr. 
 Fearon's account of his visit to Mr. Cobbett^ exactly 
 in the following words : — " A Visit to Mr, Cobheit. — 
 Upon arriving at Mr. Cobbett's gate, my feelings, in 
 walking along the path which led to the residence of 
 this celebrated man are difficult to describe. The 
 idea of a person self-banished, leading an isolated 
 life in a foreign land ; a path rarely trod, fences in 
 ruins, the gate broken^ a house mouldering to decay y 
 added to much awkwardness of feeling on my part, 
 calling upon an entire stranger, produced in my mind 
 feelings of thoughtfulness and melancholy. I would 
 fain almost have returned without entering the wooden 
 mansion, imagining that its possessor would exclaim, 
 ' What intruding fellow is here coming to break in 
 upon my pursuits V But these difficulties ceased 
 almost with their existence. A female servant (an 
 English woman) informed me that her master was 
 from home, attending at the county court. Her Ian- 
 guage was natural enough for a person in her situation ; 
 she pressed me to walk in, being quite certain that 
 I was her countryman ; and she was so delighted to 
 see an Englishman, instead of those nasty guessing 
 Yankees. Following my guide through the kitchen, 
 
TTM. COBBETT, KSQ. 119 
 
 the floor of which, she asserted, was inbedded with two 
 feet of dirt when Mr. Cobbett came there — (it had been 
 previously in the occupation of Americans J I was con- 
 ducted to a front parlour, which contained but a single 
 chair and several trunks of sea-clothes. Mr. Cobbett's 
 first question on seeing me was, ' Are you an American, 
 Sir }' then, what are my objects in the United States.? 
 Was I acquainted with the friends of liberty in Lon- 
 don ? How long had I left }' &c. He was immediately 
 familiar. I was pleasingly disappointed with the 
 general tone of his mannejrs. Mr. Cobbett thinks meanly 
 of the American people, but spoke highly of the consti- 
 tution of their government. He does not advise persons 
 in respectable circumstances to emigrate, even in the pre- 
 sent state of England. In his opinion a family who 
 can barely live upon their property, will more consult 
 their happiness by not removing to the United States. 
 He almost laughs at Mr. Birkbeck's settling in the west- 
 ern country. This being the first time I had seen this 
 well-known character, I viewed him with no ordinary 
 degree of interest. A print by Bartolozzi, executed 
 in 1801, conveys a correct outline of his person. His 
 eyes are small, and pleasingly good-natured. To a 
 French gentleman present, he was attentive ; with his 
 sons familiar ; to his servants, easy, but to all, in his 
 tone and manner, resolute and determined. He feels 
 no hesitation in praising himself, and evidently believes 
 that he is eventually destined to he the Atlas of the 
 British nation. His faculty in relatin^r anecdotes is 
 
120 MEMOIRS or 
 
 amusing. Instances when we meet. My impres- 
 sions of jMr. Cobbett are, that those who know him 
 would like him if they can be content to submit uncon-i 
 ditionally to his dictation. ' Obey me and I will treat 
 you kindly j if you do not I will trample on you/ 
 seemed visible in every word and feature. He appears 
 to feel, in its fullest force the sentiment, 
 
 * I have no brother, am like no brother : 
 
 * I am myself alone." 
 
 Nearly every sentence of the above paragraph is 
 false. What an ungrateful fellow, after the kind re- 
 ception he met with at Mr. Cobbett's house. To prove 
 that this hireling's account of " A Visit to Mr. Cob- 
 bett" is untrue, the " English-woman" shall speak for 
 herself: 
 
 " I remember, that, about a week after I came to 
 Hyde Park, in 1817, a man came to the house in the 
 evening, when Mr. Cobbett was out, and that he 
 came again next morning. I never knew or asked 
 what countryman he was. He came to the ' back 
 door. I first gave him a chair in the back-room ; but, 
 as he was a slippery-looking young man, and as it was 
 growing late, my husband thought it was best to bring 
 him down into the kitchen, where he staid till he went 
 away. I had no talk with him. I could not know 
 what condition Mr. Cobbett found the house in, for I 
 did not come here 'till the middle of August. I never 
 heard whether the gentleman that lived here before 
 
TTM. COBBETT, ESQ. 121 
 
 Mr. Cobbett, was an American^ or not. I never in my 
 life said a word against the people or the country : I 
 am very glad I came to it ; I am doing very well in it ; 
 and have found as good and kind friends amongst the 
 Americans, as I ever had in all my life. 
 
 Mary Ann Churcher. 
 Hyde Park, Sih January, 1819. 
 Mrs. Churcher (]\Ir. Cobbett's servant at that time) 
 said he looked like an Exciseman, and her husband 
 exclaimed ; — " Why, you fool, they . don't have any 
 Exciseman and such fellows here." INIr. Cobbett never 
 was at a county court in America in his life. He was 
 out shooting at the time. As to the house, he never 
 entered a better. The path, so far from being track- 
 less was as beaten as the highway. A gentleman of 
 the name of Crow, an Englishman, lived there before 
 Mr. Cobbett. But only think of dirt two feet deep, 
 in a kitchen ! All is false. The house was built by 
 Judge Ludlow. It is large, and very sound and com- 
 modious. The avenues before it, at that time, were 
 most beautiful. The orchard, the fine shade and fine 
 grass all about the house, made the whole a subject 
 worthy of admiration. A hearty, unostentatious wel- 
 come from Mr. Cobbett and his sons. A breakfast 
 such, probably, as the fellow has never had since. The 
 man was not in the house half an hour in the morning. 
 Judge, then what he could know of the manners and 
 character of Mr. Cobbett. However, his attempt to 
 injure Mr. Cobbett, like all other attempts of the 
 
 M 
 
122 MEMOIllS OF 
 
 same description failed to have tlie desired eft'ect. 
 We have now come to the period of Mr. Cobbett's 
 difference with Sir F. Burdett. On the 13th of Sept. 
 1817:, he wrote a Letter from Long Island on the ex- 
 traordinary conduct of Sir Francis, during the prece- 
 ding winter. But, to give the whole history of this 
 " strange piece of inconsistency " as it has been termed 
 we must begin at the beginning. Mr Cobbett's impri- 
 sonment, which ended in 1812 ; peace following close 
 at the heels of this imprisonment ; giving up the pro- 
 prietorship of the Register, in order to screen himself, 
 caused him to determine on selling his land, and every 
 thing else ; and on beginning the world afresh. This 
 determination he communicated to Sir Frauds. A 
 Mr. Bosville, knowing his state, lent him, and finally 
 gave him a thousand pounds, and he proposed to 
 Burdett, that he should give him two thousand 
 pounds, to which Sir Francis assented. While they 
 were talking about this, the affair about the child and 
 the lady came out ; and Mr. Cobbett heard Burdett's 
 explanation. On a Sunday, while this really miserable 
 story was circulating in the papers, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Millard, then straw-hat manufacturers in the Strand, 
 went to see Mr. Cobbett and his wife, who was then 
 with him in Newgate. Mrs. Millard asked Mr. Cob- 
 bett what was '^ this story about Sir Francis Burdett 
 and the child," and how he came first to give and then 
 to demand back the money. The matter was ex- 
 plained. When the lady went away his wife went to 
 
 W^SS^-.<i~;v 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 123 
 
 the room door with her, and having shut it very gently 
 and very close, she took her husband by the hand, 
 and looked him very seriously in the face — saying 
 ' My dear Billy, pray never tell that story again'' 
 This, and the manner of saying it, made IMr. Cobbett 
 ashamed; and it made him resolve to take nothing 
 from " generous" Burdett in the way of gift. He 
 was, at that time, at the prison almost daily, and did 
 Mr. Cobbett the honour to dine with him four or five 
 days in the week. He never positively asked Cob- 
 bett to write in his defence on that account ; and the 
 £2000 was at last presented to him in the way of loan, 
 for which Mr. Cobbett gave him a regular bond, which 
 cost hiijn £4, and sent it to him filled up by himself, 
 in order, as Sir Francis requested, that nobody might 
 know anything about the matter, but their two selves ! 
 The next time he visited Mr. Cobbett, he took it out 
 of his pocket, and said '^ Think nothing of this, Cob- 
 bett ; it shall never rise in judgment against you.'» 
 Mr, Cobbett thanked him, but said he hoped to be 
 able duly to pay it. 
 
 Amongst his creditors was, a Mr. James Swann, 
 of Ensham, near Oxford, a paper-maker, and a most 
 worthy man. Burdett, in those his democratic days, 
 had, through IMr. Cobbett or Wright, his clerk, become 
 acquainted with Mr. Swann, and had visited him at 
 his house in Oxfordshire. He knew of IMr. Cobbett's 
 debt to IMr. Swann, and was told that the £2,000 was 
 wanted for him. When he gave Mr. Cobbett the 
 M2 
 
124 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 check on old Coutts, the banker, he handed it to 
 SwANN ; Swann went and got the money^ and placed 
 it to his credit. 
 
 The £700 the generous soul lent him early in 
 1816, at the time when he proposed to sell all off and 
 pay him, went to pay some debt. The £300 was a 
 curious affair. It had been got from Sir Francis by 
 Wright, in the winter or spring of 1810 ; and Burdett, 
 in 1812, brought it against Mr. Cobbett. With this 
 Wright, Mr. Cobbett had a long account to settle. 
 An arbitration was held in Newgate ; Mr. Cooke, of 
 Lincoln's Inn, was the arbitrator. Burdett, on his 
 oathf declared, that he lent the money to Wright for 
 jMr. Cobbett, which Wright denied. However, in 
 consequence of the oath, the arbitrator decided, that 
 the money was due from Mr. Cobbett to Burdett, 
 but that, of course, Wright had to pay him the money. 
 It was a promissory note given by Wright to Burdett 
 without any mention of Mr. Cobbett. Amidst the 
 confusion attending his flight to Long Island, this 
 note given up to him by Burdett, was mislaid ; but 
 having found it there, it was sent home to Mr. White, 
 solicitor, Essex-street, Strand, to get Burdett to 
 endorse it, to get the money from Wright, a^id to pay 
 it to Burdett. But Burdett having got the note, never 
 returned it to Mr. White ; and lawyer Scarlett in the 
 libel trial of Wright versus Cobbett, in 1820, (Bur- 
 dett sitting in court), said that the note was cancelled. 
 
 This Wright published Mr. Cobbett's private let- 
 
WM, COBBETT, ESQ. 125 
 
 ters (of which we shall say more by and bye) to serve 
 Burdett in his election of 1818, and brought a whole 
 bundle of them into court in 1820. 
 
 Now, mark, this money was lent by generous Bur- 
 dett to Wright at the time when Burdett was writing 
 his tower -pamphlet. One Howell, a little lawyer, 
 whom ]\Ir. Cobbett was employing on the State Trials, 
 furnished the Statesman with his laiv ; Wright con- 
 tributed the greater part of the literary talent. The 
 great affair was shown to IMr, Cobbett, who, finding it 
 so monstrously dull and pointless, proposed the putting 
 of an introduction to it. At the legislator's request 
 Mr. Cobbett wrote that part, and this work brought 
 Sir Francis to the Tower. How he got out of the 
 To^ver, all the world knows. 
 
