INTRODUCTION 



A sort of spy, as Cobbett called him, Henry Bradshaw Fearon, 

 an English radical, who called on Cobbett at his farm at Hyde 

 Park, twenty miles from New York, gave a sketch of &quot; this well- 

 known character,&quot; his host : 



&quot;A print by Bartolozzi, executed in 1801, conveys a correct 

 outline of his person. His eyes are small, and pleasingly 

 good-natured. To a French gentleman present, he was 

 attentive ; with his sons, familiar ; to his servants, easy, 

 but to all, in his tone and manner, resolute and determined. 

 He feels no hesitation in praising himself, and evidently 

 believes that he is eventually destined to be the Atlas of 

 the British nation. His faculty in relating anecdotes is 



amusing My impressions of Mr. Cobbett are, 



that those who know him would like him if they can be 

 content to submit unconditionally to his dictation. Obey 

 me and I will treat you kindly ; if you do not, I will 

 trample on you, seemed visible in every word and feature. 

 He appears to feel, in its fullest force the sentiment : 



I have no brother, am like no brother : 

 I am myself alone.&quot; 



Fearon had published a volume called Sketches in America, and 

 in his relation of this visit to Cobbett he included a report of certain 

 reflections attributed to his host and likely to give offence to 

 Americans. These reflections, and Cobbett s ferocious, repudia 

 tion, are to be found in the second postscript to Part III of the 

 present volume ; but you will not find there any repudiation of 

 this excellent brief sketch. Cobbett, it may be surmised, was 

 not displeased with it, and indeed it is perfectly consistent not 

 simply with the many portraits and cartoons which mirror the 

 outward man, but also with the inward man presented so fully, 

 so freshly, so garrulously in Cobbett s own books. A blade I 

 took for a decent tailor, my son William for a shopkeeper s clerk, 

 and Mrs. Churcher, with less charity, for a slippery young man, 

 or, at best, for an Exciseman, is his scornful sketch of poor 

 Fearon ; truly a harsh return for the amiable portrait drawn by 

 the young Radical author. 



ix 



