TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: Volume II is available as Project Gutenberg ebook number 49845.

WILLIAM COBBETT.

A BIOGRAPHY.

VOL. I.

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

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[ii]

J. R. Smith pinxit. F. Bartolozzi R.A. sculpsit.

M^r. William Cobbett.

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WILLIAM COBBETT:

A BIOGRAPHY.

By EDWARD SMITH.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

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

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NOTE.

The following pages need no Preface, with regard to their subject.

I am unwilling, however, to let the work go forth to the public without a renewed word of thanks, to those who have given me any sort of encouragement or assistance. My acknowledgments are especially due to the venerable daughter of Mr. James Swann, for the use of some letters; to the author of the “Handbook of Fictitious Names,” without whose apt teaching in the art of Bibliography, the work might have wanted the interesting appendix; to Mr. Job Swain, one of the last survivors of Cobbett’s personal friends, for some reminiscences; and to Mr. Ellis Yarnall, of Philadelphia, for copies of several letters, and for some suggestions which have enabled the author to throw additional light on the “Porcupine” days.

E. S.

London: November, 1878.

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CONTENTS.

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WILLIAM COBBETT:
A BIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER I.
“I looked back with pride to my waggon-driving grandfather.”

William Cobbett was born in the parish of Farnham, in the county of Surrey, on the 9th of March, 1762.

The town of Farnham is a hop-garden. It had, in olden days, one of the most important corn-markets in the south of England. Before that, it was a great clothing mart; and, early in Parliamentary history, was called upon to send representatives to the “Collective Wisdom.” But, at last, the mercantile spirit proper, as was the case with many towns in Surrey, Kent, and Sussex, fled from Farnham; granaries took the place of workshops; and manufactures declined. With the extinction of the iron-furnaces of the Wea[2]ld expired the once-flourishing trade of the south of England; and agriculture became the staple pursuit of the still-prosperous people, all over the fertile country which lies between the Thames and the English Channel. Corn-fields took the place of extensive sheep and cattle pastures; new grazing-downs succeeded to the burnt-up forests, whilst hops took the pick of the land, upon which they throve in a hitherto-unexampled manner. And Farnham, with its deep, rich, light-brown soil, found itself with a title to give to the best hops grown in England.

So Farnham is, to this day, a big hop-garden. In spite of a railway-station and 10,000 inhabitants, and the proximity of a garrison, the impression is, all around, the same. You enter the town from London, and the first church you come to is nearly surrounded with vines; the last building, at the other end of the long street, is an oast-house. You may take a lodging down by the river-side, and find a forest of hop-poles immediately outside your window, in the morning; or taking stand on any elevation, you will see all the uplands around, either in their luxuriant summer dress of vine, or else, so many square miles of poles placed tent-wise, taking their winter rest, looking like nothing so much as the encampment of a monstrous[3] army.

They must have been clever enough in their generation, who planted and built hereabouts nearly two thousand years ago; but he who did the most on behalf of this part of Surrey was he who planted a small field of hops on the upland towards Crondell, somewhere about the year 1600. By the middle of the eighteenth century the hops of Farnham were already distinguished—“always at the top of the market;” and the agricultural writers of that day wax eloquent over the praises of the pleasing, fertile vale, and its “hazel-coloured,” loamy soil, and the yearly-increasing number of acres given up to hop-culture. Arthur Young calls the district between Farnham and Alton the finest in England.

The scenery around Farnham is not, in itself, unique; so far, that any well-cultivated English river-valley is like almost any other, with its low hills crowned along their summits with the evidences of prosperous farming. But, from the top of one of these eminences, the eye soon discovers certain characteristics, which compel a deep impression upon the mind of singularity and beauty. The best view is, perhaps, to be obtained from Hungry Hill, near Aldershot; the most prominent object being Crooksbury Hill, rising from abov[4]e the woods of Moor Park and Waverley Abbey. A very odd-looking hill, covered with tall Scotch firs, the like of which it would be difficult to name; a wide expanse of sandy heath, now partly cultivated, stretches for many miles beyond, until broken up into a tumultuous range of heath-clad hills; and these, again, succeeded by the distant blue outlines of the Sussex and Hampshire downs. The river Wey courses down the vale, passing through the lower part of Farnham town; and after spinning merrily through the meadows and hop-fields below, bends abruptly round in the direction of Guildford.

The inhabitants of this district, one hundred years ago, were almost out of the great World. The turnpike-road to Winchester and the south-west bounded their earthly aims; upon it was situated the weekly goal for the produce of their farms; and along it was, at a toilsome distance, either the great metropolis at one end, or Portsmouth and her marines at the other. With strong native prejudices, and a character for inflexible honesty, the farmers (generally speaking) lived remote, “equal enemies to improvements in agriculture and to relaxations in morals;” the smallest occupiers sharing the hardest toil with their labourers.

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Before the great scarcity and dearness set in, in the last quarter of the century—when the clocks and the brass kettles began to disappear from the parlours, and the visions of general pauperism began to appear—the spirit of the peasantry in the remoter parts of Surrey was high and independent—chill penury was then uncommon with the able-bodied. In the receipt of only seven or eight shillings a week of average money wages, such was the cheapness of food, and so light were the burdens which Prudence had to bear, that the labourer was healthy, cheerful, and contented; whilst he could often explain clearly enough, from his own observation and reflection, the merits or demerits of the different systems and practice upon the neighbouring farms.

Of this class was the grandfather of William Cobbett.

George Cobbett, son of this old couple, appears to have much improved his condition in life; and he lived to see all his boys gradually rising in the world. William was the third (out of four), and he gives vivid sketches of their daily course of existence.

No, the book-learning was not to come yet. That was to be left until the little world of his birthplace had become too small to hold him. Nearly sixty years after these simple times, Mr. Cobbett is riding in the neighbourhood, accompanied by one of his sons, and the two go out of their way to visit the spot where he received “the rudiments of his education.”

In such manner the merry, sturdy, little life went on. At tying hop-poles, or scaring birds, almost as soon as he could barely stand, a trifling share was given to the family efforts; whilst the vigorous, healthy senses were already open to the keenest enjoyment of nature, and to the unexpected moments of fun which enter into the days of boy[10]hood. Look at this, for example (written at nearly seventy years of age).

Cobbett’s political writings, during his whole career, were largely illustrated by the incidents and occurrences of his life. This was the line taken by his own peculiar egotism, and we are indebted to it for numerous pictures similar to the above. Of this particular period there is only space here for the following capital story:—

The little life, that was destined to be such a cruel thorn in the sides of Authority, was very near being summarily extinguished about this time; on occasion of William getting out of his depth while bathing in the river Wey, and from which he was “pulled out by the foot, which happened to stick up above the water.”

By the time of his reaching ten or eleven years of age he is already getting useful, in his way, and he takes his turn with his brothers of going the annual visit to Weyhill Fair with their father. The fair at Weyhill, though still considerable, is not what it was then; the hop-growers now run off to Worcester, or Burton-on-Trent; but in those days, long before the railways, Weyhill in October was the grand centre for sheep, hops, &c. There the yearly hirings took place, and there the bucolic gathering from all the neighbouring counties had an annual dissipation. We shall presently see that it was at one of these trips Cobbett made his first acquaintance with American politics. But the following incident—which has often been told,[14] but cannot on that account be omitted here—presents his first recorded look-out upon life.

How long the employment at Kew lasted, and how he got home again, does not appear. The life at Farnham was probably resumed before the approach of winter; for, either the year be[16]fore this, or that immediately succeeding, he mentions being sent down from Farnham to Steeple Langford, in Wiltshire, with a horse; remaining at the latter place “from the month of June till the fall of the year.”

Cobbett must have been about fourteen years of age at the time alluded to in the following incident:—

Although we have learned, not only to look with complacency upon the results of the attempt to coerce the Colonies, but, also, to wonder that there could have ever been English statesmen so deluded as to expect anything but disaster from the contest; it has not been sufficiently observed, that the immediate effect was the partial ruin of the labouring poor in this country; that it is from that period that their prosperity has declined, and their comforts have become fewer and fewer. And what is more, before their impoverishment made it obvious to everybody, the common people and the tradesmen showed, by their abhorrence of the war, that they were, for once, gifted with a truer political sagacity than their precious rulers; and that there must have been some vague general anticipation of the consequences to them, and to their families. Prices rose, whilst wages remained stationary; and, from the very outset, the privations of the poor were aggravated to an intense degree. But from that date arose the thirst of the labouring classes for political information, which has since resulted in their possessing so general a share in representation.

So, down at quiet Farnha[18]m, the people had hitherto been, “like the rest of the country people in England,” neither knowing nor thinking much about politics. The “shouts of victory or the murmurs at a defeat,” would now and then break in upon their tranquillity for a moment; but after the American war had continued for a short time, the people began to be a little better acquainted with subjects of that kind. Cobbett says, that opinions were pretty equally divided concerning the war, at first; whilst there grew up a good deal of pretty warm discussion, sometimes:—

Ol[19]d George Cobbett remained a staunch American in politics; but, as to whether he was right or wrong, his son admits that he never, at that period, formed any opinion. His own notions were those of his father, which would have been as warmly entertained if they had been all on the other side. The short autobiography of which the above forms a part, was written during the early part of his pamphleteering career in the United States; at which time he found it necessary to explain that he had not been nursed in the lap of aristocracy, and that he did not imbibe his then “principles or prejudices from those who were the advocates of blind submission.” The story of this pamphlet will come in its proper place, when its author was upwards of thirty years of age.

Here we have, then, probably as much as we shall ever know, of William Cobbett’s early years. The utter obscurity of his father’s social status is, of itself, sufficient reason why there were no admiring friends to detect precocity, and to record its achievements: until the age of twenty his life was made up of the ordinary occupations of a country lad. Fairs, cricket-matches, and hare-hunts filled up the joyous periods of recreation; and it was not till the year 1782, that an incident occurred, which, bringing him into the bustling activity of town-life, had the same effect upon him[20], that a similar change of scene has had upon many an ardent, healthy spirit; and which estranged him from the sequestered vale of life, for ever.

There can be little doubt, however, that a very great mental stimulus was acquired by the trip to Kew, and the reading of Swift’s wonderful satire.[1] The poor ploughboy, very probably, read and reread the laughable story of Peter and Martin hundreds of times without understanding the real drift of it; but there was enough in the book, with its entertaining accounts of grotesque fashions and weak-minded characters, to furnish such an impressionable spirit as Cobbett’s with an inexhaustible store of odd ideas concerning the world outside him. Readers of his works will notice his frequent quotation of Swift: “The celebrated Dean of St. Patrick somewhere observes, &c., &c.” is the opening sentence of the autobiographical sketch; and the “Political Register,” in after-years, continued to manifest evidences of the source and character of Cobbett’s early reading. Cobbett’s[21] literary style, however, was not exactly that of Dean Swift; of which the former’s ignorance, and even contempt, of Latinity is sufficient explanation. But his alternations of sweetness and acrimony,—his ever-ready images,—the picturesque manner of his describing individual characters,—his constant tendency to satire,—cannot but be ascribed, in great measure, to the little book whose loss “cost him greater pain than losing thousands of pounds.”

So there is, now, some difference. A head and shoulders above the average of his mates, his mind is, likewise, on a higher level. Not so high, but as yet to be infinitely dark as to any purpose: a healthy spirit in a healthy body, there stood, working as hard and as cheerily as ever; but ready for the first impulse—which impulse came, in no uncommon way; in no more romantic style than that which sets a ball rolling, upon the impact of the foot.

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FOOTNOTES

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CHAPTER II.
“WHEN I HAD THE HONOUR TO WEAR A RED COAT.”

From the point of view which Englishmen usually take, in speaking of success in life, it may remain an open question as to whether the hero of this story ever really attained it. But let such question be narrowed down to a point, from which is excluded all notions of wealth, and personal aggrandizement: the placing of one’s feet upon a given spot from which others have been ousted—the thing becomes clearer. The attainment of objects upon which one has set the heart, from time to time, can alone be called Success.

Now, this reflection is hazarded, because it is necessary for the reader of William Cobbett’s history to observe a leading feature in his character, from this stage onward; consisting in what may be called the instinct of discipline. Money-making (as such) was ever with him a process which he treated with contempt; the whole future, as it [31]stood before him year after year, was to promise only the comfort of his family, and the welfare of his countrymen. All the blunders which he committed, in the untiring pursuit of this twofold object, were the result of undue impetuosity, the rashness of the soldier in the heat of strife: the temporary derangement of discipline, in the rear of a discomfited enemy. But in spite of ridicule and opposition, and long-deferred anticipation, and, besides, slanders of the foulest character, one after another were the dearest wishes of his heart fulfilled; and at seventy years of age he could write:—

“I have led the happiest life of any man that I have ever known. Never did I know one single moment when I was cast down; never one moment when I dreaded the future.”

So, if we think of the soldier’s career; what it is for the idle and the devil-may-care; what it is to the mere adventurer; what it is to the drudge; and what it is, as a last resource, to the outlaw; and, then, what it is to him who deliberately makes it a school of self-discipline, then we shall have some likelihood of understanding why this man, only twenty years after leaving the plough-tail, had become the Mentor of English statesmen, and wielded a pen s[32]o powerful that no price could buy it.

It cannot be said, however, that there had been any want of parental control in the little household at Farnham. In the foregoing chapter are clearly to be found traces, on the part of Cobbett’s father, of his duty in this respect; and to the gentle discipline of home must be ascribed the readiness, with which the sterner apprenticeship of army life was undertaken. All the sons of George Cobbett did well in after-life. Whilst this William, going into a rougher school than his brothers, and submitting for a term to its rough lessons, not only with a good grace, but with a happy foresight, distances them all.

His own testimony to the quality of his early moral training is, by-the-bye, worth quoting:—

But there is one other factor to be taken into account. It seems that among his few acquaintances in London, was a young man who could give[33] him friendly counsel, from a superior social standpoint; and consequently, with a far better knowledge of the world upon which they were both emerging;[1] and Cobbett declares that it was to his advice that he owed all that he ever possessed beyond the lot of a common soldier. For after the enlistment,—

Not, then, of mere chance, nor even because he possessed certain advantages in the shape of a robust, elastic frame, and a healthy mind therein dwelling, did this man eventually put such a powerful shoulder to the wheel of liberty. Without the personal influence of his noble peasant-father, the affectionate firmness of his friend, the soldier’s round of duty cheerily performed, and supplemented by self-discipline, these natural advantages were valueless; and he no leader and guider of men!

The year 1784 opened, with England at peace. The American States had achieved independence, or as it is sometimes euphemistically put, King George had granted it to them. Soldiers were getting their discharge, or were being sent out to colonize New Brunswick. Recruiting was comparatively sluggish work, and there was little need to complement the full strength of regiments on foreign stations. The 54th, that in which William Cobbett found himself, was then serving in Nova Scotia, whilst the depôt was in garrison at Chath[35]am; and here he remained about a year. Of this life at Chatham, learning his drill, &c., there are abundant materials for a picture, as Cobbett never tired of referring to this period, when in after-years he would, again and again, point a moral from his own career. The story was told at seventy years of age, to the young men of England, as it had been told to his irritated American neighbours, in 1796.

These efforts at self-education would be wonderful enough, in a person surrounded with the comforts of life, but when we recollect what the life of a private soldier was, until very recently, with the temptations presented by poverty, and by dissolute associates, and by the almost utter want of sympathy between the soldier and his aristocratic superiors, the extreme difficulty of the case is evident.

And yet the life had its amenities. Tender recollections come up, when he visits Chatham again, nearly forty years after, of the pretty girls of his “cap-and-feather days.” How they evinced a sincere desire to smooth the inequalities of life; and particularly to serve out the beer more fairly than their masters or husbands. His superior officers, too, inspired him with a certain amount of respect and affection; whilst the Colonel’s discovery of the willing horse was, undoubtedly, a fount of pleasure and gratification to the young recruit.

Cobbett tells, somewhere, of a poor little drummer-boy who gambled. He gambled away all his pay, his shirts, his stockings, and all his necessaries, even to his loaf, which was served out to him twice a week. At last, to prevent him from begging through the streets of Rochester and Chatham, the men were compelled to take his loaf from him, to serve it out a slice at a time, and to see that he ate it. Here is about the lowest depth of degradation to which a private soldier could descend; but the moralist will see, in this anecdote, only one other instance in which the weight or the deficiency of moral stamina is dependent, whether in private soldier or in prince, upon the habit of mind acquired in childhood. Beneath the parental roof must the parental duty be done; no “prayer,”[41] and no idle talk of reliance on providence (so very, very often put forth, when only a plea for laziness and indifference) will avail, unless the dictates of common prudence are heeded, and a straightforward principle, in example, daily shown. The riff-raff of society, in all grades, is composed of those whose childhood was neglected.

Early in 1785, a detachment from the depôt at Chatham was forwarded to head-quarters, and the event is thus described in the autobiography:—

Cobbett repeatedly declared, in after-life, that during these eight years he was never accused of the slightest fault. As his numerous opponents, in all their violence and unscrupulousness, never succeeded in raking up anything, in the smallest degree, derogatory to his high character as a soldier, the statement is, probably, as perfectly true as need be. But he also boasts that he never wilfully disobeyed his father or his mother. These two things are so interdependent (in the mind of the biographer), that the reader must once more be recalled to the idea presented in the early part of this chapter, of the prominence due to the illustrious results of self-discipline. An idea, which is only an idea with the great majority of mankind, to their latest hour. An idea, which gains prominence in some minds only just in time to enable them to wa[43]rn their younger fellows, of the certain consequences of its neglect. An idea, which is eagerly embraced by some few, who, by a happy inspiration, note that the world has been led and guided, and governed, by the men who first put the bit and the bridle upon their own unruly selves.

So William Cobbett goes to his regiment. And while others are swilling, or gambling, or idling, he is continually training. Rapid promotion is the result. At the end of little more than a year, he is Sergeant-Major, having been placed in that proud position over the heads of fifty other sergeants.

While, however, he was only corporal, he was made clerk of the regiment, a post which brought him in an immensity of labour, a great deal of which was due to the ignorance or unworthiness of his superior officers. The studies, too, were not neglected:—

Those were days when a man might rise above the rank-and-file.[4] Cobbett himself had the promise of an ensigncy, when he came to make application for his discharge. As a matter of[45] course, such officers, through their skill, prudence, and general knowledge, became the crack men of their regiments; the best practically-instructed men, perhaps, in the army. For the rest, the average officer must have been a curious make-up; sent into the army, often as early as fourteen years of age—without any special training—he was there for his social position; and, except when on active service, passed a frivolous sort of existence; often so ignorant of his professional duties (i.e. everything beyond daily routine) that they were habitually shirked, excepting when the colonel was a Tartar, or when a clever factotum could be found among his subordinates.

Such a factotum was the new clerk to the 54th regiment:—

Several references to this period are made in the “Advice to Young Men;” and need not be reproduced here. But the following racy story (from the “Political Register” of Dec. 1817) mus[47]t be laid under contribution to illustrate this period of Cobbett’s life.

It appears that the Duke of Kent, who was Commander-in-chief at that station a few years later, was one of the “persons” who got wind of this affair; and in 1800, when Cobbett was returning to England the second time, the Duke saw him, and showed that he had kept the veritable copy as a curiosity, having had it transcribed for the use of the Governor. Further—

It[54] must be noted, too, that there were individual cases of benefit arising from the example of our very smart sergeant. Several men caught the “grammar”-fever, whilst an increasing zeal appeared, in the performance of duty, on the part of many of his comrades. So far, indeed, that his services to the regiment were at last recognized in public orders. When the regiment was relieved and sent home in the autumn of 1791, Cobbett applied for his discharge; which he obtained, accompanied by a flattering testimonial from his major,[6] to his “good behaviour, and the services he had rendered the regiment.”

And, with all his duties, Cobbett found time for his share of sports; skating, fishing, shooting, and even gardening, took some portion of his hours of liberty. He could work, and he could play, but could never be idle for a minute.

It must have been in the year 1787, when Cobbett was about twenty-five years of age, that he first saw his future wife. She was the daughter of an artilleryman, and then only about thirteen, and, although so very young, won the heart of our[55] sergeant in a twinkling. Her character, too, had been moulded by careful and untiring parents; and when the lover came by, there was the promise of a genuine helpmeet for one, who required in that respect a woman of unquestioned propriety, of great industry, and of unfailing discretion. How quickly he prospered, and the whole story of his courtship, with the one great risk that it ran of being annulled, is all told in the “Advice to a Lover;” suffice it to say here, that not only was there never a moment’s regret, but that Cobbett, to the last day of his life laid all his fame and all the earthly prosperity which he had enjoyed, to the happy choice which he had made in his wife. The first trial came, early enough in the history of the affair, to be a real trial, when the artillery were sent home, and carried the sergeant’s hopes along with them, besides 140 or 150 guineas of his savings in the girl’s pocket.

FOOTNOTES

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CHAPTER III.
“I HAVE ALWAYS SHOWN MY ENMITY TO EVERY SPECIES OF PUBLIC FRAUD OR ROBBERY.”

Seven years of army-life had completed the drill of William Cobbett. Master of himself, in every sense of the word, his campaign was now to begin. Putting off his red-coat, of which he had been proud enough withal, he entered upon the last stage of that educational process which, sooner or later, was to bear some fruit. He had studied men in the world of books, and he had seen something of them in the circumscribed arena of one class, viz. the military. But of mankind as a whole he knew almost nothing: and he would blunder on, for long years, before getting that sort of wisdom.

