FOOTNOTES
[1] This reverend gentleman’s memory is still green, down at Botley. T—— (æt.) 81 will tell you of his being horsewhipped by the parish doctor; and of his being called by Mr. Cobbett an abominable liar, at which the assembled villagers cheered. Baker wanted the parish clerk to thrash his wife for not going to church, and showed him the size of stick with which he might legally do it. He was forthwith told to try it on Mrs. Baker first. H—— (æt.) 78 will call to mind the doctor and the parson “having sparring-bouts together in the vestry.” This man tells a good story about Cobbett, who wanted his people to work, on some special occasion, on a Sunday, agreeing beforehand to pay them double. The day’s work being done, a grand dinner was provided, during which C. went round the table and put everybody’s money in front of him. This being done, he said, “Now, if you do go to h—— for working on a Sunday, don’t go and say you ben’t paid!”
[2] News from the provinces, in February, 1814:—
“Hampshire.—Mr. Cobbett continues to write his celebrated Political Register from his estate at Botley, in this county, uniting in his own person, in their completest sense, the character of agriculturist, patriot, and man of letters. Some of his late numbers, on the novel positions and pretensions of the belligerent powers, are distinguished above all his former writings for their masculine eloquence, power of reasoning, and courageous delineation of truth.”—Monthly Magazine, xxxvii. 93.
[3] Cobbett got up a requisition for a county meeting, but the High Sheriff refused to entertain the plan. Being thus foiled, he actually sent up a petition to the House of Lords, praying them not to pass any law to prohibit or restrain the importation of corn. Earl Stanhope was prepared to present the petition, but received it too late.
[4] “At this time [1816] the writings of William Cobbett suddenly became of great authority; they were read on nearly every cottage hearth in the manufacturing districts of South Lancashire, in those of Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham; also in many of the Scotch manufacturing towns. Their influence was speedily visible; he directed his readers to the true cause of their sufferings—misgovernment; and to its proper corrective—Parliamentary reform. Riots soon became scarce, and from that time they have never obtained their ancient vogue with the labourers of this country.… Instead of riots and destruction of property, Hampden clubs were now established in many of our large towns and the villages and districts around them. Cobbett’s books were printed in a cheap form; the labourers read them, and thenceforward became deliberate and systematic in their proceedings.”—Samuel Bamford: “Passages in the Life of a Radical” (London, 1844).
[5] E.g., “The Friend of the People,” price threepence, “occasionally” (Chapple, Pall Mall). Of this there were five “occasions.”
“Anti-Cobbett; or, The Weekly Patriotic Register” (from the New Times), which appeared about eight times.
“The Detector; an Occasional Paper” (Hatchard). We cannot “detect” the existence of more than four such papers.
These were all on similar lines: extracts from, and references to, the days of Porcupine, spiced with transparent falsehood.
[6] “We believe it is now some five or six years since the Times journal put down the work entitled Cobbett’s Weekly Register, and sunk its author into obscurity and contempt.… Since that time we had thought that his journal had wholly dropped to the ground, some other writers, such as those of the Independent Whig and Examiner, who were more virulent and impudent than himself, having sprung up. We learned, however, lately, that Cobbett’s Register was still in existence, having crept on in obscurity for a series of years.”—Times, Nov. 14, 1816.
[7] For the context, whence these choice epithets are extracted, vide Quarterly Review, 1816-17, passim.
CHAPTER XXII.
“BETWEEN SILENCE AND A DUNGEON LAY MY ONLY CHOICE.”
When your wife, or your nurse, or your mother-in-law, utters that reproach of hers, “Ah, I told you how it would be!”—the spirit within you is not apt to be tinged with a pervading gratefulness.
Similarly, “a man is not likely to be thanked who calls attention to the vast discrepancies between the theory and practice of the Constitution” (as one of our later philosophers remarks). What with the impertinence of the thing—the implied assertion of superiority—the further implication of failure and muddle on the part of the prescriptive interpreters of the Constitution: the counsel offered by outsiders is rejected with disdain, or put down to anything but disinterested motives.
