CHAPTER XV.

“I DID DESTROY THEIR POWER TO ROB US, ANY LONGER, WITHOUT THE ROBBERY BEING PERCEIVED.”

In September, 1806, Mr. Charles James Fox died, and left one of the seats for Westminster at the disposal of the Whigs. For several years there had been a truce between the Whigs and the Tories, over this celebrated constituency, and each party was represented there. Accordingly, Earl Percy was quietly suffered to succeed to Mr. Fox.

The Whig nominee was no sooner elected, however, than a dissolution, which had been for some time imminent, took place, and the two factions, in their mutual consent, put up Mr. Sheridan and Admiral Hood, Lord Percy having declined to come forward again. Sheridan was a man who was for the winning side, whichever it might be, and he now laid claim to the mantle of Mr. Fox, whose name and whose party had been steadily growing into favour.

During the summer and autumn, Mr. Cobbett had been lecturing the electors of Westminster upon their duties. He pointed out that, with such traditions as theirs, there was less excuse for “base conduct” than in any other body of electors; yet, that the constituency was sinking to the level of a nomination-borough. _Base conduct_ meant: clamouring against “peculators and depredators,” and then being led by the nose by men who not only “clamoured,” but pledged their word to reform, and to inquire into abuses; and who, immediately they got a snug office, found ready excuses for the non-fulfilment of their promises. The case in point was that of Mr. Sheridan, who, now that he was treasurer to the navy, declined to bring forward charges which he had threatened, “lest he should thereby create divisions in the ministry, that is to say, lest he should lose his place.” Mr. Cobbett was requested by a small section to come forward himself; but he refused. The advertisement in the _Morning Post_ of 19th September, announces his determination (vide note, p. 14). But he was actually proposed, on the hustings, by a Mr. Hewlings.

Mr. Cobbett’s candidate was James Paull:--

“A Scotchman who had been in India, who had been in Parliament during two sessions, who had brought articles of charge against the elder Wellesley for his conduct while Governor-General of India, who was a little man in point of size, who talked pretty well, who wrote better than half of the 658, who was perfectly honest and disinterested, and who was brave to the backbone, and persevering beyond any man. The Whigs had all along been deceiving this Mr. Paull, as they always have done every one else who has trusted in them. They, by leading him to believe that they would support his charge against old Wellesley, induced him to go on with the charges until they themselves got into power, and _then they turned against him_, and set all their whispering myrmidons to work to spread about that he had been a tailor, and that he was only accusing Lord Wellesley in order to get some money from him. I became acquainted with Mr. Paull, from his having been introduced to me by Mr. Windham, who strongly urged me to render him any assistance in my power in his undertaking against Wellesley; and I can truly say, that a more disinterested and honourable man I never knew in my life.

“At this election, therefore, Mr. Paull was fixed upon for us to put forward, in order to break up the infamous combination of these two factions, and to rescue Westminster from the disgrace of submitting to them any longer. This was _my work_:[1] it was my own project: I paved the way to it by my addresses to the people of Westminster.… Hood was the Tory candidate; Sheridan the Whig candidate, having Whitbread and Peter Moore for his bottle-holders. They beat the people, but it was such a beat as pronounced their doom for the future, as far as Westminster was concerned. At the close of the election, Hood and the base Sheridan slipped away from the hustings into the Church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, just opposite the porch of which the hustings stood, and there they were locked up nearly all the night, with constables and policeman to guard the church.… Being in November, there was a plentiful supply of mud, with which the honourable representatives were covered all over from the forehead down to their shoes. I never shall forget them. They looked just like a couple of rats, raked up from the bottom of a sewer; and the High Bailiff, and his books, and his clerks, and his beadles, were all covered over in the same manner.”

Mr. Paull had started at the top of the poll. But as the days wore on, the others gained slowly upon him, until, at the close, he was left in a small minority. It was found, however, upon an analysis of the voting, that Paull had polled 3077 plumpers, against Sheridan’s 955, and Sir Samuel Hood’s 1033, whilst the coalition of the two latter had given them each 3240 split votes. Paull’s total was 4481. These figures were solemnly put upon record by the friends of reform (as they now called themselves), in order to show “the manner in which Mr. Paull had been defeated.”