However, he came back from Nova Scotia with two closely-linked ideas uppermost in his mind—an intense affection for the soldiery and for the classes from which they were drawn, and the deepest disgust at the peculation which added to their natural privations. He had never read the n[57]ewspapers, and was ignorant of politics; he did not know that the public service was at that period eaten into by corruption as far up as the Treasury Bench, and that the specimens of venality that he had witnessed were only examples of a system that pervaded all classes of officialism. In point of fact, he did not know that returning to England and obtaining his discharge, with the determination to expose peculation, he had set his foot upon a track which would in after-years give him the distinction of having mainly contributed to the disgrace, the utter confusion, of “the race that plunder the people.” Beyond all, he did not know that, far from getting any credit from any soul upon earth, the sure reward for raking up the misdeeds of the “public plunderers” was contumely and malignity to the bitterest degree.

The first thing, of course, which Cobbett attended to upon reaching England in December, 1791, was his love affair with Ann Reid. He found her in service, with his money unbroken; and “admiration of her conduct, and self-gratulation on this indubitable proof of the soundness of my own judgment, were now added to my love of her beautiful person.” So that matter was settled, from that moment, and on the 5th of February,[58] 1792, they were married at Woolwich. They appear to have lived in London for a few weeks. Here is one anecdote of the period—

The young couple adhered to this resolve until some time after they had settled in Philadelphia.

The debating societies in London had other[59] subjects, too, to occupy their minds; the progress of the French Revolution having strongly excited the popular mind. In May a proclamation was issued against meetings and seditious writings, and as the year went on there was increasing ferment. Although the country was at peace, His Majesty’s ministers were really contemplating war against France; and the Government had enough on its hands, endeavouring, at one and the same time, to quell these feelings and to humour the military and naval forces. It was found necessary, early in the year, to make some important changes in the Navy Victualling Department, in consequence of wholesale corruption, and prostitution of the public money, being unexpectedly brought to light.[2] The sister service had also its grievances, a stringent warrant having been issued regulating the soldiers’ equipment, and reprobating extravagance and waste.[3] In February, a curious item appeared in the discussion on the estimates of the year, in the shape of an additional allowance to the soldiers’ pay, which was distinctly a bait thrown out to humour the private soldier, victim of the said extravagance or something worse.—Concerning which item in the estimates we shall see presently.

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Meanwhile, William Cobbett was spending his honeymoon in completing the plans he had designed several years before, for bringing certain officers of the 54th Regiment before a court-martial. And, as to the history of this affair, we must have full details, because we cannot otherwise see very clearly how he came to fail in this his first onslaught upon public fraud.

Rapid writers have been content to say that he was bought off; that he carefully avoided all reference to the affair; that no trace of any allusion to it occurs in his subsequent writings; that there was something unpleasant which would tell against himself, and so he stopped short, &c. Indeed, the paragraph-monger began it; for the London Chronicle of the 28th March, after mentioning the holding of the court-martial, adds that “the person who was to have prosecuted the above officers was formerly sergeant-major of the regiment. It is said that he has fled to France on account of some misconduct.”

No such thing at all, paragraph-monger! And, no such things at all, ye rapid writers! You don’t know this man. You don’t know how he retires from the unequal conflict with money, prescription, aristocratic influence. Let him flee from anticipated vengeance, and see him return one day,[61] himself always incorruptible, with such a budget, such a quiverful!—come back and tell you, with absolute calmness, that he lays his account with “being calumniated, and with being the object of the bitterest and most persevering malice.” And why? Because he has made the war upon Corruption his own particular business, and has found out that the cruelties which wounded his earnest soul, in those hapless Nova Scotia days, were just part of a system which was sapping his country’s strength. No part nor lot would he have in it. And, rather than seem to support it, he has spurned brilliant offers, which would have made him rich and high-stomached; and has chosen the part, the reward of which is calumny and annoyance of every description. See how he glories, at last, in the conflict, and how fully he knows the nature of his foe:—

In the year 1809, Mr. Cobbett was at about the zenith of his fame. Completely emancipated from the aristocratic influence under which he had, several years before, appeared as a political writer in England, his eyes were thoroughly opened to the need of Parliamentary Reform. Early this year his energies had been principally directed on behalf of this popular cause, but he had also dealt hardly with certain notorious scandals. When our history comes to that period, we shall see the various means made use of by his opponents in the endeavour to silence him; but it is necessary now to refer to that year, because one of those means was the circulation of a pamphlet with the following title:—

Copies of the pamphlet were distributed broadcast over the country, and in Hampshire, where Cobbett was then living, carriage people threw them out to the passers-by as they drove along. A very great number must have got into circulation; and, as pamphlets go, it is not now a particularly rare one. Of government pamphleteering we shall have more to say anon; for the present, we will confine ourselves to Cobbett’s full and complete answer as given in an address to the people of Hampshire, in the “Political Register” for June 17, 1809. Full, complete, and satisfactory it was; nobody referred to the matter again. Even the pamphleteering system itself fell into desuetude for several years. Other and more arbitrary means were adopted, in the attempt to stifle this voice—to shut this mouth.

The pamphlet consisted chiefly of a selection of letters, which passed between the accused officers, the Judge-Advocate-General, and William Cobbett; and concluded with an account of the trial. The three officers appeared perfectly willing to meet the charges; and as for the prosecutor there could be no doubt as to the earnestness of his intentio[64]n,[4] up to within about a week of the date first appointed for the court-martial. That date was the 24th of March; and, on the court assembling, no prosecutor appeared, the result being a postponement to the 27th. On that day, the court having reassembled, the Judge-Advocate-General was himself sworn, and deposed that he had made ineffectual efforts to discover the prosecutor, whilst the landlady at whose house Cobbett had lodged stated that he had removed the previous week. This witness also produced the three last letters of the Judge-Advocate-General to William Cobbett, unopened; which letters stated (1) that an important witness for the prosecution was not likely to be well enough to attend, (2) that the day of the trial was fixed, and (3) that the trial was postponed. The charges were then read, to the effect that the accused had made false musters, mustered persons[65] who were not soldiers, made false returns to the Brigadier-general commanding at New Brunswick, misapplied work-money earned by the non-commissioned officers and men, deducted firewood from the allowance, and disposed of it for their own purposes, disposed of clothing belonging to the men, and obliged them (whilst they were clothed in rags) to accept of an inadequate sum in lieu of the said clothing, signed false certificates respecting the clothing, and defrauded the men of bread. After the “acquittal,” a memorandum was submitted to the law officers of the crown, upon the whole case. Their opinion was, that, unless there were proof of conspiracy with others, Cobbett could not be criminally prosecuted; but that the parties injured by his conduct, which was certainly most highly blamable, might maintain actions upon the case against him.

Such was the offending pamphlet: on the 3rd of June, 1809, a notice appears in the “Political Register,” of its publication, evidently under the sanction of Government; also, that Mr. Cobbett will take the earliest opportunity of giving a full account of the matter. He repudiates positively every insinuation of having acted, at any time of his life, dishonestly or dishonourably; at the same time, had the whole of the papers connected with[66] this affair been published without misrepresentation he never would have noticed the thing at all, but have left the documents to speak for themselves. A fortnight later a double number of the “Register” contains the full account, with a great deal more in the shape of commentary, touching the topics of the day;—it occupies the fifth of a series of Letters to the people of Hampshire, which Cobbett was then writing, on the subject of Parliamentary Reform. And it is necessary, in order to do justice to the whole story, to reproduce a great portion of it here.

After repeating the tale of his honourable discharge from the army, he proceeds to say:—

Cobbett then proceeds to show the hollow and tricky nature of the attack, by summing up the points which tend obviously to show that the whole is a trumped-up charge against his honour and his reputation; first stating that the five letters from himself, which appear in the pamphlet, were the least important of twenty-seven which he actually wrote, including one to Mr. Pitt, and one, in the shape of a petition, to the King. He then reminds his readers that he would have scarcely put himself to the expense of two or three months’ living in London, and to the trouble of writing so many letters and of dancing attendance at the Horse Guards, if he hadn’t a good case and were not in earnest about it; that nine years had elapsed since his return to England, and no process had been taken upon the opinion of the Attorney-General and his colleague; that his “Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine” was reprinted in London, in 1796, at the express desire of Mr. Canning, i.e. only four years after the incident, and yet nothing had been done to supply the omission (in that publication) of the court-martial story; that he had, when dining with Mr. Pitt in August, 1800, talked freely about Fitzgerald and about the arm[76]y “for the express purpose of leading him on to talk about the court-martial, but it was avoided. In fact, they all well knew that what I had complained of was true, and that I had been baffled in my attempts to obtain justice only because I had neither money nor friends.” That General Carleton (late Governor of Nova Scotia) had visited him in England, since his return, and that the Duke of Kent had talked to him in Halifax about the regiment and its affairs in the year 1800; yet both these distinguished officers must have known all about the court-martial, the Governor’s name, in point of fact, having occurred in one of the “charges.” Besides this, there could be little doubt that the whole facts were not put before Sir John Scott and Sir John Mitford, or their opinion would have been very different from what it was.

Finally, he reminds his readers that he had, in the year 1805, himself given the cue. Which was certainly the case, as may be seen by referring to his writings of that date:—

We may safely dismiss this matter. Should the reader find it worth his while to rake up this old pamphlet, and compare it with Cobbett’s “full account,” he may find a stray divergence of date or of trifling fact; but nothing more than, as a careless omission, will serve to establish the good faith of the man—a class of evidence which is[78] often as serviceable as a statement clear and unfaltering to the minutest detail. Why the affair went off as it did is obvious to any one who knows the world, and the rules of society, better than Cobbett did: it was a hopeless task, from the very first, to undertake it upon his own responsibility, without professional assistance. A mistake, however, which he seldom corrected through life; and the consequence being that he as seldom succeeded in gaining a cause: he persisted, to the very last, in being his own advocate—and with the proverbial result.

Let us turn, then, to another incident of this year. An incident which has given the biographer a good deal of trouble; as it presents an occasion upon which it has seemed difficult to reconcile two statements which, at first sight, seem to vary.

For this purpose, we must again refer to a later date in the history. In the year 1805, Mr. Cobbett made himself very offensive to the Government over the unfortunate difficulties of Lord Melville. The whole contest, between the Government and its opponents, was of the hottest; and the choicest Billingsgate passed between them. One periodical, inspired by the Pitt and Melville party, made it its business to assail Cobbett in particular; and, on the 27th of July of the above-mentioned year,[79] the following passage occurred:—

Now, by the time this effusion appeared in public, Cobbett had begun to incur the severest displeasure of his opponents; he had created mortal enemies by the development of his warfare upon “corruption.” Caricature was at work, keeping pace with the most virulent attacks on the part of the ministerial press. For all which he did not care a pin, but this charge of sedition was more than he could stand. Perfectly happy (as his letters of that date will show), both in his domestic pursuits and in the general public appreciation which he was then possessing, he enjoyed fair fight; but this beginning of dark insinuation roused him; and, for the first time since his return to England, he entered upon a proud and energetic boast of[80] the services which he had rendered to his country. The part with which we have at present to do is the answer to the charge of sedition, which is as follows:—

Here, then, is a distinct disavowal: a circumstance that is calculated to worry the impartial biographer, anxious to be fair toward a good (though sometimes ill-advised) man; the reason for its being a disturbing factor lying in this, that the Soldiers’ Friend is enumerated, on two distinct occasions during the closing years of Cobbett’s[81] life, among the writings by which he had helped to benefit his fellow-men. Let us have his own words (June, 1832):—

Now these two statements cannot, on a superficial reading, be easily reconciled; and they form, together, an instance which may be eagerly seized upon, on the part of those who would continue to represent Cobbett as a man who would wilfully utter contradictory things. But, upon examining the matter somewhat more closely, we know, even better than Cobbett himself, something of the actual circumstances. In the first place, the great probability is that Cobbett was not the originator of the pamphlet; that this Captain Thomas Morrice, or somebody else (still more interested in[82] awakening the public mind on army-frauds) had instigated him to put his ideas upon paper. The speech of the Secretary-at-War, above referred to, occurs in a debate upon the army estimates, on the 15th February, 1792—a debate in which Mr. Fox, among others, took part; and the item of an additional allowance to the soldiers was that which was the immediate inspiration of the pamphlet; besides being, in all likelihood, productive of some little excitement in military circles generally.[6]

Secondly, it will be observed that the sting of the charge against Cobbett lay in this: that he had been instrumental in spreading sedition in the naval and military services. Now, this was totally false. It is a fact that the “Soldiers’ Friend” was afterwards circulated largely, and provoked antagonism; but of this Cobbett knew nothing, and could not know anything, for he had long been safe in Philadelphia, far away from English domestic politics, and much more concerned in earning his bread-and-cheese by hard work, than in spreading the principles of the French Revolution. Those who made it their business to circulate clever a[83]nd spicy pamphlets, saw the merit of this one, and reprinted it for their own objects.

How we come to be satisfied upon this point is this: the pamphlet published by Ridgway (8vo, 6d.) was mentioned among “new publications,” in the “Scots Magazine” for June, 1792; and reviewed by the “Monthly” and the “Critical” of the same month. Although the “Critical Review” professes to know the person who had been distributing it “on the parade in St. James’s Park,” this sixpenny pamphlet did not long continue to burden Mr. Ridgway’s shelves. It is possible that there is now no copy in existence. But, in the following year, a cheap reprint appeared, without printer’s or publisher’s name—which had an extensive circulation; for it was answered by anti-reform tracts, such as “A Few Words to the Soldiers of Great Britain,” “The Soldier’s and Sailor’s Real Friend,” &c.

So, the matter seems clearer. Cobbett is in London, preparing for the grand exposure; he has sympathizers, who durst not, however, show themselves. This Captain Morrice (or somebody) thinks that the speech on the army estimates contains “matter worthy of remark in print.” William Cobbett not only agrees with him (somebody), but he is burning with the desire to set right [84]certain cases of practical injustice, with which he is only too familiar: (of the quarter-master of the regiment defrauding the men of their rice and peas by means of short weights, and so forth,—to the tune of unutterable meannesses.) William Cobbett has the pen of a ready writer, and a grasp of hard facts withal. Hence arises a “little pamphlet:” a little pamphlet, published in respectable octavo form, by a highly respectable house; addressed to the aristocratic and well-to-do section of society, and published at their very doors. With this printing and publishing W. Cobbett has “nothing to do;” and he never sees it again after a week or so. But there’s some real stuff in it; and, next year, real stuff is much in vogue!

Those were lively times, in 1792. The extreme “horrors” of the French Revolution had not yet been displayed; and the news from France, with the new and glorious doctrines of Liberty and Equality, were being eagerly embraced by a large section of the English people. Besides the Society of Free Debate, there were others established in London, which soon caused alarm on the part of the Government; for their influence and consequence rapidly grew, on account of the frequency and publicity of their meetings, and the readiness with which all persons were invited to co[85]me and deliver their sentiments. Of course, ministerial alarm soon took action. The king’s proclamation appeared in May: new life was put into the magisterial office; the trumpery police force of that day was reorganized; and prosecutions for libel became frequent. “Not a pamphlet or paper was published, in which any measure of government was animadverted on or disapproved of, but proceedings were immediately commenced against the parties who either wrote, edited, printed, or published it.”[7]

So, London is no place for our ex-sergeant, even if his plans are not already formed. With all his loyalty, he is beginning to think there must be something in republicanism. And he will carry out his notion of going to the United States of America; after having visited France, with the object of perfecting himself in the language of that country:—

As matters stood, then, in March, 1792, there was no longer any occasion for delay; and it appears that he landed in France before the month was out: very much startled and amused, by the way, at seeing written up over a shop-door in Calais,—“Ici l’on a des Assignats, dès cent francs à un sou.” He settled at Tilq, a little village near St. Omer, and remained there for about five months. He found the people so unexpectedly kind and hospitable, to a degree that he had never been accustomed to, that all those prejudices, with which Englishmen, at that time, regarded their brave and impulsive neighbours, and which prejudices were fully developed in his own breast—were dispelled in a few weeks. What with his newly-married bliss, and his perfect health, and his zealous reading and study, this must have been the very happiest period of Cobbett’s life. He did intend to go to Paris for the winter, but the troublous times prevented that purpose:—

[87]

[88]

[APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III.]

Extracts from

“The Soldiers’ Friend; or, Considerations on the late pretended Augmentation of the Subsistence of the private Soldiers.

“Written by a Subaltern. Price Twopence, or one hundred copies, 10s. 6d. 1793.

[After reciting the regulations that existed, and which were yearly renewed in each Mutiny Act, he proceeds:—]

[After a good deal more, to the same effect, the writer reverts to the new demand upon the national purse by the Secretary at War:—]

FOOTNOTES

[94]

CHAPTER IV.
“I LIVED IN PHILADELPHIA.”

The Quaker city may well be the pride of the American nation. Founded by William Penn, shortly after his settlement of Pennsylvania in the year 1682, it has become, after the lapse of two centuries, the most important town in the United States. Second to New York only in the matter of population, it is, at present, the first manufacturing city in the whole country; whilst it has long held supremacy as the centre of literary and philosophical activity. In the centenary year of 1876, Philadelphia possessed no less than 146 daily and weekly newspapers, and twenty public libraries: no bad sign of the state of intellectual advancement of a town containing about seven hundred thousand inhabitants. The population consists largely of members of the Society of Friends, or of their descendants; but there is always a considerable foreign element in the city: the Irish numbering about one-seventh, the Ger[95]mans one-thirteenth, and the English one-thirtieth. There are at least 400 churches and chapels, and more than 400 public schools; and 100 hospitals and asylums.

The causes of the prosperity of Philadelphia are not difficult to be discovered. It is noticeable, that all flourishing capitals are marked by strong cosmopolitan features, with a background of national characteristic. The characteristic basis of the Pennsylvanian is his Quaker ancestry; and upon this has been grafted, in varying proportions, the religious and political notions, the manners, customs, and national prejudices, of English, Scotch, German, Irish, Welsh, Swedish, and other emigrants, ever since the middle of the last century. The capital of the state took the full-flow of this tide of immigration; further augmented during and after the war of independence, by a number of French people seeking for that peace and security which was denied them in their native land. With all these varying elements, however, the frugal, patient, industrious Quaker spirit has pervaded the place; and reduced all this complexity to some sort of harmony. Of party spirit there has, naturally, been much activity; indeed, at the period of our history, it prevailed more extensively than in almost any other town in the United[96] States; but the cultivation of knowledge, of the useful arts, and of commercial enterprise, have been the agents in producing the prosperous and beautiful capital of Pennsylvania.

The city of Philadelphia would appear to have been the pole, one hundred years ago, which attracted alike the inquiring traveller and the political fugitive. The Abbé Raynal had collected and published, in 1770, an account of the American colonies,[1] which produced a profound sensation in Europe. It was translated into almost every European language. The literary characteristics of the book were great animation and plausi[97]bility; and, although it excited many strictures, from the political facts being largely mixed up with rhetorical allusions to the wrongs and errors of past generations, the work was, for a time, exceedingly popular, and furnished a basis for much of the cotemporary information on America. The unfortunate Jean Pierre Brissot, who was at Philadelphia in or about the year 1788, declared that Raynal had exaggerated everything; and Cobbett always qualified any allusion to the Abbé’s writings by some expression or other, to a similar effect. Brissot adds, however, his own impressions of the city, which were high enough, both with reference to the beauty of its situation and of its public buildings, and to the prosperity of its inhabitants.

An English traveller,[2] who visited the States in 1795-6, gave some curious particulars of the condition of society in Philadelphia at that period. Quakers appeared to number about one quarter of the whole population. The average Philadelphian was represented as being deficient in hospitality and politeness towards strangers:—

[98]

Until about 1779 no public amusements were suffered in the city; but, after a few years later, Philadelphia would seem to have got a little gayer,[3] at least in the winter time—when the Congress and the State Assembly were sitting, and President Washington made his annual stay of some weeks. The President’s birthday became a special anniversary, when all the citizens (except Quakers) would make a point of paying him a visit. Concer[99]ts and public assemblies were held, and two or three theatres, even, were started. The great political revolution, in point of fact, produced a social one of quite as definite a character, even in prim Philadelphia. As concerning the manners of the lower classes, Weld records a sad deficiency: they would return impertinent answers to questions couched in the most civil terms, and would insult a person bearing the appearance of a gentleman, on purpose to show how highly they estimated the principles of liberty and equality. Hostlers and servants always appeared to be “doubtful whether they ought to do anything for you or not;” civility was not to be purchased with money; it seemed incompatible with freedom, and with the ideas which would convince a stranger that he was really in a land of liberty.

Now, Mr. William Cobbett, late of his Majesty’s 54th Regiment, had heard of this new country. His reading, hitherto, had been purely literary; but, plunged into the world of London—a novice in politics—he imbibes the then popular notions of republicanism, and is an enthusiastic admirer of the new ideas. The eloquent pages of Tom Paine,—unanswerable in themselves, yet, at that day, rigorously proscribed,—help to intoxicate; and[100], boiling with indignation (as he says) at the abuses he had witnessed, he has, indeed, become a republican. That is, a theoretical republican: for, when he soon comes to see all sides of republicanism, he reverts to his intrinsic love for the constitution under which he was born.

And to this new land of liberty he will go.