 Between 1809 and 1815, . both inclusive, Mr. 
 Cobbett had performed not less than a hundred jour- 
 nies from Botley to London and back, for no other 
 purpose than that of assisting and upholding Sir 
 Francis ; each journey costing him (always in post- 
 chaise) about eleven or twelve pounds; for at his house, 
 Mr. Cobbett never ate or drank but twice in all his ' 
 life, and never but once, out of hundreds of times, 
 saw any part of his family, though he fed so many, 
 many times at Mr. Cobbett's table in Newgate. Mr. 
 Cobbett subscribed £20 in his own name towards his 
 first election for Westminster, and £50 in five other 
 names, besides writing placards and hand-bills and 
 addresses. It cost iNlr. Cobbett many i^ums for hust- 
 M 2 
 
1 26 MEMOIRS or 
 
 iiigs, besides writing his speeches, and the resolutions 
 and petitions. It was in fact, what ]\Ir. Cobbett had 
 done in support of him that enraged the government^ 
 and that was the real cause of the ruinous sentence ; 
 for they knew that without Mr. Cobbett Sir Francis 
 would be nothing. But when he had got into the Tower 
 what did JNIr. Cobbett do } Did he desert him } and 
 he had none of his money then, at any rate. Mr. 
 Cobbett came to London on purpose to uphold him. 
 His Westminster Committee met to consider of what 
 should be done. They had resolved to abandon him ; 
 and, before they separated, Mr. Cobbett, along with a 
 friend, prevailed on them to present to him an address 
 full of praise of his conduct, which address Mr. Cob- 
 bett drew up, this brought others in the same strain 
 from all parts of the kingdom. It would require a 
 good large volume to contain the facts that Mr. Cob- 
 bett collected for him, the notes that he made for his 
 speeches ; the various things that he wrote to uphold 
 him. Two particularly we shall mention. His sensi- 
 ble speech on the currency, Mr. Cobbett wrote out for 
 him,, and then published it and praised it as his, which 
 was, indeed Mr. Cobbett's constant practice. In 1812, 
 he moved the answer to the King's Speech, or rather, the 
 Kegent's ; and made a long speech, which brought 
 plaudits from every part of the country. Mr. Cobbett 
 wrote the answer and the speech ; and the former was 
 copied by Burdett's own daughter, that Mr. Cobbett's 
 liand might not appear, and that the secret should not 
 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 127 
 
 become public. Nay, these were published in a pamph- 
 let, by subscription, and Mr. Cobbett himself ivas the 
 greatest subscriber. These are things, indeed, which 
 Mr. Cobbett would scorn to have related, under any 
 other circumstances. It seems that Sir Francis Bur- 
 dett left nothing undone that he thought had a ten- 
 dency to injure Mr. Cobbett. He wrote Sir Francis 
 a letter from America, containing an assertion, that a 
 man, against whom ruinous laws had been singly 
 pointed, was, by the law of nations, exonerated from 
 obligations by which men, not so singled out, were 
 bound ; but, at the same time, saying, that he would 
 not avail himself of that principle, but would pay 
 every one as fast as he could earn the money. Sir 
 Francis kept the letter out of sight, published an 
 answer to it, misrepresenting its meaning. Mr. Cob- 
 bett sent a copy of the same letter to Mr. Timothy 
 Brown, to whom he owed a good deal. Did he cavil 
 at it? No! He hastened to Mr. Cobbett on his 
 arrival in London, though then bandaged up for the 
 gout ; took him to his house ; and brought on his 
 bankruptcy in the most friendly manner. He wrote 
 the same letter to Mr. Tipper, a paper-maker, to whom 
 he really owed £3,000, and with whom he was but 
 very slenderly acquainted. Without a farthing of 
 dividend (for he had not a penny) he signed his cer- 
 tificate at the first possible moment ; and he actually 
 gave Mr. Cobbett a pound note and a few shillings, 
 that he might, for form's sake, have something to sur- 
 
128 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 render to the commissioners : and in justice to those 
 commissioners it must be said, that they, seeing a great 
 crowd in Guildhall, staring at Mr. Cobbett, behaved 
 towards him in a manner that showed the best of feel- 
 ings ; put no questions to him, dismissed him in a 
 minute, and very kindly shook him by the hand when 
 he went away. 
 
 Every one, even the bitterest political enemy ; 
 every one felt, but Burdett. The Old Lord Chan- 
 cellor, though he had advocated the bills that had 
 ruined him, signed his certificate out of rule : — " It is 
 too late," said the officer : " his Lordship will not sign 
 any more until such a day." Mr. Cobbett wrote his 
 name upon a bit of paper, and begged him just to 
 show it the Chancellor. When he came out, he smiled 
 with surprise, and said, " His Lordship will sign it." 
 Every soul but that of the envious Burdett was soft- 
 ened. He knew that as soon as Mr. Cobbett arrived 
 in America, he should expose first his urging on, and 
 then his abandonment of, the Reformers, in February, 
 1817 ; and, therefore, the moment Mr. Cobbett was 
 gone he put forth the story of the £3,000 with the 
 view of blunting the expected attack ; and, in 1818, 
 he put forth his answer to Mr. Cobbett's letter in the 
 hope of making him so odious as to prevent him from 
 ever seeing England again. Here were the real 
 motives, and from first to last his conduct towards 
 Mr. Cobbett has been without a parallel. But, com- 
 pared with his conduct at Mr. Cobbett's flight from 
 
WM. GOBBETT, ESQ. 1*29 
 
 the dungeons, all the rest sinks into nothingness. 
 There was iVIrs. Cobbett with her daughters, two of 
 them very small, in a lodging in London, the mother 
 ready to be confined, and the newspapers had told him 
 that the bailiffs had put them out of the house in 
 which some of them had been born, and in which they 
 had all been so happy ! There she was, her husband 
 and two sons on the seas, and she about to encounter 
 the perils of child-birth, always great to her ; and this 
 was the moment that Burdett, with all the servile 
 press at his nod, chose to stab her to the heart by 
 publicly proclaiming her husband to be a fraudulent 
 man, that had run off with a parcel of his money ! 
 However she was consoled by the most kind and atten- 
 tive conduct of Lord and Lady Radnor, who, as soon 
 as they found out the lodging, visited, and upheld 
 her ; an act which imprinted gratitude on the hearts 
 of the whole family. 
 
 One of his objects, even from his first knowing 
 'Mr. Cobbett, was to keep him out of Parliament. 
 Mr. Cobbett always knew this ; but he held him up, 
 because he was in Parliament, and Mr. Cobbett was 
 not ; and because he preferred the good that he hoped 
 to do through Sir Francis » to the doing of no good at 
 all. Therefore, he upheld him, while he despised his 
 niggardliness and selfish ambition. 
 
 In 1810, when he had come out of the Tower he 
 would have quitted politics altogether if Mr. Cobbett 
 would have done it. Sir Francis made an attempt to 
 
130 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 do this by telling him, that Lord Thanet had^, when 
 he visited him in the Tower, said, " When I quitted 
 this place, Burdett, I went to my farm, and i/ou will 
 do ike same ; and, added Burdett, " I ivoukl do it, 
 CoBBETT, ij' you would." The proposal on the part 
 of Mr. Cobbett was treated with ridicule. 
 
 Sir Francis volunteered his offer to subscribe to- ' 
 wards Mr. Cobbett's election, in 1824. Seeing a 
 determination on the part of the people to send Mr. 
 Cobbett to Parliament, he was afraid he would make 
 a stand for Westminster ; he wrote to Richard Guniey 
 of Norwich, authorising him to say, that he (Burdett) 
 would subscribe £500, and that he did not care who 
 knew it. Gurney read this letter to some gentlemen 
 very intimate with Mr. Cobbett, and who, as was very 
 natural, besought Mr. Cobbett to let Sir Francis alone, 
 and the affair dropped. 
 
 In 1826, the general election came, (and along 
 with it the panic) a subscription was set on foot to 
 return IMr. Cobbett, and the contest at Preston follow- 
 ed. And what did Sir Francis do ? He now wrote 
 to Colonel Johnstone, to say, that he would subscribe 
 towards obtaining Mr. Cobbett a seat. He afterwards 
 verbally promised him that he would do it ; but seeing 
 Mr. Cobbett sticking at Preston ; seeing Wesimifister 
 safe, he never subscribed a farthing ! People must 
 now judge for themselves.* 
 
 * The following circumstance, relative to the conduct of 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 131 
 
 We shall now turn to the doings at the West- 
 minster Election in 1818. Previous to the election, a 
 meeting of the Electors of Westminster was held for 
 the purpose of calling upon some proper person to 
 become a candidate to represent them in Parliament. 
 At this meeting the Electors exhibited a proof of their 
 
 Sir F. Burdett, will decide the character of the Baronet, though 
 every thing else should fail ; and will assist in proving that Mr. 
 Cobbett was not the only person that found fault with his con- 
 duct : — 
 
 It 13 well known that one of the celebrated Parodies for 
 which Mr. Hone was prosecuted, was sent by Sir Francis to him 
 for publication. Mr. Hone was dragged from his family and his 
 business, and immured in the King's Bench Prison for a very 
 considerable period. For several days he laid stretched on a 
 sick bed in this court, and exposed to the repeated ill-treatment 
 of the Judge. Sir Francis was well acquainted with all this, he 
 moreover knew the distressed situation in which Mr. Hone's 
 family were placed, and yet this humane friend of the oppressed 
 never even made the least inquiry after Mr. Hone, or whether 
 he could be any assistance in relieving him from the weight of 
 persecution. At length, the day of trial was fixed, and a more 
 wretched situation than that in which Mr. Hone was placed 
 cannot be conceived. "With a wife and family of seven or eight 
 children crowding around him, he had scarcely food to live on, 
 or a bed to lie on, and not a shilling that he could call his ovm. 
 That all doubt as to Sir Francis Burdett's knowledge of the 
 matter might be removed, a friend of Mr. H. ^vrote to him and 
 described his situation in the most affecting terms. To this no 
 answer was returned. But when Mr. Hone had defeated the 
 Harpies of the law, wlien there was applause to be gained by 
 appearing to patronize him — mark the difference ! So eager was 
 he to make himself popular by associating his name with a man 
 who had conquered the ministry, that he even condescended to 
 play the second fiddle on the occasion. 
 
 ; 
 
132 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 independence. It proved that they were neither to 
 be alarmed by clamour, or deluded by sophistry. The 
 virulent manner in which Mr. Hunt was treated at a 
 dinner, called Sir Francis Burdett's, only made the 
 electors more than ever determined to support him. 
 
 The following Resolution was proposed to the 
 meeting and carried unanimously : — " That it is the 
 opinion of the present meeting, that Henry Hunt, 
 Esq. from his known and openly declared attachment 
 to the principles of Annual Parliaments, and Universal 
 Suffrage, and from his undaunted firmness and active 
 zeal in supporting the Rights and Liberties of his 
 fellow-country men, is eminently deserving of the 
 proud and enviable distinction of being returned one 
 of the Representatives for this respectable and popu- 
 lous city." Immediately after this meeting Mr. Hunt 
 published an address to the Electors, thanking them 
 for the very flattering reception he experienced in 
 offering himself as a candidate ; and stated that his 
 course was plain and direct — that he disdained all sub- 
 terfuge or studied ornaments of speech — that he was 
 for universal suffrage and annual parliaments — and 
 that he was opposed to all laws that had a tendency 
 to curtail the liberties of the people, and oppress and 
 starve the poor. Now, this fearless beginning — this 
 earnest conduct of the Westminster Electors and Mr. 
 Hunt, made Sir Francis and his friends quake with 
 fear. They resorted to every means however false and 
 dishonourable to foil these attempts to return Mr. 
 
WAI. COBBETT, ESQ. 133 
 
 Hunt ; and other means resorted to at this crisis were 
 the cause of a difference which every good and honest 
 reformer has had sufficient cause to lament. We mean 
 the difference between Mr. Cobbett and Mr. Hunt. 
 We shall give the whole history of this affair from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 Mr. Hunt's first personal interview with Mr. 
 Cobbett was in the year 1805. The first time Mr. 
 Hunt went to London, he determined to call upon and 
 have an interview with a man who afforded him so 
 much pleasure by his writings, and who had given 
 him so much useful information as to politics and 
 political economy. Mr. Cobbett lived in Duke-street, 
 Westminster, where, on his arrival, Mr. Hunt sent 
 in his name. He was shown into a room unfurnished, 
 without even a chair in it. After waiting some time, 
 the great political writer appeared ; a tall robust man, 
 with a florid face, his hair cut quite close to his head, 
 and himself dressed in a blue coat and scarlet cloth 
 waistcoat. Mr. Hunt introduced himself as a gentle- 
 man from Wiltshire, who had taken a lead at the county 
 meeting, the particulars of which he had forwarded 
 to him. Mr. Cobbett addressed him very briefly, and 
 very humbly, saying that "■ we must persevere, and 
 we should bring all the scoundrels to justice." Mr. 
 Hunt was not asked to sit down ; but that might 
 have arisen from there being no other seat in the room 
 than the floor. 
 
