Cobbett must have been about fourteen years of age at the time alluded to in the following incident:—
“My father used to take one of us with him every year to the great hop-fair at Weyhill. The fair was held at Old Michaelmastide, and the journey was to us a sort of reward for the labours of the summer. It happened to be my turn to go thither the very year that Long Island was taken by the British. A great company of hop-merchants and farmers were just sitting down to supper as the post arrived, bringing in the ‘Extraordinary Gazette,’ which announced the victory. A hop-factor from London took the paper, placed his chair upon the table, and began to read with an audible voice. He was opposed, a dispute ensued, and my father retired, taking me by the hand, to another apartment, where we supped with about a dozen others of the same sentiments. Here Washington’s health, and success to the Americans, were repeatedly toasted, and this was the first time, as far as I can recollect, that I ever heard the General’s name mentioned. Little did I then dream that I should ever see the man, and still less that I should hear some of his own countrymen reviling and execrating him.”
Although we have learned, not only to look with complacency upon the results of the attempt to coerce the Colonies, but, also, to wonder that there could have ever been English statesmen so deluded as to expect anything but disaster from the contest; it has not been sufficiently observed, that the immediate effect was the partial ruin of the labouring poor in this country; that it is from that period that their prosperity has declined, and their comforts have become fewer and fewer. And what is more, before their impoverishment made it obvious to everybody, the common people and the tradesmen showed, by their abhorrence of the war, that they were, for once, gifted with a truer political sagacity than their precious rulers; and that there must have been some vague general anticipation of the consequences to them, and to their families. Prices rose, whilst wages remained stationary; and, from the very outset, the privations of the poor were aggravated to an intense degree. But from that date arose the thirst of the labouring classes for political information, which has since resulted in their possessing so general a share in representation.
So, down at quiet Farnham, the people had hitherto been, “like the rest of the country people in England,” neither knowing nor thinking much about politics. The “shouts of victory or the murmurs at a defeat,” would now and then break in upon their tranquillity for a moment; but after the American war had continued for a short time, the people began to be a little better acquainted with subjects of that kind. Cobbett says, that opinions were pretty equally divided concerning the war, at first; whilst there grew up a good deal of pretty warm discussion, sometimes:—
“My father was a partisan of the Americans: he used frequently to dispute on the subject with the gardener of a nobleman who lived near us. This was generally done with good humour, over a pot of our best ale; yet the disputants sometimes grew warm, and gave way to language that could not fail to attract our attention. My father was worsted, without doubt, as he had for antagonist a shrewd and sensible old Scotchman, far his superior in political knowledge; but he pleaded before a partial audience: we thought there was but one wise man in the world, and that that one was our father. He who pleaded the cause of the Americans had an advantage too, with young minds: he had only to represent the King’s troops as sent to cut the throats of a people, our friends and relations, merely because they would not submit to oppression, and his cause was gained.”
Old George Cobbett remained a staunch American in politics; but, as to whether he was right or wrong, his son admits that he never, at that period, formed any opinion. His own notions were those of his father, which would have been as warmly entertained if they had been all on the other side. The short autobiography of which the above forms a part, was written during the early part of his pamphleteering career in the United States; at which time he found it necessary to explain that he had not been nursed in the lap of aristocracy, and that he did not imbibe his then “principles or prejudices from those who were the advocates of blind submission.” The story of this pamphlet will come in its proper place, when its author was upwards of thirty years of age.
Here we have, then, probably as much as we shall ever know, of William Cobbett’s early years. The utter obscurity of his father’s social status is, of itself, sufficient reason why there were no admiring friends to detect precocity, and to record its achievements: until the age of twenty his life was made up of the ordinary occupations of a country lad. Fairs, cricket-matches, and hare-hunts filled up the joyous periods of recreation; and it was not till the year 1782, that an incident occurred, which, bringing him into the bustling activity of town-life, had the same effect upon him, that a similar change of scene has had upon many an ardent, healthy spirit; and which estranged him from the sequestered vale of life, for ever.
There can be little doubt, however, that a very great mental stimulus was acquired by the trip to Kew, and the reading of Swift’s wonderful satire.[1] The poor ploughboy, very probably, read and reread the laughable story of Peter and Martin hundreds of times without understanding the real drift of it; but there was enough in the book, with its entertaining accounts of grotesque fashions and weak-minded characters, to furnish such an impressionable spirit as Cobbett’s with an inexhaustible store of odd ideas concerning the world outside him. Readers of his works will notice his frequent quotation of Swift: “The celebrated Dean of St. Patrick somewhere observes, &c., &c.” is the opening sentence of the autobiographical sketch; and the “Political Register,” in after-years, continued to manifest evidences of the source and character of Cobbett’s early reading. Cobbett’s literary style, however, was not exactly that of Dean Swift; of which the former’s ignorance, and even contempt, of Latinity is sufficient explanation. But his alternations of sweetness and acrimony,—his ever-ready images,—the picturesque manner of his describing individual characters,—his constant tendency to satire,—cannot but be ascribed, in great measure, to the little book whose loss “cost him greater pain than losing thousands of pounds.”