TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: In the Index, only the references within this volume are hyperlinked. Volume I is available as Project Gutenberg ebook number 49844.

WILLIAM COBBETT.

A BIOGRAPHY.

VOL. II.

LONDON:
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,
ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.

WILLIAM COBBETT:
A BIOGRAPHY.

By EDWARD SMITH.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

London:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1878.
[All rights reserved.]

CONTENTS.

WILLIAM COBBETT:
A BIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER XIV.
“I NEVER SAT MYSELF DOWN ANYWHERE, WITHOUT MAKING THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS TO GROW.”

The summer of 1805 finds Mr. Cobbett again at Botley with his family. A letter to Wright, dated 5th July, says, “I have found here a most delightful house and a more delightful garden.” Preparations are being made for a prolonged stay, and for the occasional entertainment of his correspondent: “I have given you a deal of trouble, and hope that you will find hereafter some compensation during the time you will spend at Botley.” The carpets are to be taken up (in Duke Street), and all the bedding, &c., to be “removed upstairs, packed in mats or something.” On the 28th of July Cobbett writes—

“I am glad that you are like to close your labours so soon, for I really wish very much to see you here, and so do all the children and their mother, all of whom have delightful health; and Mrs. Cobbett is more attached to Botley than I am—one cause of which is, she has made her servants humble, and she bakes good bread. I shall have made it a delightful place before you will have finished your volume.”[1]

There is a good deal about Botley and its neighbourhood to charm the tastes of men like Cobbett. A fine open country, which was then to a great extent unenclosed—it was a genuine agricultural and sporting district, of which the little town was the centre. It was quiet enough, not being on the road to anywhere; and the people were as quiet as the village.

“… Two doctors, one parson. No trade, except that carried on by two or three persons, who bring coals from the Southampton water, and who send down timber. All the rest are farmers, farmers’ men, millers, millers’ men, millwrights, publicans who sell beer to the farmers’ men and the farmers; copse-cutters, tree-strippers, bark-shavers, farmers’ wheelwrights, farmers’ blacksmiths, shopkeepers, a schoolmistress; and, in short, nothing but persons belonging to agriculture, to which, indeed, the two doctors and the parson belong as much as the rest.”

As Cobbett himself described them a few years later. The creek of the little river Hamble touches the end of the principal street; and here was a tiny wharf, and a miller’s house. On the farther side of the creek stood the “delightful house and more delightful garden,” which promised such bliss. Here is one of the first resulting joys:—

“Now, I am going to give you a commission that you must do us the favour to execute with the least possible delay. It is to find out where fishing-nets are sold, and to buy us a net called a Flue or Trammel net. It must be five feet deep, and fifteen yards long; with plenty of linnet, and not too coarse. We have a river full of fish sweeping round the one side of our little lot of land; but for want of such a net, we catch comparatively but few. It will not cost above three or four pounds, and we shall gain that in fish in a month. But the salmon-peel are now coming up with the spring tides, and we hope you will be able to send us the net by the Southampton night coach of Monday, to be left at the coach-office till called for. If you should miss that coach pray get it off by the next after; for this is a subject with regard to which none of us have any patience. The net is for jack, trout, and salmon-peel, &c.”

“… The net is excellent. Plenty of fish. Nobody has such an one in this place!”

“… Since last Saturday morning we have caught nearly as many fish as would sell in London for as much as the net cost you. We have, indeed, famous sport; and I wish to know if Mr. Windham be in town, that I may send him some of this excellent fish. When you come yourself we will show you what we can do; and I really hope that you will be able to get here soon.”

Now, quiet Botley began to rub its eyes. Here was a new neighbour who kept the wheels of life well greased. Visitors came to and fro; and the coach, or the waggon, had more parcels to carry. The precious scribblings from Botley House augmented the weight of the post-bag.

As autumn drew nigh, the bucolic pulses were quickened by the rumoured revival of English rustic sports. So, quiet Botley was awakening into something like fame.

One of Mr. Windham’s well-known fancies was the noble art of self-defence. Cobbett was entirely with him there; and it so happened, about this time, that a fatal case of pugilism had brought the matter before the public. Mr. Cobbett defended Boxing in the Register, and resolved to promote all kindred manly exercises.

Accordingly, a festive gathering was prepared, for this very first autumn. Here is a copy of the handbill:—

“Single-Stick Playing at Botley, near Southampton.

“On Friday, the 11th of October, 1805, being Old Michaelmas Day, will be played in the village of Botley, a grand match at single-stick. The prizes will be as follows:—

“The terms, as to playing the ties, &c., will be announced upon the spot. Those who have played for and lost the first prize, will be allowed to play for the second; those who have lost the second will be allowed to play for the third; and those who have lost the third will be allowed to play for the fourth. The playing will begin at eleven o’clock in the morning; and, if possible, all the prizes are to be played for on the same day. For any further information that may be required, application may be made, either in person or by letter, to Mr. Richard Smith, of Botley.

“Gentlemen coming from a distance will find excellent accommodation of every kind at and in the neighbourhood of Botley, which is situated at only about five miles from Southampton, and at less than four miles from Bishops Waltham. The distance from London, through Farnham, Alton, and Bishops Waltham, is a short day’s journey, being barely sixty-eight miles.

“Botley, 23rd September, 1805.”

This announcement, scattered over Hampshire and Wiltshire, brought a good company together, and was the precursor of future successes of the same character. As a matter of course, however, Envy made of it another nail for the coffin of Mr. Cobbett’s reputation;—these things were so demoralizing.

The revels being over, preparations for extensive planting were made, the month of October being largely taken up with the transfer of apples, pears, rose-trees, &c., to the newly cleared ground. A letter of the 4th November says,—

“I have almost got my trees planted, and shall have done completely in one week from this day. Excuse all this gardening plague, and look forward to the time when you are to find a compensation in the fruit.”

The following, dated Botley, 1st December, 1805, throws much interesting light on then current prospects:—

“Dear Sir,—On the other side you will find letters for William and Nancy, which you will be so good as to cut asunder and give to them respectively.

“Mrs. Cobbett and I have now fixed upon our plan and scale of living, and we mean to carry it into effect directly. We intend to live here from the 1st of May to the Queen’s birthday in every year; to take a lodging in town for the three winter months; to put three of the children to school almost immediately; and, of course, to get rid of the house and furniture in Duke Street, as soon as I can get to town and put up the curtains, so as to make the house look neat and handsome. Of this you are to speak to nobody. I tell it you for your own information, and that you may be thinking of a place for a store-house. Suppose a winter lodging for thirteen weeks to cost us three guineas a week—that is 40l. Suppose my coach-hire to cost 20l. a year (ten trips between London and Alton)—that makes 60l. Suppose 20l. a year for store-room (it will not be above half that)—that makes 80l. a year. Very well: the house-rent, the taxes, the water-duty, and the interest of money upon goods and wear and tear of goods in Duke Street (besides the interest upon what I paid for the lease), amounts to more than 240l. a year. The garden-stuff here is worth 25l. a year, exclusive of fruit of all sorts. The milk will not cost us above a third part of what it costs in town; bread is one-ninth cheaper (an immense sum in the year); the meat about an eighth cheaper. In short, I am fully convinced that exclusive of the consideration of health, and taking into the account postage, &c., &c., attendant upon this distant situation, that the saving would be at least 300l. a year. Fuel at Botley is little more than half the price of fuel in London. So much for that.

“Now, as to the present, my intention is to go to town as soon as this job shall be safely over. Then to let the house, and settle all about that matter. In the meanwhile, pray go on with your preparations. I like the type very well indeed; and, having now done with my improvements and planting (which has been most fortunately finished) I shall set myself about the prospectus, and shall, in short, make every preparation for most strenuous exertions. The post of to-day is not yet come in: it may bring me something. My present intention is to fill the next sheet with an address to the people of England, calculated to make a deep and lasting impression upon them. I shall endeavour to show them what has been the cause of all their present dangers; and shall tell them that, in a future sheet, I will endeavour to convince them that such and such are the means of salvation. The time is most favourable for making such an impression; and, please God, I will not let it slip. The crisis, which I have always foreseen, is approaching, fast approaching; and it will require all our vigilance and all our courage to save our country, and at the same time to maintain the throne of our beloved and gracious old king.…

“… The post is come. Thank you for your attention. The Bulletins may be set up for another number; but I shall, if I live and am well, fill the next in the manner I tell you. Adieu. Thank you very kindly for the hare. Watch the papers well. Pray take care of the children. Thank you for William.

“Wm. C.”

The newly projected great work is “The Parliamentary History,” which is to contain a full report of all the recorded proceedings, from the earliest times to 1803, when “The Debates” were commenced. A prospectus appeared in the ensuing February. This valuable collection was completed in sixteen volumes, and has long since been an indispensable adjunct to a respectable library. Yet the name of its projector has, unaccountably, become dissociated from it.

There is reason to believe that these enterprizes were entailing pecuniary embarrassment. The increasing sale of the Register was producing a splendid income; but so much new printing—a greater part of which would require time for it to fructify—along with the settlement and extensive improvements at Botley, could not but exhaust Cobbett’s resources for the time. In fact a purchase of premises at Droxford (a few miles from Botley), about this time, was made with borrowed money. Another scheme, early in 1805, had been a downright failure: this was “Cobbett’s Spirit of the Public Journals for 1804,” being letters, essays, &c., taken from the English, American, and French journals; a work of inestimable value to the student of history and politics, but unattractive to the general reader. The following extract from a letter to Mr. Wright, dated October 16th, 1805, makes ominous reference to the money question:—

“… I have this one caution to give you, which I beg you will observe; and that is, never speak nor hint, in the presence of Mrs. Cobbett, anything relative to my pecuniary concerns, or concerns in trade, of any sort or kind. She has her own ideas about such matters, which cannot be altered.

“I have never mentioned the Spirit of the Public Journals to her; and there is no occasion for it. She knows I have lost so much by printing, &c., that she is fearful of everything of the kind. I cannot blame her anxiety; but as I cannot remove it, it is better not to awaken it. Always reserve these matters for tête-à-tête opportunities.”

And, on the 29th December, in a letter to Mr. Wright, thanking him for his editorial labours, and expressing pleasure at having been the means of giving him another lift in the world, there is some sensitiveness upon money-matters:—

“My wishes, my wants too, and your own taste, turn of mind, and talents, have all conspired towards placing you beyond the reach of anxiety. But you should now look further. You should economize as much as possible.… A horse, a cow, a house, is soon gone in even trifling things, which we give into from mere want of thought, and not from our love of things themselves.”

A more interesting message occurs a day or two later:—

“Mind the twelfth-cake. A good large one!”

The plan proposed, of spending three months of the year in London lodgings, does not appear to have been carried out. During the spring of 1806, Cobbett was living for a short time at Parson’s Green, Fulham; and in June he returned to Botley, permanently, only going up to London when occasion needed.