 He de parted, not at all pleased with the interview. 
 M 
 
134 MEMOIRS 01 
 
 He had made up his mind for a very different sort of' 
 man ; and, indeed, he was very much disappointed 
 by his appearance and manners, and mortified at the 
 cool reception which he met with. He thought that 
 of all the men he ever saw, Mr. Cobbett was the 
 least likely for him to become enamoured of his society. 
 The result was, nevertheless, quite the reverse ; they 
 lived and acted together for many years with the most 
 perfect cordiality ; and there never were two men 
 that ever lived, that more sincerely, honestly, and 
 zealousy, advocated liberty than Mr. Hunt and IMr. 
 Cobbett. It was, however, some years after this in- 
 terview, before they became intimate. j 
 He was a constant reader of Cobbett's Register, 
 and although, as we have said before, he had been 
 rather disgusted with the man at his first interview 
 with him, yet he was quite enraptured with the beau- 
 tiful productions of his pen, dictated by his powerful 
 mind. 
 
 In the year 1808, Sir. Francis Burdett was 
 returned to Parliament by the electors of Westminster; 
 Mr. Hunt as well as Mr. Cobbett, was, at this time, 
 amongst the Baronet's most enthusiastic admirers. 
 This victory gave new life and spirits to the friends 
 of liberty all over the kingdom. Mr. Hunt proposed 
 a public dinner in Bristol, to celebrate the joyful 
 event. At this dinner a congratulatory address was 
 voted to Sir Francis Burdett, which Mr. Hunt, as 
 chairman, forwarded to him. Sir Francis returned a 
 
WM. COBBETT, KSQ. 135 
 
 very polite answer;, in which he professed to be very 
 highly flattered with the compliment they had paid 
 him at Bristol. Mr. Hunt sent copies of their pro- 
 ceedings to Mr. Cobbett, who lived at that time at 
 Botley, expressing a wish, if he approved of them, 
 that he would insert them in his Political Register ; 
 he however, neither inserted them nor returned any 
 answer ; but, as it since appeared, he wrote a letter 
 to Wright, who was a sort of hanger-on at the West- 
 minster Committee, which letter at the general election 
 in 1818, was read upon the hustings by one Cleary, 
 an attorney's clerk, or rather a pettifogging writer to 
 an attorney in Dublin. This person was hired by the 
 committee of Sir Francis Burdett to do his office, to 
 shew that IMr. Cobbett entertained a different opinion 
 of Mr. Hunt in the year 1808, before they were 
 acquainted with each other, from that which he enter- 
 tained of him in the year 1818, after he had known 
 him and had acted with him for a number of years. 
 
 In the memoirs of Hunt, written by himself in 
 the year 1820, we find that he really believed this 
 letter to be written by Mr. Cobbett, as will be seen 
 from the following observations, extracted from vol. 2: — 
 " What induced Mr. Cobbett to write this letter, or 
 what were his motives, are best known to himself. 
 But, the contents of the letter were as false, as the 
 style and language were gross, and the sentiments it 
 contained illiberal and unmanly. Mr. Cobbett had 
 at that time spoken to me but once ; and as I was 
 N 2 
 
136 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 never in the habit of flattering any one, or disguising 
 my opinions^ I can easily conceive that he had, from 
 this first interview^ formed personally as unfavourable 
 an opinion of me as I had of him. But he knew 
 nothing of me or my connections. All that he could 
 have known of me was, that I was a zealous advocate 
 of that cause which he then professed to espouse. 
 Therefore, what were his motives for writing this 
 letter must remain with himself. However, Mr. Jen- 
 nin'gs, and the gentlemen who then composed the West- 
 minster committee, treated his advice with that con- 
 tempt which a malignant and unmanly act deserved ; 
 for they opened a communication with me immediately. 
 As to the letter, however, it was of such a nature, 
 that they thought it advisable to lay it by, to be pro- 
 duced upon some future occasion, £nd that occasion 
 was the one which I have named. Now I must intreat 
 the reader to give me credit when I say, that I never 
 suffered the production of this letter to operate upon 
 me, so as to shake the private friendship I had with 
 Mr. Cobbett. What he wrote of me, or whatever 
 opinion he entertained of me, ten years back, and 
 previously to his knowing any thing of me, however 
 unjust that opinion might have been, however coarsely 
 or illiberally that opinion might have been expressed, 
 and however basely that circumstance might, after a 
 lapse of ten or eleven years, have been used by a con- 
 temptible hired agent of Sir Francis Burdett, upon 
 the public hustings at an election, I never suffered it 
 
-VVM. COBBETT, ESQ. 137 
 
 for one moment to have the slightest influence upon 
 my public or private conduct towards IMr. Cobbett. 
 But what I was grieved and hurt at, was, that Mr. 
 Cobbett should have made me his dupe, by writing 
 home to me from America, to assure me, that the letter 
 read by Cleary upon the hustings at "Westminster was 
 a forgery ; and not only sending me a copy of the 
 New York paper, v\herein he had declared this letter 
 to be a forgery, but authorizing me, nay, urging me 
 to pronounce it to be a forgery, which, upon the faifh 
 of his word, I did, at a meeting at the Crown and 
 'Anchor, where Cleary produced the letter. At this 
 treatment I was hurt; I had good reason to be offended; 
 but I never complained of it. The shyness and the 
 ''dispute which had arisen between Mr. Cobbett nnd 
 myself has arisen from a very different cause. But, 
 for my own part, I am happy that this shyness did 
 not happen while Mr. Cobbett was in prison, but while 
 Henry Hunt is incarcerated in his dungeon. Although 
 I cannot accuse myself of having ever done any thing 
 to merit this conduct from Mr. Cobbett, yet I shall 
 never cease to lament it, as an injury to that cause in 
 which v»e had so long drawn together." 
 
 From the foregoing extract it is quite evident 
 Mr. Hunt believed the letter to have been written by 
 Cobbett. The letter alluded to is the one read by u 
 person of the name of Cleary, upon the hustings at 
 the Westminster election in 1818, Mr. Hunt being 
 
138 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 one cf the candidates for the city at that time : — 
 
 " Eotley, 20th April, 1808. 
 
 " All the gentlemen whom I met with are Icud in 
 Sir Francis Burdett's praise. His motion about the 
 cashiering of officers has gained him thousands of 
 friends. So bent was I for calling for a purgation of 
 that damned house, that I was resolved to petition 
 alone, if any one would have presented my petition. The 
 nation is heart sick of it. It is impossible for both 
 factions united to calumniate cur motives, if we pro- 
 ceed as we ought, and do not mix with men of bad 
 character. There is one Hunt, the Bristol man — 
 beware of him ! He rides about the country with a 
 w- , the wife of another man, having deserted 
 
 his own. A sad fellow — have nothing to do with him. 
 Adieu ! William Cobbett. 
 
 As, soon, however, as Mr. Cobbett received the 
 English papers containing an account of these pro- 
 ceedings, he published to the world that this letter 
 was a forgery, and that it was written by a man who 
 he well knew to have been guilty of forging his writing 
 and name, for fraudulent purposes, many timers : and 
 that it had been obtained from that man to serve the 
 basest of purposes. 
 
 This circumstance, certainly affected Mr. Hunt's 
 opinion of Cobbett, with whom he had been acting 
 for nearly ten years — and by whom he was recom- 
 mended to the people of Westminster in the strongest 
 terms. 
 
■WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 139 
 
 Mr. Coblett was more than ever determined to 
 return to England — and that too as soon as prudent ; 
 these tricks of his enemies — these intrigues made him 
 resolve to return to his native country, and to bring 
 these base fellows to an account. Burdett feared his 
 return, and all his " rump" quaked with the idea of 
 receiving a chastisement from a man so capable of 
 giving it. 
 
 At the latter end of the year 1819, he made 
 preparations for another sea voyage, aud without delay 
 proceeded en board a ship bound for his native home. 
 On the 3rd December, his return was celebrated by a 
 public dinner at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, 
 Strand, London. 
 
 In January, 1821, his family, after having been 
 scattered about like a covey of partridges that had 
 been sprung and shot at, got onca more together, in 
 a hired lodging at Brompton ; and their delight and 
 mutual caresses, and their tears of joy, experienced no 
 abatement at their actually finding themselves with 
 
 ONLY THREE SHILLINGS IN THE WHOLE WORLD, 
 
 and at his having to borrow from a friend the money 
 to pay for the paper and print of the then next Satur- 
 day's Kegister. 
 
 Shortly after his return the King died ; this he 
 had calculated upon ; and that a general election 
 would, of course, immediately follow; and this con- 
 sideration was connected with his return to England; 
 for, had it not been with a hope of getting into Par- 
 
140 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 liament, he should not have returned, foreseeing that 
 measures for stifling the press would certainly be 
 adopted. But, he calculated upon the chance of gett- 
 ing into Parliament when the King should die. And 
 that, if he succeeded, he would be the means of pro- 
 ducing a great effect of some sort or another. There- 
 fore, the moment the King's death was announced, he 
 offered himself for Coventry, M^here the right of voting 
 \vas solely in the Freemen. He set off for this city 
 Avith one of his daughters, going all night (the coldest 
 of the winter) in a post chaise ; they breakfasted at 
 Daventry and then proceeded on towards Dunchurch, 
 which is eleven miles from Coventry. Here they were 
 met by messengers, who brought accounts that he 
 would certainly be murdered if he attempted to enter 
 the city. A parcel of men had been made drunk, 
 and received orders to go out, meet him at a bridge, 
 about a mile from the city, and if he refused to return 
 to London, Jiing him over the bridge. While they 
 were deliberating on what course to pursue, a gentle- 
 man arrived Avith intelligence that the opposite party 
 had drawn up rank and file, in the city ; that they 
 were marching off with banners, drums, and music ; 
 and that they had not reached the outside of the city 
 when Mr. Cobbett's friends sallied forth upon them, 
 took away their banners, staved in their drums, dis- 
 parsed them in all directions, and set off on their 
 march to meet him. It now became Mr. Cobbett to 
 get on as fast as possible ; but the two landlords at 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 141 
 
 Dunchurch refused to let him have a chaise ! In this 
 difficulty, he and his daughter got into a gig, and 
 went on as fast as possible. They were met with 
 friends on the road, with post chaise, into which they 
 got, and were drawn into the city. 
 
 The violence resorted to by the opposite party 
 remains without a parallel. Knives, daggers, staves, 
 and every sort of murderous weapons were profusely 
 distributed, amongst a band of hired ruffians. At the 
 close of the first day's poll, Mr. Cobbett was at the 
 head. Mr. Cobbett, not suspecting any attempt against 
 him personally, left the booth, and attempted to get 
 through the crowd ; here, however, a band of savages 
 endeavoured to press him down. They gave him many 
 blows in the sides ; and, if he had been either a short 
 or a weak man, he must have been pressed under 
 foot, and inevitably killed. With a good deal of 
 difficulty he reached the pavement keeping his feet. 
 He had, when he left the booth, his snuff-box in his 
 right hand. The box is an oblong square, and had 
 then very sharp corners. 
 
