Z97 



COBBETT, WILLIAM. 



COBDEN, RICHARD. 



203 



to prosecute. On the day of trial, to the surprise of all concerned, 

 he did not make his appearance, although forty-seven witnesses named 

 by him had been brought up from Portsmouth to London ; and the 

 court, in the notion that some accident might possibly have happened 

 to him, adjourned to the third day after. In the meantime search 

 was made for him in all directions, but he had crossed over to France. 

 He remained in that country for six months, and then sailed from 

 Havre-de-Grace for New York, where he arrived in October 1792. 

 About two years after this date he made his first appearance as a 

 public writer in an attack upon Dr. Priestley, then newly arrived in 

 the United States, under the title of ' Observations on the Emigration 

 of a Martyr to the Causa of Liberty, by Peter Porcupine.' This 

 pamphlet attracted much notice, and was followed by a long succession 

 of others in the same violent anti-democratic strain, and with the same 

 signature. The whole were afterwards collected and reprinted in 

 England in 1801, in 12 vols. 8vo. The outrageous recklessness and 

 personality of his invective however at length exposed him to several 

 prosecutions for libel, and the inconveniences in which he was thus 

 involved induced him iu June 1800 to quit America for England. On 

 arriving in London he immediately started a Tory daily paper under 

 the title of the ' Porcupine,' but it was discontinued after an existence 

 of only a few months. Upon this he commenced his ' Weekly Register,' 

 which rapidly attained a large circulation, and which he kept up 

 without the failure of a single week from its first publication till his 

 death, a period of above thirty-three years. In the course of this 

 time however it wholly changed its politics, having eventually become 

 the most determined among the assailants of the government and the 

 champions of democracy. The first indications of this change appeared 

 in the course of 1803, but it was not till some years later that the 

 conductor of the ' Register ' had completely reversed his original 

 position. In the year 1804 two verdicts had been given against him 

 for libel, in consequence of the first of which (for libels on the Earl 

 of Hardwicke, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland ; Lord Redesdale, lord 

 chancellor of that country ; and other persons connected with the 

 Irish government) he was fined 5002. ; and by the second of which he 

 was cast in 5002. damages to Mr. (afterwards Lord) Plunket, then the 

 Irish solicitor-general. In 1810 he was again tried on an information 

 at the instance of the government for certain observations in the 

 'Register' of the 10th of July, 1809, on the flogging of some local 

 militia-men at Ely ; and the result was a conviction, on which he wag 

 sentenced to pay a fine of 10002. to the king, and to be imprisoned for 

 two years. When he came out of prison he set in motion a new 

 engine for the annoyance of the administration in the series of papers 

 which he called his ' Twopenny Tragh,' the circulation of which is said 

 at one time to have amounted to 100,000 copies. In April 1817 how- 

 ever, professedly to escape from the operation of the Six Acts, but 

 partly also, as is believed, in consequence of certain pecuniary embar- 

 rassments, he again visited America. While there he still continued 

 the publication of hia ' Register ' in London, the manuscript being 

 regularly transmitted across the Atlantic. He returned to England 

 in 1819, and soon after commenced a daily paper, which lasted only 

 two months, involving him in further losses. Two other actions for 

 libel immediately followed, in both of which he was cast; the damages 

 awarded in the first (brought by Mr. Cleary) being only 40*, but in 

 the second (brought by Mr. John Wright) 10002. Amidst all these 

 troubles, neither the regularity nor the spirit of his literary labours 

 ever relaxed. His ' Register ' was only one of many productions which 

 his untiring and ever-vigorous pen was constantly giving to the world. 

 In 1820 he made his first attempt to get into parliament by standing 

 a contest for the city of Coventry, in which he was defeated. In 1826 

 he was again unsuccessful in a similar attempt at Preston. In 1829 

 and 1830 he attracted much attention by a number of political lectures 

 which he delivered in several of the principal towns of England anrl 

 Scotland. In July 1831 he was again tried on a prosecution for libel, 

 the charge being grounded on an article which had appeared in the 

 ' Register,' and which was alleged to have been published with the 

 intent of exciting the agricultural labourers to acts of violence, and to 

 destroy property. He defended himself on this occasion in a speech 

 of six hours ; and, the jury not being able to agree in a verdict, the 

 trial ended in his discharge. 



In 1832 Cobbett was returned to the first reformed parliament as 

 one of the members for Oldham. In the course of his parliamentary 

 career he made several effective speeches ; but his success in this new 

 field did not come up to expectation, and on more than one occasion 

 he damaged himself by those strange blunders which here and there 

 mark every portion of his history. His death took place unexpect- 

 edly, and after a very short illness, on the 18th of June 1835. 



A complete catalogue of Cobbett' s publications would occupy more 

 space than we can afford. Among those not already mentioned that 

 have attracted most attention, are his ' Year's Residence in America; ' 

 'Emigrant's Guide;' 'Poor Man's Friend;' 'Cottage Economy;' 

 'Village Sermons;' ' History of the Protestant Reformation in England 

 and Ireland ; ' ' Advice to Young Men and Women ; ' ' Grammar of | 

 the French Language ; ' ' English Grammar,' in a ' Series ot Letters 

 to his Son ; ' and his ' Rural Rides,' reprinted from the ' Register.' 

 He also translated from the French Marten's treatise on the ' Law of 

 Nations ; ' and was the projector and original conductor of the ' Par- 

 liamentary History,' which, for some years, bore his name. 