The year 1806 was pregnant with importance concerning the future of this country. The accession of “All the Talents” to power, after the death of Pitt, marked its commencement; and the nation was alive with hopes. Another abortive attempt was made to negotiate peace with Napoleon. The affairs of India, Military Reform, Lord Melville’s Impeachment, filled the public mind. But one matter, above all, which now came to the front: and which, after many years of lagging, now had a fair start,—was that of Parliamentary Reform.

And that which, at length, furnished the motive power to the wheels of Parliamentary Reform, was no other than the invincible Weekly Political Register of Mr. William Cobbett. Fitful had hitherto been the progress made. Few persons of position had been in earnest about it. Very few had dared to give definiteness to their opinions; and the number of those who could be called advocates of Reform, could be counted on the fingers. The most prominent of these was Major Cartwright.[2]

So, upon Mr. Cobbett’s wit and energy being devoted to the discussion of public abuses, and the only real remedy for them, he found himself surrounded by a new class of friends. Cartwright, Burdett, Bosville, and others, no longer singly held their cry, but rejoiced in their new exponent. Here was a man who had been learning all his lifetime, and who could manfully confess his political errors, not only in mere general terms, but to points of detail;—a man who had acquired the high privilege of being maligned, misrepresented, and threatened for the odious crime of speaking the truth in clear and unfaltering, although sarcastic, terms:—one “to whom the public eye turned for light and information.” That was the view, at least, taken by many of the correspondents of the Register. So, if Mr. Cobbett was heaping up wrath in one quarter, his name and his talents were being recognized in another. The people were looking to him,—not the “swinish multitude” of Mr. Burke, nor the “lower orders” of Mr. Wilberforce, but the people who paid the taxes and wanted to see where the money went to.

There was a Mr. Robson, M.P. for Honiton, who particularly “wanted to know,” and insisted on knowing, the truth about certain abuses in the Barrack Department. The truth came out, with a story very much akin to a dead-and-buried affair, in which a former Serjeant to the 54th regiment was concerned. Mr. Cobbett took it up, and even assisted, by interviews with the parties concerned, in helping to expose the matter. The incident is chiefly noticeable, in this history, as being the occasion, alas! of a divergence of sentiment between himself and Windham; who, as Secretary at War, had not met Robson’s motions for inquiry in a spirit according with the professions of his out-of-office days. “Surely there is something in the air of the offices that lowers the minds of men!” was the exclamation of Cobbett; “it was with still better reason than I thought, that I recommended a clean sweeping and a fumigation of the haunts of the Pitts and the Roses!”

At this juncture, Mr. Cavendish Bradshaw, the second member for Honiton, accepted an office which required him to vacate his seat. Upon seeking re-election he found an unexpected opponent in the person of Mr. Cobbett, who hastily issued an address to the electors, offering his services, in the event of no other public-spirited man coming forward. At the last moment, Lord Cochrane appeared, having in the meantime read Cobbett’s letter to the electors; and the latter withdrew in Lord Cochrane’s favour.[3] Mr. Cobbett, however, made a long speech at the hustings, in temperate but most eloquent terms; ridiculing the claims of a sinecure-placeman upon the constituency. Mr. Bradshaw’s remarks were short; but they included the instructive information that the last speaker was a “convicted libeller.” Well, the people of Honiton couldn’t afford to throw away their two-guineas-a-head; so, Mr. Bradshaw was re-elected.

A dissolution of parliament was now imminent, and the new forces promised themselves a glorious time of it. The following letter, dated Botley, 7th July, points to the increasing prominence of Mr. Cobbett’s share in the campaign:—

“… As to Mr. Robson’s re-election, I verily believe he would carry it for Westminster; and I would go up and aid him with all my might if he would stand upon my principle. He would surely carry it. Let me know when the dissolution is to take place. Give me, in your next letter, the very best intelligence you can get upon the subject, for I must begin without loss of time, to address the electors all over the kingdom.

“Between you and me, my opinion is, that I should not come forward now, unless some body of electors were to call me forward.[4] Most men like me have been ruined in reputation by their haste to get forward. If the great objects which I have at heart could be accomplished without my being in parliament, I should greatly prefer it. I should first attend to my own family. I am perfectly sincere in all my public professions. But I will flinch from nothing that may tend to effect the great purpose of saving the country, which is now, every day, in more and more danger.… I wrote to Mr. Paull yesterday. I highly approve of his activity and zeal; but he is, be assured, too fond of the Bond Street set—has too great a desire to live amongst the great, to aim at the only objects that can save the throne and the liberties of the people.

“P.S.—We have at last got some rain, which was wanted to prevent my trees from being totally burnt up.”

And, on the 17th:—

“… I hope Mr. Robson will come down here this summer, and he and I will then settle upon a general scheme for an examination into the public expenditure. We will leave no branch untouched. Pray give my best respects to him, and tell him to take care of his health. Tell him that if he intends to stand for Honiton, he shall have my aid in preference to all other men upon earth and my aid is something, after all. I think him the most valuable man in parliament, and I hold it my duty to assist him in all his endeavours.”

The following extracts from letters of July-October, will illustrate several incidents and opinions:—

“… You opened my nephew’s letter, which I have before told you I have an objection to. This is what you would not like; and, in short, it is what I must say that I cannot permit.… You opened a letter from Mrs. Cobbett’s brother to her; and I did hope that my remark at the time would save me the pain of making a direct injunction like this. I am in no anger, and I wish to have no answer. The thing is now gone from my mind, and there, I hope, it never will return.”

“… I greatly approve of what you are about to do with respect to Mr. Finnerty, to whom I beg you to present my best respects. As to Westminster, I hope Fox will live long yet; for I am always afraid, that if he were dead, tyranny, sheer unmixed tyranny, would be let loose upon the land. I am in no haste to become anything but what I am; and never will I be anything else by the usual base means resorted to by candidates. The time must come, when either such principles as mine will prevail, or when no principles at all will be of any use.”

“… Last Friday, I caught a very bad cold indeed, a-fishing, which I have not yet got rid of, though I rode ten miles this morning.…

“Lauderdale is off, I hear, but I do not believe there will be any peace. It is not the least consequence, however, to anybody. Our affairs in this country will march on steadily towards the great point at which, sooner or later, they must arrive.

“I want to know, by return of post, whether Mr. Robson intends to stand for Honiton; for if he does not, another person has asked me to write thither in his favour. This is of great importance; for, I have told the person that I will so write, if Mr. Robson does not stand; but, if he does, I am decidedly for him in preference to any other man. Pray get me the necessary information upon this head.

“Lord and Lady H. Stuart come here to-morrow; Mr. Paull will come on Friday and stay till Sunday most likely; and on Sunday comes another person for two days; so that you had better come on the 12th or 13th [August] instant; for we shall have no leisure at all if anybody is here.… Your pain in your side should be taken care of. I am sure country exercise is the thing. I speak from experience. A jolting upon the coach-box is excellent.”

“… I am particularly interested by what you say about Mr. Robson’s views with regard to the next parliament; and I think with you, that for him to be safely returned is an object of the very first consequence.… But, proportioned to my anxiety for his election, is my hope that what I have heard suggested is not true, viz., that he has an understanding with Bradshaw. That were disgrace, indeed! Disgraceful in all manner of ways; for how could he raise his voice against pensions and sinecures, after having acted in conjunction with a sinecure-placeman? This would be so shamefully bad, that I cannot think of it without shuddering. Surely Lord Cochrane and he could carry it for Honiton:[5] but then, Mr. Robson must, and without loss of time, make his declaration both to the borough and to Lord Cochrane, or else, he may depend that the whole force of the Cochranes will be brought to bear against him.”

“… I have put off what I intended to write until to-morrow. To this I have been moved, in part by a desire to see the Morning Post before I begin; but, in truth, much more by a desire to go and see a new pointer of Farmer Hoad’s hunt. This, viewed in the abstract, is very bad; but, when it is considered that this exercise gives me health and nerves, and that these produce Registers, the time is not thrown away.…”

“… The Morning Post man labours hard.[6] But it will nought avail him. He must give us a good reason why the Princess does not publish the report and evidence, or he had better hold his tongue.

“I had forgotten the Hats. Get them from the same man:—

(gold-laced)

Single-stick prize, won at Botley, 8th September, 1806. 20 guineas.

And one silver-laced, the same words, only 10 guineas in the centre. The city of Salisbury has advertised that a match will take place there on the 17th instant, ‘similar to that at Botley.’ The hats must be here on Saturday at farthest. They need not be very good. A hat at a guinea will do very well; and as to the lace, I am sure that it need not cost more than about a guinea-and-a-half. However, do the best you can.

“Lord Cochrane is here, hard at work a-shooting, but Mr. Johnstone is not yet arrived.”

“We shall be in town to-morrow night, and I wish you could come to me about 10 o’clock at Col. Johnstone’s in Harley Street.

“A glorious match have we had! A fine day, and a company of people not less than six thousand in number. The whole of the village was full. Stages, in the form of amphitheatres, were erected against the houses, and, perhaps, seats let to the amount of thirty or fifty pounds! Every gentleman round the country was here. The subscription pays the whole of all the expenses, without throwing any more than my single guinea and the price of my dinner upon me. The city of Salisbury will not equal this, take my word for it. There were twenty-three players. The first prize went to Somersetshire, and the second to Wiltshire. But the great contest was between the former county and Hampshire.”

“… The little mare went off on Friday. Keep her well, use her regularly and gently, and I hope she will prove of use. William followed her with his eyes as long as he could get a glimpse of her; and the poor dear fellow could not speak a word all the evening after she went off. He was made somewhat more happy by my assuring him that she was not sold, and that she was gone to you. Fit her well with saddle and bridle, and have a curb, for she is apt to run off, though your weight will be a tolerably good curb. The main thing is to see her well fed upon good hay and oats.”

“… The little dogs came very safe; and they are both (having been new named Tipler and Daisy) at Steeple Court Farm, there to be reared up to dog-hood. I was yesterday at Meon Stoke, where we had some very fine coursing. We found five hares. Two stole off; three we coursed, and killed two. There was one large greyhound dog; but my little bitches beat him hollow. They go like the wind.… Lord Northesk, who lives at Rose Hill, near Winchester, has been here again to invite me there a-coursing; and I shall go next Saturday, if I am alive and well.”

“… As to your coming down, when you do come, I wish you to stay a week or ten days. You must go with us a-coursing; and I will take care to have a good field for sport provided.… If you never saw any coursing, you have a great pleasure to come; and you will see William ride his pony and leap over the ditches.”

