WILLIAM COBBETT. 



of things. . . . When this order of things shall cease, then 

 shall I again see England.' 



By the disposal of his property at Botley, upon which he 

 must have expended a great deal, and other transactions at 

 this time, added to his ruinous imprisonment, law expenses, 

 and a heavy fine of a thousand pounds which had been 

 imposed upon him, his pecuniary affairs suffered serious 

 derangement, from which they probably never recovered. 



In America he took a farm, or at least a house in the 

 country with some land, resumed his indefatigable habits, 

 and opened a seed store in New York. The Registers came 

 regularly across the Atlantic, and were eagerly expected. 

 Another of Cobbett's books, the Years Eesidejice in America^ 

 now appeared in parts. 



Cobbett returned to England as soon as the Habeas Corpus 

 Suspension Bill had expired, and, settling at Kensington, 

 recommenced his labours as a journalist. These were, indeed, 

 never suspended, save while he was at sea. 



In the autumn of 1822 he began his Rural Rides, which 

 he continued for five different seasons, and in which he 

 indulged his natural love for rural objects, and everything 

 connected with country life. He seems to have had a true 

 and lively feeling for the beautiful in nature, and the pure 

 and simple taste which is ever the attendant of this kind of 

 sensibility. He always travelled on horseback, accompanied 

 by one or other of his sons, and showed his good taste by 

 departing from the usual thoroughfares, and finding his way 

 across fields, by footpaths, by-lanes, bridle-ways, and hunting- 

 gates — 'steering' over the country, as he expresses it, for 

 such landmarks as village spires and old chapels. His object 

 was to see and converse with the farmers and labourers in 