He landed in Philadelphia in October, 1792, and, for a short time, took up his residence at Wilmington, a little port[4] on a creek of the Delaware, about twenty-eight miles below Philadelphia. Here Cobbett found the very thing to give him a start in life; for the place was swarming with French emigrants, who wanted, above all things, to learn the English language. After a little time it appears that he found Philadelphia itself a better field for his energies; and, accordingly, having removed thither, he soon had as many pupils as he could attend to. This occupation was the occasion, also, which produced the “English Grammar for Frenchmen:”—

Cobbett seems to have held a rather qualified opinion upon this French grammar: for he elsewhere says it was “a very hasty production,” and that it was so defective that he was almost ashamed to look into it [1829]; but that it had the great merit of “clearness, and of making the learner see the reason of the rules.” Yet the book still holds its own; and it has been repeatedly reprinted in France, Belgium, &c.[6]

[102]

Besides the teaching of English to the emigrants, there was some translating done for the booksellers. The first of any importance, and which Cobbett alludes to somewhere as his “coup d’essai in [103]the authoring way,” was the work of Von Martens on the “Law of Nations;” at that date a book of considerable authority:—

Another task of similar character was the translation of “A Topographical and Political Description of the Spanish part of St. Domingo,” the author of which was Moreau de St. Méry,[7] one of the more distinguished of the French emigrants. This worthy man’s shop, at No. 84,[104] South Front Street, was probably a favourite resort of the literati, as he was a person of considerable attainments, and a member of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia; whilst the bulk of his expatriated fellow-countrymen consisted, without doubt, of a cultivated class of men. Louis Philippe and his brothers were there. Talleyrand was there for a time,[8] and Cobbett recalls the fact, many years after, of having met him in St. Méry’s house.

[105]

Several of Cobbett’s best anecdotes of Philadelphian life are associated with Frenchmen; here is one:—

It need not be imagined, however, that he had no American friends. On the contrary, as we shall see in the sequel, he made some friendships that lasted through life.

FOOTNOTES

[107]

CHAPTER V.
“HEARING MY COUNTRY ATTACKED, I BECAME HER DEFENDER THROUGH THICK AND THIN.”

Nearly two years had elapsed, before Cobbett’s life was disturbed by any greater excitement than would be furnished by his daily pursuits as a teacher of the French language. Even in Philadelphia, where party spirit was strong, and antipathy to England was particularly manifest, a busy, hard-working man, with his bread to earn, and who had no natural taste for politics, had no need to interfere—and Cobbett would not have interfered, probably, had not the occasion been brought about almost by accident. The little republicanism which had leavened his mind, whilst in London, had disappeared, when he came to see more of human nature in his new country; and the municipal contests, and the flaring speeches and writings, which excited less industrious minds, had no charm for him. “Newspapers,” he says, “were a luxury for which I had little relish, and which, [108]if I had been ever so fond of, I had not time to enjoy.”

But a circumstance occurred, about the middle of the year 1794, which aroused Cobbett’s native spirit; and offered, at the same time, an opportunity for its exercise:—

Joseph Priestley was one of the most estimable of men. Among those who have thrust back the barriers of Ignorance, he holds no mean place, whether as a student of natural philosophy, or as a Christian teacher. But he belongs to a period when the Pioneer had to suffer for his opinions.

Born in 1733, he early evinced the qualities of a thorough student, mastered several European and Eastern languages, spent his spare cash in scientific instruments, and entered the ministry as an inflexible opponent of the cruel notions of “eternal wrath.” He was a man rather inclined to take always the heterodox side of things, as one who had discovered that most popular doctrines, in politics and religion, were founded on baseless traditions. Priestley’s contributions to science brought him within the fold of the Royal Society; and he was pursuing his studies at the same time that he had[111] charge of an important dissenting congregation at Birmingham, when the French Revolution broke out, in 1789. By this time he was known as an ardent and honest controversialist, and had numerous warm friendships among the advanced Liberals of London and Paris; and his position at Birmingham was becoming hazardous, on account of the denunciations he underwent on the part of the orthodox in Church and State. Matters came to a crisis in the summer of 1791; when, a feast being held for the purpose of celebrating the fall of the Bastille, a mob assembled, highly strung with loyalty; which, after disturbing the diners, broke the windows of the hotel, proceeded to demolish Priestley’s and another meeting-house, his dwelling, and the houses of several other influential dissenters. In short, there was a genuine riot, for which the county had to pay.

And Dr. Priestley had to leave Birmingham. Nor did three years of London life, with the fierce controversies of the day, serve to console him. Having succeeded his friend, the celebrated Dr. Richard Price, as pastor of a meeting at Hackney, he fought alternately with French sceptics and with English “divines;” but age was creeping upon him; his beloved scientific pursuits were being neglected; and he looked wistfully to the new[112] land of liberty and toleration. His domestic hearth was a happy one, and he could at least take that with him wherever he went. So, in the spring of 1794, he set sail for America.

His departure, however, was the signal for a good deal of affectionate demonstration. Addresses were presented to him, and he left his native shores with the good wishes and the regrets of thousands. But, flattering as this was, it was nothing to the reception Priestley experienced on his arrival at New York. He found himself welcomed to “a country worthy of him;” to a land where reason had “successfully triumphed over the artificial distinctions of European policy and bigotry;” by those who had “beheld with the keenest sensibility the unparalleled persecutions” which had attended him in his native country.

So, the Philadelphia newspapers of June, 1794, published these addresses—the most noted of which were from the Tammany Society of New York, the Democratic Society of the same, the Republican Natives of Great Britain and Ireland resident in the City of New York, the Medical Society of New York, and the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia newspapers, ready for all sorts of fiery attack upon England, printed these addresses [113]in full, along with Dr. Priestley’s grateful replies. One of Mr. Cobbett’s intelligent pupils, in his studious zeal, produces such a newspaper, that his English exercises may be presented in the English of the day. As one of his own omelettes, he will have his English served up fresh; no musty Addison nor dry Delolme for him; no stale oligarchical stuff, ready for hatching into villainy and oppression; but the sweet, new-laid principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Which principles, as exemplified in their latest fruits, Monsieur le Maître d’Anglais abhors, with all his heart and soul.

Accordingly, there forthwith appeared an anonymous pamphlet, under the title of “Observations on Priestley’s Emigration;” consisting of a review of the circumstances which had driven the Doctor from Birmingham, and eventually from England; and a running commentary upon the republican addresses which had been presented to him. The whole tenour of the tract, however, consisted in its expressed horror of the ruin and desolation which the theorists had brought upon France, and in pointing out what would be (in the mind of the writer) the logical result of the new ideas being disseminated in England. Priestley’s emigration, in point of fact, was made the peg on which to hang an anti-revolution tirade. Certain[114] sound principles, however, were enunciated: an extract or two will serve to show this, and, by the felicitous terms in which they are conveyed, to display the wonderful command which Cobbett had already acquired over his native tongue.

Mr. Thomas Bradford was again his publisher. The circumstance is fully related in the American autobiography:—

The allusion to the coat was occasioned by a report, which Cobbett thought fit to notice, that Mr. Br[120]adford had provided him with the means of procuring one. Whether the “Observations” proved remunerative or not, it is certain that the tract was immediately reprinted in London, by Stockdale, and noticed in the magazines; and we will presently refer to the comments which were raised in England by the new politician.

Meanwhile the pamphlet was read, and became notorious; and its author had discovered where his strength lay. He would prepare another onslaught upon the anti-federalists.

In order, however, that we may understand the position which Cobbett soon came to occupy as a politician, it will be necessary to take a glimpse of the leading questions which were agitating the public mind of America. The chief cities of the United States, receiving, as they did, the overflowings of European ebullition, had also their own internal squabbles, and were become so many centres of revolutionary intrigue; and the perils and the strife thus engendered opened the field of political adventure to many an aspiring mind. It was a period of terrible personal animosities, both in Europe and America: men’s friendships, and men’s reputations, never had a harder lot, in the face of differences of opinion.

[121]

The Revolution, which culminated in the Declaration of Independence in the year 1776, did not, in all respects, ultimately suit the tastes of the whole American people. A numerous section, after the immediate cause of the quarrel with the mother country had been despatched, remained “loyal;” and would have been well pleased to see re-union with England. Others, again, satisfied with Independence, were yet desirous that the Constitution should be as near as possible on a monarchical plan, with a basis of government centralized at the capital. A still larger class,—daily augmented, too, by the arrival of English, Irish, and French refugees,—were for republicanism pure and simple.

France had given support to the infant republic, from the first; having recognized “Independence” in 1778, and, from that date, continued to give aid in the shape of food supplies and war material, during the progress of the conflict. The treaty of peace being concluded with Great Britain, in the year 1783, and the States settling down to consider their future, it was soon discovered that the Constitution, which had first been hastily framed, was inadequate for the purposes of good government; there was no power to compel individual states, where unanimity, or, at least, general consent, was desirable.[2] A new Constitution was[122] therefore promulgated, by which absolute power was lodged in a central Federal Congress of the States. From that date the two prominent political parties came into existence: the one, known as the Federalist, strongly in favour of centralization; the other, the anti-Federalist or Democratic party, which was for independent state sovereignty, and which was too deeply republican in its nature not to fear the risks, which centralized power would entail upon the new-born liberties of the nation. The leading partisans on the former side were Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay; whilst Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were the most eminent among the Democratic leaders. It must be noted, however, that the statesmen of both parties were unanimous on the point of republicanism per se: their aim was one object, about which there could be no further question; their differences consisted in the consideration of the best means of attaining it.

[123]

Mr. Jefferson had been minister to France; and returned to America in 1790, to take a part in the administration. He has left upon record his experience, upon resuming his place in society, of the reaction against extreme republicanism which had already taken place;[3] other testimony, of similar bearing, could be adduced, but it is hardly necessary for our purpose, considering the amount of support which Cobbett received during the whole period of his residence in America. There seems to have been, in point of fact, a Federal majority from the[124] very first,—and, when the European war broke out, early in 1793, this section of the nation sympathized, generally speaking, with the English. A strong anti-British feeling prevailed, however, among the Democrats, which was displayed in the most fiery and intemperate language,[4] and found particular vent in a hearty enthusiasm for the French cause. The first outbreak of the French revolution was hailed with joy by the extreme republicans; and, at last, when Mr. Pitt came to think that England was called upon to declare war against France, in defence of the old European doctrines, this hatred of England was naturally intensified. Washington’s proclamation of neutrality was in vain, to check the ardour of the pen-and-ink warriors; and the constant arrival of proscribed persons was just so much fuel added to the flames. Another outbreak of war, between[125] England and America, was even apprehended; and would have taken place, but for the moderate counsels which prevailed in the minds of Washington and his advisers.

At this juncture, there arrived as ambassador to the United States, one Genest,[5] a man eminently fitted for the useful task of stirring up strife; and it is, indeed, difficult to believe that the man was not selected with this object in view. Of the strongest republican principles, he thoroughly scorned the traditions of diplomacy; and landed at Charleston [April 1793] more with the air of a newly-appointed provincial governor than with that of envoy from a friendly nation. Several weeks elapsed before he presented his credentials to Washington: meanwhile, he was actually engaged in superintending the fitting-out of privateers! And on his arrival at Philadelphia there were festivities and congratulations, and speeches, to be attended to, before he could condescend to wait upon the President. His subsequent conduct[126] was all of a piece with this; till, the President having found it necessary to repudiate a French vice-consul on account of his gross infractions of neutrality, Genest’s high-toned appeal upon the matter obliged Washington, at last, to consider the question of demanding his recall. This was effected in the following year.[6]

But all this did not happen without largely affecting the temper of the American people. Although Washington generously distinguished between the conduct of the minister and “the friendly spirit of the nation which sent him;” although, as Jefferson records, the Government were “determined to see, in these proceedings, but the character of the individual, and not to believe that they were by instructions from his employers,” yet it was undoubtedly a new spur to the active spirit of democracy. The Philadelphia politicians, especially, raved and stormed over the iniquities of Britain and the virtues of France.

A more serious trouble to the American Government arose, soon after the war between England and France had continued some time. A[127]s, when the young Republic was fighting for its life, they had been assisted by the French, so they now shipped large aids, chiefly in the shape of provisions, to the French ports. These cargoes were unquestionably contraband; and the British Government, holding that view, ordered that all American vessels be detained,—those laden with corn to be seized,—and a reasonable price to be paid for the cargoes and freights. Later on, another order was issued, directed against American cargoes which consisted of provisions and stores for the French colonies. All this naturally irritated the Americans; they considered it simply an infraction of their independence; and they were not disposed tamely to yield to a power which, in the eyes of many, was not unlikely to dream of future reconquest.

Some alarm was also aroused by the conduct of the British troops in Canada, who retook possession of certain frontier forts, which had been ceded to America at the treaty of peace. At the same time, public attention was directed to a conference held between Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Canada, and several Indian tribes; on which occasion language was held by the Governor, which seemed to carry with it a willingness on the part of England to proceed to hostilities, upon a given contingency.

[128]

Fortunately, however, the disposition of the American Administration was such, that the fury of the Democrats was powerless to disturb its equanimity; and the only serious step, which the Government was induced to take, was to lay an embargo upon the British shipping in American ports, for the space of thirty days.[7] It was necessary, however, to come to an understanding; accordingly, an envoy, in the person of Mr. Jay, repaired to England with full powers, in the hope that existing difficulties might be removed, and a proper feeling of amity be secured, between the two nations.

Mr. Jay’s mission was eminently successful, as regarded the two Governments; but the Treaty in which it resulted only served to make the breach wider, that existed between the Democrats and their opponents. His return to America was signalized by an unexampled storm of invective and abuse; and Jay had, in fact, to retire from public life.[8] The principle that the flag does not cover the merchandise was the feature which gave the greatest offence; but the real objections were sentimental, and were, in fact, brewing as soon as Jay’s appointment as envoy became known.[9] The[129] treaty was the work of the Washington administration, the members of which were known to be favourably disposed towards England; and it was considered likely to injure the relations existing between America and France. Its opponents maintained, from the first, that the disposition of Great Britain being naturally hostile to the United States, there could be no prospect of real reciprocity; and, when the document arrived, their first thought was that its ratification would give umbrage to the French. That, if the United States could convert the evil disposition of England into one of amity and peace, the projected treaty would be too high a price to pay for the change; and if there must be war with either Great Britain or France, it were “more politic for the state, and more congenial with the sentiments of the people,[130] to engage the former,” as France would give aid “with all the energy of her triumphant arms;” whilst, in the case of a war with France, the Americans could neither count upon the affections, nor rely upon the power, of Great Britain.

But what served, much more, to augment the numbers and vehemence of the Radical party, and to foment bad feeling between the two countries, was the constant stream of refugees from the United Kingdom. Mr. Pitt’s repressive measures were in full force; and the year 1794 witnessed some of the most glaring instances of tyranny that had been displayed in England since the days of James the Second. Frequent trials for “sedition” only served to inflame and to energize the spirit of free inquiry; and men boldly talked of revolution. Some suffered imprisonment, many more managed to escape; and of those who escaped, many found a free asylum in Pennsylvania. Some of these men were of good education and great natural ability; and all were inspired with the hopes of the day: an imminent deliverance of mankind, generally, from all kinds of despotism whatsoever.

So, this is how it was in Philadelphia, in these lively times. The most enlightened and philosophical city in the United States was, at the[131] same time, the hot-bed of democracy: the home of all that was aspiring in the human heart and mind. Thus, we can understand something of the feelings which animate the breast of Mr. William Cobbett, ardent Loyalist. He knows little of theoretical politics; his short experience of republicanism has only, at present, served to show him that man is little better off as the subject of a sovereign people, than as a subject of a sovereign king; provided that similar constitutional principles prevail. His recollections of Tom Paine’s animated book, and his former enthusiasm for republicanism, are—as in the minds of thousands of his cotemporaries—crushed and buried beneath the torrent of blood and tears which has been shed in France. A natural reaction has set in: his native land, with all her faults, comes back to his memory as a land of average comfort and well-being; and the thought is uppermost that, perish “liberty and equality,” if all their results are to consist in a murdered king, and in the home of his childhood desolated by the bloodthirsty apostles of progress.

One of these emigrants was Mr. James Thomson Callender. His reading of English history had caused his mind to dwell, somewhat heavily, upon the underhand means which ministers and parties had used, to carry their points, during the last century. Abuses in Church and State:[132] this is the sort of pabulum for the public taste, and Mr. Callender, accordingly, undertakes to put them all into a popular form, under the title of “The Political Progress of Britain.”[10] The result is, that he is a fugitive before many weeks are over his head, and any further attacks which he has to make, upon the government of Mr. Pitt and his predecessors, must be offered from the other side[133] of the Atlantic. The pamphlet, republished in Philadelphia, comes under the eye of our neophyte politician, and Mr. Cobbett sniffs war. The “Political progress” presented just the sort of topic which would serve as provocation: here was another villain maligning his country, and the wretch must be made an example of.

Accordingly, on the 8th of January, 1795, Mr. Thomas Bradford has for sale, “A Bone to Gnaw for the Democrats;” consisting of a review of Callender’s book, followed by a still more daring attack upon the democratic press and upon the numerous clubs connected with the party.

The “Bone to Gnaw” was a distinct advance[134] upon the “Observations.” The writer had evidently begun to discuss, and to wrangle. And the discovery that he had the power to wield a very vigorous pen soon brought the inclination to use it. There is a good deal of coarseness, as we should look at it now-a-days, but that was the temper of the times. The pamphlet raised up a host of enemies, whilst the number of Cobbett’s admirers proportionately increased; and readers were found, both in England and America, to give their warmest approbation.

But, among others, was “one Smith, a malignant democrat,” who had started an “American Monthly Review.” In reviewing “A Bone to Gnaw,” he endeavoured to weaken the writer’s nerve by attacking his grammar and composition. To very little purpose, except to bring Mr. Cobbett up, smiling, with a rejoinder. For, in February, was published “A Kick for a Bite,” consisting principally of a humorous lesson in the art of criticism, addressed to the editor of the Review; and in March, Part II. of “A Bone to Gnaw for the Democrats.”

It was about this date, January or February, 1795, when some newspaper correspondent likened the new federalist writer to a porcupine. The idea was instantly adopted; and Cobbett announces himself to the editor of the “American Month[135]ly Review,” as “Peter Porcupine, at your service.” Thus arose one of the most famous of pseudonyms.[11] It was a long while before the bearer of it was generally known, i.e. beyond a very small circle of acquaintances; yet it appears that the “British Critic,” as early as Dec. 1795, had discovered the owner of the name. But the publication of a name, pseudonymous or otherwise, furnished as it were a handle for opponents; one insisted on calling him “Mr. Hedgehog,” another styled him “the pork-patriot,” and so on. Beyond the play upon words, however, and fresh showers of Billingsgate upon the British name, there was very little talent in these early attacks upon Mr. Cobbett. One of them, which has survived, is excessively tame, although the writer undertakes to wring Porcupine’s nose, and humble his vanity and presumption; and proceeds to insinuate, that he conceals himself through fear of the horsewhip; and that he is neither more nor less than an obscure pedagogue, whose moral rectitude would not bear the test of scrutiny beyond the Atlantic.”[12]

“A Bone to Gnaw, Part II.,” is taken up by a[136] denunciation of the Society of United Irishmen, a democratic club in Dublin, which had published an account of its proceedings; and of the acts of the French Convention at Lyons, where unheard-of cruelties had just been perpetrated. The following bit of humour conveys so many ideas, illustrative of the prevailing topics of controversy, that it is worth while reproducing here:—

Meanwhile, the ferment of the public mind over the British Treaty was now so intensified, that the people were becoming frantic with rage. Jay was hung in effigy, and the democratic press poured forth upon his head an untiring volley of misrepresentation and abuse. In Virginia, there was an open threat of secession, in case of the treaty being ratified. At Boston, there were riots. The treaty reached America in March, but was not presented to the Senate till early in June; but its articles got wind, in some way or other, and were fully discussed by the press and the radical clubs long before being entertained by the Legislature.

An opportunity soon occurred, for Mr. Cobbett to produce another apology for Anti-Gallic principles. A pamphlet appeared, in the course of the summer, under the title of “The Letters of Franklin,” dealing with the treaty question, in a strongly dissuasive manner.[13]

In August, therefore, Mr. Bradford had ano[139]ther work, at the hands of the now-celebrated Peter Porcupine, entitled, “A Little Plain English, addressed to the People of the United States, on the Treaty, &c., in answer to ‘The Letters of Franklin.’” This is, in some respects, one of the best of Cobbett’s writings. It is almost purely argumentative, and there is a sobriety of tone, and a seriousness about its logic, which contrast well with the humour, and even buffoonery, in which he had previously indulged. There was less to joke about. His opponents (and especially this “Franklin”) were becoming illogical in their rage. Mr. Madison wanted to force all the nations of Europe, and especially Great Britain, into the acceptance of a commercial treaty; and this one, alas! was positively being carried through in a friendly spirit. England was noted for her perfidy and double-dealing, and they therefore could not make a treaty with her; but, as Mr. Cobbett pointed out, her bad character was rather a reason for binding her hands, and controlling her overrea[140]ching ways. And, as to the magnanimity of the French Republic, and its desire to “protect” its sister, it was clear that little could be hoped for on that score, seeing that she was losing part of her own colonies and making war upon the remainder; besides that it was notorious that French privateering was quite as bad as English, as far as it could go, in its depredations on American commerce. In reality, Cobbett’s aim was to deter the Americans from a French alliance, as “Franklin’s” desire was to secure it. And “Franklin,” so ridiculous as to urge the impeachment of the President, for not having courted the French, and for having sent “the slave, the coward, the traitor” Jay (of all men) as envoy to Great Britain, is fairly, but mercilessly exposed.