Amongst new acquaintances of this year was no less a person than Dr. Mitford, probably introduced to Cobbett by Sir William Elford, who was a vigorous Windhamite. The Doctor’s passion for coursing consolidated a friendship which lasted for several years; and we find Cobbett visiting him in December, 1806, at Bertram House, near Reading, from which place several articles in the Register are dated. Miss Mitford has several pleasing recollections of Cobbett, for whom she had considerable esteem.[7]

But, of all his Hampshire friends, there was none so staunch as Viscount Folkestone,[8] a rising whig politician of the day; a man who endeavoured to carry the principles of his pretentious Party into practice, and honestly believed that Mr. Cobbett was, with all his untamable vigour, one of the best exponents of the current political aspirations. Although the time came when, in 1834, their opinions diverged on the Poor Law question, their mutual regard lasted to the very end.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The Parliamentary Debates.

[2] John Cartwright (1740-1823) was the boldest and the bravest champion of free speech, for forty years or more, during the reign of George the Third. Indeed, he was not unjustly styled “the Father of Reform.” In early life he was in the navy, but left it after a short period of service, and became an officer in the militia. He produced a number of pamphlets, advocating all those ideas of popular rights which have since his time been generally accepted in England, the first one being in support of American Independence, published in 1774. But his writings were heavy in style, and could not live beyond his own times and the occasions which they served.

Major Cartwright’s personal character was lofty and amiable, and Cobbett appears to have regarded him with peculiar affection. On one occasion of the Westminster Anniversary Dinner, in 1816, an opportunity occurred, under the following circumstances, of entering upon a protest, against the Major being overlooked among the new men who were finding it worth their while to pin their faith to the cause of Reform:—After the two members were toasted, as usual, there appeared the name of Brougham! Mr. Cobbett’s wonder at this was changed into indignation upon finding Major Cartwright’s name at the bottom of the list; and he declared he would not sit any longer at the table unless an alteration was made. So Brougham’s name was taken out, and the Major’s put in its place.

[3] “When I went as a candidate to Honiton, in the year 1806, I began by posting up a bill, having at the top of it this passage of Scripture, ‘Fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.’ After this I addressed myself to the people of the place, telling them how wicked and detestable it was to take bribes. Most of the corrupt villains laughed in my face, but some of the women actually cried out against me in the streets, as a man that had come to rob them of their blessing!” (Register, xlviii. 500.)

[4] The following advertisement, to the Electors of Westminster, was addressed to them in September, and appears in the Morning Post of the 19th:—

“Gentlemen,—Having, some time ago, publicly stated that, at the General Election then looked for, and in the case then supposed, it appeared to me that I ought to offer myself to you as a candidate; having now been informed that, in consequence of that statement, a very general expectation has been entertained that, upon this accidental occasion, I should so offer myself; and having, by many individuals of your respectable body, been pressingly urged to fulfil that expectation; thus situated, I think it my duty, first, explicitly to declare that, for the present, I relinquish the honour intended me, and for this sole reason, that at this time I find it would be next to impossible for me to devote myself wholly and exclusively to the discharge of the great duties which, by your suffrages, would necessarily be imposed; and, secondly, to warn you against the calamity, the shame, the deep disgrace, that await you and your country if, yielding to the venal solicitations of the stewards and butlers of noblemen, you condescend to become the menials of menials, the laquies of laquies,—and suffer the popular, the industrious, the enlightened and public-spirited city of Westminster, hitherto considered as the ever-burning lamp of the liberties of England, to be handed to-and-fro like a family borough. Confidently trusting that you will, with indignation, resent any project for thus extinguishing the fame of your city and degrading the character of her electors; confidently trusting that, when you consider that it is to you all other free cities and boroughs look for an example, you will tear in rags the gaudy livery now tendered for your backs; confidently trusting that, when the question is freedom or bondage, you will suspend all animosities and differences, and act with a degree of energy and unanimity that shall at once and for ever blast the hopes of all those who would make you the instruments of your country’s ruin; thus trusting, and with a mind full of gratitude for the goodwill which many of you have taken occasion to express towards myself,—I remain, &c., William Cobbett.”

Oddly enough, this advertisement precedes a highly abusive paragraph on “this low-bred man.” The Post was a good hater of the lower orders.

[5] In the end, Bradshaw and Cochrane were elected, and Mr. Robson found a seat as representative for Oakhampton.

[6] This is with reference to a glorious newspaper squabble, especially entertaining on account alike of the circumstances which aroused it and of the combatants engaged. The first attempt to defame the Princess of Wales had just been made, and the Morning Post took up the illustrious lady and the “infamous calumny” into its protecting breast. The fulsome style, and the dark insinuations conveyed, aroused Mr. Cobbett, and he, while asserting his indifference to the question until there was really some charge, on one side or the other, upon which to comment, wanted to know what the Post meant by stating that the Princess had been guilty of no levities, but such as no woman in the land was free from. Ever the champion of the sex, he begged for an explanation. Week after week the question was put, and reiterated with new zest. There was no answer; but only column after column of abuse upon the head of the “gross and abominable writer,” “this low-bred man,” this “modern Jack Cade,” &c. “This gross and abominable writer is exposed to the merited detestation of all classes, especially the more elevated, whom this writer has, in his revolutionary cant, described as the well-dressed rabble of the readers of the Morning Post. We hope the Attorney-General will look to this.” A very silly and abusive pamphlet followed, under the wing of the Post: “Strictures on Cobbett’s Unmanly Observations relative to the Delicate Investigation; and a Reply to the Answer to an Admonitory Letter to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, containing an Account of the True Cause why the Commissioners’ Report has not yet been Published, and many other Additional Facts, &c.” (London, 1806). Here is one of the additional facts:—“Vain, contemptible slanderer! where in all thy calumnious pages is one unanswerable argument.”

[7] Among other references to Cobbett, Miss Mitford records a visit to Botley (“Recollections of a Literary Life,” chap. xvii.):—

“Sporting, not politics, had brought about our present visit and subsequent intimacy.… He had at that time a large house at Botley, with a lawn and gardens sweeping down to the Bursledon river.… His house, large, high, massive, red, and square, and perched on a considerable eminence, always struck me as being not unlike its proprietor. It was filled at that time almost to overflowing. Lord Cochrane was there, then in the very height of his warlike fame, and as unlike the common notion of a warrior as could be—a gentle, quiet, mild young man.…

“There was a large fluctuating series of guests for the hour or guests for the day, of almost all ranks and descriptions, from the earl and his countess to the farmer and his dame. The house had room for all, and the hearts of the owners would have had room for three times the number. I never saw hospitality more genuine, more simple, or more thoroughly successful in the great end of hospitality—the putting everybody completely at ease. There was not the slightest attempt at finery, or display, or gentility. They called it a farmhouse, and everything was in accordance with the largest idea of a great English yeoman of the old time. Everything was excellent, everything abundant, all served with the greatest nicety by trim waiting-damsels; and everything went on with such quiet regularity that of the large circle of guests not one could find himself in the way. I need not say a word more in praise of the good wife, … to whom this admirable order was mainly due. She was a sweet motherly woman.…

“At this time William Cobbett was at the height of his political reputation; but of politics we heard little, and should, I think, have heard nothing, but for an occasional red-hot patriot, who would introduce the subject, which our host would fain put aside, and got rid of as speedily as possible. There was something of Dandie Dinmont about him, with his unfailing good-humour and good spirits, his heartiness, his love of field sports, and his liking for a foray. He was a tall, stout man, fair and sunburnt, with a bright smile, and an air compounded of the soldier and the farmer, to which his habit of wearing an eternal red waistcoat contributed not a little.…

“Few persons excelled him in the management of vegetables, fruit, and flowers. His green Indian corn, his Carolina beans, his water-melons, could hardly have been exceeded at New York. His wall-fruit was equally splendid; and, much as flowers have been studied since that day, I never saw a more glowing or a more fragrant autumn garden than that at Botley, with its pyramids of hollyhocks, and its masses of china-asters, of cloves, of mignonette, and of variegated geranium. The chances of life soon parted us, as, without grave faults on either side, people do lose sight of one another; but I shall always look back with pleasure and regret to that visit.”

[8] Afterwards 3rd Earl Radnor. He died in 1869, at a very advanced age, after a life of real usefulness. Had there been more such men as he, the domestic history of England, in our century, would be a different tale.

CHAPTER XV.
“I DID DESTROY THEIR POWER TO ROB US, ANY LONGER, WITHOUT THE ROBBERY BEING PERCEIVED.”

In September, 1806, Mr. Charles James Fox died, and left one of the seats for Westminster at the disposal of the Whigs. For several years there had been a truce between the Whigs and the Tories, over this celebrated constituency, and each party was represented there. Accordingly, Earl Percy was quietly suffered to succeed to Mr. Fox.

The Whig nominee was no sooner elected, however, than a dissolution, which had been for some time imminent, took place, and the two factions, in their mutual consent, put up Mr. Sheridan and Admiral Hood, Lord Percy having declined to come forward again. Sheridan was a man who was for the winning side, whichever it might be, and he now laid claim to the mantle of Mr. Fox, whose name and whose party had been steadily growing into favour.

During the summer and autumn, Mr. Cobbett had been lecturing the electors of Westminster upon their duties. He pointed out that, with such traditions as theirs, there was less excuse for “base conduct” than in any other body of electors; yet, that the constituency was sinking to the level of a nomination-borough. Base conduct meant: clamouring against “peculators and depredators,” and then being led by the nose by men who not only “clamoured,” but pledged their word to reform, and to inquire into abuses; and who, immediately they got a snug office, found ready excuses for the non-fulfilment of their promises. The case in point was that of Mr. Sheridan, who, now that he was treasurer to the navy, declined to bring forward charges which he had threatened, “lest he should thereby create divisions in the ministry, that is to say, lest he should lose his place.” Mr. Cobbett was requested by a small section to come forward himself; but he refused. The advertisement in the Morning Post of 19th September, announces his determination (vide note, p. 14). But he was actually proposed, on the hustings, by a Mr. Hewlings.

Mr. Cobbett’s candidate was James Paull:—

“A Scotchman who had been in India, who had been in Parliament during two sessions, who had brought articles of charge against the elder Wellesley for his conduct while Governor-General of India, who was a little man in point of size, who talked pretty well, who wrote better than half of the 658, who was perfectly honest and disinterested, and who was brave to the backbone, and persevering beyond any man. The Whigs had all along been deceiving this Mr. Paull, as they always have done every one else who has trusted in them. They, by leading him to believe that they would support his charge against old Wellesley, induced him to go on with the charges until they themselves got into power, and then they turned against him, and set all their whispering myrmidons to work to spread about that he had been a tailor, and that he was only accusing Lord Wellesley in order to get some money from him. I became acquainted with Mr. Paull, from his having been introduced to me by Mr. Windham, who strongly urged me to render him any assistance in my power in his undertaking against Wellesley; and I can truly say, that a more disinterested and honourable man I never knew in my life.

