FOOTNOTES

[1] Augustus de Morgan gives a story which he had from Francis Place. Place was, with others, advising Cobbett as to the proper line of defence. “Said Place, ‘You must put in the letters you have received from Ministers, Members of the Commons, from the Speaker downwards, about your Register, and their wish to have subjects noted. You must then ask the jury whether a person so addressed must be considered as a common sower of sedition, &c. You will be acquitted; nay, if your intention should get about, very likely they will manage to stop proceedings.’ Cobbett was too much disturbed to listen; he walked about the room, ejaculating, ‘D—— the prison!’ and the like. He had not the sense to follow the advice, and was convicted.” Vide “Budget of Paradoxes,” p. 119.

[2] Robert Huish, who is by no means favourably disposed towards Cobbett, says upon this point, “The truth was on Cobbett’s side, as every one can substantiate who had ever the misfortune to reside in the place where the German mercenaries were quartered.”

[3] “The use which Sir Vicary Gibbs generally made of his power of issuing ex officio informations was to lay an information against the offending writers, but not to proceed to trial, exacting a promise from them that, if he did not pursue it, they would write nothing offensive to the Government, and thus holding it in terrorem over their heads.”—Andrews’s “British Journalism,” ii. 57.

[4] This omitting to write for two or three weeks, together with the rumoured dropping of the Register, created tremendous sensation among the scribbling fraternity. The Morning Chronicle returned to Cobbett all the warm feelings which Perry had received from him. The Examiner, on the other hand, was mercilessly unjust. That vigorous paper was then in its early priggish days, and could brook no rivalry. Leigh Hunt looked with contempt upon all the set of Cobbetts and Cochranes, as not Reformists after his sort, and he now proceeded to attack Cobbett violently for his timidity, and for his whining about being torn from his home, &c.; adding that politicians must be prepared to endanger individual freedom for the sake of the general good. But then the “spirit of martyrdom had been inculcated” in the Hunts from the very cradle.

The readers of the Examiner, however, were not at one with their editor upon this point. One correspondent thought it ill-befitting a Reformist to overlook all the merits of a fellow-labourer, just at the moment of his being down, and “to dwell with a malignant ecstasy on all the failings that industrious malice could scrape together from years of bold and zealous service.” It was also pointed out, with much justice, that Mr. Cobbett was singular in this: that he not only confessed his errors when he had found them out, but argued clearly and decisively against them. Of course, the Examiner was so clever that it had no errors to retract.

Leigh Hunt appears to have discovered, in after-years, that he often made extravagant demands upon other people’s virtue; and the allusion, in his autobiography, to some want of charity toward other people’s opinions, points to this period, when intolerance could animate the Radical quite as easily as the privileged mind.

Mr. Redhead Yorke had long been converted from Radicalism, and had no sympathy for the delinquent. But he was, now, on the other side.

[5] Times, July 10th.

CHAPTER XX.
“TO PUT A MAN IN PRISON FOR A YEAR OR TWO DOES NOT KILL HIM.”

So the patriot was down. Down, among the felons. To keep company, for a period of two years, “with swindlers, and with persons convicted of the most detestable crimes,” was he set down; unless he should ransom himself away from their immediate society. There he was, torn away from home, subjected to untold difficulties, financial and other, and deprived of liberty—in the cause of humanity and of national justice.

The absurdity of this outrageous sentence was soon manifest. The whole country cried “Shame!” Even the toad-eating ministerial newspapers were silent. Save mutilation, it was going back two hundred years.

Not that this was a solitary affair: there were other sufferers in durance vile, or with the prospect of it over their heads; and the existing generation had not forgotten the victims of 1792-4. But this was so notorious: here was a man whose writings were patriotic, manly, eloquent;—and so far unsurpassed by those of any of his cotemporaries—bundled into jail for speaking the plain truth about public affairs, and proving it as he went along.

Exactly a year ago it had been openly declared that they were determined to crush him! And now the blow had fallen:—

“They thought that this savage sentence would break my heart, or at least silence me for ever. It was, indeed, a bloody stab. They thought they had got rid of me. Just after the verdict of guilty was found, Perceval met his brother-in-law Redesdale, at the portal of Westminster Hall. They shook hands, and gave each other joy!… Curtis[1] met Tierney in the Hall: ‘Ah! ah! we have got him at last,’ said Curtis. ‘Poor Cobbett! let him be bold now!’ The old place-hunter answered, ‘D—n him! I hope they’ll squeeze him!’ They did squeeze indeed; but their claws, hard as they were, did not squeeze hard enough.… The ruffians put me into prison in lucky time for me—put me into prison, and tied me to the stake of politics.”

