“P.S.—If I have not mentioned Weld’s Travels in my order, send twenty of them, neatly bound.”
However, in the course of this month Mr. Cobbett issued a farewell address to the American public; and, on the 1st of June, set sail for England, taking Halifax on his way.
It was not many years before Cobbett found that his affections were bound up in transatlantic memories. And, although he despised republicanism to the last day of his life, he very soon came to admire much of the American character, and to follow with deep interest the fortunes of the republic. A few short years after this date his experience of mankind was getting riper; and his political education was beginning to enlighten his mind concerning those objects which are most worth the struggles of a people.
In a letter to the people of the United States of America, February, 1803, he says,—
“With some few exceptions, I have long forgiven and forgotten all the injuries, with which the worst of you, in your folly and your madness, endeavoured to load me; while, on the other hand, I cherish the remembrance of all those acts of indulgence and of friendship which I have, in greater abundance than any other person, experienced at American hands.… If no man ever had more enemies, no one ever had half so many friends, and these the warmest and most sincere. Never, therefore, does America, and Pennsylvania in particular, come athwart my mind unaccompanied with the best wishes for their prosperity and happiness.”
FOOTNOTES
[1] “Is he a man I choose to punish?—I make it a libel. Is he a man I choose not to punish?—I make it a non-libel.”—Bentham: Works, v. 281.
[2] There is one incident of the Revolutionary War (for the catastrophe of which M’Kean is held responsible) which arouses the old Adam in the breast of the Pennsylvanian Quaker to this very day. John Roberts and Abraham Carlisle, two very worthy members of the Society of Friends, were arraigned, condemned, and hanged, ostensibly for having given assistance and comfort to the British troops when occupying Philadelphia—a perfectly groundless charge. The thing was done to “save the country,” à la Française.