“The alliterative words, peace and plenty, sound well in a song, or make a pretty transparency in the window of an idiot; but the things which these harmonious words represent are not always in unison.”
Which means, of course, that he will certainly not illuminate his windows on the forthcoming celebration of the signing of the Definitive Treaty. His Register is occupied with more letters to Lord Hawkesbury, written, too, in magnificent style, and furnished with arguments which might be refused a hearing, but could not be gainsaid.
So the peace-proclaiming cavalcade approaches; the order for illumination goes forth; and the windows of No. 11, Pall Mall, are once more shattered, and the ornamental “Crown and Mitre” once more dashed to the ground.
This time, however, it was a more serious matter for the assailants. Cobbett had expected something of the kind, and removed his wife and family to the house of a friend; he gave notice to the police, and was resolved to reach the culprits, if possible—which he did, for “six of the villains” were brought up to Bow Street next morning. They were all in a respectable station in life, two of them being clerks in the Post Office, and one of these a son of the Rev. William Beloe, who had formerly been one of Porcupine’s warmest admirers. In the end these young men were tried at the sessions, and heavily fined.
But the incident furnished Cobbett with material for sarcasm, which was freely dealt out at intervals. He “would rather be compelled to illuminate than have a choice, and so have his house demolished by Government reptiles.” On the king’s birthday (4th June) the people were not illuminating, as “the practice seems discredited on account of recent occurrences.” And in the following year, when things were going wrong again, and the decks were once more being cleared for action, he ventures to remind Lord Hawkesbury (who had “smiled” at the affair) that there was a time to weep as well as a time to laugh.
The alternations of tone, on the part of public writers and speakers of this period, with reference to Buonaparte, are very amusing. They had called him a tyrant, a despot, a cut-throat, a murderer, an assassin, a poisoner, a monster, an infidel, an atheist, a blasphemer, a hypocrite, a demon, a devil, a robber, a wolf, a usurper, a thief, a savage, a tiger, a renegade, a liar, a braggart, a cuckold, a coward, and a fool.
They now extolled his character: “his courage, his magnanimity, his wisdom, and even his piety.” A few months later, he was “the most abominable miscreant that ever breathed.”
No wonder, then, that the man, who had been consistent all through, and was found to be right at last, must be put down. If there is anything the average specimen of John Bull hates, it is the man who has caught him tripping. Hence, from this time, Mr. Cobbett found he had the bitterest enemies on his native soil. Early in the year 1803, Otto, the French ambassador, wanted the Government to prosecute him, along with Peltier. Mr. Windham was exhorted to disavow him. The “British Critic,” which had suckled Cobbett’s infant reputation, now felt “diffident” of much that it had said on his behalf; and the Addington ministry had their eye upon him. As for his rivals in the press, it must be said that their conduct was unhandsome. Here was the very first man who had succeeded in obtaining an independent position for the craft;[2] yet the mere fact of his having rejected the arts of Treasury corruption was sufficient to rouse their envy. There was Mr. Heriot, for example, who was getting fat and rich, and was looking forward to some snug berth to which he might retire, could not bear to see Mr. Cobbett getting fat and rich on independent principles. So far did this feeling extend, that a very sad affair presently ensued.
There had been a debate in the House of Commons upon the Defence Bill, on which occasion Mr. Sheridan had taunted Windham with his connexion with the Political Register, and insinuated that the editor of that journal had incited the sailors to mutiny. This latter was not only a flat misrepresentation, but such a thing was totally contrary to Mr. Cobbett’s habit of mind: if there was a thing he was specially earnest about, it was the condemnation of resistance to lawful authority—more especially with regard to the military and naval services. Mr. Windham answered with spirit, and, for once, spoke with almost as much humour as Sheridan himself; concluding in the following terms:—
“As to the weekly publication to which the hon. gentleman has alluded, I entertain all the sentiments of respect which he supposes me to entertain, both for the work and for its author, of whom I had a high opinion long before I personally knew him. I admired the conduct which he pursued through a most trying crisis in America, where he uniformly supported all those principles upon which the happiness of mankind depend; where he uniformly opposed all those principles (including such as were formerly professed by the hon. gentleman) which tend to sap the foundations of civil society, and to spread misery and wickedness through the world; and where, by his own unaided exertions, he rendered his country services that entitle him to a statue of gold.”