“A Little Plain English” soon appeared in London, being reprinted by Rivington, and was instantly welcomed with the applause it deserved. It was considered to prove, to every impartial mind, that the engagement entered into between the two countries was honourable to both. The eloquent and sparkling language, in which his ideas were conveyed, raised the author into the first rank of English writers. And, on account of his loyal sentiments, with their anti-revolutionary bias, Mr. Cobbett was declared, by people at home, to have[141] rendered inestimable services to his native land.

The British Treaty was, however, in far greater peril than could be averted by the soundest arguments or the warmest loyalty. Whilst the treaty was being discussed throughout the States, an incident occurred which eventually laid bare the real source of the danger which threatened the amicable negotiations; that danger proved to be French intrigue.

The incident alluded to was one of that class which furnish the sensational parts of a melodrama, where a fortunate chance renders nugatory the craftiest of plans, and buries your villain beneath the ruin of his own devices. One Captain Goddard (the hero of the piece, and, of course, a British Tar) has the ill-luck to fall into the hands of a French privateer. The latter, proceeding homeward from the American shores, and in charge of despatches from Fauchet, the French envoy at Philadelphia, is herself obliged, in turn, to strike her colours to a British frigate, almost within sight of home. Her captain, pursuant to instructions, goes below to secure Fauchet’s despatches; and, as the frigate’s boat approaches, commits the precious documents to the waves. But there’s a British Tar aboard, who, with instinctive readiness understanding th[142]e situation, plunges into the sea, and secures the packet, is picked up by the boat, and checkmates “Mossoo.” And Captain Goddard, as he stands dripping on the deck, little knows what a prize has fallen to his turn!

For, these intercepted despatches contained highly-compromising matter. A certain member of Washington’s administration, Edmund Randolph,[14] Secretary of State, was a thorough-paced Radical, and an opponent of the President’s policy. Up to the end of July, or the beginning of August, 1795, he had led the opposition to the treaty; and, although the Senate and the people had become not only reconciled to its provisions, but desirous that the affair should be settled, Washington still felt unable to conclude it, on account of the dissensions in his Cabinet. But, on the 14th of August, Randolph being absent from the council, the treaty was ratified. The surprise of the latter was great, when he heard of this sudden deliberation; and, on learning the cause, his only resource was to resign his appointment, and to go home and consider his future. For it actually appeared, that one of the French Minister’s letters thus intercepted[143] described an interview with Randolph, in which the latter, and two or three other persons, expected pecuniary assistance in return for their support of French ascendancy. So, when the English Embassy produced these precious documents, just received from London, and urged the immediate ratification of the treaty, there was only one course for Washington to pursue, viz. to accede to the request. Mr. Randolph was in sufficient disgrace; but he was foolish enough to make it widely known, by devoting more than a hundred pages of octavo to full details of the circumstances which led to his abrupt departure from office.[15] These pages were given to the public about the middle of December; and among that eager public was Mr. William Cobbett,—who saw his opportunity.

So, on the 1st of January, 1796, is announced “A New Year’s Gift to the Democrats; or, Observations on a Pamphlet, entitled, ‘A Vindication of Mr. Randolph’s Resignation,’ by Peter Porcupine;” which turns out to be a very smart piece[144] of writing, calculated to disturb the equanimity of every French sympathizer in the States.

The preface to “A New Year’s Gift,” &c. is worth giving in full:—

As for the pamphlet itself, it was in Porcupine’s best style; running through the items, seriatim, to which Randolph had inconsiderately given needless publicity. Mr. Bradford himself admired it, and showed it gleefully to his leading customers; several of whom stated that it had been intended to answer Randolph’s “Vindication,” but that it was now unnecessary, seeing that Peter Porcupine was in the field; also that the officers of government were exceedingly delighted with his publications.

FOOTNOTES

[146]

CHAPTER VI.
“PETER PORCUPINE, AT YOUR SERVICE!”

Mr. Thomas Bradford’s Political Book Store, No. 8, South Front Street, is furnished with all the latest publications. The works of Paine, Volney, Godwin and others, fill his shelves, and those of the new Federal light enliven his counter. He is doing a roaring trade; senators look in and gossip, and laugh over Porcupine; members from the House of Representatives come in and flatter the writer, and want to be blessed with a sight of him—“one wanted to treat me to a supper, another wanted to shake hands with me, and a third wanted to embrace me.”

But Mr. Cobbett is getting too independent. On the next proposal to publish, he actually wants to have a voice in the matter, over some detail; and, early in 1796, their engagements are sundered.

The plan for opening the new year was a commentary on the debates in Congress, under the title of “The Prospect from the Congress Gallery.” The first number appeared at the end of January. The circumstances under which Cobbett broke off[147] with his publisher are thus given in the American autobiography (published in the ensuing August):

The “Prospect” was pretty successful; and it was resolved to continue it occasionally. The next number was not published, however, till the end of March; and the title was changed to “The Political Censor.” But we now find on the title-page the name of Benjamin Davies, at No. 68, High Street—so it appears that the dissatisfaction with Mr. Bradford had some meaning in it. Between the first and second numbers of the “Censor,” Peter Porcupine produced a little book on French “horrors,” which had a great sale both in America and England, under the name of “The Bloody Buoy, thrown out as a Warning to the Political[149] Pilots of all Nations: or, a faithful Relation of a Multitude of Acts of Horrid Barbarity, such as the Eye never witnessed, the Tongue expressed, or the Imagination conceived, until the Commencement of the French Revolution,” &c. This was published at Davies’ Book-store, and its announcement in the papers was probably the first intimation that Mr. Bradford had of the impending loss of Porcupine’s custom.

The later transactions between Cobbett and Bradford are thus disposed of in the autobiography:—

Upon Mr. Bradford finding that “The Political Censor” was to be carried on without his assistance and patronage, he wrote to Cobbett requesting him to fulfil the contract, which, he alleged, existed between them by the sale of the first “Prospect,” and threatened an “applycation” to the laws of his country, &c. Mr. Cobbett, remarking on this, says,—

An influential and respectable citizen of Philadelphia, at this period, was Benjamin Franklin Bache;[1] a strong Democrat, and particularly zealous on behalf of French opinions. He conducted a daily newspaper, the Aurora, and kept a political book-store. The Aurora was one of the ablest and most influential journals on the[152] American Continent; besides being, in its general appearance, a newspaper which put to shame even the London ones of that day. And the Editor and publisher of the Aurora, in his capacity of chief-whipper-in to the Democrats of Pennsylvania, among other matters, thought proper to allow his paper to become the vehicle for abusing Peter Porcupine. This newspaper, having escaped the usual fate of ephemeral publications, will furnish us with the means of judging exactly what Peter’s opponents thought of him.

As a specimen of the opposing factions, however, we will, at present, only refer to two New York papers.

Mr. Cobbett’s design of opening a shop of his own was, probably, formed very early in this year, 1796, and it may be set down as one result of the discovery that Bradford was making capital out of him. The plan appears to have been delayed for some months, and it was not until July that it was carried out. Meanwhile, several numbers of the “Censor” appeared, at the shop of Mr. Davies, and obtained considerable popularity. The original idea was a review of the political transactions of the past month; with an “account of every democratic trick, whether of native growth, or imported[154] from abroad.” All of which meant, a defence of Great Britain with vigorous Federal partisanship.[2] Here is one extract from the first number, which will illustrate one of the leading topics that occupied the public mind. It must be recollected that the French Government were now more anxious than ever to court American alliance, they having been specially exasperated at the happy result of the treaty negotiations with England. They accordingly instructed Adet, their envoy, to begin the new year by presenting the national colours to the United States. Washington received the attention very graciously, and informed the minister that the colours would be deposited with the archives of the States. But he also considered it right “to exhibit to the two houses of Congress, these evidences of the continued friendship of the French republic.” This was accordingly done, on the 5th of January; and here is Porcupine’s account of the proceedings:—

It was soon after this date that Cobbett made the acquaintance of Monsieur Talleyrand. The notion that the latter was a spy, was at once formed in Cobbett’s mind; and he long continued to have that idea, on the ground that Talleyrand was received with open arms, very soon after his return to France, by the very men who had proscribed him. There is no real basis for the suspicion (which, indeed, has been entertained in other quarters), but Mr. Cobbett gives very colourable reasons for his belief:—

[161]

Preparations were now being made for opening the bookselling business; and after midsummer the house was ready. The shop was opened on the 11th of July, and Mr. Cobbett took advantage of the opportunity thus furnished to make a grand demonstration. The account of this new start in life is better told in his own words:—

The result of all this was just what was to be expected. Threats of personal violence, with plenty of abuse in the newspapers, at once ensued. On the 16th of July, Cobbett’s landlord, John Oldden, received a threatening letter, to the [164]effect that that “daring scoundrell,” his tenant, was about to be punished; and with a view of preventing Mr. Oldden’s feeling the blow designed for Porcupine, his correspondent addresses him; as, when the time of retribution arrives, “it may not be convenient to discriminate between the innocent and the guilty,” and his property may suffer. As a friend, therefore, he advises him to save his property by either compelling Mr. Porcupine to leave his house, or at all events oblige him “to cease exposing his abominable productions or any of his courtly prints at his window for sale.” On the same day, a correspondent of the Aurora informs the readers of that paper that the “hireling writer of the British Government” has just refused to pay his taxes, and was behaving very saucily; until the tax-collector began to bully him, and call him a d——d rascal, and threaten to break every bone in his skin. At which display of spirit, Peter was cooled, &c.

In vain all this. Before the week is out, all this is brought before the Philadelphia public. A pamphlet appears on the 22nd, entitled “The Scare-Crow; being an infamous letter, &c., with remarks on the same,” in which Mr. Cobbett makes fun of the affair, has another fling at the French and the Democrats, and announces tha[165]t his taxes are paid up to January, 1797.

The charge of being in British pay had now been cropping up for some time, and it was necessary to take some notice of it, if only for the sake of British credit. At length, a very abusive paragraph having appeared in the Aurora about this time, presuming to identify the agent who was supplying Peter with the gold of Pitt, the matter became imperative. Accordingly, Cobbett took the opportunity of publishing the history of his life;[5]—a thing which he says he had determined to do, whenever a fair occasion offered.

The communication to the Aurora newspaper stated, among other things, that Porcupine had been “obliged to abscond from his darling old England to avoid being turned off into the other world before his time;” that his usual occupation at home was that of a “garret-scribbler” (excepting a little “night-business” occasionally, to supply unavoidable contingencies); and that he had to take French leave for France; that he was obliged as suddenly to leave that Republic, and figured some time in America as a pedagogue; “but as this employment scarcely furnished him salt [166]to his porridge, he having been literally without hardly bread to eat, and not a second shirt to his back, he resumed his old occupation of scribbling, having little chance of success in the other employments which drove him to this country.” He is a fugitive felon; but his sudden change of condition shows that secret-service money has been liberally employed; “for his zeal to make atonement to his mother country seems proportioned to the magnitude of his offence, and the guineas advanced.” And so on.

The first announcement of “The Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine” appears in the Gazette of the United States[6] of the 9th August; and its publication was the signal for a fresh outburst of spleen on the part of Peter’s opponents. And no wonder; for, as a mixture of artlessness and cool impudence, the “Life and Adventures” has seldom been equalled. Gaily daring, he begs his opponents to come on, and fire away at his reputation “till their old pens are worn to the stump,” and expresses his extreme sorrow that lies and threats will be all in vain, for he is “one of those whose obstinacy increases with opposition.” In[167] point of fact, Peter was just now somewhat intoxicated with success. The applause of friends, and of that large class in every community that is ready to worship successful impudence—along with the virulence of his opponents, and the consciousness of honourable and patriotic motives—had their natural results in the mind of an ardent and earnest man who has recently emerged from obscurity, and who has suddenly learnt how easy it is to become famous—in a country, too, where a spade might be called a spade without fear of an Attorney-General—in a land where existed (at that period) the only semblance of liberty in the whole world.

And, as it turned out, years after, this daring “scoundrell” was the only man found worthy—because the only one with pluck enough—to do good work when he got face to face with his country’s enemies at home.

Mr. Cobbett’s reply to the charge of being in the pay of the British Government was easy enough:—

It does not appear that Porcupine had the battle entirely on his own hands. Mr. Fenno’s Gazette occasionally ventured into the arena; and the presidential following was still strong, even in democratic Philadelphia. Still, Peter seems to have borne the brunt of it for a few months, before others dared to follow. That others did, after a time, he expressly states. But the position he occupied, in the public mind, for a short period in 1796, is almost unexampled. Scarcely a week passed, in the months of August and September, without some new attack upon him, on the part[172] of the Aurora newspaper;[7] and there is one day in September upon which that great “public instructor” had two anti-Porcupine paragraphs, and several advertisements of such productions as these:

[173]

Mr. Bradford was the publisher (if not the author) of one of these, viz., “The Impostor Detected;” and it seems that Cobbett had, when “The Bone to Gnaw, part ii.” appeared, written a letter to the editor of the Aurora (as an indirect puff), running down the pamphlet. But Mr. Bradford omitted to state that the bookseller had instigated the author. Cobbett, however, acknowledges the fact, in the “Political Censor” for September; and, after duly spitting Mr. Bradford for the breach of confidence, proceeds to justify the “puff indirect” by appealing to precedents, instancing Addison and Pope as persons who had done that sort of thing.

Here is a bit on the Porcupine side, from Mr. Fenno’s Gazette:—

Which of course brings up the Aurora, the editor of which is desirous of assuring the public that his contributors are all native Americans.

But this is, perhaps, enough for our purpose, in showing the acrimonious feelings which existed at the period. Suffice it to say that any person who defended George Washington was certain of getting the foulest abuse from his opponents; whilst the idea of a discharged British non-commissioned officer entering the lists was not to be borne. As one correspondent of the democratic newspaper said, “While I am a friend to the unlimited freedom of the press, when exercised by an American, I am an implacable foe to its prostitution to a foreigner, and would at any time assist in hunting out of society any meddling foreigner who should dare to interfere in our politics.” These writers, however, did not allow their principles to govern them so far, that they could deny themselves the duty of interfering in foreign politics, especially those of England. Rounds of abuse follow, from day to day, upon everything that is not revolutionary and anti-monarchical. As for Mr. Pitt’s new notion of uniting Ireland with Great Britain, a more “atrocious and diabolical project” neve[177]r entered the mind of man.

Peter Porcupine, however, stands all this with calm audacity. The advertisements of his new business appear in the Gazette of the United States; and he announces,—among “New Drawing Books from the Best Masters,” Watson’s “Apology for the Bible,” &c.,—“The Blue Shop,” “The Impostor Detected;” besides a full supply of all “the Grub-street pamphlets vomited forth from the lungs of filth and falsehood against Peter Porcupine.” And this game was carried on, more or less, for a month or two longer; but its very violence was fatal to its continuance, and the combatants seemed to get weary of throwing so much dirt at each other. At the end of September, the “Political Censor,” No. 5, was devoted, partly, to a review of some of the anonymous pamphlets[8] against Porcupine, and to a brisk rejoinder to the misrepresentations of Bradford and his son, relative to his pecuniary transactions with Cobbett. The number concluded as follows:—

[178]

Besides, other matters wanted attention: the French Embassy was again becoming a disturbing factor, and Washington had announced that he should retire from public life at the approaching close of his second term of office.

FOOTNOTES

[180]

CHAPTER VII.
“AT LAST GOT THE BETTER OF ALL DIFFIDENCE IN MY OWN CAPACITY.”

The popular clamour against the Government of Great Britain was now at its height. The very name of England was such a by-word, that even immigrants learnt to evade a direct confession that that was their native land,—unless it so happened that the vengeful Pitt, by the advice and verdict of twelve good men and true, had been the cause of expatriation. The marble statue of Chatham had been hanged and afterwards beheaded, and the effigies of King George II. had been solemnly desecrated. The name of George III. was seldom heard in Philadelphia without being graced by some contumelious epithet.

But there were not wanting signs, at the close of the year 1796, that the tide was turning in favour of reconciliation with the old country. The insolence of each successive French envoy was becoming too apparent—too ridiculous—for any but the blindest partisans to overlook; and the present representative of the French Convention, Adet, having announced that the Directory wer[181]e highly incensed at the ratification of the British treaty, many reflecting Americans began to consider that “fraternity” was one of those good things of which they might have, on occasion, too much. The best of it was, that French privateering did quite as much harm as English, whilst the American prize-courts persisted in dealing fairly and impartially with all cases brought to their knowledge, irrespective of nationality.

A certain estrangement naturally grew between the two republics, and the high-toned conduct of Adet—more like that of a spoiled child than anything worthy of his dignified office—was highly characteristic of the then rulers of the French nation. The American administration was first startled by reading, in the newspaper, a note from the French Convention which had not yet been submitted to the Secretary of State—a document which, indeed, it was in their discretion to publish at all. The ground of complaint being the new position of English and American merchant-vessels flowing from the new treaty, the answer of the Secretary of State was by no means conciliatory. After a few days’ consideration, therefore, Mons. Adet informed the American Government (and the public by means of an advertisement[1] in the Aurora!) that he “suspends himself from his functions”[182] as minister-plenipotentiary of the French Republic. This measure, he subsequently adds, is “not to be considered in the light of a rupture, but as a mark of the sense of injury” felt by the Convention … “which is to last until they can obtain satisfaction.”

Now, a jealousy of British supremacy, and a watchful eye upon the dealings of that perfidious nation, were a very proper state of consciousness for a patriotic Frenchman; but the attempt to enforce, time after time, French dictation, was quite another thing. And when, a few months after, the fact came out that three American envoys to Paris were refused the usual diplomatic courtesies, because they refused to pledge the present of a large sum of money to the impecunious Directory, it is no wonder that coolness and indifference began to spread, on the part of Americans generally, toward the sister Republic.[2] In the course of two or three years, contrariwise, England began to occupy that place in the hearts of the American people from which she had been excluded for a quarter of a century.

[183]

There were many circumstances which contributed to heal the differences between the two countries; but the failure of French intrigue, and the steady consistency of the Federalist statesmen, were the leading factors. It is clear that Washington had great suspicion of the motives of France, and was anxious to control the tendency of many of his fellow-citizens to be led away by the delusive fancies of that regenerated country. His farewell address to the people of the United States (one of the noblest papers of the kind ever penned) counsels them to steer clear of permanent alliances with other nations, especially with those of Europe, as their interests could have but a remote relation one with another. He adds,—

[184]

So, from this period, the Federal press began to gain upon its opponents, and one of its acknowledged leaders was Mr. William Cobbett.

The “Political Censor” was continued to the eighth number, being published monthly, excepting when interrupted by a pamphlet with some distinctive aim. One of these latter was a collection of Adet’s notes and proclamations above alluded to, under the title of “The Diplomatic Blunderbuss.” The “Censor,” besides a running commentary on the debates in Congress, was occupied by violent attacks on Tom Paine (including a reproduction of George Chalmers’s biography of that worthy), and upon the French sympathizers; one whole number being devoted to “Remarks on the Blunderbuss.”

But the tardy publication of a monthly protest against his opponents was not enough for the now full-fledged powers of Peter Porcupine. He feels his feet: he knows his strength. Friends and admirers are flocking to his shop, urging him to the fray.

The political part of the daily press which possessed the best literary talent was, in Philadelphia, mainly on[185] the side of the Democrats; whilst many Englishmen were there, disinclined to be known as such, and none daring (except this “daring scoundrell”) to utter a word in public in defence of his native country. There must, therefore, be a daily Federal paper, of most distinctive principles, established in the camp.

Accordingly, an announcement appears, in Mr. Fenno’s Gazette of the 1st of February, 1797, as follows:—

Then follow the conditions of publication, subscription, &c. Sufficient support was given to the project to enable the publisher to issue the first number on the 5th of March; indeed, there were more than one thousand subscribers’ names on his books by that date.

John Adams had just succeeded to the Presidential chair, and Mr. Cobbett determined that his paper should be the means by which all the assistance in his power might be rendered to the new administration. It was to be a rallying-point for the friends of Government. The editor’s introductory address announced that he was not going to be a mere newsmonger; although he certainly expected, from the encouragement he had received, to be behind no other in the early possession of intelligence, whether home or foreign. It was to be an unmistakably partisan paper, and to be at the service of all correspondents who were disposed to assist him.

[188]

Porcupine’s Gazette had a course of nearly three years. It was consistent in its principles from beginning to end of its career, but it was violent toward its adversaries—too violent, in point of fact, for many of Peter’s friends; and there were some, indeed, who believed him to be really hostile to American politics altogether—many considered him a dangerous ally; and, in those days of terrible political animosity, a friend might be turned into a foe at a moment’s notice.

In truth, Mr. Cobbett’s determination was to take the side of England, whatever happened, in all the international questions which were at that time constantly arising; and he meant to make his paper the vehicle of his passionate feelings on such topics. According to his own account, often repeated in after-years, he was mainly instrumental in preventing America from joining France in the war then raging; and it is probable that he really had a very considerable share in restoring the bonds of good feeling between America and England. The proof of this lies, to a great extent, in the evidences of opposition which have survived. It was, indeed, far into the nineteenth century, before the democratic newspaper-writers of America ceased to defame the “pensioned” British corporal.[4]

[189]

It is not necessary, however, to dwell any longer upon the stormy events of that era. Suffice it to say that even Americans themselves recommend the study of Cobbett’s writings, in order to understand the history of parties.

