Amid all this exciting warfare, Mr. Cobbett’s life in Philadelphia was full of amenities of one kind or other. He did not like the Americans: their republican insolence was too much for him; but among the families of the older settlers he found much excellence of character. “A part of the people of the United States,” he says, “always appeared to me to be among the best of mankind. Scrupulously upright, hospitable, kind and generous to excess, and most nobly steady in their friendships.” But the riff-raff, composing many of the newer emigrants, disgusted him with republicanism; and he would meet their violence with manifold vigour. The coarseness which too often disgraced his writings in later life—after his temper had been soured by outrageous tyranny—is to be traced back to this period, when threats of being murdered, or tarred-and-feathered, poured in upon him; and when slander after slander was invented, and which did not even spare his wife, in order to induce him to give up British advocacy.
Some of the friendships he made in America lasted till death. His landlord, Oldden (already mentioned), wanted him to take the house off his hands as a free gift. James Paul, another Quaker and a farmer, gave a name to Cobbett’s second son. Several men followed him to England, and had some share in his future fortunes. And, as time went on, the members of the British Embassy were not ashamed to honour him with their acquaintance. As early as 1798, Mr. Liston,[5] who was then envoy, informed Cobbett that the Government at home were fully sensible of the obligations which the country owed him—that they were prepared to advance his interests, or those of his relatives. To all such offers he persisted in a firm and honourable refusal—a conduct which naturally served to produce feelings of respect and admiration on their part. Lord Henry Stuart, another member of the Embassy, was likewise a great supporter of Cobbett, besides having certain sporting sympathies, which were revived in after-years. Business relations were also commencing with several London booksellers.
Several good anecdotes might be reproduced here, to illustrate the manner of Cobbett’s life in Pennsylvania. He was always ready to recall, in his later years, the incidents of that period, when he would point a moral or adorn a tale. Here, for example, is a “shooting” story:—
“I was once acquainted with a famous shooter, whose name was William Ewing. He was a barrister of Philadelphia, but became far more renowned by his gun than by his law cases. We spent scores of days together a-shooting, and were extremely well matched—I having excellent dogs, and caring little about my reputation as a shot—his dogs being good for nothing, and he caring more about his reputation as a shot than as a lawyer. The fact which I am going to relate, respecting this gentleman, ought to be a warning to young men how they become enamoured of this species of vanity. We had gone about ten miles from our home to shoot where partridges were said to be very plentiful. We found them so. In the course of a November day, he had, just before dark, shot, and sent to the farm-house, or kept in his bag, ninety-nine partridges. He made some few double shots, and he might have a miss or two, for he sometimes shot when out of my sight, on account of the woods. However, he said that he killed at every shot; and, as he had counted the birds, when we went to dinner at the farm-house and when he cleaned his gun, he, just before sunset, knew that he had killed ninety-nine partridges, every one upon the wing, and a great part of them in woods very thickly set with largish trees. It was a grand achievement; but, unfortunately, he wanted to make it a hundred. The sun was setting, and in that country darkness comes almost at once; it is more like the going out of a candle than that of a fire; and I wanted to be off, as we had a very bad road to go; and as he, being under petticoat government—to which he most loyally and dutifully submitted—was compelled to get home that night, taking me with him, the vehicle (horse and gig) being mine. I therefore pressed him to come away.… No, he would kill the hundredth bird! In vain did I talk of the bad road and its many dangers for want of moon. The poor partridges, which we had scattered about, were calling all around us; and, just at this moment, up got one under his feet, in a field in which the wheat was three or four inches high. He shot, and missed. ‘That’s it,’ said he, running as if to pick up the bird. ‘What!’ said I, ‘you don’t think you killed, do you?’ ‘Why, there is the bird now, not only alive, but calling, in that wood,’—which was about a hundred yards distance. He, in that form of words usually employed in such cases, asserted that he shot the bird and saw it fall; and I, in much about the same form of words, asserted that he had missed; and that I, with my own eyes, saw the bird fly into the wood. This was too much! To miss once out of a hundred times! To lose such a chance of immortality! He was a good-humoured man; I liked him very much; and I could not help feeling for him when he said, ‘Well, sir, I killed the bird and if you choose to go away and take your dog away, so as to prevent me from finding it, you must do it; the dog is yours, to be sure.’ ‘The dog,’ said I, in a very mild tone, ‘why, Ewing, there is the spot, and could we not see it upon this smooth green surface if it were there?’ However, he began to look about, and I called the dog, and affected to join him in the search. Pity for his weakness got the better of my dread of the bad road. After walking backward and forward many times upon about twenty yards square, with our eyes to the ground, looking for what both of us knew was not there, I had passed him (he going one way and I the other), and I happened to be turning round just after I had passed him, when I saw him, putting his hand behind him, take a partridge out of his bag and let it fall upon the ground! I felt no temptation to detect him, but turned away my head, and kept looking about. Presently he, having returned to the spot where the bird was, called out to me, in a most triumphant tone, ‘Here, here! Come here!’ I went up to him, and he, pointing with his finger down to the bird, and looking hard in my face at the same time, said, ‘There, Cobbett; I hope that will be a warning to you never to be obstinate again!’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘come along;’ and away we went as merry as larks. When we got to Brown’s, he told them the story; triumphed over me most clamorously; and, though he often repeated the story to my face, I never had the heart to let him know that I knew of the imposition, which puerile vanity had induced so sensible and honourable a man to be mean enough to practise.”
One of Mr. Cobbett’s warmest adherents, in Philadelphia, was the Rev. James Abercrombie, minister of the American Episcopal Church, and incumbent of Christ Church, opposite which was situated Porcupine’s shop. He was a man held in great esteem as a preacher, and as a teacher of the young.[6] But he got into disgrace with the Democrats, who called him “one of Peter Porcupine’s news-boys.” A correspondence was kept up between Cobbett and the doctor, for some time after the return of the former to London. It must be noted, by the way, that, soon after Porcupine had set up the defiant British standard, there were not wanting many to support him;[7] but, as he says, they kept suitably in the rear. A complaint of the Aurora newspaper speaks for itself, as to the power and number of its opponents:—“The British faction, composed of apostate Whigs, old Tories, toad-eaters of Government, British riders and runners, speculators, stock-jobbers, bank-directors, mushroom merchants, &c., &c.” There is no doubt, however, that Mr. Cobbett’s boast, of being the forlorn hope to less adventurous spirits, was true enough; and that his admiring fellow-countrymen, both at home and in America, considered that his undaunted British advocacy merited the highest encomiums and rewards. What they did say in England may be reserved to another chapter.
Meanwhile, we must now consider the circumstances which ultimately led to Mr. Cobbett’s return home. He persisted, from the first, in being looked upon as an alien; rightly thinking that the taking out letters of naturalization would impair his right to defend his native country. But the intention to return to England was, at this time, very distant from his mind.