“At this election, therefore, Mr. Paull was fixed upon for us to put forward, in order to break up the infamous combination of these two factions, and to rescue Westminster from the disgrace of submitting to them any longer. This was my work:[1] it was my own project: I paved the way to it by my addresses to the people of Westminster.… Hood was the Tory candidate; Sheridan the Whig candidate, having Whitbread and Peter Moore for his bottle-holders. They beat the people, but it was such a beat as pronounced their doom for the future, as far as Westminster was concerned. At the close of the election, Hood and the base Sheridan slipped away from the hustings into the Church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, just opposite the porch of which the hustings stood, and there they were locked up nearly all the night, with constables and policeman to guard the church.… Being in November, there was a plentiful supply of mud, with which the honourable representatives were covered all over from the forehead down to their shoes. I never shall forget them. They looked just like a couple of rats, raked up from the bottom of a sewer; and the High Bailiff, and his books, and his clerks, and his beadles, were all covered over in the same manner.”

Mr. Paull had started at the top of the poll. But as the days wore on, the others gained slowly upon him, until, at the close, he was left in a small minority. It was found, however, upon an analysis of the voting, that Paull had polled 3077 plumpers, against Sheridan’s 955, and Sir Samuel Hood’s 1033, whilst the coalition of the two latter had given them each 3240 split votes. Paull’s total was 4481. These figures were solemnly put upon record by the friends of reform (as they now called themselves), in order to show “the manner in which Mr. Paull had been defeated.”

An interesting conflict ensued, between Cobbett and Sheridan, which must not go unnoticed. When the former was attacked by Sheridan in parliament, in August, 1803 (as before related), it was a wilful and unnecessary throwing down of the gauntlet. Mr. Sheridan was not the man who should find fault with another’s popularity-hunting, much less another’s inconsistency; and Mr. Cobbett proceeded to give him the inevitable “Series of Letters,”[2] with which he usually favoured the objects of his animadversion. Mr. Sheridan, now crowing on the Westminster hustings, imputes low birth to his opponents; Mr. Paull’s father was only a tailor, and, as for his bottle-holder, why all the world knows his story. And all the world (except Mr. Sheridan) might have guessed what would have come of that. “Whence came the Sheridans? From a play-actor! from a member of that profession, the followers of which are, in our wise laws, considered and denominated vagabonds.” And Mr. Cobbett proceeds further, and wants to know what are the public services of these persons, Sheridan and his son Thomas, that they should be receiving between seven and eight thousand pounds of the public money? So Tom Sheridan offers to fight, according to a speech of his own at a Sheridan dinner:—

“This man, for his roughness and vulgarity towards my father (whom I think I may fairly describe as the person in whom eloquence may be said to preside), I had intended to thrash, and for that purpose I went down to his house with a cane, but he was not at home. I afterwards thought it best to offer him a pistol, and wrote to him for the purpose, but this valiant Mr. Cobbett answered me by saying that he never fought duels.”

Of course, the only utility of this sort of thing, was to provide material for satire; and Cobbett, on his part, never failed to remind Sheridan of his foibles, nor ceased to look upon his “statesmanship” with the contempt it deserved.

The result of this general election was promising enough, to the increasing band of reformers. But, another dissolution, in the following spring, gave a still greater impulse to the popular feeling. Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane headed the poll at Westminster, leaving Elliott (a Windhamite), Sheridan, and Paull out in the cold. It was as early as this that Mr. Cobbett began to suspect Burdett’s sincerity concerning Reform; and he refused, on account of Sir Francis declining to act with Paull,[3] to interfere in this election, although Lord Cochrane begged him to do so. But the powerful Register was as active as ever in the contest of principles which was being waged.

We may now glance at some of the correspondence of this winter, 1806-7.

“… This last expression puts me in mind of what I thought to mention to you in my last; and that is, my intention to insure my life. A small sum annually will be well laid out this way; and I feel that I ought to do it. My family is now large, and it is my bounden duty to do all I am able to provide for them in the manner that least exposes them to chance. Pray inquire about this, and let me know the result of your inquiries in a few days.

“We send you by the waggon of to-night a fine hamper of garden things, two fowls, and a chine included, which we think will be acceptable. Pray send us back the hamper by the waggon, and also a hamper from Mr. Paull’s. There is a box at Mr. Paull’s with flower-roots in it. You may as well send it too.

“Ellen is to be christened on Thursday. Mrs. Cobbett begs you will send off by to-morrow night’s mail-coach a good lusty twelfth-cake for the christening.… Your letters are very cheerful, and, I can assure you, they come to a very healthy and happy house.

“I propose, in future, to write to you only upon Fridays, and that you shall write to me only upon Tuesdays, except upon particular occasions.… In order that I may profit as much as possible from your correspondence you should begin a sheet and fill it up as thoughts or facts occur.”

A chronic complaint of Cobbett’s, throughout his life, was being exposed to the payment of unfranked letters. A renewed notice to friends and correspondents appears in January, 1807, informing them that he will not take in such letters. A message to Mr. Wright, about this time, gives him directions on the subject, and mentions that 12s. a week would not pay the postage of letters, of no use at all, and many of them sent merely for persecution.

“… The whole world united would not shake my resolution to reside in the country. The opinions of ‘friends,’ experience has taught me not to prefer, upon all occasions, to my own; and you know as well as I do, that those ‘friends’ generally speak as convenience or interest dictate. As I know you are perfectly sincere in the regret that you express at not having an opportunity of seeing me and mine oftener, so you may be assured that the loss of the pleasure of frequently seeing you, my Lord Folkestone, Sir Francis Burdett, and one or two more, is the greatest, and indeed the only, drawback from the stock of comfort and of pleasure which this domestic and rural life affords me. It will be very convenient to us for you and Mr. Murphy to come at any time. We have had no company since my return from town, and we expect none; but I am sure that none that could come would render your and Mr. Murphy’s company at all inconvenient. The time you mention will be as good as any. The sooner the better; but you must stay a whole week. And bring good boots with you, for we shall make you ride a-coursing. The children talk of you every day of their lives. William has been out with us this morning, and we have had a course worth all the balls and routs and operas that the whole town ever saw. Hares are hard to find. We sometimes go out without seeing one; but, when we do find, upon these lofty hills and open commons, you can have no idea of the beauty of the course. It lasts but a minute or two or three; but in one minute these beautiful animals go more than a mile.

“… We intend putting William to a school at Salisbury; but I am resolved he shall waste none of his precious time upon the ‘learned languages.’[4] He reads and writes very tolerably well now; and, if I live so long, I hope to see him able to do something in the way of usefulness, in the space of five years from this. He has learnt to course already. To-day again (for we catch every fine open day) we had a course surpassing anything I ever saw in all my life. We were hardly upon the common when we found a hare sitting (a very rare thing upon heath). All the rest, namely William, Frederick, and my man, took their stations in such places as enabled them to follow the dogs, and to see the course, whichever way she might take. I then went and started her. We had a course of thirty turns at least, and, after a very long and most beautiful course, we had the pleasure to see her save her life by darting to the copse with Princess not twelve feet behind her. The dogs were terribly cut and strained, but they will be well again before you and Mr. Murphy come.”

There is a great importation of American trees early this year, which gives Mr. Wright some trouble to attend to, out of his ordinary line; in return for which he is to have a farm some day, and American trees to beautify it with. He is expected at Botley again in March, and is to bring, amongst other matters, “two quarto blank books, with a good stiff cover, for Nancy to copy her grammar lessons in. I am teaching her; she learns very fast,” &c. And, they “all go to church of a Sunday.”

An impending duel between Mr. Elliott and Mr. Paull is alluded to in the following:—

“… The third is an article about Paull and Elliott. Leave out the words manly and excellent as applied to Paull’s letter; and, observe, soften every phrase that I have used in commendation of him or his conduct, if any such you find; for I now see that he has been challenging; and I will have nothing more to do with him, until I see a total change of conduct in this respect.”

“… I am glad Mr. Paull is exposed to no prosecution. I trust he will take great care. I have a hundred times warned him of his danger. They would imprison him as sure as he is alive.… I shall always defend Mr. Paull and his cause; but you know how I abhor anything covert; and, upon my word, I cannot say that a man who would consent to be sent to a hiding-place, ought to be believed upon his oath. Those that are used to such devices may look upon them calmly; but this is not, and I hope in God it never will be, the case with, yours, &c.”

A petition against Sheridan’s return for Westminster, on the part of Paull, now provided matter for discussion; and this, along with the unceasing campaign against sinecures, and the sudden dispersion of the lost sheep (as “All the Talents” were now called), kept the ready writer going merrily. Too merrily, indeed; a little cloud was gathering. Lord Grenville confided to somebody, that Cobbett was destroying the characters of all public men. Lord Howick[5] became unfavourably impressed with his vehemence, and threatened prosecution. Above all, the anonymous press had no mercy upon him, although it prudently avoided fair discussion. In March, Wright is asked for his opinion as to men’s feelings, in town.

“As to the result, I fear nothing. And the way to fear nothing, is to act always fairly and honestly.”

Only let him have open ground to go upon, and a good sight at the enemy.

Early in April, Mr. Cobbett writes:—

“What you told me about Mitford’s report has given me some uneasiness, on account of the trouble that prosecutions would give me; but as to the House, the d—— House, I set it at defiance, if it will only confine its vengeance to its own villainous powers. It is not, however, worth while to make any inquiries. It would be a good jest for the Whigs to begin to prosecute now. I’ll assure you, I was most cursedly afraid of them before. Howick is a perfect Bashaw; and apostates are proverbially persecutors. God knows I need say no harm of either party. They furnish me with ample quantities of good and true censure of one another. I am deeply impressed with the necessity of caution; but if they are resolved to plague, plague they may. Should anything of this sort happen, I am determined to plead my own cause, be the consequence what it may.… This talk of prosecution has exasperated me against them beyond measure; and my own safety shall be the only standard of my vengeance. Villains! They profess liberty; they set their hired scoundrels to write me and truth out of countenance; and the moment they feel the weight of my lash, they talk of the law, that law against which they have so much enveighed, which they know to be so unjust, and the administration of which they know to be so basely partial.

“Cultivate Lord C[ochrane] and Colonel J[ohnstone]. They are good and true friends to us, and, what is more, to their country.

“Pray send the Chronicle, when there is any violent or severe attack upon ministers or Parliament. Green[6] has been complaining to Reeves. The mean dog! Reeves begs me to spare him. I shall tell Reeves the provocation. If the rascal thus smarts at a parenthesis, what would he do at a sentence such as I could treat him with? As to the line of politics, safe is the word.… I hear that my friend Finnerty’s 100l. is coming out. Oh what a d—— thing this writing for hire is! The motion[7] has cost me more labour than I thought for, wishing to work in many interesting facts.…”

The new elections are coming on in April, and Mr. Cobbett is determined not to interfere, unless positively compelled. As soon as the election is over, he will “set about writing sober essays of exposure: quote from official documents, state the bare facts, and lament, as I most sincerely do, the inevitable consequences.” He foresees the inutility of Mr. Paull contesting Westminster again, and the event proves that he is right. But he continues his unasked-for advice to the electors. And he does keep to facts, facts which all who have eyes may see. Seats in Parliament are being openly advertised for sale in the daily papers,[8]—in Whig papers; and this villainous scribbler presses for an explanation, particularly from that party which is always flaunting the flag of 1688, and which yet rails at him, and abuses him, and calls him nicknames, for trying to hold them to their principles.