[190]

Amid all this exciting warfare, Mr. Cobbett’s life in Philadelphia was full of amenities of one kind or other. He did not like the Americans: their republican insolence was too much for him; but among the families of the older settlers he found much excellence of character. “A part of the people of the United States,” he says, “always appeared to me to be among the best of mankind. Scrupulously upright, hospitable, kind and generous to excess, and most nobly steady in their friendships.” But the riff-raff, composing many of the newer emigrants, disgusted him with republicanism; and he would meet their violence with manifold vigour. The coarseness which too often disgraced his writings in later life—after his temper had been soured by outrageous tyranny—is to be traced back to this period, when threats of being murdered, or tarred-and-feathered, poured in upon him; and when slander after slander was invented, and which did not even spare his wife, in order to induce him to give up British advocacy.

Some of the friendships he made in America lasted till death. His landlord, Oldden (already mentioned), wanted him to take the house off his hands as a free gift. James Paul, another Quaker and a farmer, gave a name to Cobbett’s second son. Several men followed him to England, and[191] had some share in his future fortunes. And, as time went on, the members of the British Embassy were not ashamed to honour him with their acquaintance. As early as 1798, Mr. Liston,[5] who was then envoy, informed Cobbett that the Government at home were fully sensible of the obligations which the country owed him—that they were prepared to advance his interests, or those of his relatives. To all such offers he persisted in a firm and honourable refusal—a conduct which naturally served to produce feelings of respect and admiration on their part. Lord Henry Stuart, another member of the Embassy, was likewise a great supporter of Cobbett, besides having certain sporting sympathies, which were revived in after-years. Business relations were also commencing with several London booksellers.

Several good anecdotes might be reproduced here, to illustrate the manner of Cobbett’s life in Pennsylvania. He was always ready to recall, in his later years, the incidents of that period, when he would point a moral or adorn a tale. Here, for example, is a “shooting” story:—

[192]

One of Mr. Cobbett’s warmest adherents, in Philadelphia, was the Rev. James Abercrombie, minister of the American Episcopal Church, and incumbent of Christ Church, opposite which was situated Porcupine’s shop. He was a man held in great esteem as a preacher, and as a teacher [195]of the young.[6] But he got into disgrace with the Democrats, who called him “one of Peter Porcupine’s news-boys.” A correspondence was kept up between Cobbett and the doctor, for some time after the return of the former to London. It must be noted, by the way, that, soon after Porcupine had set up the defiant British standard, there were not wanting many to support him;[7] but, as he says, they kept suitably in the rear. A complaint of the Aurora newspaper speaks for itself, as to the power and number of its opponents:—“The British faction, composed of apostate Whigs, old Tories, toad-eaters of Government, British riders and runners, speculators, stock-jobbers, bank-directors, mushroom merchants, &c., &c.” There is no doubt, however, that Mr. Cobbett’s boast, of being the forlorn hope to less adventurous spirits, was true enough; and that his admiring fellow-countrymen, both at home and in America, considered that his undaunted British advocacy merited the highest encomiums and rewards. What they did say in England may be reserved to another chapter.

[196]

Meanwhile, we must now consider the circumstances which ultimately led to Mr. Cobbett’s return home. He persisted, from the first, in being looked upon as an alien; rightly thinking that the taking out letters of naturalization would impair his right to defend his native country. But the intention to return to England was, at this time, very distant from his mind.

FOOTNOTES

[197]

CHAPTER VIII.
“WHEN I LEFT THEM, I CERTAINLY DID SHAKE THE DUST OFF MY SHOES.”

As a champion of the liberty of the press, Mr. Cobbett holds a place among the very foremost; and, indeed, a minor object of the biographer, in this history, is to establish his claim to that place. But it may still remain open to question how far that liberty is to go: perhaps it will always vary, according to each particular judge and jury,[1] as to what is “liberty” and what is “libel.” It is certain that the two cases in which Cobbett was involved, while a newspaper-writer in America, were decided without much consideration of their real merits. One went in his favour, the other against him; and both the prosecutions were undertaken, instigated by political rancour. We have got the better of this sort of thing, at last, in England; but only after much shame. And we are not perfect yet.

[198]

Mr. Cobbett’s career of “crime,” during these tumultuous days in Philadelphia, consisted in his being a genuine satirist. In this respect he was unapproachable by any of his scribbling brethren; and there lay the fundamental reasons for the hatred of those who were amongst his opponents. He had imported into the arena of political controversy the squibbing propensities of his great master, Jonathan Swift; and, armed with the results of his laborious study of grammar and logic, it was useless for any one to expect successfully to contend with him on his own ground. The weapons, therefore, to which they resorted were lies and filth of most abominable character. The phlegmatic, practical, native Pennsylvanian could sit and laugh over Porcupine’s hard hits, for they did not, as a rule, touch him. But the hot-blooded importations since the Revolution—soured with the mortified feelings occasioned by unwilling expatriation—rendered more and more violent by the intoxicating influence of French principles, and, to some extent, made reckless by the exigencies of change, were a different class. The vocabulary of personal abuse formed their resource. It is not very surprising, then, to find after a time some disposition, on the part of Cobbett, to yield to a similar indulgence in coarse language. Upon the whole, however, a perusal of his American writi[199]ngs does not justify the calumnious epithets which have been bestowed upon them. All true humourists, from Rabelais downwards, have suffered a similar penalty. The knave, even more than the fool, both fears and hates your lampooner, and can only resort to base imputations in the expectation that a part of his slime must stick. We, in these later days, will take to heart the maxim of Montesquieu: To judge justly of men, we must overlook the prejudices of their times. We know Mr. Cobbett to have been an earnest, honest, high-spirited man, whose whole life, both public and private, was governed by principles of conduct which were far in advance of his times; an uncorrupt politician, who may be placed by the side of Andrew Marvel; a husband and a parent, whose example cannot be excelled; in a day when most public writers had their price, and when the bonds of family ties were exceptionally loose.

The Chief Justice of the State of Pennsylvania, at this date, was one Thomas M’Kean: a violent democrat, and a somewhat unscrupulous character. Every democratic state, in the early stages of its history, is much like a simmering pot; and it is not improbable that Mr. M’Kean belonged to that portion of its contents which floats on the[200] surface. Cobbett’s account of him is so bad, and the freedom with which he denounced him to his face was so uncompromising, that the historian would naturally hesitate to make any needless reference to the chronic feud which existed between them. At the period of the Revolution M’Kean had distinguished himself by cruelty to all political opponents, and particularly to any Quakers who ran foul of him.[2] Besides being hated for his partiality, he is alleged to have been a notorious drunkard; he had been horsewhipped by a fellow-citizen; and it was stated that a number of members of the bar had signed a memorial to the effect that “so great a drunkard was he that, after dinner, person and property were not safe in Pennsylvania.” According to Oliver Wolcott, a leading member of the Washington and Adams administrations, Peter Porcupine’s exposure of M’Kean was not by any means undeserved; and that he openly supported the seditious clubs which were ever seeking to undermine the F[201]ederal Constitution.[3] It is certain that Cobbett spared no pains to remind the public of the little defects in M’Kean’s character. The Chief Justice, therefore, made it his business to attend closely to the sayings and doings of Peter Porcupine.

He was not long in finding an opportunity which might serve to bring the latter within his power. The Chevalier D’Yrujo, envoy from Spain, had written a dictatorial letter to Pickering, Secretary of State, after the pattern of the French, and tending, likewise, to reduce the independence of the United States to a mere shadow. Mr. Cobbett at once undertakes to keep a vigilant eye upon the affair; and his Gazette gleams forth with such paragraphs as this:

At length, the editor receives two or three communications, which he prints: being strong appeals against foreign interference, and reflecting too plainly upon the persons who were causing the liability to that danger. That danger, howe[202]ver, is not so great, in the eyes of Chief Justice M’Kean, as the danger of allowing Britishers to interfere in American politics. Accordingly, the printer and publisher of Porcupine’s Gazette is served with a bill of indictment; charging him with defaming His Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, his envoy, and the Spanish nation, with the object of alienating their affections and regard from the Government and citizens of the United States.

The heat of the judge’s resentment was, perhaps, intensified by the feelings of a father-in-law; for his daughter, one of the belles of Philadelphia, had espoused the distinguished Chevalier. It was several months before the case was brought to trial; but, at length, at the November sessions (1797) the bill of indictment was presented to the Grand Jury, and Chief Justice M’Kean proceeded with his charge. He began with a “definition of the several crimes which generally fall under the cognizance of such a court, as treason, rape, forgery, murder, &c., &c. But these his honour touched slightly upon. He brushed them over as light and trifling offences, or, rather, he blew them aside as the chaff of the criminal code, in order to come at the more solid and substantial sin of LIBELLING,” and proceeded to attack the defendant with the greatest bitterness. It was in vain, however. The Grand[203] Jury threw out the bill, to the judge’s great discomfiture.

Mr. Cobbett, with his usual alacrity and fearlessness, at once proceeded to draw up a statement of the whole affair, and produced a pamphlet under the title of the “The Republican Judge; or the American Liberty of the Press, as exhibited, explained, and exposed, in the base and partial prosecution of William Cobbett, for a Pretended Libel against the King of Spain and his Ambassador.” On reading the judge’s charge, it is difficult to believe how an honest man could have selected the comparatively mild effusions of Porcupine’s Gazette for prosecution; seeing that his own partisans had used with impunity the vilest epithets toward the “The Father of his country;” one paper, indeed, charged Washington with murder. Here is one passage from M’Kean’s speech, for example: “Libelling has become a national crime, and distinguishes us not only from all the states around us, but from the whole civilized world. Our satire has been nothing but ribaldry and Billingsgate; the contest has been, who could call names in the greatest variety of phrases; who could mangle the greatest number of characters; or who could excel in the magnitude or virulence of their lies,” &c., &c. And Mr. Cobbett showed[204] pretty plainly, by a judicious selection of recent anti-federal blackguardisms,[5] what was the real nature of the fight. For himself, he writes in his best manner, as the following will show:—

There was, however, another string to the bow, in the hand of Mr. Cobbett’s enemies—which bow, being handled with dexterity and resolution, eventually sent its weapon home.

[206]

It would appear, from an insight into the local and personal history of these stormy times, that a man’s reputation depended entirely upon the nature of his political leanings. There was not a single public character, then living, who did not suffer the penalties of partisanship. In all professions, the man who emerged ever so slightly from obscurity found himself, on one side or another, involved in a stupendous party conflict—a conflict in which no feelings were spared by his opponents, and no fulsome praise left out by his friends. His faults exposed, his weaknesses magnified, and his best actions distorted—he, in turn, heaped upon his adversaries similar contumely. To take by itself (if it were possible) the general sum of abuse, one would conclude that society was a collection of base ruffians, aiming at mutual extermination; on the other hand, ignoring all that opponents said, it would be easy to prove that everybody was a truly disinterested patriot. And Americans have such a strong tendency to eulogize the departed, that, strange to say, the grave no sooner closes over one of their statesmen or politicians, and his part in the struggle for place and power is no more, than his name is at once purged.

There is no doubt at all, that many unscru[207]pulous men were in the front, at the time in which we are now interested—many who, having once made their influence felt, were enabled with the assistance of fortune and audacity to hold their own; in spite of public exposure, their vigour and native abilities made them necessary to their party.[6] This was the class of men that Cobbett loved to fight—a class unknown in the land whence he came: indeed, unknown to the world of men which he had himself created; for it must be noted that Mr. Cobbett had a very limited acquaintance with human nature in its depths. The reading and study, which he had gone through some years before, were all of too abstract a character to make a man of the world (as it is called). Mankind from books he knew well, an ideal Mankind, which the self-educated are especially liable to conjure up, and by means of its gigantic and perfect form, to hide that subtle, wayward, self-absorbed creature of many motives, called Man. In this superficiality, as regards the hidden springs of human action, and the consequent inability to transfer himself, mentally, into the standpoint of his antagonist, lies the key to Cobbett’s frequent failure, just when a little[208] considerate yielding to the feelings of that antagonist would have produced conviction. There were certain rough notions of perfectibility about his conceptions of Humanity which did not admit of the smallest incline toward what he thought to be wrong. In short, he was a Soldier, from beginning to end; and as a soldier he lived, and worked, and wrote, and fought, with his face to the enemy;—which enemy must needs be dealt with uncompromisingly, if it meant fighting at all.

The city of Philadelphia, with all its native and acquired advantages, at last got an unenviable distinction, toward the close of the last century, as a plague-spot. As in all such capitals, increasing almost too rapidly, the population crowded together in limited space; and the dissolute and the very poor, as those classes always do under similar circumstances, began to be a detriment to the health of the city. Sluggish drainage and indifferent water-supply did their fell work. Nearly half of the children born in the city died under two years of age, with stomach or bowel complaints. At last, in 1793, the yellow fever, which had not visited the city for thirty-one years, reappeared, and carried off 4000 inhabitants in the course of about three months.

[209]

And with the yellow fever came the doctors, of course; who, amongst themselves, roused one of those curious disputes for which the history of medical science is somewhat famous. A yellow-fever literature sprang up; statistics were brandished about; wonderful and novel remedies were suggested; and one of the more ingenious of the doctors came to the front in the person of Benjamin Rush.

Dr. Rush is one of the highly-eulogized. His benevolence was unexampled, and he was “honoured and esteemed, both at home and abroad. It was his constant object to popularize and render attractive the principles of medicine.”[7] He gave away his Sunday fees in charity;—and had a more intimate acquaintance with the human pulse than any man living!

[210]

After several attempts to master the yellow fever, of which violent purging formed the leading idea, Dr. Rush hit upon the plan of copious bleeding; and so successful was it (according to his own account) that ninety-nine out of every hundred of the cases he treated recovered! The other doctors said that Rush’s treatment was certain death. And so on.

The yellow fever went away for that time, but returned in 1797 with similar fatal results. Phlebotomy became again the rage, and the doctors still disagreed. Dr. William Currie implored his fellow-citizens to “open their eyes.” A Scotch physician, passing through Philadelphia, wrote a long letter to Porcupine’s Gazette, in which he argued strongly against this artificial hemorrhage, and declared that the physicians of the city had sunk from a position of eminence to “a condition bordering on contempt.”

But Dr. Rush had other merits, for he was a zealous republican, and a member of the Democratic Society of Philadelphia. He had supported Independence from before the Revolution, and was now one of that set of politicians who opposed Federalism; and, having thus incurred the displeasure of the British Corporal, that eminent[211] writer resolved to have a fling at the doctor—a matter which was not so difficult, seeing that Rush had already inspired some amount of ridicule on the part of his fellow-citizens. Cobbett’s reading enabled him at once to find a parallel to the zealous phlebotomist. “Gil Blas” had already furnished him with many a happy stroke of humour, and, now that a rash bleeder was to be taken to task, where could be found anything so appropriate as the character of Dr. Sangrado, who would draw from a patient several porringers of blood in one day, who would bleed in a dropsy, who thought bleeding the proper means for supplying the want of perspiration, and who stood alone in his strange opinions? The picture was complete; and when to this jest was added the epithet of “quack,” besides an insinuation that Dr. Rush killed and tortured with purgatives more patients than he cured, the latter found it necessary to speak out, lest his fame and practice should be irretrievably damaged.

Besides Cobbett, another editor made himself obnoxious to Dr. Rush. This was Mr. J. W. Fenno, who had succeeded his father in the proprietorship of the Gazette of the United States, and who was firing away against bleeding in much the same spirit as Peter Porcupine. Also, “ma[212]ny gentlemen of Philadelphia (not physicians) expressed to me their dread of the practice and their indignation at the arts that were made use of to render it prevalent. They thought, and not without reason, that it was lawful, just, and fair to employ a newspaper in decrying what other newspapers had been employed to extol. In fact, I wanted very little persuasion, to induce me to combat the commendations of a practice which I had always looked upon as a scourge to the city in which I lived; but this practice and the wild opinions of the inventor and his followers really appeared to me to be too preposterous, too glaringly absurd, to merit serious animadversion; while, therefore, I admitted the sober refutations of those medical gentlemen who thought Rush worth their notice, I confined myself to squibs, puns, epigrams, and quotations from ‘Gil Blas.’ In this petite guerre I had an excellent auxiliary in Mr. Fenno, Jun. Never was a paper war carried on with greater activity and perseverance, or crowned with more complete success.”

So, in October, 1797, the fever being at its worst, Dr. Rush makes the following communication to the Philadelphia Gazette:—

[213]

Well, this was “libel,” certainly. A man who was compelled to ask his friends to desist from repartee must be suffering either in his sensibilities or in his income; and whatever justification there may have been, it is always held that a charge of libel can be entertained in such cases.

The suit against Fenno was never heard of more. Mr. Fenno was an American, although a political opponent. Not so, however, with Peter Porcupine’s case; for there were others behind Dr. Rush who wanted some old scores paid off. But the trial was put off from time to time, until two years had elapsed.

Meanwhile, Peter Porcupine had been for some time considering a plan for removal from Philadelphia. The Chief Justice M’Kean was a candidate for governorship of the State, and Cobbett openly stated his determination not to remain, in the case of his election, any longer a resident of Pennsylvania. The event proved that the Democratic element was the stronger, for M’Kean was elected by a small majority over his Federal opponent. Accordingly, Porcupine’s Gazette having been discontinued at the end of October, Mr. Cobbett made preparations for transferring his business to New York. It would almost appear that advantage was wilfully taken of his temporary absence from Philadelphia to bring the cause to an issue; “it was known that my books, furniture, &c., &c., were already sent off to New York, but I remained in the neighbourhood of the city (where I was seen every day) in order to be present at the trial, if it should come on. On the 7th of December there was no prospect of the cause being brought to trial; on the 8th, therefore, I came off for Ne[215]w York, where my affairs required my presence. On the 11th, my correspondent wrote me that the cause was put off to another court; but the very next day it was all at once resolved to bring it to trial immediately.” He attributes this sudden decision to the advertisement in the newspapers, signifying his arrival in New York, and his resolution not to revive his Gazette.

Mr. Cobbett’s leading counsel was Edward Tilghman, a gentleman who had acquired distinction at the bar, and whose name is still remembered with honour. He had been recently a candidate for representing the state in Congress, but was beaten by John Swanwick, Democrat. Mr. Tilghman took up Cobbett’s side con amore; but there is no record of his speech.[8] Claypoole’s Advertiser goes so far as to say that “the pleadings on both sides were lengthy, ingenious, and eloquent,” but does not reproduce them. Mr. Harper, however, another counsel for the defendant, is stated by Brown’s Gazette to have spoken as though he had a bad cause in hand, and “appeared resolved not to defend it at the sacrifice [216]of his honour and character as a gentleman.” The judge’s summing-up has not, likewise, gone into oblivion; for Mr. Cobbett took pains to preserve it, and it appears among his reprinted American publications.

The judge (Shippen) dwelt strongly upon the imputation of personal malice, which had been advanced by the prosecution, and urged that no attempt had ever been made to combat the doctor’s arguments with regard to the system he had pursued with his fever-patients. To call the plaintiff a quack and an empiric—to charge him with intemperate bleeding, and the injudicious administration of mercurial purgatives, and with “puffing himself off,” besides calling him the Samson of medicine, for he had “slain his thousands”—was slander, and a pernicious abuse of the liberty of the press. He concluded with reminding the jury that offences of this kind had, for some time past, too much abounded in the city, and it was high time to restrain them; and, to suppress so great an evil, it would not only be proper to give compensatory, but exemplary damages! Which the jury did, to the tune of five thousand dollars, and to the dismay of the defendant.

The court was crowded with the plaintiff’s[217] friends, and the announcement of the verdict was received with great applause. Outside there was also much rejoicing, although the newspaper-men heard the news with mingled feelings. They professed to “derive pleasure and satisfaction” therefrom, and behaved very tenderly to each other for several days. Mr. Duane’s paper, the Aurora, which had been fifty times as bad as Porcupine’s Gazette, was subdued and silent; its old opponent, the Philadelphia Gazette ironically observed that “not a single sally of wit or sprightliness, and, what is more surprising, not many lies or much impudence, have appeared in it since this memorable verdict was given.… No wonder Master Duane looks pale, &c., &c.” But the same paper was somewhat rash to continue in the following strain, referring to Dr. Priestley:—

In a week or so, however, the papers recovered their tone; Brown’s Gazette reviled Governor M’Kean; th[218]e Aurora abused the British Embassy; whilst Mr. Woodward, of 17, Chesnut Street, advertised a full report of the trial, price 2s. 9½d.

As for the benevolent plaintiff, he obtained immediate execution; for the Sheriff was disposing of Mr. Cobbett’s goods nine days after the verdict was given.[9] And Mr. Cobbett himself made further advertisement that he would, in a few days, recommence his bookselling business, at New York, “with an assortment which his late importations from London have rendered even more extensive and elegant than that which he usually kept in Philadelphia.”

The oddest thing of all was, that George Washington departed this life during the time the trial was proceeding, having been bled and purged to death on the Rush system! According to the medical certificate, published in the New York Daily Advertiser of the 30th of December, several doses of tartar emetic were administered, and [219]upwards of forty ounces of blood drawn, between Friday night and Saturday night, the 13th and 14th of that month! The reputed cause of his death was inflammatory sore throat.