But let that pass. A prison is a prison. A convicted libeller is a convicted libeller. And, a convicted libeller having made his bed, let him lie upon it! The wretch should have taken into the account, when he made his stab at a merciful but just executive, that he ran the risk of being thrown into the enforced companionship of other villains. He had made his choice: it was not for him to complain that the logic of events had left him in jail, and that folks outside were laughing at him. Yes, let that pass, it is no concern of ours. That which it behoves us to consider—that which is infinitely more interesting to us—is this question, What came of it all?

In the first place, before Mr. Cobbett was released, flogging had become so discredited as to be nearly in desuetude, as regards the British army. Secondly, the degrading practice was totally abolished in the United States army, by Act of Congress of April 10th, 1812.

As was observed in a previous chapter, this topic was now uppermost in the public mind. And, as though sufficient warning had not been derived from the fate of Cobbett, a reckless provincial editor must needs court a similar martyrdom. This was Mr. Drakard, of the Stamford News, who admitted into his paper, of the 24th August, a bitter paragraph concerning “ONE THOUSAND LASHES;” a paragraph “of a nature so infamous, so seditious, and so dangerous, that no good man who heard it read could restrain his resentment,” &c. Of course. So, as Mr. Drakard had made his bed, he might lie upon it; which he did, for the space of eighteen months in Lincoln jail,[2]—for the sake of dear good men, who could not “restrain their resentment” at being told, that punishment and merciless barbarity were not convertible terms.

Those were, indeed, good old times. If there is anything, more than another, which stamps mediocrity upon the governing men of that day (not excepting the “first gent.” himself), it is their persistent disregard of the affections of the people, as displayed in the measures entertained by the Legislature;[3] the callosity of heart and mind with which they faced any appeal to the better feelings of human nature, on behalf of the unnumbered and unwashed.

At last, however, flogging was being deprecated. And it is due to Sir Francis Burdett, to record, that he was instrumental in bringing the attention of Parliament to the matter. He had moved, in 1808, without effect, that a return of floggings be presented to the House. Again, in 1811, he revived the subject, with the result that a clause found its way into the Mutiny Bill, having for its tendency the “lessening the quantity of flogging in the army.” In the following Session, Burdett insisted upon the necessity of abolishing the practice altogether: vainly, however; although his action produced an unmistakable change in the tone of Government and its supporters.

During this discussion, in March, 1812, Mr. Brougham brought Cobbett’s name into the proceedings, to the infinite disgust of some ministerial toad-eaters. They protested: they “felt extremely hurt that the indiscreet language of the learned gentleman should go out to the public, as bidding the army look up to Mr. Cobbett for redress, instead of to their own officers.”

They had done better to leave Mr. Cobbett to his own native insignificance; and not rouse him, with his whip-cord in hand:—

“Here is, even from the mouths of the Government themselves, an acknowledgment that it is a good thing to make the practice of flogging less general. This they have now distinctly avowed, that it is desirable to narrow this practice; and they boast of having, in some degree, succeeded by the means of a clause in the last year’s Mutiny Act. Now then, said Mr. Brougham, if this be the case, or as far as the good has gone, it is to be attributed to the press; and that, while those who were honest and bold enough to begin this battle in the cause of humanity; while those who fought the good fight and won an inestimable victory in that great cause; while Mr. Drakard and I were shut up in a prison, the Government were boasting of the success of a measure founded upon our principles. He added, that ‘the legislature had been obliged, with respect to this question, to act upon the very principles of Mr. Cobbett, who was now in jail for his unseasonable declaration of them.’ This seems to have given great offence to several members of the honourable House, who observed that the soldiers ought to be taught to THANK THEIR OFFICERS for the measure, and not Mr. Cobbett! Oh, dear, no! That would be a sad thing! It would be a sad thing if the soldiers were to look to ME for redress; especially after my being sent to a felon’s jail, which, of course, was to mark me out for a man to be shunned, rather than looked up to. The truth is, that this merit of having been the beginner of the battle in the cause of the soldiers does not belong to me. It belongs to Sir Francis Burdett.…