This was too much. Aristocratic and plutocratic animosity had been growing fast enough, and would have been harmless, even with the aid of Mr. Sheridan’s gay disingenuousness; but now, this was too much for the journalists who were struggling (where they were not subsidized) for ministerial favour. So they echo Mr. Sheridan, and return to the charge; the True Briton going a little farther than is needed, and indicating the appropriate punishment:—
“Mr. Windham professes himself to be the Soldier’s Friend. We cannot suppose, however, that his attachment to a certain American scribbler arises from his being the writer of a work at the beginning of the French Revolution, bearing that title, because that work had for its object to excite the soldiery to mutiny,—to which, it seems, the same patriotic writer now endeavours to instigate the navy. We speak merely from what has been said in the House of Commons, for we think no true Briton can read the works of the person alluded to with any kind of temper. The pillory or the gibbet we think a more appropriate reward than that which Mr. Windham has suggested for a writer of such a stamp.”
Now, all through Mr. Cobbett’s long life, there was nothing roused his ire so much (in the way of personality) as the charge of sedition; and all through his life he was justified in repudiating it. It was not his way. He was a man for facing his adversaries. And, to the end of his days, whatever his other errors, he could never be reproached with the arts of covert warfare. So Mr. Cobbett was nettled; and,—
“in less than three hours after the libel was published, the libeller, Mr. Heriot, received personal chastisement in the very apartment where he had fabricated the libel.”
The reader, who may feel interested in the full details of this squabble, will find Heriot’s version in the True Briton of August 15-22, and Mr. Cobbett’s account in the Political Register for August 20, 1803. It is sufficient to record here, that Mr. Heriot brought an action for assault, and did not appear to prosecute; and that “focus of accumulated infamy, the Political Register,” went on its way.
Just before the above incident occurred, circumstances had led to the production of an article in Cobbett’s Register, which should now be mentioned, as indicating, probably, the extremest point of time at which he gave uncompromising support to the Government.
War had been declared in May, and the nation was again regarding the quality of its bayonets, and the condition of its belts and its gaiter-buttons. The fear of invasion was uppermost in the minds of everybody who had anything to lose, so the “people” must themselves be roused. Mr. Cobbett therefore prepared a manifesto, and placed it (through Mr. John Reeves) at the disposal of the ministry. The paper was not only accepted, but printed and sent round to all the clergy in the kingdom; accompanied by an official circular, directing them to post it on the church-doors, and to “deposit copies in the pews, and distribute them in the aisles,” and amongst the poor, &c.[3] This appeal to the British nation is a grand piece of writing, in Cobbett’s best style. And no reader will wonder at the power which he was acquiring over the public mind, after perusing the following extracts:—
“Important Considerations for the People of this Kingdom.
“At a moment when we are entering on a scene deeply interesting, not only to this nation, but to the whole civilized world; at a moment when we all, without distinction of rank or degree, are called upon to rally round, and to range ourselves beneath, the banners of that sovereign under whose long, mild, and fostering reign the far greater part of us, capable of bearing arms, have been born and reared up to manhood; at a moment when we are, by his truly royal and paternal example, incited to make every sacrifice and every exertion in a war, the event of which is to decide whether we are still to enjoy, and to bequeath to our children, the possessions, the comforts, the liberties, and the national honours, handed down to us from generation to generation by our gallant forefathers; or whether we are, at once, to fall from this favoured and honourable station, and to become the miserable crouching slaves, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, of these very Frenchmen, whom the valour of our fleets and armies has hitherto taught us to despise; at such a moment it behoves us, calmly and without dismay, to examine our situation, to consider what are the grounds of the awful contest in which we are engaged; what are the wishes, the designs, and the pretensions of our enemies; what would be the consequences, if those enemies were to triumph over us; what are our means, and what ought to be our motives, not only for frustrating their malicious intentions, but for inflicting just and memorable chastisement on their insolent and guilty heads.” [Here follows an account of the events which had brought Europe to its present disastrous enslavement, and Napoleon to his present height of power. Concluding with an eloquent reference to the results of the invasion of Germany in 1796-8, the writer winds up with the following appeal.]