 The savages pressed him side-ways, he had to 
 fight with his right hand in order to prevent them from 
 getting him down. He had to strike back-handed. 
 One of the sharp corners of the snufi^-box, did good 
 service. It cut the noses and eyes of the savages at 
 a famous rate and assisted mainly in securing his safe 
 arrival to the door of a shop. With considerable diffi- 
 culty and peril he arrived at his inn, which was kept 
 
142 MEMOIRS OY 
 
 by a Mr. Sergeant. Tlie other party seeing Mr. 
 Cobbett's election sure, unless some means were re- 
 sorted to, immediately set about hiring fellows to keep 
 his voters from coming to the booth ; this they did so 
 effectually, with their horrid threats and imprecations, 
 and their brutal usage of them, that he scarce polled 
 a single vote the second day. At the close of the poll 
 on the fourth day, Ellice and Moore, the other 
 candidates, were much annoyed by his resolution to 
 keep the poll open another week. They conceived 
 the idea of setting their savages to drive him out of 
 the city. In the evening, about dusk, the ruffians, 
 led on by two or three of their employers made a 
 regular attack upon Mr. Sergeant's house, vowing 
 their resolution to drag Mr. Cobbett out and kill him. 
 They first dashed in the upper room windows ; next 
 they pulled down the shutters of the ground floor 
 room. They then broke into the house passage by 
 forcing in the door. Mr. Cobbett expected them 
 up stairs pretty quickly ; and while the main body 
 were entering in front, they saw others scaling a wall 
 to get into the house in the rear by the garden. — 
 Mr. Cobbett was very ill with a cold, and was sitting 
 in his bed-room with his daughter. A detachment 
 with Mr. Frank Sergeant at their head, faced the 
 savages in the passage. One or two took station on 
 the top of the stairs, armed with pokers ; while Mr. 
 Cobbett in his room, with his daughter, fixed the bed- 
 stead in a way to let the door open no wider than to 
 
war. COBBETT, ESQ. 143 
 
 admit one man only at a time, and stood with a sword 
 to send the first man that attempted to enter to re- 
 ceive the arrears that might be due to him. He had 
 pulled off his coat, and was prepared to give with a 
 clear conscience, as hearty a thrust as ever was given 
 by man. However the siege was put an end to by 
 the arrival of the constables, and tranquility was re- 
 stored. 
 
 After this, Mr. Cobbett went near the booth no 
 more. He could not by his presence, give counten- 
 ance to any such unfair and disgraceful proceedings. 
 He did nothing more. They, at last, stated that the 
 numbers were as follows : — Edward Ellice, 1474 ; 
 Peter Moore, 1472; William Cobbett, 517. 
 
 To have a seat in Parliament was his most anxious 
 desire. Many were the schemes he resorted to — many 
 were the Addresses he wrote to the people, to persuade 
 them to subscribe a sufficient sum of money to qualify 
 him for a seat in the House of Commons. Previous 
 to the election just adverted to, taking place some two 
 or three hundreds of pounds had been subscribed ; but 
 this, of course fell far short of the mark. He calcu- 
 lated that it would require ten thousand pounds to pro- 
 vide the legal qualification : and he expected to be 
 indemnified for the great pecuniary sacrifice he would 
 necessarily be compelled to make. His scheme was 
 this, that each county in the kingdom should raise a 
 sum, for the above purpose, proportionate to its popu- 
 lation ; for instance : the three ridings of the county 
 
144 MEMOIRS Ol 
 
 of York would subscribe £890. ; Rutlandshire, £30 ; 
 and so on with the other counties. This scheme never 
 succeeded to the full extent, though considerable sums 
 were raised in this way. 
 
 This money, and ten times the amount he had 
 certainly earned. No man ever did more good to the 
 cause of freedom — no man ever sacrificed more. And 
 for this reason only, his exertions entitled him to the 
 honour of having a seat in Parliament. But bribery 
 and corruption were carried to such extremes, that to 
 expect such a thing, constituted as the Parliament 
 then was, really seemed ridiculous. 
 
 In the year 1826, he made another attempt 
 to get into Parliament. He offered himself as a 
 candidate for Preston, at the General Election of 
 1826. But, here he also proved unsuccessful, to 
 the mortification of himself, and to the great disap- 
 pointment of the friends of Parliamentary Reform. 
 The numbers at the close of the poll, were : — Stanley, 
 2944; Wood, 1974; Burrel, 1653 ; Cobbett, 995. 
 Still he was not daunted, for he again called upon 
 the people to support his scheme to obtain a seat ; 
 again he poured forth his powerful appeals ; and again 
 they were answered ; though the amount subscribed 
 was not SO' large as on former occasions. He was now 
 prepared once more to make another attempt, on the 
 first occasion that offered. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 145 
 
 Though Mr. Cobbett had not proved successful in 
 his attempts to obtain a seat in the Commons* House 
 of Parliament, in which, it is evident enough, he 
 would have eiFected great reform and universal good ; 
 his exertions in the cause of the people were by no 
 means diminished. If possible he redoubled his ex- 
 ertions. How immense have been his labours ! How 
 wonderful his productions ! What an energetic mind 
 nature had given him ! Nothing disconcerted him. 
 Nothing conquered him. At one time he was so much 
 reduced that he was compelled to give up the copy- 
 right of his English Grammar, to help to pay his 
 debts ; but he afterwards bought it back, and actually 
 gave 1200 sovereigns for it. 
 
 One of his works alone, the Register, was enough 
 to occupy the whole time of any other man. Ever 
 since January, in the year 1802, to the period of his 
 death in 1835, he continued to write and publish one 
 number every week of this celebrated political work ; 
 every one of which, contained more original matter 
 than any other weekly periodical ; a work that never 
 failed to prove interesting ; a work that has done more 
 to shew to the people of this kingdom the causes of 
 their poverty and misery, and also to point out to them 
 the remedy for those evils, than all the speeches, and 
 all the writings, of all the politicians that England 
 ever produced. Besides, the agriculturists, had in 
 this work a most able and powerful advocate of their 
 rights ; he was the champion of the people j he de- 
 O 
 
146 MEMOIRS OP 
 
 fended the wretched and the oppressed working-classes; 
 he did this at the risk of his own life, more than once. 
 On the 20th of April, 1822, his Register was first 
 embellished with Cobbett's well-known insignia of the 
 Gridiron, which originated from a prophecy made by 
 Mr. Cobbett, at North Hampstead, Long Island, on 
 the 24th of September, 1819 ; and is as follows : — 
 " This Bill (Mr. Peel's) was grounded on current 
 Reports, of both Houses ; it was pased by unanimous 
 votes of both Houses; it was, at the close of the 
 Session, a subject of high eulogium in the Speaker's 
 speech to the Regent, and in the Regent's speech to 
 the two Houses : now then, I, William Cobbett, assert, 
 that, if this Bill be carried into full effect, I will give 
 Castlereagh leave to lay me on a gridiron and broil me 
 alive, while Sidmouth may stir the coals, and Canning 
 stand by and laugh at my groans." 
 
 It must not be imagined that he was only a 
 political writer. We have here to speak of other books 
 than the Register. Books which would form a tolerably 
 good and very useful library. He wrote an English 
 Grammar, which contained a series of fourteen letters 
 addressed to one of his sons ; besides '^ Lessons in- 
 tended to prevent Statesmen from using false Gram- 
 mar." It is drawn up in a style so clear, and so in- 
 teresting, that it is next to impossible that they should 
 be read without producing a correct knowledge of our 
 native language. Of this work more than 100,000 
 copies have been sold. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 147 
 
 Having taught himself the French language, and 
 knowing what were the difficulties, which the student 
 had to overcome in the learning of this language, he 
 wrote a French Grammar, or Plain Instructions for 
 the Learning of French. Like the former, it is a book 
 of jjrinciples, it is divested of those complicated diffi- 
 culties which beset the pupil when studying other 
 grammars. He knew well what it was that had 
 bothered and puzzled and retarded him, and he there- 
 fore, took care to remove those obstacles, to prevent 
 others experiencing that vexation which he himself 
 experienced. His knowledge of this language was so 
 complete, that the very first thing that he wrote in 
 the shape of a book for the press was a grammar to 
 teach Frenchmen English. And also books on the 
 following subjects : — Cottage Economy ; Husbandry ; 
 Gardening ; on the Usury Laws ; on Paper-money ; 
 on the Protestant Reformation ; on the Law of Turn- 
 pikes; and Exercises to his French Grammar ; a French 
 and English Dictionary ; a Geographical Dictionary ; 
 Twelve Sermons ; Year's Residence in America ; the 
 Woodlands : a treatise on Indian Corn ; on the Curse 
 of Paper Money ; Rural Rides ; Poor Man's Friend ; 
 and just before his death he published a small work 
 entitled a Legacy to Labourers, and another, a Legacy 
 to Parsons, of which a number, almost incredible, 
 have been sold. We have not enumerated any thing 
 of the kind as the whole of his works ; one of his 
 finest productions (leaving politics aside) was his 
 O 2 
 
148 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Advice to Young Men, a book which no young man 
 should be without. It is the best guide a young man 
 can have to conduct him through the intricate paths 
 of his worldly career. In his address to a youth we 
 have an example of his own mode of living : — " I ate/' 
 he says, "^ during one whole year, one mutton chop 
 every day. Being once in town, with one son (then a 
 little boy) and a clerk, while my family was in the 
 country, I had during some weeks nothing but legs of 
 mutton ; first day, leg of mutton boiled or roasted ; 
 second, cold ; third, hashed ; then, leg of mutton boiled, 
 and so on. When I have been by myself, or nearly so, 
 I have always proceeded thus: given directions for 
 having every day the same thing, or alternately as 
 above, and every day exactly at the same hour, so as 
 to prevent the necessity of any talk about the matter. 
 I am certain that, upon an average, I have not, during 
 my life, spent more than thirty-Jive minutes a-day at 
 table, including all the meals of the day. I like, and 
 I take care to have, good and clean victuals ; but if 
 wholesome and clean that is enough. If I find it by 
 chance too coarse for my appetite, I put the food aside, 
 or let somebody do it, and leave the appetite to gather 
 keenness.*' 
 
 In another part of his writings we find a descrip- 
 tion of the manner in which he reared and educated 
 his children. — " I found time to talk with them, to 
 walk or ride about with them ; and when forced to go 
 from home always took one or more with me. You 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 149 
 
 must be good tempered too with them ; they must like 
 your company better than any other person's ; they must 
 not wish you away, nor fear your coming back, nor look 
 upon your departure as a holiday. When any business 
 kept me away from the scribbling table, a petition often 
 came, that I would go and talk with the group, and 
 the bearer generally was the youngest, being the most 
 likelv to succeed. When I went from home, all followed 
 me to the outer gate, and looked after me, till the 
 carriage or horse was out of sight. At the time ap- 
 pointed for my return, all were prepared to meet me ; 
 and if it were late at night, they sat up as long as they 
 were able to keep their eyes open. This kind of parents 
 and this constant pleasure at home, made them not even 
 think of seeking pleasure abroad ; and they, thus, were 
 kept from various playmates and early corruption. 
 
 " This is an age, too, to teach children to be trusi- 
 rvorthy and to be merciful and humane. We lived in a 
 garden of about two acres, partly kitchen-garden with 
 walls, partly shrubbery with trees, and partly grass 
 There were the peaches, as tempting as any that ever 
 grew, and yet as safe from fingers as if no child were 
 even in the garden. It is not necessary to forbid. The 
 blackbirds, the thrushes, the whitebreasts, and even 
 that very shy bird, the goldfinch, had their nests and 
 bred up their young ones, in great abundance, all about 
 this little spot, constantly the play place of six children ; 
 and one of the latter had its nest, and brought up its 
 young ones,, in a raspberry bush, within two yards of a 
 O 3 
 
150 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 walk, and at the same time that we were gathering th^ 
 ripe raspberries. We give dogs, and justly, credit for 
 sagacity and memory ; bnt the following two most 
 curious instances, which I should not venture to state, 
 if there were not so many witnesses to the facts, in my 
 neighbours at Botley, as well as in my own family, will 
 show, that birds are not, in this respect, inferior to the 
 canine race. All country people know that the skylark 
 is a very shy bird ; that its abode is the open fields ; 
 that it settles on the ground only ; that it seeks safety 
 in the wideness of space ; that it avoids enclosures, and 
 is never seen in gardens. A part of our ground was a 
 grass plat of about forty roods, or a quarter of an acre, 
 which, one year, was left to be mowed for hay. A pair 
 of larks, coming out of the fields, into the middle of 
 a pretty populous village, chose to make their nest in 
 the middle of this spot, and at not more than about 
 IhlTtT-iiVC ^^ards from one of the doors of the house, in 
 which there were about twelve persons living, and six 
 of those, children, who had constant access to all part& 
 of the ground. There we saw the cock rising up and 
 singing, then taking his turn upon the eggs ; and by- 
 and-by we observed him cease to sing, and saw them 
 both constantly engaged in brifiging food to the i/oung 
 ones; no unintelligible hint to the fathers and mother* 
 of the human race, who might before marriage, have 
 taken delight in music. But the time came for mowing 
 the grass ! I waited a good many days for the brood to 
 get away ; but, at last, I determined on the day ; and 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 151 
 
 if the larks were there still, to leave a patch of grass 
 standing round them. In order not to keep them in 
 dread longer than necessary, I brought three able 
 mowers, who would cut the whole in about an hour, 
 and as the plat was nearly circular, set them to mow 
 round, beginning at the outside. And now for sagacity 
 indeed ! The moment the men began to whet their 
 scythes, the two old larks began to flutter over the 
 nesl, and to make a great clamour. When the men 
 began to mow, they flew round and round, stooping so 
 low, when near the men, as almost to touch their 
 bodies, making a great clattering at the same time ; 
 but before the men had got round with the second 
 swaithj they flew to the nest, and away they went,, 
 young ones and all, across the river, at the foot of the 
 ground, and settled in the long grass in my neighbour's 
 orchard. 
 