“Sir George Warrender describes Mr. Brougham as bidding the army look to me for redress instead of looking to their own officers. Why, really, I do not see why this should hurt the gentleman’s feelings so much. What harm could it do? What could the public or the soldiers learn from any speech of Mr. Brougham more about me than they know already? They all know very well what I am in jail for.… The newspapers were kept full of me and my crime for the best part of a month; from the newspapers I and my crime got into the caricature shops; and, in short, while in jail myself, all those (and very numerous they were), who were in hopes that I was gone to my last home, used every means in their power to blacken my character.…

“Surely Sir George Warrender might have trusted, in such a case, to the understanding of the army! He might surely have confided in their taste not to look up to me instead of their officers, especially after the repeated assurances of Sir Vicary Gibbs, that the army despised such writings as mine, and held their authors in abhorrence. After this, I think Sir George Warrender might have spared any expression of the wound given to his feelings at hearing language that tended to induce the army to look up to me instead of looking up to their own officers for redress. ‘Indiscreet language!’ As if the subject had been all tinder: as if there had been imminent danger in even warning me, lest the soldiers should hear, or see, my name! Really, though sitting here in a jail, I can hardly help laughing at the idea.”

“When it was known in America, that so heavy, so dreadful a sentence, had been passed upon me, a sentence which no man could regard as much short of death; a sentence surpassing in severity those for nineteen-twentieths of the felonies; when this sentence was heard of in America, where every creature was well acquainted with what I had there suffered from my devotion to my country, every one naturally felt eager to know what I could have done to merit such a sentence? And, when the people of that country came to see what it was; when they came to read the article, for the writing of which I was to be so heavily punished; when they came to consider the subject-matter of that publication, and to reflect on how they themselves might become interested in it, there naturally came forth through the press an expression of some sentiments which have finally had their effect in producing the Act of Congress above inserted; and thus has the hateful practice of flogging men been abolished by law in a great and rising, and wonderfully-increasing nation. I do not pretend to say that the American Government would have had any desire to continue the practice of flogging, though the discussions on the subject had never taken place in England. On the contrary, I am of opinion that that Government was glad of an opportunity of getting rid of it; but I am of opinion that the thing would not have been thought of, had it not been for the discussions in England. Sir Vicary Gibbs was little apprehensive of these effects when he was prosecuting me; he could scarcely have hoped that his labours would be productive of consequences so important, so beneficial, and honourable to mankind; he hardly, I dare say, flattered himself that he was ensuring the extension of his renown through a whole continent of readers.”

It was, then, no idle boast, that imprisonment need not kill, nor even seriously injure, a man: that a jail was “as good a place for study as any other.” But, really, although the temporary loss of liberty is an unpleasant thing, considered in the abstract, there can be no possible objection to a man putting as good a face as he can on the matter. Life itself is nothing but a life-long struggle of a kindred character: to try and get an optimist view of bad circumstances. And, if one must needs take his daily exercise upon the leads of Newgate prison, instead of through his coppices and cornfields: if he must get his “violets and primroses, and cowslips and harebells,” sent up by the carrier, because of their extreme rarity in the street below; let him thank a propitious Heaven for so much!

In point of fact, few prisoners were ever so blessed as Cobbett. The reader is familiar enough (from the pages of “Advice,” &c.) with the current of domestic joy that kept flowing. But, besides having one or other of his family continually with him, there were always sympathizing visitors: personal friends, business acquaintances, deputations from clubs and societies all over the kingdom. And, what was of no little importance, Matthew Wood was sheriff, who attended, in every possible way, to the comfort of his prisoner. Baron Maseres[4] came frequently, and “always in his wig and gown, in order, as he said, to show his abhorrence of the sentence.”

“I was hardly arrived when the brave old Major Cartwright came.… You [Peter Walker, of Worth, Sussex] were the next to arrive; and when, by dint of money, I had obtained the favour to be put into a room by myself, you hurried home, and brought me bedstead, chairs, tables, bedding, and everything; and I think I see you now, stripped in your shirt, putting the bedstead together and making up my bed. During the whole of the two years you never suffered me to be lonely; and your kindness was such, that when you found me engaged—when any one arrived—you instantly departed, unless pressed to stay. Thus proving that your visits arose solely from your desire to alleviate the sufferings of confinement. And, at the close of the period, though the sum was so enormous, and the period so long, you, with my excellent friend Brown, voluntarily became my bail, and spoke of it, as he did, as an honour done to yourself.”

