INTRODUCTION 



ii 



Cobbett s residence in America, from 1817 to 1819, which forms 

 the subject of the present volume, was not his first sojourn in the 

 western hemisphere. He had served in the British Army in New 

 Brunswick and returned with his regiment in 1791 ; and after 

 his discharge, made grave allegations of corruption against certain 

 officers of his late regiment. Fearing an unequal trial and per 

 sonal danger, he had fled from England when a court-martial was 

 about to investigate his charges, and from 1792 to 1800 he lived 

 in the United States, practising there that free and furious in 

 vective which was a main element of his controversial method, 

 and only leaving when he was nearly ruined by the damages 

 awarded against him for libel. The noise of his contention was 

 heard across the Atlantic, and when he landed at Falmouth in the 

 summer of 1800, he found himself poor and famous. Windham 

 soon acclaimed him as a man who by his unaided exertions had 

 rendered his country services that entitled him to a statue of gold, 

 and encouraged him in the foundation of the notorious Political 

 Register, which shortly proved to be a deep well of money for its 

 energetic owner. But not many years elapsed before Cobbett s 

 inconstancy betrayed itself, although without betraying his 

 honesty ; his political opinions changed until the Tory was lost 

 in the Radical. The simple truth was that he could not endure 

 to give continuous approval to any man or party, and was naturally 

 in opposition and naturally the champion of the weaker many, 

 though never of a hopeless minority. He found it possible to 

 vary the life of a pamphleteer with the life of a farmer, having 

 bought (in 1805) a farm at Botley in Hampshire, and spending 

 lavishly there the money won by his popular journalism. &quot; A 

 born agitator&quot; would be our ready phrase for a Cobbett of to-day, 

 if we chose to forget how much more than an agitator was the 

 author of this volume. He preserved a certain caution in his 

 political work until the Peninsular war sharpened his animosity 

 to the government. That animosity was violently expressed, 

 but the government, that both hated and feared him, found no 

 very plausible occasion for a prosecution until 1809, when he 

 became infuriated on hearing of the flogging of English Militia 

 by German troops : 



&quot;The mutiny among the local militia which broke out at 

 Ely, was fortunately suppressed on Wednesday by the 

 arrival of four squadrons of the German Legion Cavalry 

 from Bury, under the command of General Auckland. 

 Five of the ring-leaders were tried by court-martial, and 

 sentenced to receive five hundred lashes each, part of which 

 punishment they received on Wednesday, and a part was 