The shortsightedness and illiberality of the Eldon and Sidmouth type of statesmanship was constantly displayed in this way. Let there be a Reform petition offered to Parliament, and they would refuse to receive it, if, by any means, some technical objection could be raised. Given a civic state dinner, and the ministers would absent themselves if they disagreed with the Lord Mayor’s politics. Let a Sunday paper advocate the correction of financial abuses, and the suspicion is at once raised that the grievance really lies in not having a share of the spoil. Genuine men like Whitbread and Romilly, Roebuck and Cobden, have not always escaped similar imputation, from which their known characters should yet have shielded them.
The ministers of the Regent might, however, have done better justice to themselves, and to their opportunities, but for their contemptible master. The difficulty of conciliating that man was immensely enhanced by his disreputable domestic circumstances, and the daily need of avoiding exposure, by keeping watch[1] upon the Examiners and the Registers of the day. Animadversions upon the conduct of the Irreclaimable are pretty generally wasted; and when the Irreclaimable is in sovereign power, discussion on his personal demerits is apt to be mixed up, somehow or other, with such meaner questions as the welfare of his subjects, and the stability of the Throne. At this stage, “I told you so” becomes sedition; and the next thought is of sabres, and bayonets, and dungeons.
So the Liverpool ministry had their hands full, between this selfish prince and starving people. Throughout the year 1816, there was a determined outcry for Parliamentary Reform and reduction of public expenditure. And being demanded as rights, the end of granting these things was looked upon as something too awful to contemplate.
One leading difficulty with the Reformers was as to the mode: Reformers of that day must be divided into classes and sub-classes, when their history comes to be written. There were avowed Republicans at one end of the scale, and advocates of a purified Constitution at the other. Their common opponents, however, not only refused to make distinction, but took hold of minor differences and threw them in the Reformers’ teeth; thus discrediting the entire principle.
For example: Mr. Watson, surgeon, is found to have a number of prepared pike-heads in his house. He is ready to employ force, if it comes to the point. Mr. William Cobbett, editor, takes the liberty of telling the nation that it will never be itself again without a reform. He abhors violence of any sort or kind. Yet both of these persons, along with all those of intermediate shades of opinion, are decried as subverters of the Constitution.
This trick had been kept up for twenty-five years past. And now that “the most powerful and effective public writer that ever appeared,” the “closest political reasoner of his time” (as described by cotemporaries), was the leading writer and reasoner upon Reform in Parliament: the best thing to do was to impute unworthy and wicked motives, and to follow that up by an endeavour to curtail his liberty.
Accordingly, the principal London newspapers were full of Cobbett, from the middle of November, 1816, until the opening of Parliament; the Courier,[2] the Times, and the Morning Post, making it their special business to misrepresent him.[3] And, as the popular ferment had reached a high point, nothing could be easier. Henry Hunt was holding forth to eager multitudes, whose conduct (partly by incitement of Government spies) led to measures being taken for preserving the peace. When the Regent went to open Parliament, a stone was thrown, which broke the window of his carriage. Then the Government tried a raid upon the Hampden Clubs, by hauling up their leading members before a Secret Committee. But, beyond a few scatter-brained individuals who really hoped there was going to be a revolution, there was nothing to fear. As the Times (Feb. 5th) said, “Of anything like plot or conspiracy, in the general and national sense of those words, no symptoms have yet appeared.”
Yet, because people were clamouring for Reform and remission of public burdens, the Home Secretary and his friends were frightened out of their lives. And, because Mr. Cobbett was the leader and guider, upon these topics, he was charged with exciting the labourers and journeymen to “burnings, and plunderings, and devastations, and shedding of blood.” The law officers of the Crown were forthwith instructed to examine the “blasphemous and seditious” pamphlets of the day; but, as Lord Sidmouth was “sorry to say,” they were “unable to find out anything which they could prosecute with any chance of success!”
The Fears gained the day, however; and, to the dismay of the parliamentary opposition, headed by Earl Grey and Sir Samuel Romilly; and under a protest of the Lords, led by the Duke of Sussex, the ministry succeeded in passing a Bill for the Suspension of Habeas Corpus.
The astonishing success of the cheap edition of the Register caused a change in Cobbett’s domestic arrangements. The woods and the fields had to be relinquished; and he came up to London, so as to be in the thick of the fight. Accordingly, we find Wm. Cobbett, jun., installed as publisher, at 8, Catherine Street, Strand. The Register is now entered at Stationers’ Hall, on account of the garbled editions that have been printed by others; yet the proprietor “gladly” gives permission to reprint his writings “in any regular newspaper.” A cheap edition of “Paper against Gold” is being issued in weekly numbers; and preparations are made for a new serial, under the title of “The Parliamentary Register.”
