CHAPTER XIII.
“I SAW THINGS IN ANOTHER LIGHT.”
The unmistakable success which had attended the publication of “Mr. Windham’s Gazette” (as the Register was nicknamed) soon made a revolution in Cobbett’s plans for the future. It had been his cherished thought to resume a semi-rural life, visiting London once or twice a week, in the case of being enabled to relinquish the bookselling business.
It was not until 1805 that a permanent removal was made out of London; meanwhile, however, the shop in Pall Mall had long been relinquished. In March, 1803 (according to a notification in the Register), it appears that Mr. Harding had just taken the business over,[1] whilst John Morgan had also returned to Philadelphia to recommence bookselling there. Besides the ordinary trade, the firm had produced the long-promised “Selections from Porcupine’s Works,” issued in May, 1801, and dedicated to John Reeves. The list of subscribers, printed in the first volume, includes the Royal Princes, the chief supporters of Government, and about 750 other names in England and America. A second edition of his translation of Martens’ “Law of Nations” was also published in June, 1802, with the treaties brought down to the current date. It is pretty certain, therefore, that the business in Pall Mall was a flourishing concern.
Among other labours, independent of the Register, were, a translation of “L’Empire Germanique,” a tract of the period,[2] accompanied by a memoir on the political and military state of Europe; and a reproduction of the “English Grammar for Frenchmen.” And, as though he were not yet fully occupied, Mr. Cobbett must needs undertake one more grand scheme.
This was nothing less than a plan for publishing the parliamentary debates. The inadequacy of the existing reports had long since attracted Mr. Cobbett’s notice, and he had endeavoured to supply the need by printing the bulk of the debates in the early supplements to the Political Register. At last, toward the close of the year 1803, he resolved to issue, periodically, full and accurate reports, giving as his reason that the debates, “as at present communicated to the world, reflect very little credit on the nation.”
Accordingly, on the 3rd of December, 1803, appeared the first number, price one shilling, of “Cobbett’s Parliamentary Debates.”[3] The person who was selected as reporter and editor was a man very well qualified for the task—no other than Mr. John Wright, formerly bookseller in Piccadilly. He had failed in 1801, and his bankruptcy was attributed by Cobbett, partly to taking “more delight in reading of books than in selling of them,” and partly to “the misfortune of being bookseller to Messrs. Canning, Frere, Ellis, and the other Anti-Jacobins, by whose works, though such a puffing was made over them, he lost many hundreds of pounds.”… “Seeing him once more ready to begin the world afresh, I proposed to him the editing of the parliamentary debates, of which we have now [1810] continued the publication since the year 1803.”
One more enterprise remains to be noticed. In February, 1803, was published the first number of “Le Mercure Anglois de Cobbett,” containing a “translation of such parts of the Register as may be thought useful or interesting to politicians on the continent of Europe.” There does not appear, however, any trace of the publication of more than three numbers of this “Mercure.”
Upon leaving Pall Mall, Mr. Cobbett took a house in Duke Street, Westminster. His country trips were few, for his work did not at present give him opportunity to escape from town for any lengthened period. But, in 1804, the occasion of a visit to Hampshire was prolonged so far as to revive his ardent wish for a permanent rural life. Mr. Wright (who occupied apartments at a tailor’s, at No. 5, Panton Square) was getting increasingly useful to him, and their mutual confidence was now of the closest character. And it is due to this friendship, and its ultimate rupture, that we are indebted for an ample insight into Mr. Cobbett’s personal and domestic history during the succeeding years.[4]
A letter, dated 9th August, from Lord Henry Stuart’s seat, at the Grange, near Alresford, announces the arrival of the family there, and requesting attention to some business matters, particularly the despatch of a parcel of London newspapers; then very full of the famous Middlesex election, in which the contest lay between Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. George Mainwaring. On the 13th he writes from Southampton:—
“… I received the newspapers and your letter safe. By the enclosed you will perceive that I mean not to go up for this next Register. The reason is, I have not got Mrs. Cobbett and the children settled to my mind; and, besides that, I want to take them all to the pony-races at Lindhurst, on Friday next. They have begun to breathe. We have seen the school at Twyford. The master is a noisy hawbuck. He is a Burdettite, and so is his wife. I like the place very much, and none the worse because it is that very identical school that Pope first went to. Of this circumstance the master failed not to apprise us. The boys are all very well, and very desirous to see you—William in particular, who says you must come and see him every Sunday. The pony is an excellent bargain. I shall take the whole off from here, bag and baggage, next Saturday, and go to Wickham; and on Sunday night, or Monday morning, I shall leave Wickham for London, where I shall stay during next week, and then set off to fetch home the brood for the winter. I am in the midst of a pony country, and I think I shall pick up another to take home with me. I shall write to you again to-morrow with another parcel, and again on Wednesday, so that you will have all my copy by Thursday’s post; and that you may know how to calculate, I now inform you that my copy will make exactly twenty-five columns, or twenty-six at most. I have several interesting articles, and they all must come in. I shall touch the Middlesex election; the miscreants shall not escape.… If there be anything worth relating, pray give me a line upon it. My address is at Mr. Harris’s china warehouse, Southampton. D—— the china ware! William was out walking with me by the beach yesterday morning, and after a long and pensive silence, he said, ‘Pa, why do you have a china-shop in your house?’ He is by no means reconciled to the crockery-ware yet.…”