As for his own writings, conscious though he be of their power and clearness, and of the admiration excited by them in the minds of all who are not the recipients of his lashing, he will be more than ever guarded in expression:—

“… I see the fangs of the law open to grasp me, and I feel the necessity of leaving no hold for them, and even no ground for silly cavillers, upon the score of coarseness or violence. I am armed with undeniable facts, and my reasoning (at least in my own opinion of it) shall be as undeniably conclusive. The times are auspicious to us, and we have nothing to fear but the effects of ungovernable indignation.”

“… As to the ‘large pamphlet that is coming out against us all,’ the larger it is, the better it will be for the author; for the fewer people will read it, and the fewer the readers, the fewer those who will despise him. That any creature upon two legs should be so foolish!”

In the early part of this history, allusion was made to the growing impoverishment of the labouring classes. A quarter of a century was now elapsed, since the Hereditary Pauper started into being; and his race was now numbered by the million. The parishes were raising six millions sterling, for purposes of relief; and the recipients were going steadily down, down, down. They were becoming practically enslaved. The average rural labourer was now feeding upon bread, vegetables, and water. His children were uneducated; his wife was in rags; his dwelling was either a ruin or a hovel.

And, it is very curious matter for reflection, to note how ready the comfortable classes were to acquiesce in tolerating this state of things. Schemes of amelioration were broached by a few, but they were generally based upon a total ignorance of first-cause. Your social tinker,—amiable, bland, and very serious,—caught a glimpse of the poor wretches so far beneath him; and, straightway recollecting the words of Scripture, that the poor should “never cease out of the land,” opened his purse-strings, exhorted his friends to do the like,—and left matters worse than before.[9] Your local authority, and your parson-pluralist, deeply impressed with the need of preserving the “indispensable gradations of society,” in their full integrity, refused a cow to the cottager, lest he should be thereby rendered too independent! absolutely ignorant of the fact, that forty or fifty years previously, the rural labourer not only had his cow,—but his pigs, his geese, his beer, and his bacon, and a tolerable share of the comforts of life: his outward condition, in point of fact, being scarcely inferior to that of the farmers, and even the clergy, around him.

Now, in this year of grace 1807, there was no man living who was a better authority on this topic, than the hero of these pages. And, what is more, there was no living being, who had a tenderer sympathy with the wants and the wailings of the meanest fellow-creature; be it a skylark, or be it a ploughboy.

And the tinkers, and the tailors, solemnly going to work with new patches, the only end of which must be the further enslavement and degradation of the poor; and the end of which could not possibly be the healing of their stomachs, or the mending of their breeches and their gowns; he now bursts out,—

“I, for my part, should not be at all surprised, if some one were to propose the selling of the poor, or the mortgaging of them to the fund-holders. Ay! you may wince; you may cry Jacobin and Leveller as long as you please. I wish to see the poor men of England what the poor men of England were when I was born; and from endeavouring to accomplish this wish nothing but the want of means shall make me desist.”

Mr. Whitbread’s Poor Law Bills[10] of 1807 were the present occasion of the subject being before the public.

The income-tax was ten per cent., and the quartern loaf averaged eleven-pence, at this period; whilst the wages of the rural labourer were so low, that the parish universally supplemented them in the form of relief. This practice, indeed, had become such an abuse, that the farmer would refuse to employ men at fair wages—throw them upon the workhouse,—and then take their labour upon the reduced scale paid out of the rates; thus entailing upon his neighbours a share of the expenses of his own establishment. In many parishes every labourer was a pauper.

At the same time, capitalists and stock-jobbers were amassing wealth, in an unprecedented degree; whilst more than a million sterling, annually, was diverted from the public resources, into the pockets of sinecurists. All the idleness and luxury, thus created, helped to augment the price of the necessaries of life; and the inevitable consequences of unproductive expenditure ensued, in a continued diminution of the resources of those persons who earned their living.

And what was the bolus, proposed to be applied for the cure of this alarming cancer? Educate the children of the poor! Positively! As though the children of the poor (at least, of the rural poor) did not pick up their education day by day, from the moment that they could crawl out into the fields to scare away the rooks; as though ploughing, mowing, threshing, and reaping,—loading a waggon, and guiding a team, could not be better acquired, on the old lines, than by having the unreceptive bucolic brain first gorged with reading, writing, and arithmetic! And this new reforming agency, mark you, was to be a further expense to the rate-payers; already at their wits’ end to know how, themselves, to keep the wolf from the door. Is it any wonder, then, that persons who, like Mr. Cobbett, not only knew the real wants and temptations, and difficulties of the labourer, raised their voices indignantly?

That it should be imputed to the poor, that it was their IGNORANCE and VICE which had brought them low: that any other cause, but the increase of luxurious idlers, and the draining of the national resources by exorbitant taxation, could lie at the root of the evil: that a generation of plutocrats should have grown up, who looked upon the “lower orders” as of less consequence than their horses, their dogs, and their poultry, was not to be borne in silence, whilst the pen of a ready writer was at hand to defy such thoughtless misrepresentation.

From this time, then, until the period of his death, Cobbett’s voice was raised on behalf of the suffering Labouring Classes of England. An adequate return for their labour, and some respect toward them as fellow-creatures, he was determined to get; and he would suffer no opposition, no ignominy, to hinder his endeavours.

But, what was his own practice; and what was the condition of the labourers in his own service?

Precisely that, which could alone render them independent and prosperous. He would have no paupers; and, although they were, generally, married men with families, no one was allowed to remain in his service who required parish assistance. As he gave high wages, and provided them with a free dwelling, the need of this stipulation is obvious. But, they had to work for it all: Mr. Cobbett would have a day’s work for a day’s pay; and so have no obligation left, on either side, when they came to eventide. Men might be independent, and they might be saucy, too; but better these, a thousand times, than cringing hypocrisy,—than the enslavement of idleness at starvation-pay.

Not only this: Mr. Cobbett’s was a measure full and running over;—

“My house was always open to give them victuals and drink whenever they happened to come to it, and to supply them with little things necessary to them in case of illness; and in case of illness their wages always went on just as if they had been well.”

Seventy years will pass away, and carry off with them most direct evidence, leaving little beyond shadowy traditions. But there are, yet living at Botley, aged persons who were long in Mr. Cobbett’s service, as gardeners and farm-labourers. And these persons, one and all, represent his days at Botley as a time of exceptional comfort and well-being; and his service as one of well-paid, hard-working earnestness. Hated and envied by some of his neighbours, he was maligned, and abused, and misrepresented, as earnest people always are;[11] but there were a far greater number, who welcomed the current of joy, and freedom, to which he had given rise. And the recollection of his name will still restore a transient smile to the withered features of a man, whose lengthened span of life may be due, in great measure, to the habits of industry and thrift and independence acquired in the service of William Cobbett.

FOOTNOTES

[1] All this sketch (in Cobbett’s own words, written in 1832) is as faithful as it is graphic. The event provided ample resource for the witlings of the day. See, for example, “A History of the Westminster Election in November, 1806,” with its coloured picture of the hustings; also, “The Rising Sun; a Serio-comic Satiric Romance,” vol. ii., in which Paull’s bottle-holder appears as Mr. Cobwell, a man of great talents and strength of mind,” &c.

[2] Afterwards collected into a volume, under the title of “The Political Proteus: a view of the Character and Conduct of R. B. Sheridan, Esq.,” &c., and published by Budd and others. Sheridan’s “dramatic loyalty” (as it was happily expressed), was a constant theme of the caricaturists of the day. Cobbett makes a note, in one of his “summaries,” of twenty-five public pledges which Sheridan had abandoned, and promises that they shall be “detailed one of these days.”

[3] The misunderstanding between Burdett and Paull culminated in a duel, in which both were wounded. The affair was a rather silly one, and brought out some wit. Mr. Paull was a little, fiery man, or he would have succeeded better as a politician. Mr. Horne Tooke said to him one day, “You are a bold man, and I am certain you’ll succeed; only, as Cobbett says, keep yourself cool.”

[4] “The Learned Languages” was the title of a controversy which arose in the Register early in 1807. Mr. Cobbett was out of his sphere on this topic, and his correspondents (who were at all humorous) saw a ready application of the fable concerning a fox who had lost his tail. Others were more serious, and thought that the knowledge of the Latin and Greek classics “kept together the higher orders of society, and separate from the lower orders.”

[5] Afterwards Earl Grey, who carried the Reform Bill of 1832.

[6] Otherwise John Gifford. Cobbett had made an allusion to his change of name, parenthetically adding, “for cogent reasons, no doubt.”

[7] Mr. Robson’s renewed motion on the Barrack-office. Cobbett prepared and wrote out these motions for him.

[8] “Seat in a Certain Assembly.—Any gentleman having the disposal of a close one may apply,” &c., &c.—Morning Post, May 1, 1807.

“A Certain Great Assembly.—Fourteen hundred guineas per annum will be given for a seat in the above Assembly. Letters addressed to,” &c., &c.—Morning Chronicle, May 21, 1807.

[9] Even Mr. Wilberforce, busied with the wrongs of distant races, had remarkably low and narrow views concerning the lower orders of his own country, as he called them. In 1801, he “nearly resolves” to move in Parliament for a grant of one million for their relief! At another time he thinks Government should relieve, privately, some of the distress, “and afterwards allege that they did not do so publicly for fear of producing a mischievous effect abroad.” And one’s patience is almost exhausted at hearing him call the people “tainted” with disaffection, when everybody knows they are starving. Vide his “Life, &c.,” iii., 3, 6, 13.

[10] Samuel Whitbread (1758-1815) had entered Parliament in 1790, and became an adherent of Mr. Fox, after whose death he was one of the principal leaders of opposition. A genuine philanthropist, guided by deep religious impressions, he spent a large portion of his wealth in endeavouring to ameliorate the condition of the poor, in and around his Bedfordshire estates.

[11] On one occasion, in the summer of 1809, there was a grand field-day over “Cobbett, the Oppressor of the Poor,” &c., &c. A boy in his service had absconded, after having received his wages beforehand; and, being brought before the magistrates at Winchester, was sent to prison for a week. But, through some informality on the part of the constable who arrested him, the relatives of the boy were induced to bring an action against Cobbett, the constable, and another local officer, the damages being laid at one thousand pounds! The papers were, instantly, full of the affair; several columns appeared in the Post, to the exclusion of important war news; Gillray had a picture of the oppressor thrashing the naked boy tied to a post; women of fashion came to see the poor creature in prison. The three defendants had to pay ten pounds between them; and the fact of a conviction was sufficient for exulting detractors. The boy afterwards admitted, however, that he ran away from Mr. Cobbett’s because he had to get up as early as his master.

