WILLIAM COBBETT. 99 



body, and which is well worth the attentive study of every 

 man and woman who has a family to train, he winds up : — 



'In this happy state we lived until the year 18 10, when 

 the Government laid its hands upon me, dragged me 

 from these delights, and crammed me into a jail amongst 

 felons, of which I shall have to speak more fully, when, in 

 the last number, I come to speak of the duties of the 

 citizen. This added to the difficulties of my task of teach- 

 ing ; for now I was snatched away from the only scene in 

 which it could, as I thought, properly be executed. But 

 even these difficulties were got over. The blow was, to be 

 sure, a terrible one; and how was it felt by these poor 

 children? It was in the month of July when the horrible 

 sentence was passed upon me. My wife, having left her 

 children in the care of her good and affectionate sister, 

 was in London waiting to know the doom of her husband. 

 When the news arrived at Botley, the three boys — one 

 eleven, another nine, and the other seven years old — were 

 hoeing cabbages in that garden which had been the source 

 of so much delight. When the account of the savage sen- 

 tence was brought to them, the youngest could not for some 

 time be made to understand what a jail was; and, when he 

 did, he, all in a tremor, exclaimed, " Now, I'm sure, William, 

 that papa is not in a place like that ! " The other, in order 

 to disguise his tears and smother his sobs, fell to work with 

 the hoe, and chopped about like a blind person. This 

 account, when it reached me, affected me more, filled me 

 with deeper resentment, than any other circumstance. And, 

 oh ! how I despise the wretches who talk of my vindictive- 

 ness — of my exultation at the confusion of those who inflicted 

 those sufferings ! How I despise the base creatures, the 