And, as to his health, Cobbett would boast in after years that he never had even a headache for a moment; never enjoyed better health or spirits; never had hopes more lively, or thoughts more gay, than in that prison.

But that which, above all other matters, appeared to be the great solace of his prison-life, was the production of his famous work on the Currency, under the title of “Paper against Gold.”[5] The tricks and contrivances by which paper-money had been, along with the funding system, made the means of placing unwieldy fortunes in the hands of speculators, was his utter abhorrence. The glory was departed from England, in his eyes, if public credit were to hang upon the prosperity of the few, as against the multitude. And, regarding a fictitious currency, shifting in value from day to day, sometimes even from hour to hour, as a leading cause of the debt which was accumulating to such a terrible figure,—he resolved to devote a part of his newly-found leisure to the systematizing of his thought upon the subject.

Accordingly, upon the 1st of September, he commenced a series of papers, founded upon the recent report of the Bullion Committee; tracing the history of the National Debt, and of the schemes for raising money which had been in vogue during the war.

Here is his story (told in 1822) of the first conception of the plan, and his notion of its value:—

“The next day after Gibbs, Ellenborough, and their associates, had got me safe in Newgate, an American friend of mine, who had the clearest and soundest head of almost any man I ever knew in my life, and for whom I had and still have a very great personal regard, came to see me in a very miserable hole, though better than that to which I had been sentenced, and from which I finally ransomed myself at the expense, for lodging alone, of 1200l. Being seated, one of us on each side of a little bit of a table, he said, looking up into my face, with his arms folded upon the edge of the table, ‘Well! they have got you at last. And now, what will you do?’ After a moment or two I answered, ‘What do you think I ought to do?’ He then gave me his opinion, and entered pretty much into a sort of plan of proceedings. I heard him out, and then I spoke to him in much about these words: ‘No, Dickins, that will never do. This nation is drunk, it is mad as a March hare, and mad it will be till this beastly frolic (the war) is over. The only mode of proceeding, to get satisfaction, requires great patience. The nation must suffer at last, and greatly and dreadfully suffer, and in that suffering it will come to its reason, and to that justice of sentiment, which are now wholly banished. I shall make no immediate impression by tracing the paper-system to its deadly root. The common people will stare at me, and the rich ruffians will swear; but the time must come when all will listen; and my plan is to write that now which I can hold up to the teeth of my insolent enemies, and taunt them with in the hour of their distress.…’ I then described to him the outline of what I intended to do with regard to the paper-system; and after passing a very pleasant afternoon, during which we selected and rejected several titles, we at last fixed upon that of Paper against Gold, which I began to write and to publish in a few weeks afterwards, and which, at the end of thirteen years, I hold up to the noses of the insolent foes who then exulted over me, and tell them, ‘This is what you got by my having been sentenced to Newgate: this was the produce of that deed by which it was hoped and believed, that I was pressed down never to be able to stir again.…’ This was a new epoch in the progress of my mind. I now bent my whole force to one object, regarding everything else as of no consequence at all. The pursuits of agriculture and gardening filled up the moments of mere leisure and relaxation. Other topics than that of paper-money came now and then to make a variety; but this was the main thing. I never had any hope in anything else; and nothing else was an object of my care.”

So the attempt to crush him was a failure. Rather, they read defiance in every page; and, as time wore on, it was seen that the silence of defeat was on the side of Mr. Cobbett’s foes. The Press ignored him; that Press which had, from envy at his superior talents and his unexampled success, ransacked the vocabulary of Billingsgate in order to abuse a man they could not answer; which had so goaded and inflamed the persecuting spirit of the time, that none dared speak or write who were not sheltered by privilege, or who had not bartered independence for the favour of those in power. Not for several years after this date was there much desire shown, on the part of a ministerial writer, to attract the glance of this rampant lion.