“Such are the barbarities which have been inflicted on other nations. The recollection of them will never be effaced: the melancholy story will be handed down from generation to generation, to the everlasting infamy of the Republicans of France, and as an awful warning to all those nations whom they may hereafter attempt to invade. We are one of those nations; we are the people whom they are now preparing to invade. Awful, indeed, is the warning, and, if we despise, tremendous will be the judgment. The same generals, the same commissaries, the same officers, the same soldiers, the very same rapacious and sanguinary host, that now hold Holland and Switzerland in chains—that desolated Egypt, Italy, and Germany—are at this moment preparing to make England, Ireland, and Scotland, the scenes of their atrocities. For some time past, they have had little opportunity to plunder: peace, for a while, suspended their devastations, and now, like gaunt and hungry wolves, they are looking towards the rich pastures of Britain. Already we hear their threatening howl; and if, like sheep, we stand bleating for mercy, neither our innocence nor our timidity will save us from being torn to pieces and devoured. The robberies, the barbarities, the brutalities they have committed in other countries, though at the thought of them the heart sinks and the blood runs cold, will be mere trifles to what they will commit here, if we suffer them to triumph over us. The Swiss and the Suabians were never objects of their envy; they were never the rivals of Frenchmen, either on the land or on the sea; they had never disconcerted or checked their ambitious projects, never humbled their pride, never defeated either their armies or their fleets. We have been, and we have done, all this: they have long entertained against us a hatred engendered by the mixture of envy and of fear; and they are now about to make a great and desperate effort to gratify this furious, this unquenchable, this deadly hatred. What, then, can we expect at their hands? What but torments, even surpassing those which they have inflicted on other nations? They remained but three months in Germany: here they would remain for ever; there, their extortions and their atrocities were, for want of time, confined to a part of the people; here they would be universal: no sort, no part, no particle of property would remain unseized; no man, woman, or child would escape violence of some kind or other. Such of our manufactories as are movable they would transport to France, together with the most ingenious of the manufacturers, whose wives and children would be left to starve. Our ships would follow the same course, with all the commerce and commercial means of the kingdom. Having stripped us of everything, even to the stoutest of our sons and the most beautiful of our daughters, over all that remained they would establish and exercise a tyranny such as the world never before witnessed. All the estates, all the farms, all the mines, all the land and the houses, all the shops and magazines, all the remaining manufactories, and all the workshops, of every kind and description, from the greatest to the smallest—all these they would bring over Frenchmen to possess, making us their servants and their labourers. To prevent us uniting and arising against them, they would crowd every town and village with their brutal soldiers, who would devour all the best part of the produce of the earth, leaving us not half a sufficiency of bread. They would, besides, introduce their own bloody laws, with additional severities; they would divide us into separate classes, hem us up in districts, cut off all communication between friends and relations, parents and children, which latter they would breed up in their own blasphemous principles; they would affix badges upon us, mark us in the cheek, shave our heads, split our ears, or clothe us in the habit of slaves! And shall we submit to misery and degradation like this, rather than encounter the expenses of war; rather than meet the honourable dangers of military combat; rather than make a generous use of the means which Providence has so bounteously placed in our hands? The sun, in his whole course round the globe, shines not on a spot so blessed as this great and now united kingdom. Gay and productive fields and gardens, lofty and extensive woods, innumerable flocks and herds, rich and inexhaustible mines, a mild and wholesome climate, giving health, activity, and vigour to fourteen millions of people: and shall we, who are thus favoured and endowed: shall we, who are abundantly supplied with iron and steel, powder and lead: shall we, who have a fleet superior to the maritime force of all the world, and who are able to bring two millions of fighting men into the field: shall we yield up this dear and happy land, together with all the liberties and honours, to preserve which our fathers so often dyed the land and the sea with their blood: shall we thus at once dishonour their graves, and stamp disgrace and infamy on the brows of our children; and shall we, too, make this base and dastardly surrender to an enemy whom, within these twelve years, our countrymen have defeated in every quarter of the world? No! we are not so miserably fallen: we cannot, in so short a space of time, have become so detestably degenerate; we have the strength and the will to repel the hostility, to chastise the insolence of the foe. Mighty, indeed, must be our efforts, but mighty also is the meed. Singly engaged against the tyrants of the earth, Britain now attracts the eyes and the hearts of mankind; groaning nations look to her for deliverance; justice, liberty, and religion are inscribed on her banners; her success will be hailed with the shouts of the universe, while tears of admiration and gratitude will bedew the heads of her sons who fall in the glorious contest.”
The wonderful activity of Cobbett’s pen, at and after this date, can only be appreciated by a glance at the volumes of his celebrated journal. On every topic that arose he had something to say. Much of what he said was accepted by the reflecting part of the public; many of his predictions were verified, and many falsified by events; and many of his opinions he learned to alter. But underneath the whole lies a burning desire for English prosperity, unimpaired by the faintest token of self-seeking. To enumerate the topics of the day would involve the delineation of his opinions thereon. They will have to be studied by the future historian.