 " The other instance relates to a House-marten.. 
 It is well known that these birds build there nests 
 under the cases of inhabited houses, and sometimes 
 under those of door porches; but we had one that built 
 its nest in ike hovie, and upon the top of a common? 
 deor-case, the door of which opened into a room out of 
 the main passage into the house. Perceiving the mar- 
 ten had begun to build its nest here, we kept the front 
 door open in the day time : but were obliged to fasten 
 it at night. It went on, had eggs, young ones, and the 
 young ones flew. I used to open the door in the morn- 
 ing early, and then the birds carried on their affairs tUl 
 
152 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 night. The next year the marten came again, and 
 had another brood in the same place. It found its old 
 nest; and having repaired it, and put it in order, went 
 on again in the former way ; and it would, I dare say, 
 have continued to come to the end of its life, if we had 
 remained there so long, notwithstanding there were six 
 healthy children in the house, making just as much 
 noise as they pleased. 
 
 " Now what sagacity in those birds to discover that 
 those were places of safety ! And how happy must it 
 have made us, the parents, to be sure, that our children 
 had thus imbibed habits the contrary of cruelty ! Fo^, 
 be it engraved on your heart, young men, that whatever 
 appearances may say to the contrary, cruelly is always 
 attended with cowardice, and also with per^dy, when 
 that is called for by the circumstances of the case ; and 
 that habitual acts of cruelty to other creatures, will, 
 nine times out of ten, produce, when the power is 
 possessed, cruelty to human beings. The ill-usage of 
 horses, and particularly asses, is a grave and just charge 
 against this nation. No other nation on earth is guilty 
 of it to the same extent. Not only by blows, by priva- 
 tion are we cruel towards useful docile and patient 
 creatures; and especially towards the last, which is the 
 most docile and laborious of the two, while the food 
 that satisfies it, is of the coarsest and least costly kind, 
 and in quantity so small ! In the habitual ill-treatment 
 of this animal, which, in addition to all its labour, has 
 the milk taken from its young ones to administer a 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 153 
 
 remedy for our ailments, there is something that be- 
 speaks ingratitude hardly to be described. In a Regis- 
 ter that I wrote from Lcng Island, I said that amongst 
 all things of which I had been bereft, I regretted no 
 one so much as a very diminutive mare, on which my 
 children had all, in succession learned to ride. She was 
 become useless for them, and indeed for any other pur- 
 pose ; but the recollection of her was so entwined with 
 so many past circumstances, which at that time my 
 mind conjured up, that I really was very uneasy, lest 
 bhe should fall into cruel hands. By good luck, she 
 was, a while, turned out on the wide world to shift for 
 herself ; and when we got back, and had a place for 
 her to stand in, from her native forest we brought her 
 to Kensington, and she is now at Barn-Elm, about 
 twenty-six years old, and I dare say as fat as a mole. 
 Now, not only have I no moral right (considering my 
 ability to pay for keep) to deprive her of life ; but it 
 would be unjust and ungrateful, in me, to withhold 
 from her sufficient food and lodging to make life as 
 pleasant as possible while that life lasts. 
 
 " In mean while the book learning crept on of its 
 own accord, by imperceptible degrees. Children natu- 
 rally want to be like their parents, and to do what they 
 do : the boys following their father and the girls their 
 mother ; and as I was always writing or reading, mine 
 naturally desired to do something in the same way. 
 But, at the same time, they heard no talk from fools or 
 drinkers : saw me with no idle, gabbling, empty com- 
 
154 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 panions ; saw no vain and affected coxcombs, and no 
 tawdry and extravagant women; saw no nasty gorman- 
 dizing ; and heard no gabble about play-houses and 
 romances and the other nonsense that fits boys to be 
 lofty loungers and girls to be the ruin of industrious 
 and frugal young men. 
 
 " We wanted no stimulants of this sort to keep our 
 spirits up : our various pleasing pursuits were quite 
 sufficient for that ; and the book -tear nifig came among 
 the rest of the pleasures, to which it was, in some sort, 
 necessary. I remember that, one year, I raised a pro- 
 digious crop Qi Jine melons, under hand-glasses ; and I 
 learned how to do it from a gardening book ; or, at least, 
 that book was necessary to remind me of the details. 
 Having passed part of an evening in talking to the 
 boys about getting this crop, " Come," said I, " now let 
 us read the book. " Then the book came forth, and to 
 work we went, following very strictly the precepts of 
 the book. I read the thing but once, but the eldest boy 
 read it, perhaps, twenty times over ; and explained all 
 about the matter to the others. Why here was a 
 motive ! Then he had to tell the garden -labourer what 
 to do to the melons. Now, I will engage, that more was 
 really learned by this single lesson, than would have 
 been learned by spending, at this son's age, a year at 
 school; and he happy and delighted all the while. When 
 any dispute arose among them about hunting or shoot- 
 ing, or any other of their pursuits, they, by degrees 
 found out the way of settling it by reference to some 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 155 
 
 book; and when any difficulty occurred, as to the mean- 
 ing, they referred to me, who, if at home, always 
 instantly attended to them in these matters." In con- 
 cluding these extracts from Advice to Young Men we 
 cannot do better than advise every young man, in 
 whatever station of life he may be placed, to peruse 
 this invaluable work. The time spent in so doing will 
 never be regretted. 
 
 Cobbett was, all his life, at war with a certain class 
 of modern political economists. Some darkness and 
 prejudice might mingle in the strife, but it would be 
 difficult to shew that he was always wrong ; and upon 
 this point, no one has questioned either his sincerity or 
 his consistency. There is now considerable reaction, we 
 believe, in favour of many of his old-fashioned opinions. 
 Where they were erroneous, the error originated in 
 devotedness to his " order'' — the order of labouring 
 men ; — to that, with all his alleged inconsistencies, he 
 was ever thoroughly staunch ; and so enlightened, upon 
 the whole, to its true interest, so undeviating in his 
 fealty, to the comfortable cottage, the clean smock, 
 frock, the neat cleanly wife, the healthy rosy children, 
 the cow, the pig, the flitch, the home-baked and home- 
 brewed, and in his own homely comprehensive phrase, 
 " the bellyfull " — that this alone, combined with real 
 services to the working man, would stamp him an 
 eminent benefactor of his species. A very great pro- 
 portion of his voluminous writings have been directly 
 devoted to the improvement of this important class ; 
 
156 MEMOIRS OF I 
 
 yet he has often contrived to make these writings as 
 amusing as a lively fiction. As the surest foundation 
 of moral and social amelioration, he ever contended for 
 the labourer having sufficient, and even abundant and 
 comfortable food, clothing, and shelter. Passing the 
 rising plantations of one of the new rich Barings — 
 whose lady was reputed to be very charitable to her 
 poor neighbours, though she required them to adopt 
 her own notions with regard to religion — he remarks : 
 " I do not say, that they are not perfectly sincere them- 
 selves, and that their wishes are not the best that can 
 possibly be ; but of this I am very certain, that, by 
 pursuing this principle of action, where they make one 
 good man or woman, they will make one hundred 
 hypocrites. It is not little books that make a people 
 good ; that can make them moral ; that can restrain 
 them from committing crimes. I believe that books of 
 any sort, never yet had that tendency. Sir Thomas 
 does, I dare say, think me a very wicked man, since 
 I aim at the destruction of the funding-system, and 
 what he would call a robbery of what he calls the public 
 creditor j and yet, God help me ! I have read books 
 enough, and, amongst the rest, a great part of religious 
 tracts. Amongst the labouring people, the first thing 
 you have to look after is, common honesty, speaking 
 the truth, and refraining from thieving ; and, to secure 
 these, the labourer must have his belly full and be 
 free from fear ; and this bellyfuU must come to him 
 from out of his wages, and not from benevolence of 
 
■\VM. COBBETT, ESQ. 157 
 
 any description. Such being my opinion, I think Sir 
 Thomas Baring would do better; that he would discover 
 more real benevolence, by using the influence which he 
 must naturally have in his neighbourhood, to prevent a 
 diminution in the wages of labour." 
 
 On the 7th of July, 1831, Mr Cobbett was tried 
 on an indictment laid by the Attorney -General, Sir 
 Thomas Denman, for a libel exciting discontent in the 
 minds of the labourers in husbandry and exciting them 
 to acts of violence, and to the destroying of corn-stacks, 
 machinery, &c. He defended in person, against the 
 Attorney-General and his " dirty bill of indictment," 
 in a most splendid manner. 
 
 The Attorney-General instead of stating the charge 
 to the jury ran oflT the point in hand, which was smartly 
 objected to by 
 
 Mr. Cobbett, who asked. Is it not proper, my 
 Lord, that the Attorney-General, in stating to the Jury 
 the case against me, should confine himself to the charge 
 contained in the indictment ? 
 
 Lord Tenterden replied, He will state it by and by. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett. I beg pardon, he is stating what 
 is not in the indictment : he says that I am charged 
 with publishing so and so. 
 
 Lord Tenterden. That is the argument, I can- 
 not stop it. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett. I am charged with intending to 
 do so and so, but I am not charged with that which 
 has a tendency to do so and so. 
 P 
 
1.58 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Lord Tenterden. I do not understand it. Pray, 
 Sir, be quiet, you will have your opportunity of address- 
 ing the jury by-and-by. 
 
 Mr CoBBETT. I beg that the indictment may be 
 read. 
 
 Lord Tenterden. It will be read at the proper 
 time. 
 
 Mr. CoBBETT. Will it be read before I go into 
 my defence ? 
 
 Lord Tenterden. It will be read at the proper 
 season. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett. When is the proper season ? 
 
 Lord Tenterden. This is not it. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett. I beg to be excused. The Attorney- 
 General, has, in the indictment, denominated me '' a 
 labourer;" being a labourer, I am entitled to indulgence. 
 
 Lord Tenterden. This is not the time for you to 
 address the Jury. I cannot hear you now. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett. Being a '' labourer," and ignorant 
 of the law, I did not know. 
 
 The Attorney-General resumed. You will see 
 the propriety of a remark which I took the liberty of 
 making a few minutes ago. You will see, from what 
 has now passed, the spirit in which this defence is to be 
 carried on by the gentleman. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett. A labourer, if you please. 
 
 Lord Tenterden. If you will not sit down, Sir, 
 I must try the cause in your absence. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett. Unless the Attorney -General call 
 
"WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 169 
 
 me a *^ lahourer" I must protest every time. 
 
 Lords Grey, J. Russell, and Brougham were sub- 
 poened by Mr. Cobbett, the latter of whom, on being 
 examined, by him, gave a splendid sample of " non mi 
 ricordo" evidence. The Attorney-General got the 
 worst of it, and the whigs experienced such discom- 
 fiture as never again to be able to return to the 
 charge. 
 