An interesting conflict ensued, between Cobbett and Sheridan, which must not go unnoticed. When the former was attacked by Sheridan in parliament, in August, 1803 (as before related), it was a wilful and unnecessary throwing down of the gauntlet. Mr. Sheridan was not the man who should find fault with another’s popularity-hunting, much less another’s inconsistency; and Mr. Cobbett proceeded to give him the inevitable “Series of Letters,”[2] with which he usually favoured the objects of his animadversion. Mr. Sheridan, now crowing on the Westminster hustings, imputes _low birth_ to his opponents; Mr. Paull’s father was only a tailor, and, as for his bottle-holder, why all the world knows his story. And all the world (except Mr. Sheridan) might have guessed what would have come of that. “Whence came the Sheridans? From a play-actor! from a member of that profession, the followers of which are, in our wise laws, considered and denominated _vagabonds_.” And Mr. Cobbett proceeds further, and wants to know what are the public services of these persons, Sheridan and his son Thomas, that they should be receiving between seven and eight thousand pounds of the public money? So Tom Sheridan offers to fight, according to a speech of his own at a Sheridan dinner:--

“This man, for his roughness and vulgarity towards my father (whom I think I may fairly describe as the person in whom eloquence may be said to preside), I had intended to thrash, and for that purpose I went down to his house with a cane, but he was not at home. I afterwards thought it best to offer him a pistol, and wrote to him for the purpose, but this valiant Mr. Cobbett answered me by saying that he never fought duels.”

Of course, the only utility of this sort of thing, was to provide material for satire; and Cobbett, on his part, never failed to remind Sheridan of his foibles, nor ceased to look upon his “statesmanship” with the contempt it deserved.

* * * * *

The result of this general election was promising enough, to the increasing band of reformers. But, another dissolution, in the following spring, gave a still greater impulse to the popular feeling. Sir Francis Burdett and Lord Cochrane headed the poll at Westminster, leaving Elliott (a Windhamite), Sheridan, and Paull out in the cold. It was as early as this that Mr. Cobbett began to suspect Burdett’s sincerity concerning Reform; and he refused, on account of Sir Francis declining to act with Paull,[3] to interfere in this election, although Lord Cochrane begged him to do so. But the powerful _Register_ was as active as ever in the contest of principles which was being waged.

* * * * *

We may now glance at some of the correspondence of this winter, 1806-7.

“… This last expression puts me in mind of what I thought to mention to you in my last; and that is, my intention to _insure my life_. A small sum annually will be well laid out this way; and I feel that I ought to do it. My family is now large, and it is my bounden duty to do all I am able to provide for them in the manner that least exposes them to chance. Pray inquire about this, and let me know the result of your inquiries in a few days.

“We send you by the waggon of to-night a fine hamper of garden things, two fowls, and a chine included, which we think will be acceptable. Pray send us back the hamper by the waggon, and also a hamper from Mr. Paull’s. There is a box at Mr. Paull’s with flower-roots in it. You may as well send it too.

“Ellen is to be christened on Thursday. Mrs. Cobbett begs you will send off by to-morrow night’s mail-coach a good lusty twelfth-cake for the christening.… Your letters are very cheerful, and, I can assure you, they come to a very healthy and happy house.

“I propose, in future, to write to you only upon Fridays, and that you shall write to me only upon Tuesdays, except upon particular occasions.… In order that I may profit as much as possible from your correspondence you should begin a sheet and fill it up as thoughts or facts occur.”

A chronic complaint of Cobbett’s, throughout his life, was being exposed to the payment of unfranked letters. A renewed notice to friends and correspondents appears in January, 1807, informing them that he will not take in such letters. A message to Mr. Wright, about this time, gives him directions on the subject, and mentions that 12_s._ a week would not pay the postage of letters, of no use at all, and many of them sent merely for persecution.

“… The whole world united would not shake my resolution to _reside in the country_. The opinions of ‘friends,’ experience has taught me not to prefer, upon all occasions, to my own; and you know as well as I do, that those ‘friends’ generally speak as convenience or interest dictate. As I know you are perfectly sincere in the regret that you express at not having an opportunity of seeing me and mine oftener, so you may be assured that the loss of the pleasure of frequently seeing you, my Lord Folkestone, Sir Francis Burdett, and one or two more, is the greatest, and indeed the only, drawback from the stock of comfort and of pleasure which this domestic and rural life affords me. It will be very convenient to us for you and Mr. Murphy to come at any time. We have had no company since my return from town, and we expect none; but I am sure that none that could come would render your and Mr. Murphy’s company at all inconvenient. The time you mention will be as good as any. The sooner the better; but you must stay a whole week. And bring good boots with you, for we shall make you ride a-coursing. The children talk of you every day of their lives. William has been out with us this morning, and we have had a course worth all the balls and routs and operas that the whole town ever saw. Hares are hard to find. We sometimes go out without seeing one; but, when we do find, upon these lofty hills and open commons, you can have no idea of the beauty of the course. It lasts but a minute or two or three; but in one minute these beautiful animals go more than a mile.

