WILLIAM COBBETT. 93 



to beg of her, if she found her home uncomfortable, to hire a 

 lodging with respectable people, and, at any rate, not to spare 

 the money by any means, but to buy herself good clothes, 

 and to live without hard work until I arrived in England ; 

 and I, in order to induce her to lay out the money, told 

 her that I should get plently more before I came home. 



* We were kept abroad two years longer than our time, Mr. 

 Pitt (England not being so tame then as she is now) having 

 knocked up a dust with Spain about Nootka Sound. Oh, 

 how I cursed Nootka Sound, and poor bawling Pitt, too, I 

 am afraid ! At the end of four years, however, home I 

 came, landed at Portsmouth, and got my discharge from 

 the army, by the great kindness of poor Lord Edward 

 Fitzgerald, who was then the major of my regiment. J 

 found my little girl a servant of all work (and hard work 

 it was), at five pounds a year, in the house of a Captain 

 Brisac, and, without hardly saying a word about the matter, 

 she put into my hands the whole of my hundred and fifcji 

 guineas unbroken ! 



' Need I tell the reader what my feelings were ? Need I 

 tell kind-hearted English parents what effect this anecdote 

 must have produced on the minds of our children ? ' 



After his marriage, Cobbett lived with his wife for some 

 time in France, studying the language ; and then they went 

 to Philadelphia, where he began to teach English to French- 

 men, and, as his first work, composed his French and 

 English grammar. He remained between Philadelphia and 

 New York for about eight years, and, during most of this 

 time, had a printing establishment and a book store. 



In the Advice to Young Men, he pictures his domestic 

 character and habits at this period in the most engaging 



