“When I returned to England, in 1800, after an absence from the country parts of it of sixteen years, the trees, the hedges, even the parks and woods, seemed so small! It made me laugh to hear little gutters, that I could jump over, called rivers! The Thames was but a creek! But when, in about a month after my arrival in London, I went to Farnham, the place of my birth, what was my surprise! Everything was become so pitifully small! I had to cross in my post-chaise the long and dreary heath of Bagshot; then, at the end of it, to mount a hill, called Hungry Hill; and from that hill I knew that I should look down into the beautiful and fertile vale of Farnham. My heart fluttered with impatience, mixed with a sort of fear, to see all the scenes of my childhood; for I had learnt, before, the death of my father and mother. There is a hill, not far from the town, called Crooksbury Hill, which rises up out of a flat, in the form of a cone, and is planted with Scotch fir-trees. Here I used to take the eggs and young ones of crows and magpies. This hill was a famous object in the neighbourhood. It served as the superlative degree of height. ‘As high as Crooksbury Hill’ meant, with us, the utmost degree of height. Therefore, the first object that my eyes sought was this hill. I could not believe my eyes! Literally speaking, I, for a moment, thought the famous hill removed, and a little heap put in its stead; for I had seen, in New Brunswick, a single rock, or hill of solid rock, ten times as big, and four or five times as high! The post-boy going down hill, and not a bad road, whisked me in a few minutes to the Bush Inn, from the garden of which I could see the prodigious sand-hill where I had begun my gardening works. What a nothing! But now came rushing into my mind, all at once, my pretty little garden, my little blue smock-frock, my little nailed shoes, my pretty pigeons that I used to feed out of my hands, the last kind words and tears of my gentle and tender-hearted and affectionate mother. I hastened back into the room. If I had looked a moment longer, I should have dropped. When I came to reflect, what a change! I looked down at my dress—what a change! What scenes I had gone through! How altered my state! I had dined the day before at a Secretary of State’s in company with Mr. Pitt, and had been waited upon by men in gaudy liveries! I had had nobody to assist me in the world—no teachers of any sort—nobody to shelter me from the consequences of bad, and no one to counsel me to good, behaviour. I felt proud. The distinctions of rank, birth, and wealth, all become nothing in my eyes; and from that moment (less than a month after my arrival in England) I resolved never to bend before them.”
The determination to start a daily paper was wise on the part of Mr. Cobbett, as far as his experience in Philadelphia had shown how possible it was for him to entertain a large circle of readers; but unwise, in that he had scarce capital enough with which to print the numbers for a single week. Yet the opportunity for carrying out his plan without risk was placed at his disposal; and there are few incidents in Cobbett’s whole career which redound so greatly to his credit as the refusal of this offer. The pride with which, in after-years, he told and retold the story, may be estimated very differently by different minds; but the spirit with which the refusal was made is unexceptionable. There was no other way out of it, if he meant Independence. If glimpses of grandeur had really not contaminated that honest heart, nor weakened the impulses of that patriotic soul, how should he live, and move, and work, and fight, with his hands not free?
And this is the story [he is addressing Mr. George Rose]:—
“John Heriot was at that time the proprietor of two newspapers, called the Sun and the True Briton—the former an evening and the latter a morning paper. I had heard that these two papers had been set on foot by you, who were then one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, and that, when set on foot, the profits of them had been given to Heriot. Now mark, that Mr. Hammond, who was then Under-Secretary of State in the Foreign Department, offered to me the proprietorship of one of those papers as a gift; and I remember very well that he told me that this offer was made in consequence of a communication with you, or your colleague Mr. Long, I forget which. This was no trifling offer. The very types, presses, &c., were worth a considerable sum. Mr. Hammond, who was a very honest as well as a very zealous and able man, had behaved with great kindness to me; had invited me frequently to his house, where I dined, I recollect, with Sir William Scott, with Lord Hawkesbury (now Lord Liverpool), and several other persons of rank; and, in short, had shown me so much attention, that I felt great reluctance in giving the following answer to his offer:—‘I am very much obliged to you, and to the gentlemen of whom you speak, for this offer; but, though I am very poor, my desire is to render the greatest possible service to my country, and I am convinced that, by keeping myself wholly free, and relying upon my own means, I shall be able to give the Government much more efficient support than if any species of dependence could be traced to me. At the same time, I do not wish to cast blame on those who are thus dependent; and I do not wish to be thought too conceited and too confident of my own powers and judgment to decline any advice that you, or any one in office, may at any time be good enough to offer me; and I shall always be thankful to you for any intelligence or information that any of you may be pleased to give me.’ Mr Hammond did not appear at all surprised at my answer; and I shall always respect him for what he said upon hearing it. His words were nearly these:—‘Well, I must say that I think you take the honourable course, and I most sincerely wish it may also be the profitable one.’ I ought not, upon this occasion, to omit to say that I always understood that Lord Grenville, who was then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was not one of those who approved of the baseness and dependence of the press.”
He also ventured to remind Mr. Hammond
“of the fable of the wolf and the mastiff, the latter of which, having one night, when loose, rambled into a wood, met the former all gaunt and shagged, and said to him, ‘Why do you lead this sort of life? See how fat and sleek I am! Come home with me and live as I do, dividing your time between eating and sleeping.’ The ragged friend having accepted the kind offer, they then trotted on together till they got out of the wood, when the wolf, assisted by the light of the moon, the beams of which had been intercepted by the trees, spied a crease, a little mark, round the neck of the mastiff. ‘What is your fancy,’ said he, ‘for making that mark round your neck?’ ‘Oh!’ said the other, ‘it is only the mark of my collar that my master ties me up with.’ ‘Ties you up!’ exclaimed the wolf, stopping short at the same time; ‘give me my ragged hair, my gaunt belly, and my freedom;’—and, so saying, he trotted back to the wood.”
Opportunities for reflecting upon the comparative states of dependence and independence crowded apace. He could scarcely turn, among his new circle of friends, without discovering some new Government parasite, some new candidate for ministerial favour, some new office-hunter or aspiring sinecurist. Mr. Pitt disdained the society of newspaper-people, but was only too willing to pay them for their praises. And it must not be left unnoticed that the practice of liberally rewarding this class of writers has often been justified by circumstances. The case in point, viz. the fight which was going on against democracy, required that the enemy should be fought with his own weapons; only it very unfortunately happened that all the talent was on the other side, and, where quality was lacking, the fight must needs be kept up with the aid of gold and silver. Mr. Cobbett would, indeed, have been worth buying, if his price could have been named; while there was a Paine, or a Thelwall, or a Godwin to be withstood.
The following brilliant and humorous passage of Cobbett’s, written in his old age, will complete our illustration of this topic:—