With all this writing, and printing and publishing, it must have been hot and exciting work in London. As the day for opening parliament approached, the houses of Burdett, and Cartwright, and Cobbett became the daily resort of Reformers. At this time, Burdett was getting cool over the great question, and the principal labours fell upon the hands of Mr. Cobbett and of Lord Cochrane; the latter, by the way, having charge of a monster petition. Besides this, there were two public appearances in Hampshire: one, on the occasion of a grand meeting upon Portsdown hill, and the other at Winchester. One evidence of the state of popular feeling upon the questions of Reform and of the threatened invasions of the liberty of the people, is shown in the presentation of six hundred petitions to the Commons on the 5th of March alone.
And well might the nation be alarmed. As soon as the preliminaries of the session had been completed, the ministry introduced their Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill, and passed also an Act for preventing “seditious meetings and assemblies.” The public voice was thus completely enthralled. And, amid all the hubbub, it was known that the leading object in view was to silence Mr. Cobbett.[4]
The Government might as well have taken up the broom of Mrs. Partington, in order to dispose of Mr. Cobbett. The only effect, upon him, was to provide new and beautiful topics for his readers:—
“I will first explain clearly what the Habeas Corpus Act is, &c.”
“Suffer me to say a word or two about the Hawkers’ and Pedlars’ Act.”
and so forth; with full exposition of all previous futile attempts upon the progress of liberty and intelligence. The papers in the Register of this period ought to have convinced Ministers of the error of their ways: of the utterly false position in which they had placed themselves. So clear in description; so cogent in their reasoning; so temperate. And withal, so full of the writer’s own humour:—
“… irreligious, immoral, or seditious Tendency. Only think of the extent of this word tendency! only think of the boundless extent of such a word, and of such a word being left to the interpretation of thousands of men! Suppose the editor of a newspaper to insert an article, which article recommended the reduction of the salt-tax: what does this tend to? Why, to be sure, a magistrate might think, to make the people discontented with the salt-tax; to make them discontented with the salt-tax would be, he might think, to make them discontented with those who compel the people to pay it; those who compel the people to pay it are Kings, Lords, and Commons; and, therefore, here is an article which tends to make the people discontented with Kings, Lords, and Commons, and which, of course, tends to produce hatred of them, and to bring about insurrection, treason, revolution, and blood and carnage!”
Clear, and temperate, and lively as they were, however, there was no mincing of matters; even to the pointing out to Lord Sidmouth, at last, that he was the real revolutionist,[5] and that all his efforts were “unavailing as to the work of stifling.”
“Nothing will, can, or shall keep my writings from the eyes of my suffering and faithful countrymen!”
But, if this was resolution and not mere swagger, how was it to be done? Any one of his neighbours, maliciously disposed, could have Mr. Cobbett brought before a magistrate, and thrown into jail without warning, for any word with a tendency. What is more, they meant to do so.
There was only one way:—
“A few years ago, being at Barnet Fair, I saw a battle going on, arising out of some sudden quarrel, between a butcher and the servant of a West-country grazier. The butcher, though vastly superior in point of size, finding that he was getting the worst of it, recoiled a step or two, and drew out his knife. Upon the sight of this weapon, the grazier turned about and ran off, till he came up to a Scotchman who was guarding his herd, and out of whose hand the former snatched a good ash-stick, about four feet long. Having thus got what he called a long arm, he returned to the combat, and, in a very short time, he gave the butcher a blow upon the wrist, which brought his knife to the ground. The grazier then fell to work with his stick in such a style as I never before witnessed. The butcher fell down, and rolled and kicked; but he seemed only to change his position in order to insure to every part of his carcase a due share of the penalty of his baseness. After the grazier had, apparently, tired himself, he was coming away, when, happening to cast his eye upon the knife, he ran back and renewed the basting, exclaiming every now and then, as he caught his breath: ‘Dra’ thy knife, wo’t?’ He came away a second time, and a second time returned, and set on upon the caitiff again; and this he repeated several times, exclaiming always when he recommenced the drubbing: ‘Dra’ thy knife, wo’t?’—till, at last, the butcher was so bruised, that he was actually unable to stand or even to get up; and yet, such, amongst Englishmen, is the abhorrence of foul fighting, that not a soul attempted to interfere, and nobody seemed to pity a man thus unmercifully beaten.