 Thus did Mr. Cobbett escape the dreadful ven- 
 geance that had been prepared for him by his Whig 
 persecutors. That his innocence of any guilty intention 
 to excite the agricultural labourers to acts of lawless 
 violence, was clearly proved must be evident to any one 
 who has carefully read his able defence. Nay, even 
 Lord Brougham's evidence goes at once to destroy 
 every charge that had been brought against him, for if 
 he really had been the seditious and restless spirit re- 
 presented in the indictment, surely his Lordship would 
 have been the last person to have been in treaty with 
 him for the re-publication of a work written by the 
 defendant, at a period when his political opinions were 
 exactly the same that ihey were when the alleged libel 
 was sent out to the M'orld. But the whole charge was 
 too trumpery to be maintained ; the honest portion of 
 the jury resolved to stand between an oppressed man 
 and the vengeance of the law, and Mr. Cobbett escaped 
 the heavy doom that the malice of his enemies had 
 prepared for him. 
 
 In the following year (1832) the Bill for the Re- 
 
160 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 form of Parliament having passed the two Houses, and 
 obtained the assent of the King, it was a natural con- 
 sequence that a dissolution should take place, and a 
 seat in the Legislature, the great object of Mr. Cob- 
 bett's ambition, now seemed certain. After the rising 
 of Parliament the registration of the new constituency 
 under the Reform Bill, and the other preparations for 
 a general election, were proceeded with. Mr. Cobbett 
 and other candidates were already in the field, and 
 their canvasses concluded while the registration was 
 going on. Although numerous indeed were the ques- 
 tions which arose on the interpretation of the act, and 
 the difficulties which occurred in proving value, the 
 professional gentlemen, to whom this judicial duty was 
 entrusted, made it in general a rule to run the chance 
 of admitting a man who had no franchise, rather than 
 exclude a man who, at bottom, might have a good one. 
 It was only in cases where an election was to be con- 
 tested, that the particular claims were examined with 
 much accuracy. The opposing candidates then became 
 opposing litigants, and the process of registration was 
 in some instances drawn out to a great length. 
 
 At length the registration of the new constituency 
 having been completed all over the kingdom, Parlia- 
 ment, which had been prorogued by commission on the 
 10th of October, was dissolved on the 3d of December ; 
 and the first general election under the Reform Act 
 took place. The writs were made returnable on the 
 29th January, ]833. In regard to the mere machinery 
 P 3 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 161 
 
 of the measure^ it worked much more smoothly than 
 had been anticipated. Even in the most populous 
 places, the polling was concluded within the two days 
 allowed by the act ; and no time was expended in ex- 
 amining votes. The name was in the register, and 
 that was sufficient. 
 
 At this time there were three parties in the field. 
 First came the Ministerial candidates ; next came the 
 Tories, now called Conservatives, who thought ministers 
 had already gone too far ; and last, but not least, were 
 the Radicals, who were determined to spur ministers 
 on to go a great deal farther in their task of reforming 
 public abuses. 
 
 ITie elections went of course in by far the greater 
 number of instances, in favour of the ministerial can- 
 didates, or of candidates who professed the same general 
 views, and declared their adherence to a reforming 
 ministry. Thus the ministerial candidates obtained a 
 majority which, if increased by the Radical members, 
 who were willing to go all lengths with them in one 
 direction, was overwhelming, and which, even without 
 them, seemed to be as decisive a majority as a minister 
 could wish. The professed Radicals stood principally 
 for the nevv-created boroughs, where a large constituency 
 seemed to offer them the best safeguard against the 
 bribery and corruption of the vanquished Tories. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett started for Manchester, but having 
 failed there was returned by the honest men of Oldham, 
 and thus, after years of labour and toil in behalf of the 
 r 2 
 
162 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 people, he at length found himself placed in that 
 honourable situation to which he had so frequently- 
 aspired. He now felt that he could serve the cause 
 for which he had laboured so incessantly, and resolving 
 to suffer no opportunity to pass by that might prove 
 his ardent love for liberty and free institutions, he 
 prepared to take his seat in the reformed House of 
 Commons. 
 
 There is little doubt, however, that his death is 
 in some measure attributable to the additional fatigue 
 and labour devolved upon him in the discharge of his 
 parliamentary duties. In the House of Commons he 
 has somewhat disappointed the expectations that most 
 of his admirers formed of him. He despised the con- 
 ventionalities that are held sacred in the representative 
 assembly, and had neither the temper nor the tact 
 necessary to constitute a ready and effective debater. 
 Beyond two or three good set speeches upon the Stamp 
 Duties, the Excise, the Assessed Taxes, and the 
 horrible spy system in the Metropolitan Police force, 
 his parliamentary career has been a comparative blank. 
 Not that he has not said many good things at the table 
 of the house, that no one else could or would have 
 said, but that they were altogether unadapted for the 
 assembly in which they were spoken. They excited 
 our admiration of his talent, and our regret that he 
 had not had a seat in the house some thirty years 
 earlier. How different he was a lecturer many of our 
 readers well know. The ease of his manner, the 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 163 
 
 mastery over his subject, the purity and strength of his 
 diction,, the power of his argumentation, and the felicity 
 of his illustrations, rendered him, in this order of 
 public speaking, the greatest man since the time of 
 Demosthenes. We are not sorry, however, that he 
 has been tried in Parliament, nor are we disappointed 
 that the trial was a failure as to any influence of the 
 House of Commons. The house was not pure enough, 
 nor Mr. Cobbett young enough, to conform himself to 
 their somewhat eccentric modes of proceeding. 
 
 As the meeting of the first reformed parliament 
 approached, public attention was directed with some 
 anxiety towards its probable temper and deliberations. 
 The result of the general election, as we have already 
 seen, was decidedly in favour of the Whig ministry. 
 The great majority of the house consisted of members 
 inclined to follow and support them ; and as there 
 seldom could be an occasion on which the two divisions 
 of the opposition, differing more from each other than 
 either of them did from the ministry; could be expected 
 to unite, every thing seemed to promise that the 
 government would be omnipotent in Parliament. Their 
 measures might fall far short of what was expected and 
 desired by the lovers of yet more rigid reforms, and 
 might go far beyond what the Conservatives deemed 
 safe or convenient ; but the ministers were sure of 
 being joined by the one of those parties to overcome 
 the resistance or check the fervour of the other. To 
 one danger, indeed, ministers were exposed — their 
 
164 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 performances must either fall greatly short of what 
 they had promised, and produce disappointment, or 
 they must throw themselves, to support their popularity, 
 into a career of indiscriminate change, on which they 
 did not wish voluntarily to enter. 
 
 The public agitation which had been created and 
 fostered in the great mass of the people, while urging 
 on the Reform Bill, had produced extravagant expec- 
 tations, that the meeting of a reformed parliament 
 would necessarily be followed by the redress of every 
 thing evil — that all taxes complained of would forthwith 
 disappear — that the corn-laws would fall to make cheap 
 . bread — that the wages of labour would be increased, 
 while the price of all things necessary to the support, 
 or comfortable enjoyment of life, would be reduced. 
 
 The Parliament about which so much expectation 
 had been raised, was opened by commission on the 29th 
 of January, 1833, when the election of the Speaker 
 having taken place, the King's speech and the usual 
 address to his Majesty came under the consideration of 
 the house. To the one which immediately emanated 
 from the ministers, a violent opposition was raised by 
 a many of the more Radical members, which terminated 
 with Mr. Cobbett's first effort in Parliament. On the 
 bringing up of the report, he moved that the whole of 
 the address should be rejected, and that another which 
 he proposed, to the following effect, should be adopted : 
 " assuring his Majesty that the House of Commons 
 would direct its most serious attention to the papers 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 165 
 
 which his Majesty had directed to be laid on the table 
 of the house relating to Portugal and Holland, and 
 would anxiously consider the questions relating to the 
 charters of the Bank of England and the East India 
 Company ; thanking his Majesty for having suggested 
 a very great alteration with respect to the temporalities 
 of the church, and assuring his Majesty that the house 
 would enter into the examination of that subject with- 
 out passion or prejudice; thanking his Majesty for 
 having directed the estimates to be prepared M^ith all 
 due economy, and expressing regret that his Majesty 
 had not been advised to suggest the propriety of lessen- 
 ing the burdens of the suffering community, and assuring 
 him that the house would investigate the causes of dis- 
 tress, and institute measures to produce effectual and 
 permanent relief ; informing his Majesty, that the house 
 was ready to adopt every constitutional mode of con- 
 trolling and punishing the disturbers of the public 
 peace in Ireland, and of strengthening those ties which 
 connected the two countries ; deeming that their 
 separation would be fraught with destruction to the 
 peace and welfare of his Majesty's dominions, and 
 assuring his Majesty that the house was determined to 
 go into a full consideration of the manifold grievances 
 under which the Irish people laboured/' 
 
 This amended address was of course not approved 
 of by ministers, but being pressed to a division, there 
 were 23 ayes, and 323 noes — thus rejecting Mr. Cob- 
 bett's address by a majority of 300. 
 
166 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Thus defeated in the outset of his parliamentary 
 career, Mr. Cobbett only resolved the more vehemently 
 to urge a variety of motions, which, had they been 
 successful, would have tended greatly towards the ex- 
 tended freedom and happiness of the people- As it 
 was, however, he was obliged to content himself with 
 merely bringing them forward, with the certainty of 
 seeing them rejected by large majorities of that house 
 which had so lately been reformed. But even under 
 all these disadvantages, Mr. Cobbett's consistency and 
 manliness of purpose was distinctly seen by those who 
 were not blinded by prejudice against a man who thus 
 dared to stand alone in a virtuous cause. 
 
 Whenever members, to whatever party they might 
 belong, brought forward measures that they considered 
 would be beneficial to the great mass of the people, 
 William Cobbett's name was always to be found among 
 their most ardent supporters. For the Whigs we know- 
 he had no great partiality, and towards the Tories he 
 entertained a feeling of the most sovereign contempt. 
 At the head of his own small party, he stood boldly to 
 resist their bad measures, and gallantly to support those 
 which were calculated to increase the privileges of his 
 oppressed countrymen. He loved the good cause he 
 had so long cherished, and his watchful eye was ever 
 directed towards that point from whence he hoped 
 justice might at length be obtained for those whom he 
 advocated. 
 
 On the 27th of June, 1833, Mr. Cobbett presented 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 167 
 
 a petition to the House of Commons, from a large 
 number of the inhabitants of Camberwell and Walworth, 
 being members of a political union in those villages. 
 The petitioners complained that one William Popay, 
 became a member of their union about fifteen months 
 previously ; that he attended their meetings, and fre- 
 quently urged the member^ to adopt the most violent 
 course against the existing government ; that he dressed 
 himself in plain clothes the more readily to deceive and 
 lead them on to his infamous designs, and that they 
 (the petitioners), were in the utmost peril of falling 
 into the evils he had designed, when chance led to the 
 discovery of his motives, and the dreadful fate he had 
 prepared for them. 
 
 Having read the whole of the petition to the house, 
 Mr. Cobbett proceeded to animadvert with the utmost 
 severity on the baseness of the policeman, Popay, in 
 the course he had pursued towards those unsuspecting 
 victims of his evil designs. He even accused govern- 
 ment with being privy to the whole undertaking, and 
 concluded by praying that a committee should be ap- 
 pointed to investigate the whole affair. This, after 
 some opposition, was finally acceded to, and after a 
 vast mass of evidence had been heard, the committee 
 declared that the charges brought against Popay had 
 been clearly proved, and that they had detected many 
 instances in which he had disguised himself in plain 
 clothes for the purpose of misleading those parties whom 
 he had joined and professed to agree with, The result 
 
168 MEMOIRS OP* 
 
 was, that Popay was discharged from the Police force, 
 and there, for the present, the matter rested. 
 
 After this exposure of an infamous system of es- 
 pionage, Mr. Cobbett brought forward many motions 
 of the utmost importance with varied success. We 
 have not, however, space even to enumerate them in 
 this brief memoir of the illustrious deceased. 
 