Several letters are extant, written by Cobbett to his counsel, which the biographer is enabled to present to the reader.[10] The first is dated from Bustleton, a small place (at that date), a few miles out of Philadelphia, where Cobbett had for some time past occasionally dwelt, when business would let him get out into the fields to ruralize.

The following is dated New York, and was written, apparently, as soon as the news of the verdict came:—

[225]

Mr. Cobbett was not ruined by the verdict. The enforced sale of the few effects left in Philadelphia fetched a trifling sum; and was the cause of unnecessary annoyance, in that a large quantity of newly-printed matter, in sheets, was thus disposed of at a sacrifice. But the damages[12] were discharged by voluntary subscription.

The expenses of the trial, however, were some three thousand dollars more; and this liability hampered his efforts, for a time. But Mr. Cobbett seems, at the end of the year, to have begun to think of revisiting England, at least for a time. The following (unpublished) letter is evidently written in haste, in reply to one from London:—

From the energy with which Cobbett was laying the foundation of a new business in New York, one is inclined to believe that he did not meditate a permanent return to England. Sundry advertisements appear, which show that he was desirous of extending his American connexion. But the idea of resuscitating Porcupine’s Gazette was f[227]inally abandoned, and a farewell number was distributed to the subscribers in January, 1800, in which he gave an account of recent events, and of his plans for the future. In February, he commenced a new periodical under the name of the Rushlight, which was much relished by the public, and had a very large sale.[13] This was, however, a not very creditable publication, being so full of the editor’s personal grievances against the Philadelphians that there was scarce room for anything else.

In point of fact, the severity of the verdict upset Mr. Cobbett; he did not recover his equanimity again. The invitations from England, to come home, were pressing; there seemed to be far better prospects for him here, and it is probable that he found a good deal in New York to make him dissatisfied with his equivocal position as a Royalist.

One of the great plans, interrupted by the breaking up of his Pennsylvanian business, was a collected edition of his American writings. As far back as February, 1799, Cobbett had issued a prospectus, announcing the republication of “a new, entire, and neat edition of Porcupine’s Works,” and its preparation was going on during the whole of that year.[14] But the seizure of h[228]is goods, by order of the sheriff, included the principal portion of this new “edition,” in sheets; and all this was sacrificed. An announcement, therefore, appears on the cover of Rushlight, No. II., that Porcupine’s Works would be published in London.

Orders for English books were invited, and subscription lists opened for the leading magazines and periodicals, during the early part of the year. But it was quite clear that Porcupine was finding himself out of his element. The loss of his immediate neighbours helped to unsettle him, and his best friends were left behind in Philadel[229]phia. That he was making money, and getting a business together once more, is evident from the following note.

However, in the course of this month Mr. Cobbett issued a farewell address to the American public; and, on the 1st of June, set sail for England, taking Halifax on his way.

It was not many years before Cobbett found that his affections were bound up in transatlantic memories. And, although he despised republicanism to the last day of his life, he very soon came to admire much of the American character, and to follow with deep interest the fortunes of the republic. A few short years after this date his e[230]xperience of mankind was getting riper; and his political education was beginning to enlighten his mind concerning those objects which are most worth the struggles of a people.

In a letter to the people of the United States of America, February, 1803, he says,—

FOOTNOTES

[231]

CHAPTER IX.
“MY FAME HAD PRECEDED ME.”

The reader is probably aware, that your “public-instructor” who, at the close of the last century, essayed to lead his fellow-men, had no hold upon the daily press. An occasional jerky paragraph, or covert insinuation, was all that the newspaper ventured upon, when its feelings impelled it to break through the traditions of its calling. Indeed, things were changing at this period, although not so extensively in London as in France and in America; but the self-constituted leaders of public opinion were, as yet, restricted to the pamphlet, or to the periodical review. The student of history will notice, at least as regards the last quarter of the eighteenth century, that current opinion on politics is fully represented only in these journals. Their influence, however, speedily waned soon after the commencement of the nineteenth century; and, although the popular review, weekly or monthly, still supposes itself in the van, in our own days, its thoughts and ideas are appropriated, and often superseded, on the morrow of their publicati[232]on.

The “Monthly Review,” redolent of Goldsmith and of Griffiths; the “British Critic,” and the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” of high Tory principles: and the “Analytical Review,” organ of modern enlightenment,—were the principal publications of this kind, which had the ear of the public, at the period of our history. And we shall be unable to proceed properly with the study of Mr. Cobbett’s life, without having first traced, from these sources, the rise and progress of his reputation, ere his return to England.

The “Observations on Dr. Priestley’s Emigration,” appears to have been reprinted in London immediately after its publication in Philadelphia. Matters were especially troublesome to the ministry just then, and the partisans of loyalty eagerly, frantically, seized upon anything new, in the shape of argument or of declamation, with which to bind up their rotting timbers. Yet, mark the wonderful inconsistency of human affairs! The author of this poor plank, groping after political justice (according to his light), was also the author, or part author, of a pamphlet which was said to be doing infinite mischief among the soldiers and sailors,—a pamphlet against which, at this very time, they were actually writing and printing loyal antidotes.

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The “British Critic,” then, appears to have been the first to draw public attention to the new writer. The number for November, 1794, dedicated several pages to a review of the “Observations,” beginning with these appropriate remarks:—

The writer proceeds to express his opinion that the pamphlet is indeed of American origin, and not fabricated in London. He considers the fable of the pot-shop [introduced into the Observations, being an account of the various articles in a crockery-shop, some formed to honour and others to dishonour, falling out with each other, and having a general smash] as “strongly in the style of Swift.” He concludes with a pious hope that the time was coming when, to “excite discontent and[234] rebellions against government will be universally considered as a crime too atrocious to be palliated by any speciousness of theory.”

The “Gentleman’s Magazine” followed suit in its number for January, 1795.

The “Monthly Review,” well-known for the flexibility of its opinions, was just then on the side of toleration, and considered that there could be no justification for such abuse of Dr. Priestley; it did not admire the vulgar fable of the pitcher haranguing the pans and jordans; and concluded:—

The notice taken of the “Observations,” on the part of the “Analytical Review,” was in a tone of the severest condemnation. The writer, also considering that this was no American production, but “engendered at home in some murky brain,” justly remarked that it was unfair to continue the persecution of Dr. Priestley, after he had left his native shores. With much ingenuity, the writer proceeded to point out that no American would extol the English constitution, nor speak of reformers as regenerated politicians, nor display such jealousy[235] for the Church of England, nor discourage the emigrating spirit,—as the author of the “Observations” had done; and he proceeds to insinuate that George Chalmers must be the culprit:—

The “Critical Review,” another respectable “defender of morality and taste,” did not condescend to notice Peter Porcupine for several years; and it was not till October, 1798, that the “Observations” (4th Edition) found occupation for its discriminating pen,—the reviewer having taken up this pamphlet “to observe scurrility throwing off all disguise.”

Of all these public guides, the “Analytical” appears to have possessed the most talent, and the “Monthly” to have been the most independent; but all were, more or less, ranged on party lines. According to the political leanings of each writer, so would go his indulgence toward Peter’s forcible[236] expressions, or his contempt for Peter’s vulgar comparisons.

The “Bone to Gnaw,” when republished in London, was supported by a long preface: “A Rod for the Backs of the Critics, containing a Historical Sketch of the present state of political criticism in Great Britain, as exemplified in the conduct of the Monthly, Critical, and Analytical Reviews, &c. Interspersed with anecdotes. By Humphrey Hedgehog.[1] ‘Melius non Tangere.’” The Historical Sketch (so-called) was a general attack on revolutionary principles, and their supporters in the press,—with especial reference to the publications named, which had “reviewed, or to speak more correctly, reviled” the “Observations.” It is not particularly elegant; and as to any power, it is milk-and-water against strong ale, compared with the work to which it is prefixed. But that was the conceit of this Hedgehog; who, a feeble scarabæcide, had just wit enough to fancy that his little spines gave him a sort of relationship to him of the quills.

Peter Porcupine was more fortunate in the advocacy of the “British Critic.” That journal, albeit highly prejudi[237]ced, was a formidable opponent of the ideas of the day. Intense horror of infidelity, united to warmest loyalty to the Throne and to the Church, pervaded all its articles. It is no wonder, then, that the editor of this review[2] made it his business to patronize the trenchant pen of Peter. On the occasion of noticing “A Little Plain English,” the writer records the struggles he has had, to maintain that the new politician was from America,—how “We” were assailed, both in public and private, for “our” supposed credulity. And when the “Life and Adventures” appeared, the satisfaction of the reviewer was complete. He continued, from time to time, to congratulate himself and the public that he had been the first to discover Peter’s merits; and was by no means disposed to lose sight of him.

As to his style, the reviewer is indulgent:—

On the other hand, the independent and radical reviewers noticed Peter with severe animadversions:—“To look into the writings of this author for facts would be a waste of time.”—“We meet with a strange farrago of petulance, abuse, false reasoning, and absurdity, into which it would be disgusting to enter.”—“Absurd comments, gross misrepresentations, and impudent attacks, both upon the dead and the living.”—“A writer so weak and infatuated as Peter Porcupine.”

But it must be said, that these despisers of Peter had little of argument wherewith to withstand him. His positions were generally j[239]ust, though sometimes exaggerated; and his violence was thoroughly consistent from beginning to end,—excepting in this: that he as yet knew nothing of the wicked oppressions which were going on, in some quarters, at home. The “Analytical” justly called him to account for his unfortunate allusions to the freedom of the press in England:—“He complains that he was allowed only an hour and a half to go out and find bail. Here, under a similar prosecution, he might have been arrested, and detained for several days, until his Majesty’s servants found time to inquire into the securities offered:” with further comparisons of the American and English procedures, very disadvantageous to the latter. But this is almost a solitary example of fair argument; and it looks very much, upon a reperusal of the various comments which appeared from time to time, that it was only a question of the richness of one’s vocabulary, as to who could be the most foul-mouthed in dispute.

But, seeing that sober and respectable Sylvanus Urban could uphold Peter thus: “This lively and animated writer, offensive to some of our brethren because he tells the truth.”—“Concerning the writer as the truest patriot in his own country, and the truest friend to honesty and integrity.”—“If the mercenaries in England and their employers can confute these just and animated assertions, we[240] will give them leave to heap harsher abuse than they have yet done on their natural enemy, Peter Porcupine:”—we may be fully justified in believing that his vigour and courage were admired, on all hands, not less by his adversaries than by his friends. As long as he appeared to support a Party this was natural enough; they could not do less, at the same time, than attack him with all the force at their disposal.

There does not appear to be any record of the actual, direct, means by which Porcupine’s writings were introduced to the British public. The earlier tracts were printed for John Stockdale, and for the Rivingtons. The “Life and Adventures” are said to have been republished at the express desire of Mr. Canning; it is probable, therefore, that it is due to the zeal and acumen of Mr. John Gifford,[3] that Cobbett’s writings were discovered to be of incalculable value to the supporters of monarchy. Mr. Gifford was Canning’s right-hand man, as editor. On the upper floor of the house of Mr.[241] Wright, publisher, of Piccadilly, a room was rented by the celebrated contributors to the “Anti-Jacobin;” and here sat Mr. Gifford, conducting the mechanical part of that undertaking. Mr. Upcott, Wright’s assistant, was here occupied in transcribing the writings of Canning, Frere, and Ellis, so that their incognito might be preserved. And Mr. Wright’s book-shop was the constitutional book-shop of the day.

So it came to pass that Mr. Gifford wrote a lengthy preface to “A Bone to Gnaw” (as already mentioned), and henceforward attended to the reproduction of Porcupine’s tracts, which were, of course, published at the shop of the monarchical bookseller, at 169, Piccadilly. After the “Anti-Jacobin” was discontinued, Mr. Gifford commenced the publication of the “Anti-Jacobin Review;” which, supported by Bowles,[4] Whitaker, Dr. Bisset, and other Tory writers of the day, became the leading party journal during the remainder of Mr. Pitt’s career. The very first article in the new magazine was an elaborate review of Cobbett’s[242] anti-republican struggles, founded upon one of his later tracts; and it was succeeded, from time to time, by frequent references to “this staunch friend of social order.” The second volume bears the imprint of “W. Cobbett, Philadelphia.”

Another celebrity of that day, John Heriot,[5] editor of the True Briton, had some interchange of civilities with Cobbett, the latter having desired him to supply his paper regularly to Philadelphia. Here is an extract from Heriot’s answer to the application:—

From a letter to Mr. Nichols, printed in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for September, 1835, it appears that Cobbett also sought business relations in that quarter. The letter (dated August 1, 1797) encloses a file of Porcupine’s Gazette, and proposes to have a monthly exchange of their respective publications; adding that the writer would be willing to promote the sale of the “Gentleman’s Magazine” in America, if he could come to any arrangement with his correspondent.

The following (unpublished) letter to Mr. T. J. Mathias[6] will also be of great interest to the reader, as tending to show the authoritative position which he had acquired as a bookseller and publisher:—

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Allusion has been made, in a previous page, to the offers made, on the part of the Government at home, to advance Mr. Cobbett’s interests. One of his own frequent references to that subject will help to illustrate the subject of this chapter:—

FOOTNOTES

[247]

CHAPTER X.
“I RESOLVED NEVER TO BEND BEFORE THEM.”

The Times newspaper for July 8th, 1800, announced, under date of Falmouth, July 4th, the arrival of the Lady Arabella packet from New York, viâ Halifax; adding that, “on the 20th, in lat. 50.30, long. 28.10, she was chased by a large vessel, which gained so much on her that she found it necessary to heave her guns, shot, lumber, &c., overboard, by which means she was considerably lightened, and on the following day got so much ahead that the pursuer gave up the chase.” Among the passengers, who thus escaped the rigours of a French prison, were “Mr. and Mrs. Cobbet.”

The following note is to Mr. Wright, the bookseller in Piccadilly, dated Falmouth, 8th July:—

Mr. Cobbett’s arrival in England was early signalized by an opportunity of carrying out his principles, long since determined on, concerning the disposal of the public money:—

[249]

Cobbett has made several references to Mr. Pellew, the collector of customs, who appears to have lodged and entertained him, with much attention.

Upon his arrival in London, in the middle of July, Mr. Cobbett took a lodging in St. James’s Street, and began to deliberate upon his future. He had scarcely, when everything was counted up, five hundred pounds with which to begin the world anew. But he had not to wait long for a certain sort of encouragement. His fame was very widely spread among the adherents of Government; besides that, numerous gentlemen of Tory principles sought him out. Others, of independent politics, but admiring his talents and his daring, came to pay court. The Government press hailed him, and congratulated their countrymen “on the arrival of an individual … whom no corruption can seduce, nor any personal danger intimidate from the performance of his duty.”

Among these visitors were Baron Maseres; Dr. Ireland (shortly afterwards Dean of Westminster), who was especially gracious to him; the Rev. G. H. Glasse, rector of Hanwell, a well-known pamphleteer of the day, a good scholar, and [251]chaplain to the Earl of Radnor; the Rev. William Beloe; Mr. John Penn, Sheriff of Buckinghamshire (who “took me by the hand the very week I came to England”); &c. So that, along with the immediate officials of Government, there was quite enough to turn Mr. Cobbett’s head, had he not been possessed of supreme self-command. At that moment, together with his native and acquired capacities, he had the means and the opportunity, if so disposed, of carving out an easy fortune.

But, of all his admirers, no one seems to have equalled Mr. Windham, in the warmth and eagerness with which that gentleman courted Cobbett’s friendship.

The Right Hon. William Windham (“the first gentleman of the age … the ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled,” according to one of Macaulay’s juster judgments) was an enthusiast; and, in the eyes of those persons who shrug their shoulders when a man acts as though he had some faith in his own opinions, whimsical. Deeply reverential toward the memory of Mr. Burke, his own genius was not unfitted to bear forth, to another generation, the name and the principles of that great man. Windham was beloved and admired by all persons of refinement and sensibility; and if he has left a name not so widely known[252] as some of his cotemporaries, it must be laid to the account of an extreme self-consciousness, and an honourable delicacy, which prevented him from serving always in the ranks of party with unreasoning devotion.

Mr. Windham’s peculiar scare was French Jacobinism; and he, along with the leaders of the party who held similar views, thought that there could be no lasting cessation of hostilities with Buonaparte, whilst the ascendancy of the latter involved the spread of Democratic principles. Mr. Windham was, naturally, a zealous admirer of that arch anti-Jacobin, whose writings had so disturbed the bile of American Democrats; and, upon Porcupine’s arrival in London, he immediately sought his acquaintance. With Windham was associated Dr. French Laurence, another intimate friend of the lamented Burke, who also ably represented in Parliament the opinions of that statesman.

Mr. Windham was, at this time, Pitt’s Secretary-at-War; and, according to the entry in his diary,[2] he appears to have met Cobbett for the first time on the 7th of August, 1800 (probably at Windham’s official residence). Mr. Cobbett’s references to this occurrence represent Mr. Pitt as having been[253] very polite to him on the occasion, and as having inspired him with great admiration for his person and manners. He was altogether pleased and gratified by his reception, and by the ready condescension with which the company present conversed with him. But, of course (as he said more than thirty years afterward), “it was natural for Pitt and his set to look at me a little, to see what they could make of so efficient a piece of stuff.” Mr. Pitt’s habitual austerity and hauteur pretty generally disappeared at the dinner-table; and Cobbett saw him, for the first time, at one of these happy moments. So that, what with his very natural pride at the invitation, and his satisfaction at finding that the King’s ministers were such highly-agreeable fellows, he felt more than ever disposed to use his talents in the support of monarchy. He resolved to set up a daily paper; and left Mr. Windham’s dinner-table with that resolve uppermost in his mind.

That Mr. Pitt miserably erred, in the prosecution of the European war, has long since been established, with all minds not wedded to the notion that our rulers are of Divine appointment. What opposition there was to his ideas, in his own day[254], was considered to proceed only from the partisans of revolution; and it was easy to apply the term “disaffected,” to humanitarians who hated war, or to the suffering poor who wanted bread. But, notwithstanding that the Government expenditure was over fifty millions per annum,[3] and that the ordinary expenses of housekeeping had increased 300 per cent. in seven years, the war was popular with all classes that had anything to fear from modern doctrines. The political ignorance of even the majority of the House of Commons of that day would put to shame the very students of our time. And it is not too much to say that, had Lord Grenville been anything of a statesman beyond the name, he would scarcely have treated Napoleon’s overtures for peace, made at the close of the year 1799, with mere contempt, and allowed a fair opportunity for a general pacification to pass away because he must have, as a basis, the reinstatement of the Bourbons upon the throne of France. Ministers wanted to come out of the contest, in point of fact, with GLORY; and any peace, which did not involve the attainment of the objects with which the war was, professedly, being carried on, was certain also to involve the[255]ir prestige, if not their places. This may be said without any disparagement to their honour. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Windham, Lord Grenville,—all of them and their supporters, honestly believed that their mission was, not only to keep French principles out of England, but to smother them throughout Europe. Sternly, earnestly, they kept to their purpose; forgetting, or, more probably, never having taken to heart, the prodigious expansion which the eighteenth century had produced in the human mind, and the certainty of its development in the line of liberty; whilst confounding, in one heterogeneous estimate, the unstable Gaul, the restless Pole, the high-spirited Celt, and the conservative Briton.

So Mr. Pitt’s supporters in the press, reflecting the fearsome notions of their chief, and dreading, as from the Evil One himself, the faintest breath of democracy, could only regard the “masses” as unfit for more than the mere semblance of political rights. The impossibility of phlegmatic John Bull ever permitting, on his own soil, such follies and excesses as the French Jacobins had perpetrated never entered their minds. “Law and Order,” as personified in George III. and his ministers, was the only antithesis to “Anarchy.”[256] Some of these writers lived to see the perilous consequences of the repressing system; and a few survived to note the blessings which flowed from general political enlightenment. Some, to the very last, shut their eyes to the inevitable, and could prognosticate only decay; others, sooner or later, discerned the signs of the times, and served worthily in the van of progress. Of these latter, one of the first, one of the most earnest, one of the bravest, was Mr. William Cobbett.

And it is not uninteresting to note that, on the very morrow of Mr. Windham’s dinner-party, the dimness began to clear away from Cobbett’s mind. Better and nobler hopes for the future of England, founded upon something more solid than class-prescriptions, unfolded themselves; the veil began to part, behind which was hidden the framework of misgovernment alike with the skeletons of its framers; a glimmer of dawn, the expansion of which was soon to light up a path, so startlingly and unexpectedly distinct from his previous conceptions, appeared,—a path, not upon the mossy turf of favour and privilege, leading on to other mossy turves, but one trending up-hill, among stones and briers—which stones would, at last, beaten down into the earth by later footsteps, provide a firm foot-hold—which briers, refreshed by successive[257] showers, would yet emit a sweet and blessed odour!

Here is his own account; and the man, or the woman, who can read it without emotion, need scarcely go on with this history:—

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The determination to start a daily paper was wise on the part of Mr. Cobbett, as far as his experience in Philadelphia had shown how possible it was for him to entertain a large circle of readers; but unwise, in that he had scarce capital enough with which to print the numbers for a single week. Yet the opportunity for carrying out his plan without risk was placed at his disposal; and there are few incidents in Cobbett’s whole career which redound so greatly to his credit as the refusal of this offer. The pride with which, in after-years, he told and retold the story, may be estimated very differently by different minds; but the spirit with which the refusal was made is unexceptionable. There was no other way out of it, if he meant Independence. If glimpses of grandeur had really not contaminated that honest heart, nor weakened the impulses of that patriotic soul, how should he live, and move, and work, and fight, with his hands not free?