And they might well be quiet. If this imprisonment had neither killed nor cured him, Mr. Cobbett came out of Newgate an altered man. He was now fifty years of age, and a few grey hairs were just appearing. The enormous expenses which he had been put to (amounting, from first to last, to more than six thousand pounds), and the discovery that his business affairs were hopelessly involved, made up a bundle of difficulties which began to tell upon his temper. Good-natured sarcasms made place for bitter ones; and an air of spitefulness would come over his writings when there was more than ordinary cause for resentment. His essays were, albeit brilliant as ever, sometimes marred by the introduction of coarse epithets; and, during the remainder of his career, this cause alone sufficed to estrange many of his friends, and to put a stone into the hand of opponents.

Mr. Cobbett’s writing must be considered as at its very best during the years 1810-12. He probably gave some time to revision; a point which he had been inclined to neglect, and a matter concerning which he seemed utterly heedless in later years; the exclusive devotion to his pen, now so far removed from rural distractions, necessarily produced better work.

But it cannot be said that there was any deterioration in Cobbett’s literary style, beyond the warmth of expression engendered by fiercer animosity. The best known works of William Cobbett belong to the last twenty years of his life; and if they are painfully full of personal hatreds, it must be recollected that those were, indeed, times to try men’s souls; the oppressor and the oppressed had seldom been, in England, in such close conflict; and a leader and guider of men, on the side of the latter, had need to be fierce and uncompromising. The soldier, foremost of your storming-party, has little time to spare for consideration of the personal merits of the foe, whose gunstock is swinging o’er his head.

The more serious result, personally, of the sentence pronounced upon Mr. Cobbett, was the utter collapse of his pecuniary fortunes. The enormous profit derived from the publication of the Register might have been sufficient to cover even the profuse expenditure of Botley House, with its hospitality and its planting experiments, but Mr. Cobbett was eminently a person who (as the Hebrew poet has it) earned money to put it into a bag with holes.

This matter, however, might be passed over with light notice, but for its interference with Cobbett’s public services. His is not a solitary instance of a useful life being marred, and its efficiency hindered, by an ignorance of the value of money; and there could hardly be a more decisive evidence of the disastrous results of such ignorance than is presented by this man’s career. Plutus is the most exacting of deities; his votaries must be whole-hearted; let Fortuna come and cast off her shoes as she may.…

It was never Cobbett’s aim to get rich. He had, indeed, hoped to provide a snug competence for his children; but for plans of amassing wealth he had supreme contempt. To earn by labour, and to circulate the proceeds, was his economy; and it cannot be denied that, with proper prudence, that is the right economy. The greatest enemy to national prosperity is the plutocrat; and the next greatest is he who can afford, in the prime of life, to live without labour, through the mistaken munificence or benevolence of another.

It would appear, then, that upon accounts being looked into, in the autumn of 1810, money affairs were found to be almost hopelessly entangled. The three great serial works,—the “Debates,” “Parliamentary History,” and “State Trials,” were being produced at a ruinous loss; while the accommodation-paper, chiefly in the hands of Mr. Swann, amounted to thousands of pounds. Cobbett had not looked at his balance for six years! His practice was to ask Mr. Wright to send him ten, twenty, or forty pounds as he wanted it; and to leave the rest of the matter implicitly to him. Wright was, himself, not very clever in the management of money; and, between the two, there came at last the profoundest muddle. It ended in an arbitration, held in the prison; the result being a heavy award against Wright, and a total and irremediable rupture of their friendship. Mr. Budd bought up a large portion of the publications in stock; while Mr. Hansard took into his own hands the three serials which he had been printing for Cobbett.

The quarrel with Mr. Wright is the most painful episode in Cobbett’s life. There can be no doubt that Wright had been a reckless agent, and had been trusted far too much; and his conduct, some years after, in producing an old, long-forgotten, private letter of Cobbett’s, to serve electioneering purposes, was so infamous a breach of confidence, that it may well be believed that his employer’s imputation of dishonesty had foundation in actual fact. Of this matter we shall unhappily hear more in the sequel.[6] The following letter to Mr. Swann (dated Newgate, January 26, 1811) may be selected as best illustrating the existing condition of affairs:—