 We are now brought to the period of Mr. Cobbett's 
 last illness and death, which took place on Thursday, 
 June 18th, at Normandy Farm, Surrey, whither he 
 had retired from the fatigue of his parliamentary 
 duties, in the hope of recovering and re-establishing 
 his health, which had latterly become much impaired. 
 This melancholy event is thus described by his son, 
 James Paul : — 
 
 '' A great inclination to inflammation of the throat 
 had caused him annoyance from time to time, for several 
 years, and, as he got older, it enfeebled him more. 
 He was suffering from one of these attacks during the 
 late spring, and it will be recollected, that when the 
 Marquis of Chandos brought on his motion for the 
 repeal of the malt-tax, my father attempted to speak, 
 but could not make his voice audible beyond the few 
 members who sat round him. He remained to vote on 
 that motion, and increased his ailment; but, on the 
 voting of supplies, on the nights of Friday, the 15th, 
 and Monday, the 18th of May, he exerted himself so 
 much, and sat so late, that he laid himself up. He 
 determined, nevertheless, to attend the house again on 
 
\VM. COBBETT, ESQ. 169 
 
 the evening of the Marquis of Chandos's motion on 
 agricultural distress on the 25th of May ; and the ex- 
 ertion of speaking and remaining late to vote on that 
 occasion, were too much for one already severely unwell. 
 He went down to his farm early on the morning after 
 this last debate, and had resolved to rest himself 
 thoroughly, and get rid of his hoarseness and inflam- 
 mation. On Thursday night last, (June 11th,) he felt 
 unusually well, and imprudently drank tea in the open 
 air ; but he went to bed apparently in better health. 
 In the early part of the night, he was taken violently 
 ill, and on Friday and Saturday was considered in a 
 dangerous state by the medical attendant. On Sunday 
 he revived again ; and on Monday gave us hope that 
 he would yet be well. He talked feebly, but in the 
 most collected and sprightly manner, upon politics and 
 farming ; wished for ' four days rain* for the Cobbett 
 corn and the root crops ; and, on Wednesday, he could 
 remain no longer shut up from the fields, but desired 
 to be carried round the farm ; which being done, he 
 criticised the work that had been going on in his ab- 
 sence, and detected some little deviation from his 
 orders, with all the quickness that was so remarkable 
 in him. On Wednesday night, (June 17th,) he grew 
 more and more feeble, and was evidently sinking ; but 
 he continued to answer with perfect, clearness, every 
 question that was put to him. In the last half hour 
 his eyes became dim ; and at ten minutes after one, 
 p. M., he leaned back, closed them as if to sleep, and 
 died without a gasp." 
 
 Q 
 
170 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Mr. Cobbett's personal appearance was somewhat 
 eccentric, but prepossessing. Hazlitt has described it 
 so well that we shall quote him. " The only time I 
 ever saw him_," he remarks,, " he seemed to me a very 
 pleasant man — easy of access, affable, clear-headed, 
 simple, and mild in his manner, deliberate and un- 
 ruffled in his speech, though some of his expressions 
 were not very qualified. His figure is tall and portly. 
 He has a good sensible face — rather full, with little 
 grey eyes, a hard, square forehead, a ruddy complexion, 
 with hair grey or powdered, and had on a scarlet broad- 
 cloth waistcoat, with the fiaps of the pockets hanging 
 down, as was the custom for gentlemen -farmers in the 
 last century, or as we see it in the pictures of IMembers 
 of Parliament in the reign of George I. I certainly 
 did not think less favourably of him for seeing him." 
 Mr. Cobbett's appearance underwent little change, at 
 least little that was apparent to casual observers. To- 
 wards the close of his life he was less erect in his 
 posture, and more feeble and slovenly in his gait ; but 
 he still retained the appearance of a hale and cheerful 
 farmer. His costume, when he went to the House, 
 was generally a suit of woollen clothes, of a very light 
 mixture in colour, approaching to a dead white ; and 
 when he rose at the table to address the House, those 
 who had not seen him previously, although they could 
 not repress a smile at the singularity of his appearance, 
 experienced an involuntary feeling of veneration for 
 the person before them. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 171 
 
 We should only be repeating what all persons, 
 competent to judge, whatever their political opinions 
 may be, concur in admitting, were we to say that 
 Mr. Cobbett was one of the most extraordinary men 
 of his day. Thrown upon the world at a very early 
 age, without '' book learning," Mdthout money, with- 
 out a friend to direct his course, and habituated only 
 to habits of rural industry, he at once procured for 
 himself the confidence of all persons with whom he 
 had intercourse, and gradually made his way from the 
 stool in a " dungeon" called an attorney's office ; or, as 
 he himself said, at the close of the Oldham election, 
 " from a plough-boy in a smock frock, and clogs well 
 nailed," to the most honourable post which an English 
 gentleman can fill— that of representing a populous and 
 intelligent borough in the British Parliament. 
 
 As a writer, Mr. Cobbett was unrivalled. No man 
 has written so much, and so well. To appropriate the 
 language of a contemporary, his very antipodes in 
 politics (the Standard,) " Mr. Cobbett was by far the 
 first political writer of his age. In the attributes of a 
 severely correct and unaffected, a clear and vigorous 
 style, Mr. Cobbett was wholly without a rival, we 
 venture to affirm, since the days of Swift ; nor did this 
 necessary staple of good writing want the ornaments of 
 copious and striking illustration, or strong and well 
 connected argument. From the immense magazine of 
 Mr. Cobbett's voluminous compositions may, without 
 difficulty, be collected samples of the highest eloquence 
 
172 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 to be found in our language ; while it would be nearly 
 impossible for the most malignant jealousy to winnow 
 from the mass a single dull or feeble article ! And let 
 it be remembered that nearly all was improvisation ; 
 the labour of a mind constantly employed in pouring 
 forth its thoughts, without^ during forty years, a day's, 
 perhaps an hour's opportunity for preliminary rumination 
 or subsequent review ! This must have been a great 
 mind ; and, undoubtedly, IMr. Cobbett was a great 
 man." — In stating a case^ Mr. Cobbett was unequalled. 
 He at once seized on the circumstances which favoured 
 the views he wished to support, and seldom failed to 
 produce the impression at which he aimed. What he 
 could not effect by direct statement, he attained by 
 inuendo. He was shrewd beyond most men, and he 
 could detect and expose a subterfuge more readily than 
 most men, Mr. Cobbett's mind, however, was not of 
 great grasp or comprehensiveness. He was not capable 
 of embracing and glancing at once into all the parts of 
 a vast or complicated subject, or of generalising from 
 special facts. Of an insolated case, however, he could 
 make the most. His descriptions were striking and 
 vivid, and his illustrations apt and forcible. He wrote 
 upon all matters to be understood by all ; and we do 
 not recollect a single instance in which he has failed in 
 his purpose. In no other writer can we find so 
 much of bitterness, and abuse towards individuals, 
 as in the writings of Mr. Cobbett. He was unforgiving 
 of the offences of public men, and unchanging in his 
 Q 2 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. l?^ 
 
 enmity towards them. Let him but once detect a 
 lurking disposition to political" insincerity, or a covert 
 predilection for anti-popular measures, and no subse- 
 quent abjuration of former admitted errors — no apparent 
 ardour in prosecuting an opposite policy, could restore 
 the offender to his favour or confidence. He ever 
 afterwards looked upou him as hollow of heart, and 
 vented his spleen in bitter, and not unfrequently, in 
 the coarsest and foulest language. Let our readers 
 .take a specimen from the Register of Oct. 5th, 1833. — 
 Those familiar with that work will recollect many 
 passages equally bitter and powerful. The first article 
 in this Register is an answer to an attack which ap- 
 peared upon Mr. Cobbett in the Morning Chronicle of 
 the 21st of the preceding September, and is addressed 
 to the " Base Editm-" of that paper, to whom the 
 writer says, " I do not name you ; I cannot legally 
 name you ; because according to the practice of all 
 depredating reptiles, you keep out of sight ; you hide 
 your base carcase, while you poke out your poisoned 
 stabber. I will not name your master, for the same 
 reason that I lately withdrew an action against him, 
 namely, because he once not only acted a just but a 
 generous part towards me, and that, too, at a time 
 when wretches like you thought I was down never to 
 rise again, I must, for the present, at least, content 
 myself with you, creeping, and venomous, and name- 
 less reptile as you are." After inserting the article 
 from the Chronicle, IMr. Cobbett, proceeds to comment 
 
174 
 
 MEMOIRS or 
 
 upon it, which he does in his most bitterly-powerful 
 style. One of the accusations was^ that he wished to 
 prevent reform in the corporations. This he denies, 
 and refers to what he had formerly urged in favour of 
 such reform. Then comes the following touch, which 
 no other writer could pen without exciting disgust. In 
 Mr. Cobbett's writings it opens a source of positive 
 enjoyment and mirth : — 
 
 " My readers will all remember this. I am sure 
 I received applause enough for it at the time, from 
 crowds of my fellow-citizens of London. This vagabond 
 remembers it, too ; for he, as far as he dared, took part 
 with the spoilers ; and yet, the tax-hunting wretch has 
 now the audacity to represent me as an enemy to cor- 
 poration reform. 
 
 'Ah !' the hungry vagabond* will say, '^what do I 
 care for this ? — what I mean by corporation reform is, 
 a lazy life and a good parcel of public money for roar- 
 ing Rushton and pis-aller Parkes, and plenty of 
 guttling and guzzling for me along with them. We 
 want to put an end to the turtle-eating at Guildhall, 
 and to the money put under the plates after the dinners 
 of the Companies ; but we want to guttle and guzzle 
 ourselves, and to have money put under our plates.' 
 This is the real language of the heart of this vagabond, 
 and as I cannot prevent this new race of guttlers and 
 guzzlers from being filled, I am pulling them out, at 
 any rate, and letting people see them and their devour- 
 ings. This is what has stirred the gall of this fellow, 
 and of the crew that is urging him on." 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 175 
 
 Hiiving disposed of his accusations, Mr. Cobbett 
 thus addresses the editor of the Chronicle : — 
 
 " And now, wretched caititF, hungry, gaunt, 
 cadaverous looking devil, you who predict that the 
 end of my life, political and natural, is approaching, 
 what have you to say in your defence ? What repara- 
 tion; no not reparation, for offering your worthless 
 carcase to be flung on my land, to be used as manure 
 for my cabbages, would not be reparation ; but, what 
 excuse have you for putting forth this string of calumnies 
 and abuse ! I have attacked you ; that is to say, you 
 mean, that I have knocked you away when you were 
 coming at me with your nasty, rusty, and blunt old 
 knife. It was you attacked me : I had not dragged 
 you out by the ears : it was roaring Rushton, pis-aller 
 Parkes, and Wood called John, that I had dragged . 
 out. I saw you, to be sure at your murderous work 
 upon the poor old Chronicle : I would have gladly 
 beaten you away ; but if her owner chose to have her 
 murdered, it was no affair of mine. But, when you 
 began raising your old jagged knife at me, it was high 
 time to look about me, having no fancy for a cutting 
 and slashing, more like a sawing, such as you had been 
 performing so long upon my poor old acquaintance, the 
 Chronicle. I know that in answer to these interrogatives 
 of mine, you will come with a syllogism, thus : — 
 
 'M. It is necessary that I should live, and, of 
 course, necessary that I should eat. 
 
 '' 2. In order to be able to eat, I must slander you. 
 