And this is the story [he is addressing Mr. George Rose]:—

He also ventured to remind Mr. Hammond

Opportunities for reflecting upon the comparative states of dependence and independence crowded apace. He could scarcely turn, among his new circle of friends, without discovering some new Government parasite, some new candidate for ministerial favour, some new office-hunter or aspiring sinecurist. Mr. Pitt disdained the society of newspaper-people, but was only too willing to pay them for their praises. And it must not be left unnoticed that the practice of liberally rewarding this class of writers has often been justified by circumstances. The case in point, viz. the fight which was going on against democracy, required that the enemy should be fought with his own weapons; only it very unfortunately happened that all the talent was on the other side, and, where quality was lacking, the fight must needs be kept up with the aid of gold and silver. Mr. Cobbett would, indeed, have been worth buying, if his price could have been named; while there was a Paine, or a Thelwall, or a Godwin to be withstood.

The following brilliant and humorous passage of Cobbett’s, written in his old age, will complete our illustration of this topic:—

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FOOTNOTES

[267]

CHAPTER XI.
“I TOOK THE LEAD, IN SINGING THE PRAISES OF PITT.”

Mr. Cobbett’s facile pen could not remain completely at rest, whilst the project of a newspaper was yet only in the bud. On the 30th August he issued a sixth (and final) number of the Rushlight, wherein he reviewed the circumstances of his career, and the tenor of his writings in the United States. This fugitive number is not only very temperate in style, but elegant, unless exception be taken to its strong anti-gallican spirit; calling, as it does, upon the Americans to shun “all connexion with that den of monsters, France.” With reference to his own war-whoop, he says,—

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At last, in the course of the ensuing month, an advertisement appeared of the projected newspaper; and the public were invited to ask for a prospectus at the house of William Cobbett, at No. 18, Pall Mall. It was to be called The Porcupine, and to appear every morning at the office, No. 3, Southampton Street, Strand.

The prospectus of the Porcupine was on the lines of anti-Republicanism. The editor confessed that it was with the utmost astonishment and indignation that he found a portion of the press endeavouring to bring down upon his native country the calamity and disgrace attendant on revolution; still preaching fanaticism and infidelity, and “still bawling for that change which they have the audacity to denominate Reform.” It was not for him to fold his hands and tamely listen to the insolent eulogists of republican governments, who had seen republican officers of state offering to sell their country for a few thousand dollars, who had seen republican judges become felons, and felons become judges, &c., &c. The paper should be distinctly anti-gallican:—

The Porcupine would also resist the mischievous portion of the press, and pay much less regard to the feelings and interests of fanatical and factious booksellers than to the cause of religion and loyalty. The editor held it to be the duty of men in power to employ the pen, as well as the sword, in defence of Government, yet,—

But all this should never make the Porcupine “the blind instrument of party, the trumpet of indiscriminate applause.” The prospectus concluded with further references to the writer’s long-continued solicitude for the happiness and glory of England.

The first number of the Porcupine appeared on Thursday, Oct. 30th, and the price was 6d. It bore the motto—Fear God, Honour the King. The proprietor had received five columns of advertisements, notwithstanding a previous announcement that the “obscene and filthy boastings of quackery” would, on no consideration whatever, be admitted. So the paper had a very fair start. In the third week, the early numbers were being reprinted; and on the 9th December, the circulation had reached 1500. Also,—

This was probably the case, for the Anti-Jacobin Review condescended to back up Mr. Cobbett th[271]us:—

Mr. Pitt’s resignation of office, early in 1801, although ostensibly caused by his difference with the king upon the Catholic question, had for its object, more probably, the substitution of a minister who could consistently negotiate with Buonaparte. This was suspected by many; and it appeared conclusive, upon the almost incredible announcement that Mr. Addington was to take the helm of affairs. That arch-mediocrity, owing his promotion entirely to royal favour, had filled the Speaker’s chair with tolerable credit, but was without any of the gifts entitling him to rank among statesmen; and, until it was discovered that Mr. Pitt was still chief wire-puller, the nation could hardly credit the appointment; and, as far as can now be judged, it was the beginning of a more widely-spread distrust of Pitt.

The Porcupine had consistently praised the “heaven-born” minister, and continued to do so, more or less, during its whole career. It began to diverge in opinion on the day of the above announcement. It was high time “for all true Englishmen to rally round the Throne,” for the[272] granting of the proposed concessions to the Catholics “would undermine and finally overthrow,” &c., &c., according to the long-buried tenets of High-Toryism. A few weeks afterward, some sarcasm, directed toward Pitt’s paper-financing, appeared, but was disavowed next day by the editor, who had not seen the paragraph before it appeared in print, and who continued to entertain, “in common with a vast majority of the nation, the highest opinion of that gentleman’s talents as a financier.” Upon a report that Mr. Pitt was intending [July] to sell Holwood, he remarked that “we shall ever continue to think that to suffer a man, who has rendered such services to his country in particular, and to Europe in general, to feel the consequences arising from a confined income, is to incur a national disgrace.” But, by the end of the year, Mr. Cobbett was in opposition, along with the new party under Mr. Windham’s leadership.

Before dismissing the Porcupine newspaper, the reader will be entertained with a few characteristic illustrations. The editor very early began to display his pugnacity toward the opposition press. Not that he was singular, but that he excelled all his cotemporaries in the art of hitting straight when attacked. The newspapers of that day were[273] largely occupied in throwing dirt at one another,[1] and one column was often taken up by a string of paragraphs, containing laboured sarcasms directed toward public men or the other public prints. The True Briton was especially industrious in this way. But here is Porcupine:—

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The Porcupine had the smaller difficulties to contend with; as when several country subscribers complained of “other papers being foisted on them;” and “the flagrant imposition of some of the hawkers in Wimpole Street, who have charged eightpence for the Porcupine.” In fact, there was a little too much communicability on the part of the editor toward his correspondents, at the same time that correspondents were permitted to be very plain-spoken. One of them suggested that satire would be more keen if conveyed in the most polished language: he thought that “the comparison, some days ago, of the dog returning to his vomit, or any ideas or expressions bearing upon coarseness, offend the more refined inhabitants of this kingdom.”

In inviting correspondence for his paper, Mr. Cobbett adopted a course which is not usually taken, viz. that of requesting that communications be not accompanied with the real name of the author. He was, besides, much plagued with unpaid letters—a circumstance which he had often to complain of both before and after this period. Some of his correspondents were people of real distinction, among them being Lord Grenville, who wrote letters under the name of Sulpicius. Jeremy Bentham, also, contributed a long artic[276]le upon the projected Population Bill; which appears in the Porcupine of Dec. 1st, 1800, and is reprinted in Bentham’s collected writings.

Toward the close of the Porcupine’s career, the negotiations for peace came to a conclusion, and that paper stood almost alone in opposition. The perilous task of boldly attacking the First Consul was pursued:—

And, as all this was in direct violation of the popular feeling of the moment, a catastrophe occurred which, in all probability, contributed to bring the Porcupine and Anti-gallican Monitor to an untimely end. Mr. Cobbett was repeatedly urged to bend before the blast, but that was not in him.

The story appears to be this. Lauriston, the bearer of the despatches containing the preliminaries of peace, received an ovation from the mob, immediately upon his landing. On his reaching London, “a vile, degraded rabble, miscalled[277] Britons, took the horses out of the carriage,” and dragged the vehicle round the parks and the West-end in triumph.

The Porcupine was horrified: this was all in the French style, and the nation was prostrate at the feet of Buonaparte. But, among all reflecting politicians, the peace was derided; and, several persons declining to light up their windows in token of rejoicing, had the mortification of seeing them broken. On the 7th October, all the windows on the east side of Berkeley Square were damaged; and Bond Street and the neighbourhood displayed similar evidences of popular displeasure. On Saturday, the 10th, a general illumination took place; and there were few who dared to run the risk of being counter to that displeasure. Among those few, however, was the publisher of the Porcupine, who had in the morning’s paper reiterated his objections to the proposed treaty; and now, in the evening, resolutely kept the windows in darkness, both of the house in Pall Mall, and of that in Southampton Street. Of course, both houses were sacked, the cheerful rabble keeping up a siege of six or seven hours’ duration,—the person in charge, at the newspaper office, narrowly escaping with his life.

There was a great demand for this Saturday’s[278] paper. On Monday, however, the editor was “under the necessity of apprising his readers that the publication of the Porcupine must cease until the ‘delirium of joy’ shall have subsided.” This interregnum lasted two days. On Thursday commenced the publication of a series of letters, addressed to Lord Hawkesbury, “on the peace with Buonaparte.” They were signed William Cobbett, and continued to appear at intervals until the 4th of November.

But the Porcupine was doomed. In spite of an increasing circulation, the paper was a financial failure; it was interfering with the bookselling business in Pall Mall, and the proprietor was getting dissatisfied with the annoyances entailed upon him. “He who has been the proprietor of a daily paper for only one month wants no Romish priest to describe to him the torments of purgatory.” So, in the course of November, the paper became the property of Mr. John Gifford; and on the 1st of January, 1802, it finally disappeared, being merged in Heriot’s paper, the True Briton.

The “Letters to Lord Hawkesbury” have been highly extolled, and not without reason, for they contain arguments against the peace of Amiens, which were very shortly after their publication completely justified by events. The “Letters” were immediately collected into a volume (togethe[279]r with three letters to Mr. Addington on the same topic), and ran through more than one edition. And the historian of the period, when that genius arrives among us, will regard them as classic writings, as well for their eloquence as for the clearness and cogency of their reasoning.

Among the personal matters of this year must be mentioned the opening of Mr Cobbett’s shop in Pall Mall. On the 23rd of March, a notification was made in the Porcupine to the effect that Mr. Cobbett had

This was accompanied by an advertisement of the new business,[2] and another announcing the forthcoming publication of Porcupine’s works in 12 vols. 8vo.

The re-crystallization of parties, which took[280] place in consequence of the proposed peace, drew together a band of gentlemen under the leadership of Lord Grenville and Mr. Windham. This clique was known as the “New Opposition;” and they became separated from their former colleagues on the ground that Mr. Pitt had violated his solemn declaration not to make peace with France until the political balance of Europe should be restored.

Mr. Cobbett, then, believing in his heart that England was falling into the grasp of France, and that the nation, besides, was in great peril on account of the increase of the national debt, found himself in the ranks of this new opposition party—not as a party man, however, but solely from his own independent standpoint. They believed in his sincerity, they applauded his wonderful courage and the fine power of his pen, but did not exercise any dictation. They “agreed, and sometimes disagreed, but never attempted to thwart” the course of his mind.[3]

The need for a new organ in the press was[281] manifest; and the project of a weekly review—“something between a newspaper and a magazine,” which should give easy instruction on political topics, not only to the multitude, but also to those who lead the multitude—was submitted by Cobbett to Mr. Windham.

The scheme will require 600l. to start it with. But he has already sunk too much in the Porcupine, and he cannot draw any considerable sum from the new promising partnership with Morgan. How the money is to be raised it is not for him to say; yet, should a subscription be set on foot, his own[282] emolument must not be regarded as the object:—

[283]

This plan was communicated to Dr. Laurence, and to several other gentlemen of the new opposition, by Mr. Windham. It was warmly adopted; the money was immediately raised, and the new journal started. The first number appeared in January, 1802, and bore the title of “Cobbett’s Political Register.”

FOOTNOTES

[284]

CHAPTER XII.
“THE THOUGHTS OF THE NATION ARE LIKE A CORK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN.”

William Cobbett was now in his fortieth year,[1] in the prime of life, blessed with unfailing health, unimpaired talents, and habits of industry, and a sturdy sense of his independence. At this beginning of the year 1802, he could command anything he chose—not the least matter being the ear of thousands of ready listeners. It is very easy to understand and account for the immediate success of the Political Register. The plan had long been in Cobbett’s mind. It partook of the qualities of his Philadelphia Censor, joined to those of a weekly newspaper: parliamentary debates, public official documents, foreign intelligence, weekly prices-current, and diary of the weather, &c., along with the editor’s summary of politics, made up such a journal as was wanted—not only for periodical[285] instruction, but that might furnish a ready means of reference. As projected and as carried out for the first two years, the Register was far in advance of anything that had been hitherto attempted. About three hundred subscribers were found, to start with, the price being 10d. per number, fortnightly. But the two numbers for January were so far successful, that February 6th saw the commencement of a weekly issue.

From this date until June, 1835 (excepting a break of three months, April-June, 1817), the famous Register appeared uninterruptedly. Its form changed from time to time; but its valiant, its unconquerable editor was the ruling spirit and the chief contributor during the long period of thirty-three years. Its readers, its patrons, its friends, its enemies, its own views upon public characters, its own assertions as to the tendency of events, its own beliefs—all changed from time to time. But, with the vicissitudes amid which its intrepid career was run, there was one principle underlying the whole—one foundation from which it was never removed. That was a strong conservative attachment to the constitution of the country, allied to deep affection for its people—sentiments which were never more necessary to be proclaimed than during the hideous[286] misgovernment of the first quarter of this century, and sentiments which were never more constantly proclaimed than through the lips, or by the pen, of William Cobbett. The reader may, in the course of this entertaining history, be able to satisfy himself how true—how very true—is this standpoint.

Meanwhile, let us take a few soundings at the outset; let us see what bottom the lead brings up; steering will then be an affair of confidence—such perplexities as do arise depending mainly upon the conditions of wind and storm, tide and current, and not upon unknown conditions existing beneath the waters. Here, then:—

At the commencement of the year 1802, that party represented by Mr. Windham and his friends honestly believed that England was at the feet of Buonaparte; and, so strongly did they urge their opinions, that the advocates of peace were beginning to talk again of war, “should it be found necessary,” even before the definitive treaty arrived in London, in April. Mr. Cobbett’s view was that we were “a beaten and a conquered people;” that John Bull was only a spaniel after all. N[288]ot that “Boney” was so much to be feared, as the spirit of the French Republic, which was sapping the foundations of English loyalty. Anti-Gallicanism seemed dying out. Noble sentiments were being overpowered by effeminacy, cant, and the love of money. Loyalty had become “a matter of expedience rather than what it used to be—a principle of equal force with filial affection or the love of life.”

But Mr. Addington and his ministry are pledged to peace, and peace must be tried, if only to expose its inutility. So, while the ministerial papers blow peace-bubbles, and leave off, for a while, calling “Boney” wicked names, Mr. Cobbett sighs to think how the paths of glory do indeed lead but to the grave: for England is approaching her final doom.

The first-fruit of all this is ruffianism in the shape of newspaper abuse and of mob-tyranny. For the time being, Mr. Cobbett is the most unpopular man in London, and he knows it—and he defies it:—

[289]

Which means, of course, that he will certainly not illuminate his windows on the forthcoming celebration of the signing of the Definitive Treaty. His Register is occupied with more letters to Lord Hawkesbury, written, too, in magnificent style, and furnished with arguments which might be refused a hearing, but could not be gainsaid.

So the peace-proclaiming cavalcade approaches; the order for illumination goes forth; and the windows of No. 11, Pall Mall, are once more shattered, and the ornamental “Crown and Mitre” once more dashed to the ground.

This time, however, it was a more serious matter for the assailants. Cobbett had expected something of the kind, and removed his wife and family to the house of a friend; he gave notice to the police, and was resolved to reach the culprits, if possible—which he did, for “six of the villains” were brought up to Bow Street next morning. They were all in a respectable station in life, two of them being clerks in the Post Office, and one of these a son of the Rev. William Beloe, who had formerly been one of Porcupine’s warmest admirers. In the end these young men were tried at the sessions, and heavily fined.

But the incident furnished Cobbett with material[290] for sarcasm, which was freely dealt out at intervals. He “would rather be compelled to illuminate than have a choice, and so have his house demolished by Government reptiles.” On the king’s birthday (4th June) the people were not illuminating, as “the practice seems discredited on account of recent occurrences.” And in the following year, when things were going wrong again, and the decks were once more being cleared for action, he ventures to remind Lord Hawkesbury (who had “smiled” at the affair) that there was a time to weep as well as a time to laugh.

The alternations of tone, on the part of public writers and speakers of this period, with reference to Buonaparte, are very amusing. They had called him a tyrant, a despot, a cut-throat, a murderer, an assassin, a poisoner, a monster, an infidel, an atheist, a blasphemer, a hypocrite, a demon, a devil, a robber, a wolf, a usurper, a thief, a savage, a tiger, a renegade, a liar, a braggart, a cuckold, a coward, and a fool.

They now extolled his character: “his courage, his magnanimity, his wisdom, and even his piety.” A few months later, he was “the most abominable miscreant that ever breathed.”

No wonder, then, that the man, who had been[291] consistent all through, and was found to be right at last, must be put down. If there is anything the average specimen of John Bull hates, it is the man who has caught him tripping. Hence, from this time, Mr. Cobbett found he had the bitterest enemies on his native soil. Early in the year 1803, Otto, the French ambassador, wanted the Government to prosecute him, along with Peltier. Mr. Windham was exhorted to disavow him. The “British Critic,” which had suckled Cobbett’s infant reputation, now felt “diffident” of much that it had said on his behalf; and the Addington ministry had their eye upon him. As for his rivals in the press, it must be said that their conduct was unhandsome. Here was the very first man who had succeeded in obtaining an independent position for the craft;[2] yet the mere fact of his having rejected the arts of Treasury corruption was sufficient to rouse their envy. There was Mr. Heriot, for example, who was getting fat and rich, and was looking forward to some snug berth to which he might retire, could not bear to see Mr. Cobbett getting fat and rich on independent principles. So far did this feeling extend, that a very sad affair presently ensued.

[292]

There had been a debate in the House of Commons upon the Defence Bill, on which occasion Mr. Sheridan had taunted Windham with his connexion with the Political Register, and insinuated that the editor of that journal had incited the sailors to mutiny. This latter was not only a flat misrepresentation, but such a thing was totally contrary to Mr. Cobbett’s habit of mind: if there was a thing he was specially earnest about, it was the condemnation of resistance to lawful authority—more especially with regard to the military and naval services. Mr. Windham answered with spirit, and, for once, spoke with almost as much humour as Sheridan himself; concluding in the following terms:—

This was too much. Aristocratic and plutocratic animosity had been growing fast enough, and would have been harmless, even with the aid of Mr. Sheridan’s gay disingenuousness; but now, this was too much for the journalists who were struggling (where they were not subsidized) for ministerial favour. So they echo Mr. Sheridan, and return to the charge; the True Briton going a little farther than is needed, and indicating the appropriate punishment:—

[294]

Now, all through Mr. Cobbett’s long life, there was nothing roused his ire so much (in the way of personality) as the charge of sedition; and all through his life he was justified in repudiating it. It was not his way. He was a man for facing his adversaries. And, to the end of his days, whatever his other errors, he could never be reproached with the arts of covert warfare. So Mr. Cobbett was nettled; and,—

The reader, who may feel interested in the full details of this squabble, will find Heriot’s version in the True Briton of August 15-22, and Mr. Cobbett’s account in the Political Register for August 20, 1803. It is sufficient to record here, that Mr. Heriot brought an action for assault, and did not appear to prosecute; and that “focus of accumulated infamy, the Political Register,” went on its way.

Just before the above incident occurred, circumstances had led to the production of an article in Cobbett’s Register, which should now be mentioned, as indicating, probably, the extremest point of time at which he gave uncompromising support to the[295] Government.

War had been declared in May, and the nation was again regarding the quality of its bayonets, and the condition of its belts and its gaiter-buttons. The fear of invasion was uppermost in the minds of everybody who had anything to lose, so the “people” must themselves be roused. Mr. Cobbett therefore prepared a manifesto, and placed it (through Mr. John Reeves) at the disposal of the ministry. The paper was not only accepted, but printed and sent round to all the clergy in the kingdom; accompanied by an official circular, directing them to post it on the church-doors, and to “deposit copies in the pews, and distribute them in the aisles,” and amongst the poor, &c.[3] This appeal to the British nation is a grand piece of writing, in Cobbett’s best style. And no reader will wonder at the power which he was acquiring over the public mind, after perusing the following extracts:—

[296]

“Important Considerations for the People of this Kingdom.

“At a moment when we are entering on a scene deeply interesting, not only to this nation, but to the whole civilized world; at a moment when we all, without distinction of rank or degree, are called upon to rally round, and to range ourselves beneath, the banners of that sovereign under whose long, mild, and fostering reign the far greater part of us, capable of bearing arms, have been born and reared up to manhood; at a moment when we are, by his truly royal and paternal example, incited to make every sacrifice and every exertion in a war, the event of which is to decide whether we are still to enjoy, and to bequeath to our children, the possessions, the comforts, the liberties, and the national honours, handed down to us from generation to generation by our gallant forefathers; or whether we are, at once, to fall from this favoured and honourable station, and to become the miserable crouching slaves, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, of these very Frenchmen, whom the valour of our fleets and armies has hitherto taught us to despise; at such a moment it behoves us, calmly and without dismay, to examine our situation, to consider what are the grounds of the awful contest in which we are engaged; what are the wishes, the designs, and the pretensions of our enemies; what would be the consequences, if those enemies were to triumph over us; what are our means, and what ought to be our motives, not only for frustrating their malicious intentions, but for inflicting just and memorable chastisement on their insolent and[297] guilty heads.” [Here follows an account of the events which had brought Europe to its present disastrous enslavement, and Napoleon to his present height of power. Concluding with an eloquent reference to the results of the invasion of Germany in 1796-8, the writer winds up with the following appeal.]

