FOOTNOTES

[1] The Parliamentary Debates.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Cobbett’s candidate was James Paull:—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Early in April, Mr. Cobbett writes:—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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