It will be sufficient for our purpose to note, therefore, that the Political Register had already become the vehicle for the ventilation of most of the questions which were agitating the public mind, from invasion down to vaccination. Often loaded with prejudice, but very generally pervaded with liberality, the views of his correspondents partook of his own ardent spirit, contributing largely to the enlightenment of the public mind.
That topic which most of all contributed to revolutionize his relations with his early political friends was the question of Finance. He began to examine this subject in the year 1803, after having read Adam Smith, Chalmers, and others in vain, and at last lighted upon Mr. Paine’s “Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance.” This pamphlet, he says, was the means of opening his eyes; and from May in this year he began to urge a reduction of the interest on the national debt, and the policy of discovering some means of redistributing the wealth of the country.
But that which, for the time, influenced Cobbett’s career, was his unsparing criticism upon the ministry of the day. Mr. Addington had been an object of ridicule from the moment of the first rumour of his appointment as premier; and his puerile efforts at statesmanship only served to confirm the original verdict of the public. Narrow-minded and presuming, he was utterly unfit for a position of authority, in which he would have to pass beyond the mere traditions of office. As a personal favourite, however, of the king he was endured for a while, until his obvious incapacity rendered it imperative that the destinies of the country should be entrusted to other hands. The want of decision and energy in the conduct of the war, and the waste and mismanagement of the military and naval resources of the country, were highly disappointing to a people whose patriotism for two whole years was artificially stimulated by rumours of invasion. “Another inactive and inglorious year sunk the British nation in her own eyes, and in those of Europe.”[4] This is the general verdict of the cotemporary chronicler, on reviewing the circumstances which led to Mr. Pitt’s resumption of office in May, 1804. Until near the period, however, when the crash came, the self-conceit of this clever ministry was superior to any free comments; they seemed fated to bring upon themselves overwhelming disgrace. It is true, there was opposition in Parliament (as well as in the press), but opposition was ascribed to anything but its real cause, and was treated with disdain. Upon the report of the address, when Parliament reassembled in November, 1803, Mr. Windham ventured to express his dissatisfaction with the incompetency of the ministry, but “no reply was made to him.”[5]
So the Weekly Political Register was in its glory. The editor was determined to contribute his share of effort toward relieving the country from the benefit of Mr. Addington’s services, and transmitting his name to posterity “with all the contempt it deserved.”[6]
It is not surprising, then, that Mr. Cobbett was now being closely watched, in order that an opportunity might arise for retaliation. Mr. Cobbett was helping to ruin the king’s ministers; the ministers would try and settle Mr. Cobbett. But it must be on some side issue; there was no need for poor Mr. Addington’s name to come in. There would soon be rope enough, one way or other.
The affairs of Ireland were again in a muddle. Robert Emmet’s insurrection had just occurred, and martial law was eventually proclaimed. Mr. Fox protested in vain against the system under which that country was governed, as also did the Political Register.[7] A correspondent (Mr. Robert Johnson, a Judge of the Irish Common Pleas) sent some letters, signed “Juverna,” containing an able, but rather bitter, series of comments upon recent events, to which the editor gave a prominent place in his journal (November-December, 1803). These letters opened the flood-gates of wrath; and Mr. Cobbett was, accordingly, prosecuted in the following May for publishing “certain libels upon the Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,” and others.
“Juverna” had stated, among other matters, that “the government of a harmless man was not necessarily a harmless government;” that Lord Hardwicke “was in rank an earl, in manners a gentleman, in morals a good father and a good husband;” that “he had a good library in St. James’s Square,” and was “celebrated for understanding the modern method of fattening sheep as well as any man in Cambridgeshire;” and he wanted to know if the Viceroy was “one of that tribe who have been sent over to us to be trained up here into politicians, as they train the surgeons’ apprentices in the hospitals, by setting them at first to bleed the pauper patients?”
Against Mr. Justice Osborne (of the Irish King’s Bench) the insinuation of “Juverna” was that he had wrongfully stated, in a recent charge, that the progress of crime in Ireland had been effectually checked by the “well-timed efforts and strenuous exertions of a wise and energetic government.”
Lord Redesdale, the Irish Chancellor, was sneered at in general terms; and alluded to as “a strong chancery pleader,” not entitled to claim one particle of trust or confidence from the public.