17(5 MEMOIRS or 
 
 '' 3. Therefore, it is necessary that I slander you. 
 " This is the way that a libellous poet reasoned 
 with a French minister, whom he had lampooned. The 
 minister answered him, as I might at once answer you, 
 bi/ denying your major : and I do deny that it is at all 
 necessary that you should live. Necessary to whom 
 and for what, I should be glad to know } Are you 
 doing any good in the world ? Are you of any use 
 upon this earth ? If you were to go under it to-morrow 
 morning at day-light, would it be said by any human 
 being, in the evening, any thing had been lost to the 
 world, and particularly to the poor old Chronicle, in 
 consequence of your demise ? Do you convey any in- 
 struction, which can be of practical good to any human 
 being ? Do you till the land and cause any thing to 
 grow ? Do you assist to make the clothing or the 
 houses, to cook the victuals, to turn the barley into 
 drink ; to make those articles of furniture which are 
 for the use, ease, or pleasure of man } Do you curry 
 the horses, or milk the cows (except as a rural police- 
 man) ? Do you polish the knives, or turn brown into 
 black on the shoes ? No : none of these ; no earthly 
 thing do you do, that tends at all to those purposes 
 which conduce to the ease and happiness of a people. 
 You are a mere consumer of food, clothing, houses, and 
 other things which ought to be kept for the use of those 
 who produce them, or who possess the lands, ships, or 
 factories, or workshops, out of which they all spring. 
 How, then, do you attempt to maintain the affirmative 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 177 
 
 of your major proposition ; namely, that it is necessary 
 that you should live ? I am arguing, if the case were 
 not so plain, at great disadvantage, because the proof 
 ought to rest vi^ith you, not the disproof with me." 
 
 For power, raciness, and coarseness, this is un- 
 paralleled ; and if the reader has any faculty for 
 perceiving the ludicrous or the humorous, he cannot 
 pursue it without a roar of laughter. 
 
 We believe that Mr. Cobbett's character, as to 
 kindliness, disinterestedness, and generosity, has been 
 ill understood by the public. It is true, that he has 
 not laboured gratuitously : and why should he have 
 done so ? Has such been the custom with those who 
 represent him as a selfish and mercenary man ? It is 
 mighty consistent in those who live upon the fruits of 
 other people's industry — and such is the mode of living 
 with many of his assailants — to hold him up as sordid 
 and selfish, because he received what was deemed to be 
 the marketable value of his labours. Why should the 
 novel writer or the dramatist be free from reproach 
 while he exacts the highest amount that he can procure 
 for his productions ; while Mr. Cobbett, whose genius 
 and talents were second to those of no man, and whose 
 labour and industry were prodigiously beyond those of 
 all, is to be set down as destitute of all the higher and 
 more generous qualities of mankind, for doing merely 
 the same thing, in regard to production, not simply 
 adapted to afford rational amusement, but to promote 
 the liberty and enlarge the happiness of mankind ? 
 
ITS 
 
 MEMOIRS or 
 
 FUNERAL OF THE LATE W. COBBETT, ESQ. M.P. : 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS BIRTH-PLACE AND FARM. 
 
 Cobbett's character in his own neighbourhood we en- 
 deavoured to ascertain from the poor around him, and 
 *' the best man that ever lived/' was the weakest of 
 the eulogiums universally bestowed upon him. To the 
 labouring class he appears to have been a generous 
 master ; he would never suffer any man to work for 
 him under half-a-crown a-day. A^ivorthy firmer in- 
 formed us '' that Cobbett had spoiled every labourer in 
 the place." lie spoiled them, however, by kindness, 
 not severity. It seems, that in the year 177^^ he was 
 a labourer and servant with one parson Forde, and this 
 period of life is' distinctly remembered by many in 
 Farnham, and places adjacent, where some of the 
 family still live. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett promised his servants that, on the 
 24th of June they should have a treat, and celebrate 
 his birth in the house in which he wes born, a large 
 room for convivial purposes having been just built there. 
 He expired six days before the projected festival. 
 
 The Grave of Cobbett. — It was Mr Cobbett's 
 wish to be buried in the same grave as that in which 
 his father and grandfather were deposited. Mr. Cob- 
 bett's friends were anxious that his remains should lie 
 in the most conspicuous part of Farnham churchyard, 
 so that a monument to his memory might meet the eye 
 of the traveller ; both these objects have been attained. 
 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 179 
 
 The grave of the grandfather is just opposite the great 
 entrance to the church, and it is impossible to approach 
 or leave that building without seeing the spot. The 
 old tombstone of Mr. Cobbett's ancestor was cleared of 
 its incumbrance of clay, but time has done its works 
 upon it ; we could, however, distinguish the words — 
 
 '' In memory of George Cobbett, who died on the 
 13th of December, 1760, aged (we think) 59." The 
 latter part of the inscription is nearly obliterated. 
 When we arrived at the church on Friday afternoon 
 the funeral service was performing over an inhabitant 
 cf Farnham, and the grave of Cobbett, which had 
 been just dug, was then being bricked up, so as to 
 form a sort of vault. Round the last chamber of this 
 talented man were standing many old and poor in- 
 habitants, each of whom had a particular recollection, 
 or a hearsay, respecting him. From these, however, 
 we gathered only that he was a subject of general 
 interest and regard in Farnham and its vicinity. As a 
 farmer he seems to have been deemed eccentric ; it 
 was his custom to grow wheat in strips, some four feet 
 apart, and between each of these to plant cabbages, &;c. 
 
 Mr. Newnham, and Mr. Gibson, of Farnham, were 
 the medical attendants of Mr. Cobbett in his last 
 illness. The immediate cause of death was water on 
 the chest, unaccompanied by any other complaint. He 
 suffered considerable pain with firmness and resignation, 
 only discovering impatience at being, as he frequently 
 said, ^' stived up in-doors." The arrangements of*'the 
 
180 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 funeral were confided to Mr. George Johnson, under- 
 taker, of Farnham, who politely obliged us with a 
 few particulars. The body was little attenuated, and 
 measured in the coffin six feet one inch. It was the 
 desire of Mr. Cobbett's friends that the funeral should 
 be conducted in the plainest manner, consistent with 
 the character and station of the deceased, and that was 
 also his own wish. The son of the landlord of the 
 " Jolly Farmer," a young man whom Cobbett often 
 noticed, having been both born in the same house, was 
 apprenticed to a plumber, and has had the melancholy 
 task of incasing the mortal remains of his late patron 
 in lead. 
 
 Arrangements for the Funeral. — The rain poured 
 down incessantly during Friday, and many who were 
 expected to follow in the procession had not arrived ; 
 all that was known up to ten o'clock on that night was, 
 that Mr. O'Connell had called in Bolt-court, and inti- 
 mated his intention of following Cobbett to the grave. 
 Mr. O'Connell's name, however, appearing in the even- 
 ing papers, as chairman at a public meeting to be held 
 on Saturday morning, threw considerable doubt upon 
 the report. It was rumoured that if Mr. O'Connell 
 did attend, he would speak over the grave. John Leach, 
 Esq. late M.P. for the western division of Surrey. 
 Mrs. Mellish, and Kean, bankers, of Godalming ; and 
 Mr. Cobbett's four sons, William, John, James, and 
 Richard, were the only persons that it was positively 
 known would attend. 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 181 
 
 A hearse and four, and two mourning coaches and 
 four, were the only vehicles provided at Farnham. It 
 was arranged that the other mourning coaches should 
 join the procession as they fell into the line of road from 
 London. The bell tolled out heavily at intervals. ]\Ir. 
 Alderman Scales and many personal friends of the 
 deceased arrived a little before noon. 
 
 At about twelve o'clock the movement had been 
 made at Normandy. At the White Post, about a 
 quarter of a mile from the town, where the old Guild- 
 ford road commences, IMr. Gibson and some other 
 gentlemen of Farnham were collected, intending to fall 
 into the procession on foot. 
 
 The coffin, which was excedingly heavy, was 
 lowered slowly into its earthly home, and the burial 
 service was read ; during which we were surprised to 
 observe Mr. O'Connell put on his cap, which, being of 
 green, and having a gold band, was the more remark- 
 able. During the service, Mr. John Cobbett with 
 difficulty sustained himself on Captain Donnelly's arm. 
 He wept bitterly, and was, not without some difficulty, 
 removed from the grave. His brothers, James and 
 Richard, who were also deeply affected, bore him into 
 the vestry. As the mourners left the grave, the mul- 
 titude rushed forward, so as to make it a task of 
 difficulty to see the coffin. The inscription was simply — 
 "WILLIAM COBBETT, 
 
 M.P. FOR OLDHAM, 
 
 AGED 73, 
 
 DIED 18th JUNE, 1835." 
 
 R 
 
182 " MEMOIRS OF 
 
 The mourners^ with the exception of the Messrs. 
 Cobbett;, did not return to their carriages. i\Ir. O'Con- 
 nell^ and some portion of the party, walked to the 
 Bush Inn, some of the others to Mr. Grove's, the Lion 
 and Lamb. It was impossible to compute the number 
 })resent with any degree of accuracy. Along the line 
 of road persons had placed themselves in groups on all 
 the elevations, and subsequently followed in the train. 
 In the churchyard every flat monument held a little 
 knot of persons, and the church was filled in body and 
 galleries. 
 
 A great number of ladies were present, but the 
 majority were of the other sex. 
 
 Previous to filling the grave a singular ceremony 
 took place. Three flat stones were lowered upon the 
 coffin (apparently wedges of slate or iron stone) so as 
 to intervene between that and any coflin that may 
 hereafter be placed upon it. Hundreds pressed forward 
 for the last look ; some picked up portions of the earth, 
 or plucked a little of the herbage around the grave ; 
 and the coaches that arrived from Southampton, about 
 four o'clock, stopped an extra quarter of an hour in 
 changing, to enable the passengers to step to the 
 churchyard, and see the last of William Cobbett. The 
 funeral, and all bearing relation to it, was conducted 
 in a style of simplicity and propriety, quite in keeping 
 with him to whose honour it was performed. 
 
 Some scattered anecdotes of Cobbett's family, &c. 
 we subjoin J it is roadside matter, but obtained generally 
 
WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 183 
 
 from those whom we have reason to believe knew him 
 well, and who have shoM^n an interest at his funeral 
 highly honourable to him and to themselves. IMany 
 members of Mr. Cobbett's establishment were in attend- 
 ance, among others Mr. Dean and Mr. Marshall (the 
 William ^Marshall named in his letters from Ireland). 
 
 ]Mrs. Cobbett and her daughters were in the town 
 of Farnham, and of the personal friends and admirers 
 of the man we could furnish a long list. 
 
 Mr. Cobbett has left seven children ; of the four 
 sons, three are at the bar ; the fourth, Richard, is 
 articled to an attorney (Mr. Faithful). The daughters 
 (Ann, Ellen, and Susan,) are unmarried, and we be- 
 lieve all his sons are so too. 
 
 Cobbett's grandfather lived next door to the 
 Queen's Head, a little roadside inn, about a mile from 
 Farnham, on the road to Waverley. A cousin of Mr. 
 C.'s (jMr. Caesar, a pastry-cook) lives in that town, and 
 some other relatives are scattered about the adjacent 
 places. 
 
 I\Ir. O'Connell, whilst standing beside the grave, 
 was asked some questions, which we could not hear, by 
 Mr. Harvey and Mr. Mellish; the honourable gentleman's 
 reply, as we caught it, was to this effect : — " No ; I 
 would have spoken, but his family seem to think it had 
 better not be done ; and, of course, it rests with them 
 — they know best." At an inn in the town Mr. Michael 
 Scales had expressed his intention of following ]\Ir. 
 O'Connell's speech by a few remarks, and some persons 
 
184 WM. COBBETT, ESQ. 
 
 affirmed Mr. W. Harvey would pronounce an eulogium 
 upon the deceased. These rumours proved to be 
 wholly unfounded. After the burial service any oration 
 would have been superfluous;, and any eloquence, how- 
 ever sparkling, must fall flatly upon the ear which has 
 drank in the words of that sublime composition. 
 
 The grave has now closed for ever on the mortal 
 remains of William Cobbett, who, during, a long active, 
 and laborious life, has engrossed, by the mere force of 
 natural genius, unaided by scholastic education, a far 
 larger share of public notice, than any man of past or 
 present times. Lord North, whose estimate of mental 
 power none will venture to dispute, described Cobbett 
 as the greatest ^^ political reasoner" he ever knew. He 
 was so. It may, perhaps, fall to the lot of few to be 
 so highly gifted, yet the same means for the cultivation 
 of natural capacity are within the reach of those who 
 are inclined to profit by them. 
 
 THE END, 
 
 MANN, PRINTEK, CF.NTRAL-T/! AR KET, I.FElJ,' 
 
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