INTRODUCTION 



Perhaps, as his biographers have suggested, his departure was 

 quickened by financial troubles. The Quarterly Review said 

 that he &quot; fled from his creditors. That he should do this was 

 perfectly natural ; the thing to be admired is, that such a man 

 should have creditors to flee from.&quot; But clearly it was not only 

 his debts that urged his flight. 



He had left America, in 1800, a Tory, an anti-democrat ; but 

 now, in 1817, he returned a Radical, smarting and denouncing 

 the institutions and the masters of his native country. Often in 

 the Register, which he still directed and contributed to during 

 his exile, and in the following pages, he contrasted the maleficence 

 of the English system with the freedom of the American the 

 freedom of speech and the press, the lightness of the taxes, the 

 independence of the people : 



&quot; To see a free country for once, and to see every labourer 

 with plenty to eat and drink ! Think of that ! And never 

 to see the hang-dog face of a tax-gatherer. Think of 

 that ! No Alien Acts here ! No long-sworded and 

 whiskered Captains. No Judges escorted from town to 

 town and sitting under the guard of dragoons. No packed 

 juries of tenants. No Crosses. No Bolton Fletchers. No 

 hangings and rippings up. No Castleses and Olivers. 

 No Stewarts and Perries. No Cannings, Liverpools, 

 Castlereaghs, Eldons, Ellenboroughs or Sidmouths. No 

 Bankers. No Squeaking Wynnes. No Wilberforces. 

 Think of that. No Wilberforces ! &quot; 



Though he speaks with the tongue of men and of stern angels, 

 humour is still heard ; there is still an enjoyment of his own 

 phrase, a satisfaction in his own grotesque imaginations. 



He had found himself forgotten when he arrived in America, 

 and acquiesced in this unusual experience, occupying himself 

 with the purchase and cultivation of his farm, and planning 

 and writing, among other books, the enormously popular English 

 Grammar. His family and other letters from America are pleasant 

 enough in their hints of rural felicity only half complete ; it is 

 described more freely in the present volume, which does not 

 afford an orderly narrative of the seasons of the year and the 

 labours of an unambitious man, but rather the chaotic energies, 

 the diversions, humours and passions of a man who sought to 

 live many lives at once. 



Cobbett was not able to stay long in quietness. His house and 

 much of his property were destroyed by fire in 1819, and this 

 disaster turned his thoughts homeward again. The suspension 

 of the Habeas Corpus Act had not been renewed, and the prospect 

 of liberty in his native country seemed fair. Bearing the bones 

 of Torn Paine he left America in the autumn of 1819, and landed 

 in Liverpool with the precious relics in his proud possession. 



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