The trial was like all the political trials in those days:—imputations of the worst motives, insinuations of motives undreamt-of, graced the Attorney General’s speech for the prosecution; Lord Ellenborough anticipated the decision of the jury by calling the words libellous: what more was to be expected than a verdict of guilty?[8]
The defendant’s witnesses to character were all eminent men: Mr. Liston, Lord Henry Stuart, Mr. Windham, Mr. Charles Yorke, the Earl of Minto, and Mr. John Reeves, successively testified to his loyalty, and thereby practically supported the non-libellous view of the matter. The defendant’s counsel, Mr. Adam, pointed out that the avowed object of the writer was “the support of good government in Ireland, and the removal of the present administration.” But in vain.
On the next day a civil action for damages was tried in the King’s Bench, brought by Mr. Plunkett, Solicitor-General for Ireland, on a passage in one of Juverna’s letters; the ground was all gone over again, and with a similar result. Mr. Erskine led the prosecution.
From this day Mr. Cobbett had a handle to his name, which his unreasoning and malicious foes—his envious, his beaten foes—could flourish at will. He was now a “Convicted Libeller.” And when you can call a man a convicted libeller or a convicted anything, you may fill the office of ass to the sick lion, not only with impunity, but with credit and distinction to yourself. You will even find many base admirers.
[1] A portrait (vide Frontispiece), engraved by Bartolozzi, appeared at the close of 1801. Cobbett appears in the surtout and neckcloth of the period, and has sufficient dignity of mien, notwithstanding his light hair and round face, and one’s impression that he would look as well in a smock-frock.
[2] I.e., independent, not only of subsidy, but of the shackles of party.
[3] It appears in the Political Register for July 30, 1803, and may be found sometimes in old collections of pamphlets and broadsides.
[4] “Annual Register,” 1804.
[5] Lord Colchester’s “Diary,” i. 463.
[6] A very funny pamphlet appeared about this time, which may be noticed as the first one of its kind, aimed at Cobbett’s Register. The title is “Elements of Opposition” (Hatchard, 1803), and it consists of a series of rules, founded upon the opinions of Cobbett:—“How to describe a prime minister;” “How to be outrageous for the public good;” “How to talk of what you do not know,” &c., &c. The pamphlet went through several editions.
[7] “It were idle trifling to impute the distractions and general backwardness of that country to any other cause than the circumstances in which she has been placed, and the example or wish of those to whose management she has been entrusted.”—“Annual Register,” 1804.
[8] Jeremy Bentham, in an article on “The Elements of Packing, as applied to Juries,” comments on this affair. Had he been upon the jury, he “should not have regarded it as consistent with his oath and duty to join in a verdict of guilty.” Bentham, also, has a capital note on the impunity of men of family, and the punishment due to men of no family, called forth by a question of the Attorney-General. It certainly was an unnecessary piece of meanness on the part of Perceval to ask, “Gentlemen, who is Mr. Cobbett? Is he a man of family in this country? Is he a man writing purely from motives of patriotism?” &c.—“Works,” v. 66, 80, 106, &c.
The end of this affair was the prosecution of Judge Johnson himself, in the following year. Cobbett had delivered up the anonymous MS., with the admission that the envelope had the Dublin post-mark. The handwriting was then traced to the worthy judge. The newspapers which were not slavish supporters of Government greatly disapproved of the affair; the Morning Chronicle being especially bold in the expression of its contempt. The judge retired in 1806, upon a pension of 1200l. a year.
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.…”
This period (the summer and autumn of 1804) is also to be noted as that during which Mr. Cobbett’s political opinions underwent a change. Much twaddle has been written and uttered, during the last seventy years, upon this celebrated “change.” The present biographer, heedless of all that has been said, does not intend to argue out any calumnies, from beginning to end of the story; but it is necessary here to note the first appearance of the change in question, because the selection from the correspondence, which will now be placed before the reader, makes occasional reference to Mr. Cobbett’s growing animosity to “the race that plunder the people,” to the “court-sycophants, parasites, pensioners, bribed senators, directors, contractors, jobbers, hireling lords, and ministers of state,” which, he was now beginning to discover, were not the people of England, in the strict sense of the word. He had been leading the opposition to Mr. Pitt for a year or two past, and was now for the first time showing an inclination to break altogether from the shackles of party.
During his absence, Mr. Wright acted as sub-editor of the Register; and it will be seen that even his labours could not have been light. Nearly every letter to him, enclosing copy for the Register, implores him to read the MS. carefully, and “make corrections as to grammar or phraseology, and supply omissions; for I cannot read a word of it.”