BIO'J. DIV. VOL. Ib 



On the subject of the intellectual character of this remarkable man, 

 there is already a more general agreement of opinion thai? might have 

 been expected, considering the vehement partisanship of the greater 

 portion of what he has written. His mind was one of extraordinary 

 native vigour, but apparently not well fitted by original endowment 

 any more than by acquirement for speculations of the highest kind. 

 Cobbett's power lay in wielding more effectively perhaps than they 

 ever were wielded before, those weapons of controversy which tell 

 upon what in the literal acceptation of the words may be called the 

 common sense of mankind, that is, those feelings and capacities which 

 nearly all men possess in contradistinction to those of a more refined 

 and exquisite character which belon? to a comparatively small number. 

 To these higher feelings and powers he has nothing to say ; they and 

 all things that they delight in are uniformly treated by him with a 

 scorn, real or affected, more frank and reckless certainly iu its expres- 

 sion than they have met with from any other great writer. He cares 

 for nothing but what is cared for by the multitude, and by the 

 multitude, too, only of his own day, and, it may be even said, of his 

 own country. Shakspere, the British Museum, antiquity, posterity, 

 America, France, Germany, are, one and all, either wholly indifferent 

 to him, or the objects of his bitter contempt. But in his proper line 

 he is matchless. When he has a subject that suits him, he handles it, 

 not so much with the artificial skill of an accomplished writer, as 

 with the perfect and inimitable natural art with which a dog picks a 

 bone. There are many things that other men can do, which he cannot 

 attempt ; but this he can do as none but himself can or ever could 

 doit. 



* COBDEN, RICHARD, was born in 1804, at Dunford, near Mid- 

 hurst, Sussex. His father, who possessed a small property in land 

 which he himself cultivated, died while Richard was yet young, and he 

 was taken charge of by an uncle, who kept a wholesale warehouse in 

 the city of London, and who placed him in his establishment. He 

 commenced business as a partner in a Manchester printed cottou 

 factory, travelling occasionally for commercial purposes. He visited 

 Egypt, Greece, and Turkey in 1834, and in 1835 he was iu North 

 America. About this time he published two pamphlets, ' England, 

 Ireland, and America,' by a Manchester manufacturer; and 'Russia,' 

 by the author of ' England, Ireland, and America.' He had contributed 

 to the establishment of the 'Manchester Athenaeum,' and in 1835 

 pronounced the inauguration discourse. 



In 1837 Mr. Cobden stood a contest for the borough of Stockport, 

 but was unsuccessful, and in the same year travelled in France, 

 Belgium, and Switzerland. In 1838 he made a journey in Germany. 

 Soon after his return to England, at a meeting of the Manchester 

 Chamber of Commerce, he advocated the repeal of all taxes on grain, 

 and carried a petition to that effect, addressed to the House of Com- 

 mons, and very numerously signed. In 1839 about 200 delegates 

 brought up to London a vast number of petitions for the repeal of the 

 corn-laws. Mr. Villiers made a motion for the repeal, which the 

 House of Commons rejected by a very large majority, and immediately 

 afterwards the National Anti-Corn-Law-League was established. In 

 1841 Mr. Cobden was elected M.P. for Stockport. 



The most powerful of the earlier opponents of the corn-laws was 

 Colonel T. P. Thompson, who in 1827 published, in the form of a 

 cheap pamphlet, his ' Catechism of the Corn-Laws,' the substance of 

 which had originally appeared in the ' Westminster Review.' The 

 League, on the 20th of October 1842, announced its "intention of 

 raising 60,0002. for the purpose of sending lecturers to every part of 

 the country, and of spreading information on the effects of the corn- 

 laws^ by means of pamphlets, &c." Among these pamphlets was one 

 consisting of ' Extracts from the Works of Colonel T. Perronet 

 Thompson, author of the 'Catechism of the Corn-Laws,' selected 

 and classified by R. Cobden, Esq., M.P., and published with the consent 

 of the author,' 8vo, Manchester. Mr. Cobden became one of tho 

 lecturers. He attended public meetings in the principal towns 

 throughout the country, and also occasionally in London, and was 

 distinguished above all the others, not less by the extent and precision 

 of his information than by his acuteness of reasoning, his boldness of 

 declamation, and his popular style of oratory. These qualities also 

 gained him much influence in the House of Commons, where he often 

 spoke in support of his object. The struggle for the repeal of the 

 corn-laws was terminated by Sir Robert Peel's memorable speech, and 

 by the royal assent being given, June 26, 1846, to an Act for repealing 

 the duties on the importation of foreign corn. 



Mr. Cobden, soon after the passing of the Act, set out on a journey 

 on the continent, and visited successively France, Spain, Italy, 

 Germany, Russia, and Sweden, and WHS received with great applause 

 at meetings in the principal cities and towns. During his absence in 

 1847 he was re-elected M.P. for Stockport, and also for the West 

 Riding of Yorkshire. He made his choice to sit for the West Riding, 

 which he still (1856) represents. After the repeal of the corn-laws his 

 political friends set on foot a subscription to remunerate him for his 

 services, and the large sum of 70,0002. is stated to have been collected 

 and given to him. Mr. Cobdeu is an advocate of the ballot, of exten- 

 sion of the suffrage, of shorter parliaments, of financial reforms, and 

 generally of liberal measures. He is a member of the Peace Society, 

 and at the congresses in Paris in 1849, at Frankfurt in 1850, and in 

 London in 1851, supported the principles of non-intervention and of 



