“A mutual affection, a powerful impulse, equal to that out of which this wonderful sagacity arises, will, I hope, always exist between me and my hard-used countrymen; an affection which my heart assures me, no time, no distance, no new connexions, no new association of ideas however enchanting, can ever destroy, or in any degree enfeeble or impair.… Never will I own as my friend him who is not a friend of the people of England. I will never become a Subject or a Citizen in any other State, and will always be a foreigner in every country but England. Any foible that may belong to your character, I shall always willingly allow to belong to my own. All the celebrity which my writings have obtained, and which they will preserve long and long after Lords Liverpool, and Sidmouth, and Castlereagh are rotten and forgotten, I owe less to my own talents than to that discernment, and that noble spirit in you, which have at once instructed my mind and warmed my heart: and, my beloved countrymen, be you well assured that the last beatings of that heart will be, love for the people, for the happiness, and the renown of England; and hatred of their corrupt, hypocritical, dastardly, and merciless foes.”
A postscript adds that the weekly political pamphlet would be revived in about three months’ time. And his readers are assured further that—
“If I have life for only a year or two at farthest, I shall be back with them again. The beautiful country through which I have so lately travelled, bearing, upon every inch of it, such striking marks of the industry and skill of the people, never can be destined to be inhabited by slaves. To suppose such a thing possible would be at once to libel the nation and to blaspheme against Providence. Let my readers not fear my finding out the means of communicating to them whatever I write. They will see the political pamphlet revive and be continued, until the day when they will find me again dating my addresses to them from London or from Botley.
“Wm. Cobbett.
“Liverpool, 28th March, 1817.”
The suspension of the Register lasted for about three months. On the 12th of July it was resumed, with a letter dated from Cobbett’s residence, May 8th, and the journal was kept up without further interruption. Only on one or two occasions did a number appear in which there was not a communication from the exiled editor.
But his place in the journalistic world was not left utterly vacant. William Hone led the way, with his Reformists’ Register, among a series of similar publications.[7] Indeed, it was understood that Hone’s Register occupied the position which Mr. Cobbett had temporarily abdicated. Hone had been a staunch supporter, since the Political Register had become popularized; besides making a depôt for that journal at his little shop in the Old Bailey, he had recently reproduced the American autobiography of Peter Porcupine in a cheap form.[8]
In the course of the summer of this year, an exposure of the spy system was made in the House of Commons; and it was proved, over and over again, that nearly all the serious riots had been instigated by these wretches, actually in the employ of Government. The result was a public condemnation of the infamous system, and its immediate disuse on the part of ministers. And, as a matter of course, all the signs of turbulence in the country ceased; the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act being repealed soon after the next meeting of Parliament. In fact, every day proved, more and more clearly, that it was nothing but fear which had magnified a few local discontents—by means of that powerful lens, Anti-Reform—into designs upon the fabric of the Constitution.
But the mischief done to the temper of the people was irreparable. Those persons (of whom there must be some proportion, even among such a phlegmatic race as the English) whose reforming zeal was easily raised to fever heat, got into trouble; and several suffered the capital penalty for treason, during the years 1817-19. Their imprudence, however, could not delay, for long, the imminent Reform; the violence done to popular feeling, by a combination of cruelty and weakness, was bearing its fruit; and this is how, in spite of its natural claims upon the patriotism of Englishmen, Toryism came to bear undeserved opprobrium. We, who are of no party but that of Progress and Enlightenment, and who have long ceased to believe in traditional politics, whether Whig or Tory, will not fail to take to heart again the lesson: that violence, impatience, and selfish prescription are as much out of place in the political as in the moral world. We have had ample opportunities of noting this, during the last half-century; and if there is anything upon which we may congratulate ourselves, it is that we have had Melbournes and Peels, Russells and Palmerstons, during a period of European revolution, instead of such men as the favourites of George the Third.