[Wm. C. to J. Wright.] … “I thank you for sending the selection of newspapers. They afford me excellent matter for comment. I think I have posed them about the car project.[5] They know not what to say. There are some very good things in the Chronicle upon this subject. The little letter in Wednesday’s paper is delicious. The Methodist meeting[6] is not less so. That’s the tone to take. I cannot enough abhor the wretches who would revive, at this critical moment, the hideous cry of Jacobinism. This is a subject upon which the selfish dogs ought to be incessant lashed, till all the nation hates them—and the time is most proper for it. I wish you would endeavour to inculcate this notion with all whom you know. Nothing would tend more to the subjugation of the country than the revival of this most mischievous cry. I shall not cease my endeavours; but do you use yours also.
“Before you come down, which will be about the 7th of September, I suppose, I will tell you what we do about leaving the house. I like your idea very well. In order that you may be quite clear by Saturday, or the Friday afternoon, you shall have the last of my copy for next Register, on Wednesday morning. But you must read the proofs.…”
“… I beg you not to be out in the evening, lest some robbery should be committed. If anything should be the matter of James, pray send to Mr. Teggart immediately.…”
“… Urry received his money. And you will send me another just such sum by next post. I have had entrance money and fees to pay for seven children, clothing, trunks, &c., &c., to pay for; and we have been obliged to buy table and bed linen for ourselves, together with a suit of clothes for John and another for me, lest people should take me for a heathen philosopher.… We go to church here. I hope the saints will not be jealous at this!”
“… My articles do not make so much as I expected I should have time to write. I began yesterday at nine o’clock, and I finish now at six for the post—thirty-three hours, including eating, drinking, and sleeping time.… Pray read the whole with great care, before and after it is set up.
“We went our journey yesterday, and it is now fixed that Nanny goes to school at Winchester, and the boys at Twyford, on Saturday the 22nd instant. We shall stay at Botley till about the 2nd or 3rd of October, and then we shall go and cram ourselves into the cursed smoke again. It is just possible, however, that we may stay in the country till near the middle of the month.… In addition to the things mentioned in my memorandum, I request you to send the following by the mail-coach, in a new parcel:—
“My famous breeches.
“A new pamphlet of Lord Lauderdale, in answer to the Edinburgh reviewers, just advertised.
“Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws;—in the book-case, I believe.”
“… Now, as to the school project, it has failed. William tells me that something is continually making him cry. When he saw me, he was ready to burst. He is going back, but the others will stay. You have helped to make him so in love with home, and you must have the teaching of him another year or two. His mother cannot live without him yet, and they must be humoured.… Am I never to have my fine breeches, or did you mean only to tantalize me?”
“… I am alarmed that you have inserted Hibernicus[7] without my seeing it. I hope there is nothing violent or personal? Send me, in the parcel with the population abstract, the letter from Montrose; and pray put in nothing without my seeing it. A trip at this time would be ruinous. I am very uneasy till I see Hibernicus.… As the air of Botley is so favourable to the Muses, I shall write two more Registers in it. Indeed, we cannot quit it sooner. I think I shall, in my letters to the Grand Charlatan, make good ground for us all to stand upon. The first point, the corner-stone, is well placed.[8] … Mrs. C. sends her compliments. The boys want to see you again. There is, we think, a large day-school mixed with boarders in Dean’s Yard, Westminster, for William—will you ask? He is too young and weak to be taken from our table to sup upon bread-and-cheese and water!”
“… Observe well, that two words in Mr. Bonney’s letter must be left out—the word ‘excellent’ in the first sentence, and the word ‘pensioned’ in the last. The word ‘pensioned’ would not be safe; the word ‘excellent’ is an injury to B.’s letter, and is, on every account, much better left out; as, indeed, compliments to myself always should be, appearing as I do in my own name, and not as an editor. Take care that they are both left out.… Insert the article upon the stamp duties, but be very careful of the words.”
The foregoing extracts, from letters written in September and October, 1804, throw some light for the first time on Cobbett’s happy domestic circle; they are dated from Itchen and from Botley, at either of which places the family were then visiting. The affectionate tenderness towards his children is here shown to have been an active principle, and we shall have further glimpses as we proceed. But the most striking thing here apparent is his sensitiveness on the score of personal offence, on the part of himself or his correspondents. The galloping pace at which he wrote, and his negligence as to reviewing what he had written, were sufficiently perilous; and another “Juverna” affair was not to be thought of.
Other extracts might be made; but the references to current politics would be too obscure, without much detailed explanation. The following will show, however, the general drifting of Cobbett’s views:—