Mr. Cobbett’s release was celebrated, in several places in England, by a public meeting of one kind or other. And as he journeyed homeward, his reception was well-calculated to add to the felicities of the day. At Alton, the bells were set ringing; at Winchester he was stopped to be again entertained at dinner; and, on nearing home, he found the people of Botley had come out in goodly assemblage to meet him, and to listen to his story.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Alderman Sir William Curtis, Member for the City of London. He had amassed great wealth as a war contractor, and was now a staunch supporter of the ministry.
[2] The Examiner copied this paragraph, and the proprietors were prosecuted, but the jury acquitted them.
[3] Take, as a specimen, the following proposal:—The Spilsby Poor Bill was a measure brought before Parliament, early in 1811, for the purpose of enabling the directors of the union to compel the poor, whether asking relief or not, to go into the workhouse. They were to be allowed to enter houses at their discretion to search for vagrants. They might commit to solitary imprisonment, without limit, the poor whom they collected, and administer moderate correction for misbehaviour! (Vide Parliamentary Debates, March 26, 1811.) This brutal idea was soon snuffed out, at the instance of Sir Samuel Romilly; but what a picture does it not present, of the combination of imbecility and cruelty which could rule the minds of some of the potential classes of society!
[4] Francis Maseres (1731-1824), Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer, came of a Huguenot family, and was a man of high cultivation, being especially distinguished for his mathematical attainments and his knowledge of English constitutional history. Although his name is now almost forgotten, he produced a number of short essays and treatises on his favourite subjects, many of which, however, are buried away in the newspapers of his time, Cobbett’s Porcupine being one to which he contributed. Maseres was a moderate Reformer, and what opinions he had were rather allowed to filtrate through his own select circle of friends than pushed forward into naked notoriety. He pursued a quiet, intellectual life, and devoted a large portion of his means to charitable and liberal purposes. Cobbett never mentions his name without affectionate reverence.
[5] This work was begun shortly after Cobbett’s arrival in Newgate. His contention was that the Bank could never again pay in specie or in paper at par, unless the interest on the Funds was reduced. The loans having been contracted to a large extent in paper, this seemed reasonable enough; and the idea was generally accepted among the classes who suffered so severely from monetary pressure during subsequent years, although others thought it was “sapping the foundations of public morality,” and so on.
The first letter appeared in the Register of Sept. 1, 1810, under the title of “Paper against Gold; being an Examination of the Report of the Bullion Committee; in a Series of Letters to the Tradesmen and Farmers in and near Salisbury.” It was afterwards reprinted in full, with additions, under the title of “Paper against Gold, and Glory against Prosperity” (retail price, twenty shillings, in paper money).
During the remainder of Cobbett’s life, he was always at battledore and shuttlecock over the Currency question. A passage from one of his American Registers was one that he was especially fond of sending up, in which he declared that it would be impossible to carry Peel’s Bill of 1819 into full effect, and wound up with an offer to Castlereagh to have leave “to lay me on a gridiron and broil me alive, while Sidmouth may stir the coals, and Canning stand by and laugh at my groans.” The Bill did take effect, after a fashion, but with tremendous difficulties in its train; and the feast of the gridiron came off at last, on the 9th of April, 1826, not in the style that was originally proposed, but in the shape of a dinner at the London Tavern. For a full account of it see the Morning Herald of the following day.