October, 1792, landed in America, where they took up their abode at Wilmington, and afterwards at Philadelphia. The French Revolution was at this time in full progress, and was marked every day by greater excesses: consequently the number of French people who were emigrating to America. was large. Cobbett soon found that he was able to gain his livelihood by teaching English. He also occupied his time by writing a French grammar, and by translating various French books into English.

At this time memories of the War of Independence were fresh in the mind of every citizen of the New Republic. The newspapers and public feeling generally in America were strongly anti-British, and in favour of the principles of the French Revolution. This made Cobbett a vigorous defender of his own country and of the monarchical system. In 1794, when Dr. Priestley, the well-known scientist-who had been forced to leave England on account of his revolutionary principles-was received in America with enthusiastic addresses of welcome, Cobbett published his Observations on Priestley's Emigration, a pamphlet giving an account of Priestley's antecedents, and strongly condemning the revolutionary ideas promulgated by him. The pamphlet was most successful. Not only did it sell readily, but it brought its author under the favourable notice of the British Government as a man likely to be able to give them valuable support. Other political squibs followed during the next two years, the proceeds of which brought in about 801. or 90l. to the author.

In 1796 he started in business as a bookseller and publisher, and his next enterprise was to launch a daily newspaper, under the title of Porcupine's Gazette. Party feeling ran high at the time, but Cobbett was no timid defender of his mother country. His violent attacks on Republicanism excited considerable opposition and rendered him an object of suspicion. In 1799 he was indicted for a libel on the King of Spain, but the Grand Jury threw out the Bill. He was not, however, so fortunate in the action brought against him by Dr. Rush. The city of Philadelphia had suffered from several epidemics of yellow fever. Dr. Rush had conceived the happy idea that copious bleedings would serve to restore the strength of the unhappy patient, already undermined by this dreadful disease. Cobbett could generally detect a fool, and, moreover, Rush had incurred his displeasure by the fact of being a zealous Republican. He dubbed him a quack, and with merciless

Newspaper Enterprises.

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satire drew a parallel between Dr. Sangrado, in “Gil Blas,” and the unhappy doctor. In self-defence, Rush was compelled to take action, and in December, 1799, the case was tried, resulting in a verdict for the plaintiff, with 5,000 dollars damages. Cobbett had already made arrangements for the removal of his business to New York, but the result of the trial and the severity of the verdict seemed to upset him. As he had several flattering invitations to return to England, he suddenly changed his plans, and he landed in England in July, 1800, after a residence in America of nearly eight years.

Cobbett settled in London, with no great store of money in his pocket, but with good prospects. He had discovered his own ability as a writer, and having always, during the time that he lived in America, fearlessly proclaimed his anti-republican principles, he was looked upon with favour by the Government. In particular, he was most graciously received by Mr. Windham, then Secretary of State for War, and he had an interview with Mr. Pitt, who was then Premier.

He was offered the management of a Government newspaper, but he preferred to preserve his independence. He started a daily paper called The Porcupine, which was continued for a short time, but was superseded in January, 1802, by Cobbett's Political Register. This famous paper was issued weekly, with one short interval, from this date till Cobbett's death. It seems to have been, from the first, a commercial success, and it may be conjectured that his business as a publisher was also proving lucrative. In 1803 he started the Parliamentary Debates, which subsequently merged into "Hansard."

Cobbett had always been a lover of the country, and he abominated the "Wens," as he designated the large centres of population. Accordingly, about 1805, he took a house at Botley, in Hampshire, and also purchased a farm of 300 acres. Here he had the pleasure of being able to carry on his literary work, and at the same time to devote his leisure to his favourite pursuits of farming and gardening. He applied himself in particular to tree-planting, and imported several American species, an account of which will be found in The Woodlands, published twenty years later.

But an event was soon to happen, which rudely interrupted Cobbett's enjoyment of the country and its pursuits. The years which followed 1802 had brought a great increase of wealth to capitalists and landowners, but had been years of increased impoverishment for labourers, thereby engendering a

disaffected spirit between different classes of society. Cobbett had warmly espoused the cause of the poor, and had been untiring in his attacks on the Government, which, in his opinion, was responsible for the prevailing distress.

Consequently, the Editor of the Political Register was no longer regarded with favour by those in power; on the contrary he was looked upon as a dangerous person, to the dissemination of whose unorthodox writings it would be advisable to put a stop at the earliest opportunity. This opportunity was given in the year 1809 under the following circumstances. A paragraph appeared in the papers that year stating that a mutiny had broken out among the Militia at Ely, but that it had fortunately been suppressed by the help of the German Legion who had arrived from Bury St. Edmunds, and that the ringleaders in the revolt had been sentenced to 500 lashes each.