“It is my intention to imitate the conduct of this grazier; to resort to a long arm, and to combat Corruption, while I keep myself out of the reach of her knife. Nobody called the grazier a coward, because he did not stay to oppose his fists to a pointed and cutting instrument. My choice, as I said before (leaving all considerations of personal safety out of the question), lies between silence and retreat. If I remain here, all other means will be first used to reduce me to silence; and if all these means fail, then will come the dungeon. Therefore, that I may still be able to write, and to write with freedom too, I shall write, if I live, from America.…”
This resolve appears to have been in Mr. Cobbett’s mind since the middle of February, shortly after the introduction of the Gagging Bills, as they were called. It was now the end of March, and the campaign against the popular press was in victorious advance. People could almost hear the prison doors creaking open. When, lo! the persecutors wake up one morning, and find that the wretch has flown!
Have you ever watched, reader, the gyrations of pussy’s face—the involuntary muscular contortions of her jaws, at sight of a dickey-bird, when that gentle creature is on the wrong (but safe) side of a window-pane? Such was the aspect of Authority, when she found that Mr. Cobbett had slipped through her fingers. And such, the impotent anger of his rivals.[6] The explosion of wrath, which took place upon the discovery that he was out of harm’s way, really appears laughable, to look back upon it from this distance of time. He had eloped from his creditors, had been diddling the Stamp Office, had escaped imprisonment for life: he had deserted his family, deserted the cause, deserted his country: and, as for his pretended patriotism, what did his friends think of the brave Cobbett now? Even the Reformists, themselves, felt a shudder of dismay pass over them; whilst the Examiner class of scribblers fell upon the caitiff with their envious sneers, retailing the lies and imputations invented and cast about by their own enemies! But, perhaps the unkindest cut of all was on the part of the Chronicle, when that great bulwark of whiggism, and mock-Reformist, informed its readers that Cobbett had gone off to America because the circulation of the Register had fallen so low, through the operations of Sidmouth’s acts.
The fact of the matter being that, in spite of all that could be said, Mr. Cobbett’s flight to America in 1817, was one of the cleverest and most spirited acts of his life. The decision of character, the singleness of purpose, and confidence in his own resources, displayed on this occasion, are almost unexampled. Hundreds of writers had expatriated themselves, before now; but where was the man to be found, who had done so with a view to a better fighting-ground? Political refugees were swarming throughout the Union, but they were beginning life anew; and who amongst them but had cast the dust of their native country from off their shoes—who but this one proclaimed, “England is my country, and to England I shall return,”—and lived to return and see his work accomplished?
The world, then, was looking for its weekly oracle (or weekly trash, or weekly venom, according to the point of view), upon Saturday, the 5th of April, 1817. Rumours had been afloat for several days that Cobbett was in Liverpool, on his way to America; and, upon the world going, with its twopences, to Catherine Street, Strand, rumour developed into certainty. The intending purchaser of a Register received instead,—
“Mr. Cobbett’s Taking Leave of his Countrymen.”
As one more specimen of what Cobbett could say, when his heart was more than usually full of tender and earnest feeling, the reader will like to have presented here some portions:—
“My Beloved Countrymen,—Soon after this reaches your eyes, those of the writer will, possibly, have taken the last glimpse of the land that gave him birth, the land in which his parents lie buried, the land of which he has always been so proud; the land in which he leaves a people whom he shall, to his last breath, love and esteem beyond all the rest of mankind.
“Every one, if he can do it without wrong to another, has a right to pursue the path to his own happiness; as my happiness, however, has long been inseparable from the hope of assisting in restoring the rights and liberties of my country, nothing could have induced me to quit that country, while there remained the smallest chance of my being able, by remaining, to continue to aid her cause. No such chance is now left. The laws which have just been passed, especially if we take into view the real objects of those laws, forbid us to entertain the idea, that it would be possible to write on political subjects according to the dictates of truth and reason, without drawing down upon our heads certain and swift destruction. It was well observed by Mr. Brougham, in a late debate, that every writer who opposes the present measures, ‘must now feel that he sits down to write with a halter about his neck,’ an observation the justice of which must be obvious to all the world.