“… We intend putting William to a school at Salisbury; but I am resolved he shall waste none of his precious time upon the ‘learned languages.’[4] He reads and writes very tolerably well now; and, if I live so long, I hope to see him able to do something in the way of usefulness, in the space of five years from this. He has learnt to course already. To-day again (for we catch every fine open day) we had a course surpassing anything I ever saw in all my life. We were hardly upon the common when we found a hare _sitting_ (a very rare thing upon heath). All the rest, namely William, Frederick, and my man, took their stations in such places as enabled them to follow the dogs, and to see the course, whichever way she might take. I then went and started her. We had a course of thirty turns at least, and, after a very long and most beautiful course, we had the pleasure to see her save her life by darting to the copse with Princess not twelve feet behind her. The dogs were terribly cut and strained, but they will be well again before you and Mr. Murphy come.”

There is a great importation of American trees early this year, which gives Mr. Wright some trouble to attend to, out of his ordinary line; in return for which he is to have a farm some day, and American trees to beautify it with. He is expected at Botley again in March, and is to bring, amongst other matters, “two quarto blank books, with a good stiff cover, for Nancy to copy her grammar lessons in. I am teaching her; she learns very fast,” &c. And, they “all go to church of a Sunday.”

An impending duel between Mr. Elliott and Mr. Paull is alluded to in the following:--

“… The third is an article about Paull and Elliott. Leave out the words _manly_ and _excellent_ as applied to Paull’s letter; and, observe, soften every phrase that I have used in commendation of him or his conduct, if any such you find; for I now see that he has been challenging; and I will have nothing more to do with him, until I see a total change of conduct in this respect.”

“… I am glad Mr. Paull is exposed to no prosecution. I trust he will take great care. I have a hundred times warned him of his danger. They would imprison him as sure as he is alive.… I shall always defend Mr. Paull and his cause; but you know how I abhor anything covert; and, upon my word, I cannot say that a man who would consent to be sent to a hiding-place, ought to be believed upon his oath. Those that are used to such devices may look upon them calmly; but this is not, and I hope in God it never will be, the case with, yours, &c.”

A petition against Sheridan’s return for Westminster, on the part of Paull, now provided matter for discussion; and this, along with the unceasing campaign against sinecures, and the sudden dispersion of the _lost sheep_ (as “All the Talents” were now called), kept the ready writer going merrily. Too merrily, indeed; a little cloud was gathering. Lord Grenville confided to somebody, that Cobbett was destroying the characters of all public men. Lord Howick[5] became unfavourably impressed with his vehemence, and threatened prosecution. Above all, the anonymous press had no mercy upon him, although it prudently avoided fair discussion. In March, Wright is asked for his opinion as to men’s feelings, in town.

“As to the result, I fear nothing. And the way to fear nothing, is to act always fairly and honestly.”

Only let him have open ground to go upon, and a good sight at the enemy.

Early in April, Mr. Cobbett writes:--

“What you told me about Mitford’s report has given me some uneasiness, on account of the trouble that prosecutions would give me; but as to the House, the d---- House, I set it at defiance, if it will only confine its vengeance to its own villainous powers. It is not, however, worth while to make any inquiries. It would be a good jest for the Whigs to begin to prosecute now. I’ll assure you, I was most cursedly afraid of them before. Howick is a perfect Bashaw; and apostates are proverbially persecutors. God knows I need say no harm of either party. They furnish me with ample quantities of good and true censure of one another. I am deeply impressed with the necessity of caution; but if they are resolved to plague, plague they may. Should anything of this sort happen, I am determined to plead my own cause, be the consequence what it may.… This talk of prosecution has exasperated me against them beyond measure; and my own safety shall be the only standard of my vengeance. Villains! They profess liberty; they set their hired scoundrels to write me and truth out of countenance; and the moment they feel the weight of my lash, they talk of the law, that law against which they have so much enveighed, which they know to be so unjust, and the administration of which they know to be so basely partial.