“Such are the barbarities which have been inflicted on other nations. The recollection of them will never be effaced: the melancholy story will be handed down from generation to generation, to the everlasting infamy of the Republicans of France, and as an awful warning to all those nations whom they may hereafter attempt to invade. We are one of those nations; we are the people whom they are now preparing to invade. Awful, indeed, is the warning, and, if we despise, tremendous will be the judgment. The same generals, the same commissaries, the same officers, the same soldiers, the very same rapacious and sanguinary host, that now hold Holland and Switzerland in chains—that desolated Egypt, Italy, and Germany—are at this moment preparing to make England, Ireland, and Scotland, the scenes of their atrocities. For some time past, they have had little opportunity to plunder: peace, for a while, suspended their devastations, and now, like gaunt and hungry wolves, they are looking towards the rich pastures of Britain. Already we hear their threatening howl; and if, like sheep, we stand bleating for mercy, neither our innocence nor our timidity will save us from being torn to pieces and devoured. The robberies, the barbarities, the brutalities they have committed in other countries, though at the[298] thought of them the heart sinks and the blood runs cold, will be mere trifles to what they will commit here, if we suffer them to triumph over us. The Swiss and the Suabians were never objects of their envy; they were never the rivals of Frenchmen, either on the land or on the sea; they had never disconcerted or checked their ambitious projects, never humbled their pride, never defeated either their armies or their fleets. We have been, and we have done, all this: they have long entertained against us a hatred engendered by the mixture of envy and of fear; and they are now about to make a great and desperate effort to gratify this furious, this unquenchable, this deadly hatred. What, then, can we expect at their hands? What but torments, even surpassing those which they have inflicted on other nations? They remained but three months in Germany: here they would remain for ever; there, their extortions and their atrocities were, for want of time, confined to a part of the people; here they would be universal: no sort, no part, no particle of property would remain unseized; no man, woman, or child would escape violence of some kind or other. Such of our manufactories as are movable they would transport to France, together with the most ingenious of the manufacturers, whose wives and children would be left to starve. Our ships would follow the same course, with all the commerce and commercial means of the kingdom. Having stripped us of everything, even to the stoutest of our sons and the most beautiful of our daughters, over all that remained they would establish and exercise a tyranny such as the wo[299]rld never before witnessed. All the estates, all the farms, all the mines, all the land and the houses, all the shops and magazines, all the remaining manufactories, and all the workshops, of every kind and description, from the greatest to the smallest—all these they would bring over Frenchmen to possess, making us their servants and their labourers. To prevent us uniting and arising against them, they would crowd every town and village with their brutal soldiers, who would devour all the best part of the produce of the earth, leaving us not half a sufficiency of bread. They would, besides, introduce their own bloody laws, with additional severities; they would divide us into separate classes, hem us up in districts, cut off all communication between friends and relations, parents and children, which latter they would breed up in their own blasphemous principles; they would affix badges upon us, mark us in the cheek, shave our heads, split our ears, or clothe us in the habit of slaves! And shall we submit to misery and degradation like this, rather than encounter the expenses of war; rather than meet the honourable dangers of military combat; rather than make a generous use of the means which Providence has so bounteously placed in our hands? The sun, in his whole course round the globe, shines not on a spot so blessed as this great and now united kingdom. Gay and productive fields and gardens, lofty and extensive woods, innumerable flocks and herds, rich and inexhaustible mines, a mild and wholesome climate, giving health, activity, and vigour to fourteen millions of people: and shall we, who are thus favoured and endowed: shall we,[300] who are abundantly supplied with iron and steel, powder and lead: shall we, who have a fleet superior to the maritime force of all the world, and who are able to bring two millions of fighting men into the field: shall we yield up this dear and happy land, together with all the liberties and honours, to preserve which our fathers so often dyed the land and the sea with their blood: shall we thus at once dishonour their graves, and stamp disgrace and infamy on the brows of our children; and shall we, too, make this base and dastardly surrender to an enemy whom, within these twelve years, our countrymen have defeated in every quarter of the world? No! we are not so miserably fallen: we cannot, in so short a space of time, have become so detestably degenerate; we have the strength and the will to repel the hostility, to chastise the insolence of the foe. Mighty, indeed, must be our efforts, but mighty also is the meed. Singly engaged against the tyrants of the earth, Britain now attracts the eyes and the hearts of mankind; groaning nations look to her for deliverance; justice, liberty, and religion are inscribed on her banners; her success will be hailed with the shouts of the universe, while tears of admiration and gratitude will bedew the heads of her sons who fall in the glorious contest.”

The wonderful activity of Cobbett’s pen, at and after this date, can only be appreciated by a glance at the volumes of his celebrated journal. On every topic that arose he had something to say. Much of what he said was accepted by the reflec[301]ting part of the public; many of his predictions were verified, and many falsified by events; and many of his opinions he learned to alter. But underneath the whole lies a burning desire for English prosperity, unimpaired by the faintest token of self-seeking. To enumerate the topics of the day would involve the delineation of his opinions thereon. They will have to be studied by the future historian.

It will be sufficient for our purpose to note, therefore, that the Political Register had already become the vehicle for the ventilation of most of the questions which were agitating the public mind, from invasion down to vaccination. Often loaded with prejudice, but very generally pervaded with liberality, the views of his correspondents partook of his own ardent spirit, contributing largely to the enlightenment of the public mind.

That topic which most of all contributed to revolutionize his relations with his early political friends was the question of Finance. He began to examine this subject in the year 1803, after having read Adam Smith, Chalmers, and others in vain, and at last lighted upon Mr. Paine’s “Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance.” This pamphlet, he says, was the means of opening his eyes; and from May in this year he began to ur[302]ge a reduction of the interest on the national debt, and the policy of discovering some means of redistributing the wealth of the country.

But that which, for the time, influenced Cobbett’s career, was his unsparing criticism upon the ministry of the day. Mr. Addington had been an object of ridicule from the moment of the first rumour of his appointment as premier; and his puerile efforts at statesmanship only served to confirm the original verdict of the public. Narrow-minded and presuming, he was utterly unfit for a position of authority, in which he would have to pass beyond the mere traditions of office. As a personal favourite, however, of the king he was endured for a while, until his obvious incapacity rendered it imperative that the destinies of the country should be entrusted to other hands. The want of decision and energy in the conduct of the war, and the waste and mismanagement of the military and naval resources of the country, were highly disappointing to a people whose patriotism for two whole years was artificially stimulated by rumours of invasion. “Another inactive and inglorious year sunk the British nation in her own eyes, and in those of Europe.”[4] This is the general verdict of the cotemporary chronicler, on reviewing the circumstances which led to Mr.[303] Pitt’s resumption of office in May, 1804. Until near the period, however, when the crash came, the self-conceit of this clever ministry was superior to any free comments; they seemed fated to bring upon themselves overwhelming disgrace. It is true, there was opposition in Parliament (as well as in the press), but opposition was ascribed to anything but its real cause, and was treated with disdain. Upon the report of the address, when Parliament reassembled in November, 1803, Mr. Windham ventured to express his dissatisfaction with the incompetency of the ministry, but “no reply was made to him.”[5]

So the Weekly Political Register was in its glory. The editor was determined to contribute his share of effort toward relieving the country from the benefit of Mr. Addington’s services, and transmitting his name to posterity “with all the contempt it deserved.”[6]

It is not surprising, then, that Mr. Cobbett was now being closely watched, in order that an opportunity might arise for [304]retaliation. Mr. Cobbett was helping to ruin the king’s ministers; the ministers would try and settle Mr. Cobbett. But it must be on some side issue; there was no need for poor Mr. Addington’s name to come in. There would soon be rope enough, one way or other.

The affairs of Ireland were again in a muddle. Robert Emmet’s insurrection had just occurred, and martial law was eventually proclaimed. Mr. Fox protested in vain against the system under which that country was governed, as also did the Political Register.[7] A correspondent (Mr. Robert Johnson, a Judge of the Irish Common Pleas) sent some letters, signed “Juverna,” containing an able, but rather bitter, series of comments upon recent events, to which the editor gave a prominent place in his journal (November-December, 1803). These letters opened the flood-gates of wrath; and Mr. Cobbett was, accordingly, prosecuted in the following May for publishing “certain libels upon the Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,” and others.

[305]

“Juverna” had stated, among other matters, that “the government of a harmless man was not necessarily a harmless government;” that Lord Hardwicke “was in rank an earl, in manners a gentleman, in morals a good father and a good husband;” that “he had a good library in St. James’s Square,” and was “celebrated for understanding the modern method of fattening sheep as well as any man in Cambridgeshire;” and he wanted to know if the Viceroy was “one of that tribe who have been sent over to us to be trained up here into politicians, as they train the surgeons’ apprentices in the hospitals, by setting them at first to bleed the pauper patients?”

Against Mr. Justice Osborne (of the Irish King’s Bench) the insinuation of “Juverna” was that he had wrongfully stated, in a recent charge, that the progress of crime in Ireland had been effectually checked by the “well-timed efforts and strenuous exertions of a wise and energetic government.”

Lord Redesdale, the Irish Chancellor, was sneered at in general terms; and alluded to as “a strong chancery pleader,” not entitled to claim one particle of trust or confidence from the public.

The trial was like all the political trials in th[306]ose days:—imputations of the worst motives, insinuations of motives undreamt-of, graced the Attorney General’s speech for the prosecution; Lord Ellenborough anticipated the decision of the jury by calling the words libellous: what more was to be expected than a verdict of guilty?[8]

The defendant’s witnesses to character were all eminent men: Mr. Liston, Lord Henry Stuart, Mr. Windham, Mr. Charles Yorke, the Earl of Minto, and Mr. John Reeves, successively testified to his loyalty, and thereby practically supported the non-libellous view of the matter. The defendant’s counsel, Mr. Adam, pointed out that the avowed object of the writer was “the support of[307] good government in Ireland, and the removal of the present administration.” But in vain.

On the next day a civil action for damages was tried in the King’s Bench, brought by Mr. Plunkett, Solicitor-General for Ireland, on a passage in one of Juverna’s letters; the ground was all gone over again, and with a similar result. Mr. Erskine led the prosecution.

From this day Mr. Cobbett had a handle to his name, which his unreasoning and malicious foes—his envious, his beaten foes—could flourish at will. He was now a “Convicted Libeller.” And when you can call a man a convicted libeller or a convicted anything, you may fill the office of ass to the sick lion, not only with impunity, but with credit and distinction to yourself. You will even find many base admirers.

FOOTNOTES

[308]

CHAPTER XIII.
“I SAW THINGS IN ANOTHER LIGHT.”

The unmistakable success which had attended the publication of “Mr. Windham’s Gazette” (as the Register was nicknamed) soon made a revolution in Cobbett’s plans for the future. It had been his cherished thought to resume a semi-rural life, visiting London once or twice a week, in the case of being enabled to relinquish the bookselling business.

It was not until 1805 that a permanent removal was made out of London; meanwhile, however, the shop in Pall Mall had long been relinquished. In March, 1803 (according to a notification in the Register), it appears that Mr. Harding had just taken the business over,[1] whilst John Morgan had also returned to Philadelphia to recommence bookselling there. Besides the ordinary trade, the firm had produced the long-promised “Selections from Porcupine’s Works,” issued in May, 1801, and dedicated to John Reeves. The list of subscribers,[309] printed in the first volume, includes the Royal Princes, the chief supporters of Government, and about 750 other names in England and America. A second edition of his translation of Martens’ “Law of Nations” was also published in June, 1802, with the treaties brought down to the current date. It is pretty certain, therefore, that the business in Pall Mall was a flourishing concern.

Among other labours, independent of the Register, were, a translation of “L’Empire Germanique,” a tract of the period,[2] accompanied by a memoir on the political and military state of Europe; and a reproduction of the “English Grammar for Frenchmen.” And, as though he were not yet fully occupied, Mr. Cobbett must needs undertake one more grand scheme.

This was nothing less than a plan for publishing the parliamentary debates. The inadequacy of the existing reports had long since attracted Mr. Cobbett’s notice, and he had endeavoured to supply the need by printing the bulk of the debates in the early supplements to the Political Register. At last, toward the close of the year 1803, he resolved to issue, periodically, full and accurate reports, giving as his reason that the debates, “as at present communicated to the world, reflect very[310] little credit on the nation.”

Accordingly, on the 3rd of December, 1803, appeared the first number, price one shilling, of “Cobbett’s Parliamentary Debates.”[3] The person who was selected as reporter and editor was a man very well qualified for the task—no other than Mr. John Wright, formerly bookseller in Piccadilly. He had failed in 1801, and his bankruptcy was attributed by Cobbett, partly to taking “more delight in reading of books than in selling of them,” and partly to “the misfortune of being bookseller to Messrs. Canning, Frere, Ellis, and the other Anti-Jacobins, by whose works, though such a puffing was made over them, he lost many hundreds of pounds.”… “Seeing him once more ready to begin the world afresh, I proposed to him the editing of the parliamentary debates, of which we have now [1810] continued the publication since the year 1803.”

One more enterprise remains to be noticed. In February, 1803, was published the first number of “Le Mercure Ang[311]lois de Cobbett,” containing a “translation of such parts of the Register as may be thought useful or interesting to politicians on the continent of Europe.” There does not appear, however, any trace of the publication of more than three numbers of this “Mercure.”

Upon leaving Pall Mall, Mr. Cobbett took a house in Duke Street, Westminster. His country trips were few, for his work did not at present give him opportunity to escape from town for any lengthened period. But, in 1804, the occasion of a visit to Hampshire was prolonged so far as to revive his ardent wish for a permanent rural life. Mr. Wright (who occupied apartments at a tailor’s, at No. 5, Panton Square) was getting increasingly useful to him, and their mutual confidence was now of the closest character. And it is due to this friendship, and its ultimate rupture, that we are indebted for an ample insight into Mr. Cobbett’s personal and domestic history during the succeeding years.[4]

A letter, dated 9th August, from Lord Henry Stuart’s seat, at the Grange, near Alresford, announces the arrival of the family there, and requesting attention to some business matters, particularly the despatch of a parcel of London newspape[312]rs; then very full of the famous Middlesex election, in which the contest lay between Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. George Mainwaring. On the 13th he writes from Southampton:—

This period (the summer and autumn of 1804) is also to be noted as that during which Mr. Cobbett’s political opinions underwent a change. Much twaddle has been written and uttered, during the last seventy years, upon this celebrated “change.” The present biographer, heedless of all that has been said, does not intend to argue out any calumnies, from beginning to end of the story; but it is necessary here to note the first appearance of the change in question, because the selection from the correspondence, which will now be placed before the reader, makes occasional reference to Mr. Cobbett’s growing animosity to “the race that plunder the people,” to the “court-sycophants, parasites, pensioners, bribed senators, directors, contractors, jobbers, hireling lords, and minist[314]ers of state,” which, he was now beginning to discover, were not the people of England, in the strict sense of the word. He had been leading the opposition to Mr. Pitt for a year or two past, and was now for the first time showing an inclination to break altogether from the shackles of party.

During his absence, Mr. Wright acted as sub-editor of the Register; and it will be seen that even his labours could not have been light. Nearly every letter to him, enclosing copy for the Register, implores him to read the MS. carefully, and “make corrections as to grammar or phraseology, and supply omissions; for I cannot read a word of it.”

The foregoing extracts, from letters written in September and October, 1804, throw some light for the first time on Cobbett’s happy domestic circle; they are dated from Itchen and from Botley, at either of which places the family were then visiting. The affectionate tenderness towards his children is here shown to have been an active principle, and we shall have further glimpses as we proceed. But the most striking thing here apparent is his sensitiveness on the score of personal offence, on the part of himself or his correspondents. The galloping pace at which he wrote, and his negligence as to reviewing what he had written, were sufficiently perilous; and another “Juverna” affair was not to be thought of.

Other extracts might be made; but the references to current politics would be too obscure, without much detailed explanation. The following will show, however, the general drifting of Cobbett’s views:—

Mr. Cobbett is in town in November to attend Judge Johnson’s trial; but he is at Botley House again in January. Mr. Wright pays them another visit, too, having been desired to bring a fine large twelfth-cake, also “the portfolio with all the boys’ pictures in it.”

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That some people were getting “staggered,” as Cobbett says, is by no means unlikely. He has been publicly called upon to “defend himself from the charge of not having joined the opponents of Sir Francis Burdett;” when, lo! it is discovered that an acknowledgment must be made, of at least some claim, on the part of the latter, to represent the Middlesex constituency, as against his opponent:—

A few months earlier in this year, the ministerial part of the press had classed Burdett and Cobbett to[321]gether as “a party endeavouring to create despondency.” This appears to have been the beginning of it; and Mr. Cobbett, on looking more dispassionately into Burdett’s claims as a politician, finds that the leading objects of both their minds are the same,—

and protests that none but a contractor, a farmer-general, a paper-money maker, or a hired author, could find anything objectionable in the sentiments thus expressed. In short, Mr. Cobbett has discovered that the advocates of parliamentary reform are not, necessarily, a faction seeking to subvert the throne. He has had his grievance, some ten[322] or a dozen years, against the “public-robbers;” but he has groped about, in pursuit of them, in crooked bye-ways: has even rubbed shoulders with them without knowing it: has now come in sight of the highway along which are running other pursuers, whose distant shouts have, till now, been unmeaning, because misunderstood.

He looks with abhorrence at the prospect of a revival “of those political animosities which were, during the last war and at the last peace, so fruitful in national calamity and disgrace, which destroyed all freedom of discussion and almost of intercourse; and which, while it sheltered all the follies and faults of the minister even from inquiry, exposed every word and act of every other man to misrepresentation and suspicion.”

Here, then, we have Mr. Cobbett fairly started upon his mission. Parliamentary opposition, hitherto, had meant a struggle for power and place, with the biggest share in the nation’s loaves and fishes; it would henceforth signify a determination to watch the grasping hand, to restrain the thirsty leech. And Mr. Cobbett will, at any cost, keep the nation on the alert concerning the proper disposition of its resources.

In the hope which Cobbett now indulged, of[323] arresting, if possible, the enormous growth of the public debt, he began to advocate a union of the two opposition parties. We find him, then, about this time, obliged to defend himself from the charge of supporting Mr. Fox, whose “seditious ravings” it had once been “impossible to hear without indignation.” And the charge would naturally be indefensible on the part of a hireling. But the C. J. Fox that was now praised was not the C. J. Fox who once coquetted with Jacobins. In Cobbett’s eyes, Jacobinism was now dead and buried. The risk of anarchy had departed from British shores. The peace of Amiens had proved a failure; and the Whigs, who had opposed that treaty from one point of view, were beginning to coalesce with the Windhamites, who had opposed it from another. For some time past there had been hopes of a union of all the great men of the country, in a strong, “broad-bottom’d” administration, as the only means of restoring public confidence.

So, although Mr. Cobbett is ready to admit the claim of the heaven-born minister to a place among the great, he now declines any longer to support him, as hitherto. Not only that: he proceeds to instruct Mr. Pitt on the causes of his failure as a statesman. Rather cool, this, for the quondam ploughboy! But he must needs pr[324]ove that Mr. Pitt has deserted his principles, in order to justify his own new position. As to the charge of versatility, he thinks that “inconsistency” means “the difference between profession and practice.” The best exposition of this “difference” is found in an article of the Register, toward the close of the year 1805:—

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A number of persons were now ready to support these views of Mr. Cobbett; and a still greater number, animated by fear, or by envy, assailed him with the utmost virulence. His friends told him that the circulation of the Register would be diminished if he persisted in opposing Pitt; that the advocacy of Burdett would operate unfavourably upon its reputation. He assured them all, however, that he was receiving better support than ever, and that the great majority of his correspondents acknowledged, that conviction of the truth of his reasonings, and of the rectitude of his motives, was stealing into their minds.

If there was one man who could stand up before the country with pure hands, that man was William Pitt. But it was not given to him to inspire other men by his example in this matter. The system of political corruption was too strongly holden for the best-intentioned reformer to undertake its reduction, without risking his political existence. The creed, common to Whigs and Tories, that the king and the country were to be ruled for the exclusive benefit of the “ruling” families, was the basis of the system; and only a Samson, who should himself perish amid the wreck, might essay its destruction.

As early as 1802 Mr. Cobbett had ventured[327] upon a sarcasm with reference to the clerkship to “the Pells.” This celebrated sinecure, worth 3000l. a year, was in the power of Pitt to take to himself without reproach: as is well known he declined, and it fell into the hands of Addington, who bestowed it upon his son, then only twelve years of age. Cobbett thought this was setting decency at defiance; seeing that the immaculate minister, about this time, persecuted a poor tradesman of Plymouth[9] for doing what everybody around was doing.

A stray shaft or so was discharged from time to time; but not till three years after did the fight really commence. At last, in 1805, with the exposure of Lord Melville’s naval mal-administration, the whole matter was ripe for discussion; and in August of that year appears the first of those curious pension-lists,[10] which were, for the ensuing quarter of a century, the stock-in-trade of radical grievance-mongers. It was now open war. Mr. Cobbett, for the second time in his life, found himself standing alone. Aristocratic friends we[328]re deserting him, whilst the new ones were yet only gathering. As for the abuse, with which he was favoured by his opponents, it was as unreasoning as it was disgraceful.

FOOTNOTES

END OF VOL. I.

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