“Leaving, therefore, all considerations of personal interest, personal feeling, and personal safety; leaving even the peace of mind of a numerous and most affectionate family wholly out of view, I have reasoned thus with myself: What is now left to be done? We have urged our claims with so much truth; we have established them so clearly on the ground of both law and reason, that there is no answer to us to be found other than that of a suspension of our personal safety. If I still write in support of those claims, I must be blind not to see that a dungeon is my doom. If I write at all, and do not write in support of those claims, I not only degrade myself, but I do a great injury to the rights of the nation by appearing to abandon them. If I remain here, I must, therefore, cease to write, either from compulsion, or from a sense of duty to my countrymen; therefore it is impossible to do any good to the cause of my country by remaining in it; but, if I remove to a country where I can write with perfect freedom, it is not only possible, but very probable, that I shall, sooner or later, be able to render that cause important and lasting services.
“Upon this conclusion it is, that I have made my determination; for, though life would be scarcely worth preserving, with the consciousness that I walked about my fields or slept in my bed merely at the mercy of a Secretary of State; though, under such circumstances, neither the song of the birds in spring, nor the well-strawed homestead in winter could make me forget that I and my rising family were slaves, still there is something so powerful in the thought of country and neighbourhood, and home and friends, there is something so strong in the numerous and united ties with which these and endless other objects fasten the mind to a long-inhabited spot, that to tear oneself away nearly approaches to the separating the soul from the body. But then, on the other hand, I asked myself: ‘What! shall I submit in silence? Shall I be as dumb as one of my horses? Shall that indignation which burns within me be quenched? Shall I make no effort to preserve even the chance of assisting to better the lot of my unhappy country? Shall that mind, which has communicated its light and warmth to millions of other minds, now be extinguished for ever; and shall those who, with thousands of pens at their command, still saw the tide of opinion rolling more and more heavily against them, now be ever secure from that pen, by the efforts of which they feared being overwhelmed? Shall truth never again be uttered? Shall her voice never be heard, even from a distant shore?’
“Thus was the balance turned; and, my countrymen, be you well assured that, though I shall, if I live, be at a distance from you; though the ocean will roll between us, not all the barriers that nature as well as art can raise, shall be sufficient to prevent you from reading some part, at least, of what I write; and, notwithstanding all the wrongs of which I justly complain; notwithstanding all the indignation that I feel; notwithstanding all the provocations that I have received, or that I may receive, never shall there drop from my pen anything which, according to the law of the land, I might not safely write and publish in England. Those who have felt themselves supported by power, have practised towards me foul play without measure; but though I shall have the means of retaliation in my hands, never will I follow their base example.
“Though I quit my country, far be it from me to look upon her cause as desperate, and still farther be it from me to wish to infuse despondency into your minds. I can serve that cause no longer by remaining here; but the cause itself is so good, so just, so manifestly right and virtuous, and it has been combated by means so unusual, so unnatural, and so violent, that it must triumph in the end. Besides, the circumstances of the country all tend to favour the cause of Reform. Not a tenth part of the evils of the system are yet in existence. The country gentlemen who have now been amongst our most decided adversaries, will very soon be compelled, for their own preservation, to become our friends and fellow-labourers. Not a fragment of their property will be left, if they do not speedily bestir themselves. They have been induced to believe that a Reform of the Parliament would expose them to plunder or degradation; but they will very soon find, that it will afford them the only chance of escaping both. The wonder is that they do not see this already, or rather that they have not seen it for years past. But they have been blinded by their foolish pride; that pride, which has nothing of mind belonging to it, and which, accompanied with a consciousness of a want of any natural superiority over the labouring classes, seeks to indulge itself in a species of vindictive exercise of power. There has come into the heads of these people, I cannot very well tell how, a notion that it is proper to consider the labouring classes as a distinct caste.