“I find, from Mr. Bagshaw, that one of the notes, given by him to you, or at least accepted by him, at our settlement and renewal of bills, under the auspices of Wright, is coming due on Tuesday (I believe it is), and we have no money to pay it. You remember that he told me that all these notes were given for books bought by Budd and Bagshaw. As it happens, the former was nearly true; but, as to the latter, not a shilling was due on that account. The whole was a fraud upon me, in order to make me believe that the works had sold to this extent; and his view was to get an assignment of the stock, and leave me to pay myself as I could. I have now an abundance of bonâ fide notes, but no money; every sixpence being swallowed by the notes left unpaid and unrenewed at the time you were here. A series of such unprincipled conduct I never either knew or heard of; but I am aware that my having been a dupe is no justification for me with you. Within these five weeks I have not had an hour’s peace; but I have obtained forbearance from those whom I could not pay, and have avoided, except with you, putting my name to any new bill. My wife knows all about the matter; and plenty of vexation it has given her. I imagine I can pay this first note in about a fortnight; but I am sure the others will come too fast upon me. If you could come to town in ten days, I think we could so settle the matter, as for it not to be at all, or at least but very little inconvenient to you, and to relieve my mind from a load of vexation and anxiety that is really intolerable.

“The works are all going on well. I have made a revolution here at any rate. I have not seen Wright this fortnight; but I make him send every word of copy to me. I have dismissed his journeyman-authors and bottle-companions, and have set him to work for his bread. And work he shall, or I will dismiss him. Considerable as my property is, I had been well-nigh ruined, if I had not come to jail. Let me have a line from you. Mrs. Cobbett joins me in kindest regards to Mrs. Swann and your dear children. We thank you very much for the pig; but I thank you still more for your last kind and affectionate letter, the words of which, and the whole of your conduct, have made an impression upon my heart that never will be effaced. Amongst the other acts of this man was an attempt to put an end to our connexion, when once he had got you to take the notes; but he was silenced by an indignant rejection of the hint on my part. The best way will be to say little about the matter anywhere; for the shame of being so duped is mine.

“God bless you, and give you health, and the like to your family.”

It was all too late, however. Years of prosperity, with concurrent retrenchment, might have staved off ruin. But, as the ensuing period in the history of England was one of continued disaster to most persons who were not paid out of the taxes, Mr. Cobbett shared the fate of all persons who were not prepared for the storm; and his pecuniary affairs only got from bad to worse. As for the 6500l. due from Wright under the arbitration, there was not the ghost of a chance of that ever being paid.

Under the circumstances, then, it is not surprising to learn that he had already accepted the proffered assistance of his political friends. Colonel Bosville gave him 1000l. as a set-off against some electioneering expenses he had been put to over Mr. Paull; Burdett advanced a large sum chiefly for the purpose of settling with Mr. Swann; and, at last, when the fine had to be paid, it would appear that Cobbett owed the ability to do so to the generosity of another. This disposition to support him and his cause showed itself, however, from the very first, and from all quarters. Even his opponents could not fail to admit the severity of the sentence;[7] while his friends not only offered their sympathy, but proposed a public subscription on his behalf—a proposal, however, which Cobbett declined, at the same time suggesting that those who wished to assist him could not do better than buy the Register.

The end came at last. In compliment to Mr. Cobbett’s untiring industry, and the abundant material provided for its exercise, Old Time had worn his fleetest pair of wings. And on the 8th July, 1812, his last paper in Newgate announced that he had “just paid a thousand pounds to the king: and much good may it do his majesty!”

On the following day, being released, a grand dinner was given at the “Crown and Anchor,” in order to celebrate the occasion; and, as though Fate were determined that he should have no interval of peace, as soon as he had regained his liberty, the opportunity must needs be taken to remind Mr. Cobbett that his opinions had changed from time to time. Burdett took the chair, presiding over some six hundred guests, and the thing was fairly successful, notwithstanding an attempt made to create discord between Cobbett and the chairman of the evening. There was no blinking the fact, however, that Cobbett had lost some friends over the vacillation which he had displayed while within the grasp of Vicary Gibbs; but the ungenerous mortal, who brought the matter forward at the dinner, had no support from his audience; and, indeed, all the leaders among the Reformists[8] had condoned the momentary weakness.

Mr. Cobbett’s release was celebrated, in several places in England, by a public meeting of one kind or other. And as he journeyed homeward, his reception was well-calculated to add to the felicities of the day. At Alton, the bells were set ringing; at Winchester he was stopped to be again entertained at dinner; and, on nearing home, he found the people of Botley had come out in goodly assemblage to meet him, and to listen to his story.