“Cultivate Lord C[ochrane] and Colonel J[ohnstone]. They are good and true friends to us, and, what is more, to their country.

“Pray send the _Chronicle_, when there is any violent or severe attack upon ministers or Parliament. Green[6] has been complaining to Reeves. The mean dog! Reeves begs me to spare him. I shall tell Reeves the provocation. If the rascal thus smarts at a parenthesis, what would he do at a sentence such as I could treat him with? As to the line of politics, _safe_ is the word.… I hear that my friend Finnerty’s 100_l._ is coming out. Oh what a d---- thing this writing for hire is! The motion[7] has cost me more labour than I thought for, wishing to work in many interesting facts.…”

The new elections are coming on in April, and Mr. Cobbett is determined not to interfere, unless positively compelled. As soon as the election is over, he will “set about writing sober essays of _exposure_: quote from official documents, state the bare facts, and lament, as I most sincerely do, the inevitable consequences.” He foresees the inutility of Mr. Paull contesting Westminster again, and the event proves that he is right. But he continues his unasked-for advice to the electors. And he does keep to facts, facts which all who have eyes may see. Seats in Parliament are being openly advertised for sale in the daily papers,[8]--in _Whig_ papers; and this villainous scribbler presses for an explanation, particularly from that party which is always flaunting the flag of 1688, and which yet rails at him, and abuses him, and calls him nicknames, for trying to hold them to their principles.

As for his own writings, conscious though he be of their power and clearness, and of the admiration excited by them in the minds of all who are not the recipients of his lashing, he will be more than ever guarded in expression:--

“… I see the fangs of the law open to grasp me, and I feel the necessity of leaving no hold for them, and even no ground for silly cavillers, upon the score of coarseness or violence. I am armed with undeniable facts, and my reasoning (at least in my own opinion of it) shall be as undeniably conclusive. The times are auspicious to us, and we have nothing to fear but the effects of ungovernable indignation.”

“… As to the ‘large pamphlet that is coming out against us all,’ the larger it is, the better it will be for the author; for the fewer people will read it, and the fewer the readers, the fewer those who will despise him. That any creature upon two legs should be so foolish!”

In the early part of this history, allusion was made to the growing impoverishment of the labouring classes. A quarter of a century was now elapsed, since the Hereditary Pauper started into being; and his race was now numbered by the million. The parishes were raising six millions sterling, for purposes of relief; and the recipients were going steadily down, down, down. They were becoming practically enslaved. The average rural labourer was now feeding upon bread, vegetables, and water. His children were uneducated; his wife was in rags; his dwelling was either a ruin or a hovel.

And, it is very curious matter for reflection, to note how ready the comfortable classes were to acquiesce in tolerating this state of things. Schemes of amelioration were broached by a few, but they were generally based upon a total ignorance of first-cause. Your social tinker,--amiable, bland, and very serious,--caught a glimpse of the poor wretches so far beneath him; and, straightway recollecting the words of Scripture, that the poor should “never cease out of the land,” opened his purse-strings, exhorted his friends to do the like,--and left matters worse than before.[9] Your local authority, and your parson-pluralist, deeply impressed with the need of preserving the “indispensable gradations of society,” in their full integrity, refused a cow to the cottager, lest he should be thereby rendered too independent! absolutely ignorant of the fact, that forty or fifty years previously, the rural labourer not only had his cow,--but his pigs, his geese, his beer, and his bacon, and a tolerable share of the comforts of life: his outward condition, in point of fact, being scarcely inferior to that of the farmers, and even the clergy, around him.

Now, in this year of grace 1807, there was no man living who was a better authority on this topic, than the hero of these pages. And, what is more, there was no living being, who had a tenderer sympathy with the wants and the wailings of the meanest fellow-creature; be it a skylark, or be it a ploughboy.

And the tinkers, and the tailors, solemnly going to work with new patches, the only end of which must be the further enslavement and degradation of the poor; and the end of which could not possibly be the healing of their stomachs, or the mending of their breeches and their gowns; he now bursts out,--

“I, for my part, should not be at all surprised, if some one were to propose the selling of the poor, or the mortgaging of them to the fund-holders. Ay! you may wince; you may cry Jacobin and Leveller as long as you please. I WISH TO SEE THE POOR MEN OF ENGLAND WHAT THE POOR MEN OF ENGLAND WERE WHEN I WAS BORN; AND FROM ENDEAVOURING TO ACCOMPLISH THIS WISH NOTHING BUT THE WANT OF MEANS SHALL MAKE ME DESIST.”