“The writings of Malthus, who considers men as mere animals, may have had influence in the producing of this change; and we now frequently hear the working classes called the population, just as we call the animals upon a farm the stock. It is curious, too, that this contumely towards the great mass of the people should have grown into vogue amongst the country gentlemen and their families, at a time when they themselves are daily and hourly losing the estates descended to them from their forefathers. They see themselves stripped of the means of keeping that hospitality, for which England was once so famed, and of which there remains nothing now but the word in the dictionary: they see themselves reduced to close up their windows, live in a corner of their houses, sneak away to London, crib their servants in their wages, and hardly able to keep up a little tawdry show; and it would seem, that for the contempt which they feel that their meanness must necessarily excite in the common people, they endeavour to avenge themselves, and at the same time to disguise their own humiliation, by their haughty and insolent deportment towards the latter: thus exhibiting that mixture of poverty and pride, which has ever been deemed better calculated than any other union of qualities to draw down upon the possessors the most unfriendly of human feelings.
“It is curious, also, that this fit of novel and ridiculous pride should have afflicted the minds of these persons at the very time that the working classes are become singularly enlightened. Not enlightened in the manner that the sons of Cant and Corruption would wish them to be. The conceited creatures in what is called high life, and who always judge of men by their clothes, imagine that the working classes of the people have their minds quite sufficiently occupied by the reading of what are called ‘religious and moral tracts.’ Simple, insipid dialogues and stories, calculated for the minds of children seven or eight years old, or for those of savages just beginning to be civilized. These conceited persons have no idea that the minds of the working classes ever presume to rise above their infantine level.… The working classes of the people understand well what they read; they dive into all matters connected with politics; they have a relish not only for interesting statement, for argument, for discussion; but the powers of eloquence are by no means lost upon them.… In the report of the Secret Committee of the House of Lords, it is observed that, since the people have betaken themselves to this reading and this discussing, ‘their character seems to be wholly changed.’ I believe it is indeed! For it is the natural effect of enlightening the mind to change the character. But is not this change for the better? If it be not, why have we heard so much about the efforts for instructing the children of the poor?… Has it been intended that these people, when taught to read, should read nothing but Hannah More’s Sinful Sally, and Mrs. Trimmer’s Dialogues? Faith! The working classes of the people have a relish for no such trash. They are not to be amused by a recital of the manifold blessings of a state of things, in which they have not half enough to eat, nor half enough to cover their nakedness by day, and to keep them from perishing by night. They are not to be amused by the pretty stories about ‘the bounty of providence in making brambles for the purpose of tearing off pieces of the sheep’s wool, in order that the little birds may come and get it to line their nests with to keep their young ones warm!’ Stories like these are not sufficient to fill the minds of the working classes of the people. They want something more solid. They have had something more solid. Their minds, like a sheet of paper, have received the lasting impressions of undeniable fact and unanswerable argument; and it will always be a source of the greatest satisfaction to me to reflect that I have been mainly instrumental in giving those impressions, which I am very certain will never be effaced from the minds of the people of this country.
“I shall be as careful as I have been, not to write anything that even a special jury would pronounce to be a Libel. I have no desire to write libels. I have written none here. Lord Sidmouth was ‘sorry to say’ that I had not written anything that the law officers could prosecute with any chance of success. I do not remove for the purpose of writing libels, but for the purpose of being able to write what is not libellous. I do not retire from a combat with the Attorney-General, but from a combat with a dungeon, deprived of pen, ink, and paper. A combat with the Attorney-General is quite unequal enough. That, however, I would have encountered. I know too well what a trial by Special Jury is. Yet that, or any sort of trial, I would have stayed to face. So that I could have been sure of a trial, of whatever sort, I would have run the risk. But, against the absolute power of imprisonment, without even a hearing, for time unlimited, in any jail in the kingdom, without the use of pen, ink, and paper, and without any communication with any soul but the keepers; against such a power it would have been worse than madness to attempt to strive. Indeed, there could be no striving, in such a case; where I should have been as much at the disposal of the Secretary of State as are the shoes which he has upon his feet. No! I will go, where I shall not be as the shoes upon Lord Sidmouth’s and Lord Castlereagh’s feet. I will go where I can make sure of the use of pen, ink, and paper; and these two lords may be equally sure that, in spite of everything they can do, unless they openly enact or proclaim a censorship on the press, or cut off all commercial connexion with America, you, my good and faithful countrymen, shall be able to read what I write.