“In private life Mr. Cobbett is an exceedingly pleasant companion, and an excellent husband and father. It has been asserted that he is harsh to those who are in his service, but this appears to me to be a calumny. That he expects his labourers to perform their duty is certain, and in this he is truly their friend. Industrious himself, he hates idleness in others. But he is willing to pay them liberally, and to contribute to their happiness. I have been more than once at Botley, and must say that I have never anywhere seen such excellent cottages, gardens, and other comforts appropriated to the labouring class as those which he erected and laid out on his estate.”—(From “Public Characters of All Nations,” Sir R. Phillips, Lond., 1823).

Alexander Somerville once met with a former Botley servant of Cobbett’s, who declared that he “would never wish to serve a better master.” (“The Whistler at the Plough,” p. 263, Lond., 1852).

CHAPTER XVI.
“THEY NATURALLY HATE ME.”

There was a Mr. Homan, M.P., a friend of Sheridan’s, and a defender of his reputation, who came down to the House of Commons, one day in the Session of 1807, and announced that a friend of his had just called upon Mr. Cobbett, at Botley; and found him living in a “pig-stye.” Now, this gentle sally, on the part of a jocular senator, may be selected (out of many, more or less serious) in order to indicate the prominent place now occupied by Cobbett in men’s minds. Addressing with familiarity the leading characters of the day, (always in the first-person-singular, be it remembered), he is herding with, and advocating the cause of, the lowest of the low. Occupied with such vulgar pursuits as gardening and planting, and tending dogs and pigs, he is actually daring to instruct and to lead the successors of Burke and of Pitt. One of the “swinish multitude” is here, having poked his nose through the crowd, strutting along cheek-by-jowl with cabinet ministers, and positively claiming a share of the foot-way!

The worst of it all is, that this presumptuous fellow is not in the wrong. Nobody can convict him of a misstatement of facts; no one can answer his arguments; no one can match his brilliant language. Yet, people won’t leave him alone: they will put their pop-guns into range; they will throw dirt, unmindful of the consequences of handling dirt. And, these failing,—as the passionate schoolboy, unable to wreak his vengeance openly, for just castigation, sneaks;—they sneak. They watch his footsteps, if so he can be tripped-up.

But the intended victim learns wariness as he proceeds. Who should be tripped-up, that plants one foot securely before the other is raised? that gives chapter-and-verse for his facts? that dreads no bogy whatsoever? and who still wants to know so many interesting little secrets, which he has a perfect right to know, and which he is determined to know?

Several opposition papers had already been tried, previously to this date. The Addington ministry set up The Pilot, and the Royal Standard; but these soon died

“Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung,”

and are, probably, only rescued from utter oblivion by this sternly-truthful page. An imitation Register, edited by Mr. Redhead Yorke,[1] had a longer lease of life;—known as Yorke’s Weekly Political Review, the first number appeared in November, 1805, and ran to several volumes. But it never attained to any authority. Flower’s Political Review and Monthly Register, printed at Harlow, lasted several years. This journal gave a mild sort of support to reform, without extravagance of tone; and reprinted, from time to time, such works as “Locke on Government,” and Bolingbroke’s “Patriot King.”

Later on, appeared the National Register, with the openly-avowed object of producing “candid, but intrepid strictures” upon Mr. Cobbett and the political pamphleteers. And in 1809, a very grand show was made, in the prospectus of Blagdon’s Weekly Political Register:—

“This new political paper will be printed in the same manner as Cobbett’s Register.

“In every number will be inserted an exposition of the daring libels and audacious falsehoods promulgated by Cobbett.

“All who are acquainted with the paper of Cobbett, may perfectly understand the nature of the one here proposed, &c., &c.

“The history of the political life and writings of William Cobbett will be commenced in the first number, and continued every week, till concluded.”

Such a very funny prospectus: such a marvel of self-sufficiency, ignorance, and malignity: really should have been supported better. But, no! people didn’t want to be told afresh, that misgovernment ought to be hushed up for the sake of great reputations; and Mr. Blagdon disappeared, along with all the other political dolphins, that must need display their back-fins for one transient moment, with no other end than to whet curiosity or excite wonder.

Some of the pamphlets fared better. But then, they were freely distributed by the agents of Government. The story of the Court-Martial, published in 1809, was understood to be an open effort, on the part of ministers and their adherents, to damage the honour of Mr. Cobbett: indeed, it could not have been otherwise, seeing the amount of official matter which the thing contained.[2] Besides a half-crown edition, it was issued in a cheap form for distribution.

Then there was “Cobbett Convicted, and the Revolutionist Exposed:” a task of no great difficulty, of course,—seeing that it was “The Parliamentary Reformer” brought face to face with old “Peter Porcupine,” the hater of demagogues and the denouncer of revolution. A kindred publication was “Elements of Reform,” sold at sixpence, and largely distributed amongst the people; so that they might see for themselves how excessively wrong, how truly inconsistent, it was, for any person to change his opinions when he got older and wiser.

One of the most curious evidences of the spirit of persecution, which was abroad among ministerialists, is furnished by Lord Colchester, under date May 7th, 1809.[3] He was at that time “Mr. Speaker,” and was walking home after church with Mr. Perceval. The latter, communicating his thoughts on various topics, at last comes to Cobbett:—

“He thought Cobbett had at last committed himself in his paper upon the House of Commons’ vote (for rejecting Lord Folkestone’s motion for a Committee to inquire into the sale of all places in the State, &c.), but, when he showed me the paper, it did not so strike me that the libel was more violent than what all the opposition papers contained every day; nor was it such as could usefully be proceeded upon.”

What Mr. Cobbett had said, you will find in the Register of the previous day. And, if you think that the word “libellous” applies to his remarks, you have leave to bring a charge of assault and battery against that man, who has violated the sanctity of your mouth, in withdrawing therefrom the tooth which distressed you, and which embittered your existence.

The foregoing notes, somewhat anticipatory in point of time, will enable the reader to understand the danger which was now attending Mr. Cobbett’s footsteps. He was running the gauntlet of all those who had anything to fear from too much light; and they naturally hated him. Not that he was alone: the Reformists were increasing in number. But Mr. Cobbett was the most daring of the lot; inspiring all the rest with pluck and animation. Even in the House of Commons, the division lists showed how a feeling of shame was growing upon a greater number of its members. As early as 1807, a Reversion Bill passed the Commons, the object of which was to prevent the future granting of sinecure places two or three deep; this was, however, thrown out in the Lords.

And all this did not interrupt the joys down in Hampshire:—

“… I have the finest melons, Indian corn, and Carolina beans that ever were seen.”

“We are just setting out to meet Mr. Bagshaw,[4] and as a proof of our having anticipated your hopes about amusing him, we have made all the preparations for taking him with us to Morn Hill Fair to-morrow, which is upon the heights above Winchester, and which is the greatest fair, for one day, that is known in England. There are several scores of acres of ground covered over with bacon, cheese, hops, leather, &c. About Wednesday he will go to Portsmouth.”

“I hope soon to send hares to everybody. I have killed some, and have, as usual, given them away. I take my young bitch to Everley, where she is to run a match that Dr. Mitford has made; but I shall leave betting and matches to others, though I cannot say but I should like to see my dogs win.”[5]

“Hares and post-offices do not congregate together, I find. There is none of the latter nearer to Everley than this place [Andover, November, 1807].… I am now starting for Everley with Nancy, Mrs. Cobbett having declined the trip. She will go to Dr. Mitford’s. I saw William at Winchester, who is grown very much, and who behaved just as a son of mine ought to behave. So cleanly, so orderly, so attentive, so punctual, and so manly, just as I was at his age; I hope the qualities will be more durable with him.”

“… Almost all the money I draw is expended in preparations for planting, and in making a new footpath along the side of my farm, in order to stop up the one that passes through it, and which is an injury to the estate. These pecuniary pinches give me great uneasiness, at times; but they will cease before it be long; and if it please God to preserve my life, they will cease much about the time that my grand planting scheme will be actually completed. There is here a little coppice, which I think will be to be sold; and which I intend you shall have.… I am very desirous that you should have an inch of land that you might set your foot upon, and say, ‘this is mine.’ But pray never talk to any one about these matters.”

Mr. Wright is particularly requested not to lend the little mare, but to make use of it himself:—

“I hope you ride a good deal. I wish to God you would rise early. It is the finest thing in the world for health. I am in my coppice by six o’clock in the morning; but then, I am in bed by ten at latest.”

The following occurs, as a postscript, on the back of a letter to Wright:—

“My dear little James,—your little dog is very well, and the rabbits are in their new house. God bless you.—Wm. C.”

An old acquaintance turns up, one day in the spring of 1808:—

“This day the most wonderful thing, which I have met with in my whole wonderful life, has happened to me. A gentleman came to me this morning from London, to show me, and to consult me upon, the publication of a work upon Metaphysicks. He appeared to be a very learned and very accomplished man, and so I find him, upon some hours of conversation; and, would you believe it, he then discovered himself to me; and I found him to be the same whom I left in England, twenty-three years ago, a fifer, in the recruiting party that I belonged to! This has occupied me the whole day. He was about two years younger than myself, and I have thought and talked of him ten thousand times, having had a most affectionate regard for him.… You shall see my old acquaintance when I get to town.”

The letters of this period are filled with cautions, that every means be taken to avoid occasion of real offence. “Copy” for the Register is to be carefully scanned, and communications from sympathizing correspondents are to be softened in their tone, before committal to the printer. Some of these latter are far too plain-spoken. An awakened public opinion, too liable to rush to extremes, must be kept within proper limits, as regards its expression. There is no disposition to go to jail for the sake of brilliant periods and caustic paragraphs. The “villains” could be lashed vigorously enough without any need of departing from facts.

Questions of libel were by no means infrequent, during these years. And, with Lord Ellenborough’s severe opinions on that topic, there was plenty of reason to fear any conflict with authority. An action brought by an offended author against Messrs. Hood and Sharpe, in July 1808, for a skit upon a certain book of travels, brought Mr. Cobbett forward, in several letters upon the subject of libel law; in which he pointed out very clearly, that principles had retrograded since the days of Pope and Swift, who certainly had no idea that to write and publish truth was any crime:—

“The whole tenor of their works proves, that, so long as they confined themselves to the stating of what was true, they entertained no apprehensions as to the consequences.… They were afraid of no constructive libels; nor, if they chose to express their disapprobation of the conduct of kings and princes, did they fear the accusation of disloyalty. And what would they have said, had they been told that, in their country, it would become a crime to wound men’s feelings by holding them up to ridicule? Ridicule is a thing that will not attach where it ought not,” &c., &c.

His own idea (which, however, he did not always put into practice) was to live it down; and, as for calumny, he had advised Mr. Paull, and he had so advised others, to let falsehood come to the inevitable over-reaching of itself.

