92 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER CHAP. 



the political dissatisfaction, so rarely found in the 

 county gentleman class, which inspired William 

 Cobbett and other political thinkers of the day. 

 Deeply dissatisfied with the position of affairs in 

 England, he sold his large estate and migrated to 

 America like one of the Pilgrim Fathers, though two 

 centuries later, taking with him his family, "men- 

 servants and maidservants, oxen and asses, sheep 

 and goats," not forgetting six couples of fox-hounds 

 and two Scotch deer-hounds ; and purchased a huge 

 estate in Illinois. Three ships were chartered 

 to carry the party, and among the first people 

 whom the Flowers met in New York, coming up 

 Broadway in his shirt-sleeves, was William Cobbett. 

 When Edward Fordham Flower, the youngest 

 son of the former Hertfordshire squire and then 

 ranch -owner, returned to England he was of 

 no definite religious persuasion, nor was there 

 anything in the subsequent family developments to 

 influence William Flower to adopt the attitude 

 towards the Church which he did. His marriage 

 doubtless influenced him very greatly, and probably 

 also the examples in his wife's family show- 

 ing that religious convictions and loyalty to the 

 Church could be and were accompanied by vigour 

 of intellect and thorough independence of thought 

 and character. Apart from personal happiness, this 

 trend of sentiment and feeling on Flower's part 

 was of great service in allaying and removing differ- 

 ences aroused by the combative character of some 