Mr. Whitbread’s Poor Law Bills[10] of 1807 were the present occasion of the subject being before the public.

The income-tax was ten per cent., and the quartern loaf averaged eleven-pence, at this period; whilst the wages of the rural labourer were so low, that the parish universally supplemented them in the form of relief. This practice, indeed, had become such an abuse, that the farmer would refuse to employ men at fair wages--throw them upon the workhouse,--and then take their labour upon the reduced scale paid out of the rates; thus entailing upon his neighbours a share of the expenses of his own establishment. In many parishes _every_ labourer was a pauper.

At the same time, capitalists and stock-jobbers were amassing wealth, in an unprecedented degree; whilst more than a million sterling, annually, was diverted from the public resources, into the pockets of sinecurists. All the idleness and luxury, thus created, helped to augment the price of the necessaries of life; and the inevitable consequences of unproductive expenditure ensued, in a continued diminution of the resources of those persons who earned their living.

And what was the _bolus_, proposed to be applied for the cure of this alarming cancer? _Educate the children of the poor!_ Positively! As though the children of the poor (at least, of the rural poor) did not pick up their education day by day, from the moment that they could crawl out into the fields to scare away the rooks; as though ploughing, mowing, threshing, and reaping,--loading a waggon, and guiding a team, could not be better acquired, on the old lines, than by having the unreceptive bucolic brain first gorged with reading, writing, and arithmetic! And this new reforming agency, mark you, was to be a further expense to the rate-payers; already at their wits’ end to know how, themselves, to keep the wolf from the door. Is it any wonder, then, that persons who, like Mr. Cobbett, not only knew the real wants and temptations, and difficulties of the labourer, raised their voices indignantly?

That it should be imputed to the poor, that it was their IGNORANCE and VICE which had brought them low: that any other cause, but the increase of luxurious idlers, and the draining of the national resources by exorbitant taxation, could lie at the root of the evil: that a generation of plutocrats should have grown up, who looked upon the “lower orders” as of less consequence than their horses, their dogs, and their poultry, was not to be borne in silence, whilst the pen of a ready writer was at hand to defy such thoughtless misrepresentation.

From this time, then, until the period of his death, Cobbett’s voice was raised on behalf of the suffering Labouring Classes of England. An adequate return for their labour, and some respect toward them as fellow-creatures, he was determined to get; and he would suffer no opposition, no ignominy, to hinder his endeavours.

* * * * *

But, what was his own practice; and what was the condition of the labourers in his own service?

Precisely that, which could alone render them independent and prosperous. He would have no paupers; and, although they were, generally, married men with families, no one was allowed to remain in his service who required parish assistance. As he gave high wages, and provided them with a free dwelling, the need of this stipulation is obvious. But, they had to work for it all: Mr. Cobbett would have a day’s work for a day’s pay; and so have no obligation left, on either side, when they came to eventide. Men might be independent, and they might be saucy, too; but better these, a thousand times, than cringing hypocrisy,--than the enslavement of idleness at starvation-pay.

Not only this: Mr. Cobbett’s was a measure full and running over;--

“My house was always open to give them victuals and drink whenever they happened to come to it, and to supply them with little things necessary to them in case of illness; and in case of illness their wages always went on just as if they had been well.”

Seventy years will pass away, and carry off with them most direct evidence, leaving little beyond shadowy traditions. But there are, yet living at Botley, aged persons who were long in Mr. Cobbett’s service, as gardeners and farm-labourers. And these persons, one and all, represent his days at Botley as a time of exceptional comfort and well-being; and his service as one of well-paid, hard-working earnestness. Hated and envied by some of his neighbours, he was maligned, and abused, and misrepresented, as earnest people always are;[11] but there were a far greater number, who welcomed the current of joy, and freedom, to which he had given rise. And the recollection of his name will still restore a transient smile to the withered features of a man, whose lengthened span of life may be due, in great measure, to the habits of industry and thrift and independence acquired in the service of William Cobbett.

FOOTNOTES

[1] All this sketch (in Cobbett’s own words, written in 1832) is as faithful as it is graphic. The event provided ample resource for the witlings of the day. See, for example, “A History of the Westminster Election in November, 1806,” with its coloured picture of the hustings; also, “The Rising Sun; a Serio-comic Satiric Romance,” vol. ii., in which Paull’s bottle-holder appears as _Mr. Cobwell_, a man of great talents and strength of mind,” &c.