As for caricatures,—

“Caricatures are things to laugh at. They break no bones. I, for instance, have been represented as a bulldog, as a porcupine, as a wolf, as a sans-culotte, as a nightman, as a bear, as a kite, as a cur; and, in America, as hanging upon a gallows. Yet, here I am, just as sound as if no misrepresentation of me had ever been made.”

This was no idle boast. The Anti-Cobbett squibs and caricatures were a standing source of amusement, even with the little boys and girls, at Botley house. The articles, above alluded to, had produced a fresh crop. He writes to Mr. Wright upon “our friends the satirists:”—

“They seem half-distracted. How angry they are, that I did not take notice of what they said of myself! All those who know anything of me, know their assertions or insinuations to be false; and, as to those who know nothing of me, they are of no consequence to me, or to anybody else.”

But, the jealousy of the press was beyond everything.[6] Unfairness and malignity marked all references to Cobbett, who was really doing them better service than any one individual, beside, could be credited with. It is true, he never spared his cotemporaries, when in fight; but let them be for a moment in trouble, and his shield was at once raised, by his proclamation of the Liberty of the Press; and of his doctrine that there was nothing so mean, “nor so truly detestable,” as that of seeking, through the law, vengeance for a literary defeat. No such generosity, however, could be remembered in the midst of party fights; and, even where there was real ability and talent, as with the Morning Chronicle under James Perry, newspaper polemics of that day were marked by misrepresentation and abuse.

The inquiry into the conduct of the Duke of York, brought about by the discovery of corrupt influence in the disposal of promotions, &c., kept society amused for several months, during the year 1809; and, indeed, threw everything else into the shade, not excepting the new tide of affairs in the Peninsula. Mr. Cobbett was in the front, as might have been expected.

The circumstances were these. The Duke of York had now been the Commander-in-Chief for several years, to the great benefit of the service. It was generally acknowledged that increased efficiency and discipline had been introduced into the army since his appointment. Yet, whispers had begun to be circulated, conveying grave insinuations against his Royal Highness; and there were those who openly predicted his speedy dismissal.

All this was, however, treated by “the loyal” as wicked conspiracy, libel, Jacobinism, and so forth. And the Duke might have escaped exposure, had it not been for a brave Irishman, who ventured upon publishing his grievances,[7] and risking the inevitable dangers. As it happened, Major Hogan’s pamphlet came just in the nick of time, gave the Duke’s enemies an opportunity, and the Reformists a grievance. Here is Mr. Cobbett’s first short reference, directing public attention to it:—

“This, I scruple not to say, is the most interesting publication that has appeared in England for many years. It should be read by every individual in the nation. Oh, what a story does this gentleman tell! What a picture does he exhibit! What facts does he unfold! If this produce no effect upon the public, why, then, we are so base and rascally a crew, that it is no matter what becomes of us. We are unworthy of the name of men, and are beneath the beasts that perish.”

The facts being, in short, that Major Hogan found he could get the promotion he wanted by paying 500l. to the Duke’s mistress, Mrs. Clarke; after he had waited long and hopelessly for it, on direct application to the Duke himself.

There was some hesitation in accepting Major Hogan’s statement; meanwhile, Finnerty, who had edited the pamphlet, and the publisher, Bagshaw, were prosecuted. Mr. Cobbett, himself, thought the story far too gross to be true,—that a “peculating pimp,” (as he called her), had gone round to the major’s hotel with hush-money: had been refused: and that such doubtful personage could be no other than the artful mistress of the Prince. However, light came upon the matter from another quarter, which laid the whole thing before the public gaze; and, in the end, caused the temporary retirement of the Duke from his office.

Mr. Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle[8] was the agent of inquiry. He brought the matter before the House of Commons, in January, 1809, supported by several clear instances; in which it was shown that Mrs. Clarke was having a large share in the patronage of the War Office, and was making a good deal of money over it; besides, that several clergymen owed their advancement to her. So, there was a Committee of the whole House; many witnesses were examined,—

“Thaïs led the way,—”

and the faithful Commons could attend to nothing whilst this was going on. Corunna faded into insignificance, and became a mocking sound; and no one seemed to think that the war was of any consequence, until this interesting affair was disposed of.[9]

The upshot of all was, that the Duke of York was exculpated from any guilty participation in these malpractices; but he at once resigned the office of commander-in-chief, and dismissed the author of his troubles.

Colonel Wardle was publicly thanked for his disinterested service, in all the principal towns in the kingdom. He did not escape malignity however; and his popularity on the one hand was balanced by persecution on the other, headed by Mrs. Clarke herself. After the lapse of a year or so, she produced a very naughty, brazen-faced book, under the title of “The Rival Princes;”[10] in which most of the gentlemen who had aided in exposing her were more or less libelled. It was a book that could only have been produced by a courtesan, and it, probably, did not do any harm either to Colonel Wardle, or to any of those whose names were involved. Mr. Cobbett’s name appears in it, as having been incited to anger against the Duke, on account of the latter having thought it prudent not to receive Cobbett at dinner, as an opposition writer. Mr. Cobbett thereupon informed his public that he had been introduced to Mrs. Clarke, and was invited to dine with her; but that his wife disapproved of any such questionable acquaintance, and he didn’t go.[11]

It is exceedingly probable that the Royal Family were getting offended with Mr. Cobbett, in spite of his professions of loyalty to the constitution, and his really affectionate references to the king; and it would surprise no one, at this distance of time, to learn that the Prince of Wales and Mr. Perceval were putting their heads together with a view to silencing him. That which brought Mr. Cobbett into the one great trouble of his life happened soon after the above-mentioned events.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Mr. H. Redhead Yorke was a barrister with a love for politics and some ability in political disquisition. He had been imprisoned in York Castle, on account of his writings, in 1794; but had now, in maturer years, become more “loyal.”

[2] Brougham, in his partial way, thought the business “much against him,” and insinuated that the story might have been made to look worse. Vide “Memoirs,” i. 437.

The British Critic, doing penance for its former sins, says, “This is merely a report of certain facts, which it has appeared useful to bring forward at this time,” &c.

[3] “Diary and Correspondence,” ii. 183.

[4] The well-known newsman of Bow Street, Covent Garden. He had been the publisher of the Register since its commencement.

[5] Here are reminiscences of Everley, written nearly twenty years after:—

“Not far above Amesbury is a little village called Netheravon, where I once saw an acre of hares. We were coursing at Everley, a few miles off, and one of the party happening to say that he had seen an acre of hares at Mr. Hicks-Beach’s at Netheravon, we who wanted to see the same, or to detect our informant, sent a messenger to beg a day’s coursing, which being granted, we went over the next day. Mr. Beach received us very politely. He took us into a wheat stubble close to his paddock; his son took a gallop round, cracking his whip at the same time; the hares (which were very thickly in sight before) started all over the field, ran into a flock like sheep, and we all agreed that the flock did cover an acre of ground.”

“This is the most famous place in all England for coursing. I was here, at this very inn, with a party eighteen years ago; and the landlord, who is still the same, recognized me as soon as he saw me. There were forty brace of greyhounds taken out into the field on one of the days, and every brace had one course, and some of them two. The ground is the finest in the world: from two to three miles for the hare to run to cover, and not a stone, nor a bush, nor a hillock. It was here proved to me that the hare is by far the swiftest of all English animals; for I saw three hares in one day run away from the dogs. To give dog and hare a fair trial, there should be but one dog; then, if that dog got so close as to compel the hare to turn, that would be a proof that the dog ran fastest. When the dog, or dogs, never get near enough to the hare to induce her to turn, she is said, and very justly, to run away from them; and, as I saw three hares do this in one day, I conclude that the hare is the swifter animal of the two.”

[6] The first genuine piece of criticism upon Cobbett’s writings, which had any real talent, was an article by Francis Jeffery in the Edinburgh Review for July, 1807. But it had the same conspicuous failure which attended all partisan writers, and Whigs above all, in their efforts to define political consistency.

This article furnished the material out of which all subsequent attacks upon Cobbett’s alleged “tergiversation” would seem to have been founded. While, however, there was abundant material for comparison, there was no impugning the justness of his reasons for a change of views; nor, indeed, was any attempt made to do so. Both Jeffery and his copiers studiously avoided arguing out Cobbett’s conclusions. It was all-sufficient, in the eye of a party writer, to wreck a man’s reputation who had once openly forsaken a cause.

And yet, the reviewer, near the opening of his article, says the Register “can only be acceptable to men of some vigour of intellect, and some independence of principle.” That was the very root of the matter. Imagine the Edinburgh of that day being acceptable to men of any independence of principle! The very number in question has an article on Catholic Relief, which not only contains sentiments differing from Jeffery’s, but the very opposite to those enunciated by the same review only three years before.

But there was one leading difference between the Whig writer and Mr. Cobbett—they were place-hunters and he was not, and no awkward “comparisons” could wipe out this notorious fact.

[7] “An Appeal to the Public and a Farewell Address to the British Army, by Brevet-Major Hogan, who Resigned his Commission in consequence of the Treatment he experienced from the Duke of York, and of the System that prevails in the Army respecting Promotion” (London, 1808).

[8] Mr. Wardle was a man of fortune, a native of Cheshire, who had served in Ireland during the rebellion; he entered Parliament, as Member for Oakhampton, in the year 1807. This affair of the Duke of York brought him vast popularity.

Francis Place says that Colonel Wardle was a weak and timid man, without the capacity to estimate either his own powers or resources, and that, had he foreseen the trouble and vexation his motion would have occasioned him, he would not have made it. Mr. Brooks (another Westminster politician) raised a subscription of 4000l. for Wardle. See Place MSS. in the British Museum (Addl. 27,850).

[9] The details of this inquiry are accessible, in the Annual Register of the year; and Lord Colchester’s Diary, vol. ii., gives some outline of the plans of Ministers concerning the Duke’s defence. Cobbett’s Register was, of course, very entertaining over the matter.

[10] “The Rival Princes; or, A Faithful Narrative of Facts relating to Mrs. M. A. Clarke’s Political Acquaintance with Colonel Wardle, Major Dodd, &c., &c., who were concerned in the Charges against the Duke of York.” 2 vols., London, 1810.

[11] This book brought out a good deal of humour and some imitations. One which will interest us is, “The Rival Impostors; or, Two Political Epistles to two Political Cheats. The first addressed to G. L. Wardle, Esq., M.P.; and the second to William Cobbett, &c., &c.” The latter’s share was an “Analysis” of the Court Martial. The argument is worthless, and the language fearfully gross. Here is a mild specimen:—

“Now blush, thou unparalleled liar![A] if not at thy wickedness,” &c., &c.

[A] “Gentle reader, pardon this coarse expression; none other in the English language is sufficiently strong to express my horror and contempt of the miscreant to whom it is applied.”

CHAPTER XVII.
“THE OUTCRY AGAINST ME IS LOUDER THAN EVER.”