It may well be imagined that Cobbett, who was always ready to uphold his country's cause, and who always considered an Englishman as good a man as any foreigner, if not considerably better, did not omit to give the readers of the Register his opinions on this scandal. The so-called mutiny, and the causes which led to it, seem to have been of a very trivial character. Cobbett, after pointing out the brutality and savagery of the sentence, and ironically praising Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Huskisson for their action, proceeds to draw a comparison between this treatment of English soldiers and that attributed by popular imagination to the conscripts of Napoleon, concluding with these words: "I hope this will teach the loyal a lesson; they tell us of the force and cruelty which Napoleon used to get together his conscripts, and that the people of France hate him. I hope the loyal will in future be more cautious, now that they see our gallant defenders require a little blood drawn from their backs, and that, too, with the aid and assistance of German soldiers.”

So moderate an article would certainly be allowed to remain unnoticed in these more tolerant days of newspaper criticism; but at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Press was regarded with suspicion and disfavour, and it was resolved to make an example of the journalist who had dared to retain his own independence and to write of things as he saw them. Criminal proceedings were taken against him for a seditious libel, and, after a year's delay, he was brought to trial in June, 1810, before the Lord Chief Justice and three other judges. The Attorney General prosecuted, and the Lord Chief Justice

Trial and Imprisonment for Seditions Libel.

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directed the jury that the article complained of constituted a seditious libel. It only remained for them to deliberate, which took them two minutes, and to find him guilty.

The sentence passed upon him, viz., imprisonment for two years and a fine of 1,000l., was as ferocious as that meted out to the Ely mutineers. Apart from all other considerations, this sentence was a great strain on Cobbett from a monetary point of view, as, in addition to the large fine imposed upon him and the very heavy legal expenses which he had incurred, he had to pay heavily to escape from being associated with ordinary convicted criminals, while his business and his farm must have suffered owing to his enforced absence. It is evident that he bore his adversity manfully, for he contrived to publish the Register regularly, and also to produce other works during his incarceration. His sentence was regarded as excessive by people of all shades of opinion, while both in England and America the opponents of military flogging were incited to fresh efforts in their agitation against the practice.

Cobbett came out of prison in 1812. The condition of the country at this time was deplorable. A rapidly increasing population, the high prices of all necessaries of life, due to the heaviness of taxation and a scandalous mal-administration of the Poor Law, combined to make thrift impossible and the condition of the labouring classes insupportable. Riots were of frequent occurrence, and were met by the Government with severe methods of repression. Cobbett continued to boldly urge the necessity for Parliamentary reform as the only remedy against these evils, though the mere fact of advocating such a drastic change was regarded by the timid Government of the day almost in the light of a crime. The greater the cry for reform, the more active did the law officers of the Crown become in ferreting out sedition in the words and writings of all who had the temerity to agitate for it.

In 1817 the Government considered that the safety of the country could only be secured by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and it now became clear to Cobbett that he must either moderate the tone of the Register or else make up his mind to again stand his trial for sedition, the result of which could only end in his condemnation. With great decision he grasped the horns of the dilemma, and adopted a plan which allowed him to continue with unabated vigour his onslaughts on the rottenness of the Parliamentary system, while at the same time it rendered him safe from the vengeance of those whom he

attacked. In March, 1817, the Register contained an address explaining the position of affairs and stating that he was on the point of embarking for the United States, from whence he hoped to continue the publication of the paper unchanged. He landed in America in May of the same year, and took up his residence at a farm at Hampstead, in Long Island.

Cobbett, during the latter half of his life, was such a prominent figure in the country as a political writer, and was so unsparing a critic of the Government, that his biographers are prone to lose sight of the fact that he was also a practical farmer, and that his contributions to the advancement of agriculture were of no mean order. He was, by birth, a son of the soil; and advancing years served only to intensify his powers of close observation and his delight in the processes of nature.

His project of continuing, from the further side of the Atlantic, his merciless exposure in the Political Register of the misgovernment and corruption from which his country was suffering, without being exposed to the vengeance of those who were responsible for this state of things, was entirely successful. But the undertaking of a removal with his household to the New World, and of continuing, from thence, in his Register, the political instruction of the inhabitants of the Old World, was not sufficient for a man of his untiring energy. Not only did he find time to carry on a farm on which he himself worked like a common labourer, but his Year's Residence in America is a useful volume containing, amongst other matter, a most interesting American "Farmer's Year, besides a detailed account of some successful experiments in the growth of swedes, cabbages, Indian corn, &c.

The following passage from the preface to the Year's Residence is of interest as showing that in undertaking to give his fellow-countrymen instruction in agriculture, Cobbett felt he might be laying himself open to the reproach of the proverb, "Ne sutor supra crepidam." He says that it may be suggested to the reader to ask "how it is that much can be known on the subject of farming by a man, who, for thirtysix out of fifty-two years of his life has been a soldier or a political writer, and who, of course, has spent so large a part of his time in garrisons and in great cities."

He then gives the answer as follows:-" Early habits and affections seldom quit us while we have vigour of mind left.

1 See foot-note on page 1.