[2] Afterwards collected into a volume, under the title of “The Political Proteus: a view of the Character and Conduct of R. B. Sheridan, Esq.,” &c., and published by Budd and others. Sheridan’s “dramatic loyalty” (as it was happily expressed), was a constant theme of the caricaturists of the day. Cobbett makes a note, in one of his “summaries,” of twenty-five public pledges which Sheridan had abandoned, and promises that they shall be “detailed one of these days.”

[3] The misunderstanding between Burdett and Paull culminated in a duel, in which both were wounded. The affair was a rather silly one, and brought out some wit. Mr. Paull was a little, fiery man, or he would have succeeded better as a politician. Mr. Horne Tooke said to him one day, “You are a bold man, and I am certain you’ll succeed; only, as Cobbett says, _keep yourself cool_.”

[4] “The Learned Languages” was the title of a controversy which arose in the _Register_ early in 1807. Mr. Cobbett was out of his sphere on this topic, and his correspondents (who were at all humorous) saw a ready application of the fable concerning a fox who had lost his tail. Others were more serious, and thought that the knowledge of the Latin and Greek classics “kept together the higher orders of society, and separate from the lower orders.”

[5] Afterwards Earl Grey, who carried the Reform Bill of 1832.

[6] Otherwise John Gifford. Cobbett had made an allusion to his change of name, parenthetically adding, “for cogent reasons, no doubt.”

[7] Mr. Robson’s renewed motion on the Barrack-office. Cobbett prepared and wrote out these motions for him.

[8] “Seat in a Certain Assembly.--Any gentleman having the disposal of a close one may apply,” &c., &c.--_Morning Post_, May 1, 1807.

“A Certain Great Assembly.--Fourteen hundred guineas per annum will be given for a seat in the above Assembly. Letters addressed to,” &c., &c.--_Morning Chronicle_, May 21, 1807.

[9] Even Mr. Wilberforce, busied with the wrongs of distant races, had remarkably low and narrow views concerning the _lower orders_ of his own country, as he called them. In 1801, he “nearly resolves” to move in Parliament for a grant of one million for their relief! At another time he thinks Government should relieve, privately, some of the distress, “and afterwards allege that they did not do so publicly for fear of producing a mischievous effect abroad.” And one’s patience is almost exhausted at hearing him call the people “tainted” with disaffection, when everybody knows they are starving. _Vide_ his “Life, &c.,” iii., 3, 6, 13.

[10] Samuel Whitbread (1758-1815) had entered Parliament in 1790, and became an adherent of Mr. Fox, after whose death he was one of the principal leaders of opposition. A genuine philanthropist, guided by deep religious impressions, he spent a large portion of his wealth in endeavouring to ameliorate the condition of the poor, in and around his Bedfordshire estates.

[11] On one occasion, in the summer of 1809, there was a grand field-day over “Cobbett, the Oppressor of the Poor,” &c., &c. A boy in his service had absconded, after having received his wages beforehand; and, being brought before the magistrates at Winchester, was sent to prison for a week. But, through some informality on the part of the constable who arrested him, the relatives of the boy were induced to bring an action against Cobbett, the constable, and another local officer, the damages being laid at one thousand pounds! The papers were, instantly, full of the affair; several columns appeared in the _Post_, to the exclusion of important war news; Gillray had a picture of the oppressor thrashing the naked boy tied to a post; women of fashion came to see the poor creature in prison. The three defendants had to pay ten pounds between them; and the fact of _a conviction_ was sufficient for exulting detractors. The boy afterwards admitted, however, that he ran away from Mr. Cobbett’s because he had to get up as early as his master.

“In private life Mr. Cobbett is an exceedingly pleasant companion, and an excellent husband and father. It has been asserted that he is harsh to those who are in his service, but this appears to me to be a calumny. That he expects his labourers to perform their duty is certain, and in this he is truly their friend. Industrious himself, he hates idleness in others. But he is willing to pay them liberally, and to contribute to their happiness. I have been more than once at Botley, and must say that I have never anywhere seen such excellent cottages, gardens, and other comforts appropriated to the labouring class as those which he erected and laid out on his estate.”--(From “Public Characters of All Nations,” Sir R. Phillips, Lond., 1823).

Alexander Somerville once met with a former Botley servant of Cobbett’s, who declared that he “would never wish to serve a better master.” (“The Whistler at the Plough,” p. 263, Lond., 1852).