The little estate, which was being formed on the banks of the Hamble, was now beginning to wear a face of its own, in the spring of 1808. The consolidation of two or three small farms, and the replanting of a large portion of the ground, with oak, thorn, ash, acacia, &c., was the outline of a plan, which now showed some promise of a return. Mr. Cobbett’s favourite notion had been, that a fair provision for his family might be thus made. And now, after three full seasons, the new plantations had entirely fulfilled the expectation.[1] They were flourishing and healthy, and a large supply of material for the London stick-makers appears as part of this year’s cropping. In May, there is another large parcel of land added, containing sixty-seven acres of wood, besides arable land and water-meadow.

All this makes the need of any visit to London still more irksome; and Mr. Wright has to do the honours for his leader. There is talk of a grand demonstration at Westminster, to celebrate the anniversary of Burdett’s election; but Mr. Cobbett doesn’t care to be dragged away from his beloved fields into “the cursed smoke,” as he calls it:—

“… Go to the committee by all means. Let us suffer no little slights to interfere with our public duty. That is the way with those only who are actuated by selfish motives. I shall be in town on Thursday night next, or on Saturday night.… If I find all to be good men and true, we will make such a stir as has not for sometime been made. All the gentlemen whom I meet with, are loud in Sir Francis Burdett’s praise. The motion about the cashiering of offices has gained him thousands of valuable friends. So bent was I upon calling for a purgation of that d—— 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 our motives, if we proceed as we ought, and do not mix with men of bad character. There is one Hunt,[2] the Bristol man. Beware of him. He rides about the country with a * * the wife of another man, having deserted his own. A sad fellow! Nothing to do with him.

“P.S.—I will write to Sir J. Astley. I am very sorry for his misfortune indeed. I want very much to see some man who has planted upon a large scale. Cutting upon a large scale is the order of the day here.”

“… Now, as to the dinner, it is dreadfully distressing for me to go; for, the season being so backward, has thrown the oak-cutting into this week and the two succeeding ones, and you will easily guess how necessary my personal attendance is, while it lasts. Yet I will go, if alive and well; but I must go up on the Sunday, and come back on the Tuesday, for I cannot be longer absent. I have many reasons for going as well as for staying; but the former prevail.

“I have not sold my second lot of timber that I had marked while I was in London. When I come to see it again, and to consider that the 300 that would have sold for a thousand pounds were gaining in growth above 150l. a year, I could not bring myself to commit such flagrant murder of property. The new purchase has upon it about 6000 trees, that now cost me from a shilling to two-and-sixpence apiece, and that in twenty years’ time will be worth 3l. apiece, at the very least. This, I think, is the best way of insuring a fortune for children.”

“Only the day before yesterday, I was bent upon going to town for the 23rd, and had written to Mr. H—— of Fontington, to meet me there about the farm. But now I find that it cannot be, without an inconvenience and risk which, I am sure, no friend would wish me to incur, especially as my journey would produce little more than my own gratification at witnessing the assemblage of so many public-spirited men. You know very well that this is my harvest, and that this year I have a tenfold harvest. I allude to the oak-tree cutting, which must be done while the sap is in the flood of its spring, or not at all; and the bark, you will observe, is of the little thinners that I am cutting upon my own account, worth three times as much as the timber. In the average of years, this sap season lasts a good month; but the very extraordinary backwardness of this spring, and the very rare hot weather that has come on after it, has made the season last only three weeks, a fortnight of which has already passed. Owing to this, I, who waited till the several companies of fellers had finished the great timber, am obliged to fall to work on Saturday, instead of waiting till next Tuesday. I am compelled to set sixty men on at once, and as mine is a work of thinning, it will require my constant attendance from the time the men begin till they leave off. I must be with them to mark the trees; to see the effect of taking out some, before we take out others; and, in short, the health and growth, as well as the future beauty, of 100 acres of the finest woods in England depend upon my personal attendance between Saturday and Wednesday next. Nothing ever was more pointedly perverse; but I trust that all those who wished me to attend the dinner will be convinced that I ought not to leave home at this time.

“I am of opinion, too (and I should like to hear what the Major says of the matter), that I am of most weight as a spectator and comment-maker. This way my word and opinion pass for a good deal; but I am not clear that whatever good I could do as an agitator, would not be more than counterbalanced by the loss of weight in the other character. I know it is the opinion of Sir Francis, that to put me in parliament would be to lessen my weight; and, really, I think that the same reasoning will apply to the other case. In fact, we cannot act and write too, with so much advantage. The way in which I am most able to aid the cause of the country is to sit quietly here, and give my sincere and unbiased opinions upon all that passes which appears worthy of particular notice.

“In the copy last sent you, there is the phrase ‘old G. Rose.’ Upon second thoughts, it may as well be left out. It is, perhaps, right to cease to use that, and the like phrases. One puts them down under the influence of indignant feelings, but they probably do more harm than good.”

Although he does not go up to the festival at the “Crown and Anchor,” Mr. Cobbett does justice to the opportunity as a “comment-maker.” In supporting Burdett’s views, as expressed at the meeting, he remarks:—

“I am persuaded that if the nation were polled, leaving out those who have an interest in corruption, there would appear a majority of a thousand to one in favour of the reform, which he recommends, and which, in their better days, had been recommended by Mr. Pitt and Mr. Wilberforce.… A minister may desire to do that which is for the good of the country; he may have an anxious desire to promote its happiness (and, his errors aside, I do think that Mr. Perceval is such a man); but, before he can stir an inch, he has the feelings and interests of the borough-mongers to consult; he has party to counteract, and faction to mollify. How much more at his ease must such a man feel: what a load would be removed from his mind, if he could step into a House of Commons freely chosen, and having no object in view but that of agreeing to what they thought good, and opposing what they thought bad! A House of Commons in which there would be no strife for office or emolument, and in which, nine times out of ten, truth would prevail.”

There is an excursion to Cornwall, in August, on occasion of the trial of Sir Christopher Hawkins and others, at Penrhyn, for corrupt practices at a past election. The electors of Westminster are forthwith treated to a new lecture, upon the prevalence of the “vile traffic” in seats; and Mr. Wright is favoured with an account of the aspect of things and people as they appear from behind the scenes. One remark is interesting: “Notwithstanding all I have said about the lawyers lately, the whole of them have treated me with distinguished civility.”

The following, dated 17th September, 1808, is worth preserving, as upon a subject concerning which Mr. Cobbett had some real practical knowledge:—

“The essay upon planting, which you sent me some time ago, is very well done, and is particularly interesting to me. It establishes, from experience, what I had before made up my mind to, in theory. Certainly, there is no way in which the very best lands are to be employed to so much ultimate advantage. If your friend should be actually about planting himself, my experiments, in a year or two, may be of great use to him. Of two things, however, I can now speak with positive certainty; viz., that to obtain quick produce, the trees planted should be small; deciduous trees from the seed-bed, and firs not above a foot or eighteen inches high. And, that all deciduous trees, of whatever size, should be, after planting, cut down to the ground. Last year (March, 1807), I planted ten planes, about eight feet high. Some of them shot very well, others not, their tops dying, and the new shoots breaking out some distance from the branches. One of them, in the month of May, 1807, we thought was dead; but my man, thinking that there was some life in the root, cut it off within two inches of the ground.… This tree is now twelve feet high, a beautiful straight stem, with proper side-branches, while the highest of the others (with heads too large for their bodies) is not more than ten feet high. I have proved the same with all sorts of deciduous trees. Those who want, quickly, fine plantations about their houses, should plant and cut down to the ground; and of course those should do it who plant for profit. If this were done, you would not see so many acres of poor, sickly, dead-topped things, called shrubberies, about new-built houses. A tree planted large, and its head left on, is a continual eyesore, until it be rooted up. I transplanted some American walnuts last March; they were three feet high in the seed-bed. Some I cut down before I planted them, the rest not; and the former are now as high as the latter, with fine straight stems, while the others are top-heavy, and must be cut down at last, in order to make them grow freely.…

“The rascals in Portugal have made a pretty mess of it! To be sure, one cannot say how they have been criminal; but to me it appears that both our admiral and our general ought to be hanged.…”

This last paragraph refers to the convention at Cintra, by which the French army was permitted to retire from Portugal in British ships. This advantage, granted to the ubiquitous enemy, caused a great popular outcry in England. The Hampshire people had a grand demonstration at Winchester, in November; in which occasion Mr. Cobbett took a prominent part.

Another useful scheme is now in preparation. In his reading, necessitated by the production of the “Parliamentary History,” Mr. Cobbett had found the need of an accessible edition of the State Trials; and he resolved to supply the want by reproducing them, with additional matter, in the belief that other students of history would find it of advantage. Mr. Wright entered warmly into the notion, and procured the services of a gentleman to act as editor. This was Thomas Bayly Howell, whose name has sometimes been associated with the work.[3] But there seems to have early arisen some dissatisfaction with him, and the engagement went very near to be cancelled. The following has the first of several references to this matter:—

“Enclosed is a letter for you to read, and then send. I cannot consent to a partnership. Upon reading my letter, you will see what difficulties it must lead to. Only think of having another person invested with a right, a legal right, to make us account,—us, whose accounts the devil himself would never unravel. I would not take such a weight upon my mind for all the profits of all the books in the universe. No, no: you and I were never made to have our accounts examined by anybody but ourselves. Besides, you know what all authors are. They are all impatient for sale. But I need say no more. My letter will adjust everything, I am certain.…

“… I thank you for the caricature. One would suppose that I had given the hint myself, and, indeed, I am afraid the town will say so. But, d—— the town! I care not what it says or thinks of me.… We shall have, I think, a blazing meeting at Winchester, and I have written to Finnerty to come down. Mind Deverell. Never say anything to him that you do not wish the world to know. He is a trading politician,—a mere party agent. I have several letters from very respectable men in the county intimating their wish to join me; particularly from Mr. Lowth (a son of Bishop Lowth), a man of great property, and not less respectability.…

“… William writes me a letter every week, copies a page of the history of England every day, reads my part of the Register every week, and is to get as far as the Rule of Three, complete, by Christmas. He rode from school to Weyhill Fair, and back, in a day; and he frequently rides to Winchester by himself, puts his horse up at the inn, and, when he has done his business, goes off home again. He is not yet ten years old. What a base thing it would be to put such a boy to have outlandish words flogged into him by an old dotard in a big white wig! Why, if you were to put one of these * * * upon a horse, he would fall off into the dirt! I will, if I live, teach William to shave himself, and that will be much more useful to him than Latin and Greek. I think of sending Nancy for a year to the nuns at Winchester, where they teach people to talk French and make puddings.”

“… We have had a good meeting, and Mr. Finnerty[4] will be with you with the account of it, some time early to-morrow. I missed by a mere hair carrying a petition, upon independent grounds, against both parties … the Whigs, with their lords and baronets, had been a week preparing their address; mine was done in Finnerty’s room, while he was getting his breakfast; and in I went to the hall without knowing any soul on my side but Mr. Smith, Farmer Mears, about ten other yeomen who went to dine with me, and Mr. Baker, who very boldly and well seconded my motions.”