“And now, my countrymen, before I set off, let me caution you against giving the smallest credit to anything that Corruption’s Press may assert of me. You have seen what atrocious falsehoods it has put forth in my presence; what, then, will it not do in my absence? I have written thousands of letters to various persons in all parts of the kingdom. I give any one leave to make public any letter of mine, accompanied by the certificate of any respectable friend of mine, that it is in my handwriting. I challenge all those, whom I ever conversed with, to say, that I ever uttered a wish to see overthrown any one of the Constitutional establishments of the kingdom; and, I most solemnly declare that I never associated with any man who professed, even in private, to entertain any such wish; but, on the contrary, all those with whom I have ever been intimate in politics, have always had in view the preservation of all the establishments and orders of the kingdom, as one of the objects of a timely reform of the Parliament.
“A mutual affection, a powerful impulse, equal to that out of which this wonderful sagacity arises, will, I hope, always exist between me and my hard-used countrymen; an affection which my heart assures me, no time, no distance, no new connexions, no new association of ideas however enchanting, can ever destroy, or in any degree enfeeble or impair.… Never will I own as my friend him who is not a friend of the people of England. I will never become a Subject or a Citizen in any other State, and will always be a foreigner in every country but England. Any foible that may belong to your character, I shall always willingly allow to belong to my own. All the celebrity which my writings have obtained, and which they will preserve long and long after Lords Liverpool, and Sidmouth, and Castlereagh are rotten and forgotten, I owe less to my own talents than to that discernment, and that noble spirit in you, which have at once instructed my mind and warmed my heart: and, my beloved countrymen, be you well assured that the last beatings of that heart will be, love for the people, for the happiness, and the renown of England; and hatred of their corrupt, hypocritical, dastardly, and merciless foes.”
A postscript adds that the weekly political pamphlet would be revived in about three months’ time. And his readers are assured further that—
“If I have life for only a year or two at farthest, I shall be back with them again. The beautiful country through which I have so lately travelled, bearing, upon every inch of it, such striking marks of the industry and skill of the people, never can be destined to be inhabited by slaves. To suppose such a thing possible would be at once to libel the nation and to blaspheme against Providence. Let my readers not fear my finding out the means of communicating to them whatever I write. They will see the political pamphlet revive and be continued, until the day when they will find me again dating my addresses to them from London or from Botley.
“Wm. Cobbett.
“Liverpool, 28th March, 1817.”
The suspension of the Register lasted for about three months. On the 12th of July it was resumed, with a letter dated from Cobbett’s residence, May 8th, and the journal was kept up without further interruption. Only on one or two occasions did a number appear in which there was not a communication from the exiled editor.
But his place in the journalistic world was not left utterly vacant. William Hone led the way, with his Reformists’ Register, among a series of similar publications.[7] Indeed, it was understood that Hone’s Register occupied the position which Mr. Cobbett had temporarily abdicated. Hone had been a staunch supporter, since the Political Register had become popularized; besides making a depôt for that journal at his little shop in the Old Bailey, he had recently reproduced the American autobiography of Peter Porcupine in a cheap form.[8]
In the course of the summer of this year, an exposure of the spy system was made in the House of Commons; and it was proved, over and over again, that nearly all the serious riots had been instigated by these wretches, actually in the employ of Government. The result was a public condemnation of the infamous system, and its immediate disuse on the part of ministers. And, as a matter of course, all the signs of turbulence in the country ceased; the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act being repealed soon after the next meeting of Parliament. In fact, every day proved, more and more clearly, that it was nothing but fear which had magnified a few local discontents—by means of that powerful lens, Anti-Reform—into designs upon the fabric of the Constitution.
But the mischief done to the temper of the people was irreparable. Those persons (of whom there must be some proportion, even among such a phlegmatic race as the English) whose reforming zeal was easily raised to fever heat, got into trouble; and several suffered the capital penalty for treason, during the years 1817-19. Their imprudence, however, could not delay, for long, the imminent Reform; the violence done to popular feeling, by a combination of cruelty and weakness, was bearing its fruit; and this is how, in spite of its natural claims upon the patriotism of Englishmen, Toryism came to bear undeserved opprobrium. We, who are of no party but that of Progress and Enlightenment, and who have long ceased to believe in traditional politics, whether Whig or Tory, will not fail to take to heart again the lesson: that violence, impatience, and selfish prescription are as much out of place in the political as in the moral world. We have had ample opportunities of noting this, during the last half-century; and if there is anything upon which we may congratulate ourselves, it is that we have had Melbournes and Peels, Russells and Palmerstons, during a period of European revolution, instead of such men as the favourites of George the Third.