KEW GARDENS GEORGE III 107 



for sufficient transports ? Bathurst was more inclined to 

 discountenance the whole affair. Cochrane Johnstone 

 had acted without authority ; and where would the 

 Government be, if the consignees declined the responsi- 

 bility which he had placed in their hands ? The sheep 

 would be left on the hands of the Government at an 

 enormous expense. 



The consignees were Sir John Sinclair and Mr. William 

 Cobbett : the latter, according to Cochrane Johnstone, 

 " the friend of all thoroughly national objects, and as 

 good a farmer as any in England." Cobbett, with his 

 hands already full, took the public into his confidence, 

 and announced the pending arrival of the sheep. He 

 expects to have the care and management of them (out 

 of friendship for the owner, unless he himself reaches 

 London in time enough to look after them). He asks 

 that any gentleman with some good wholesome pasture 

 to spare for a month or two will be so good as to write 

 him on the subject. He has himself provided plenty of 

 pasture, but requires more, anywhere within twenty 

 miles of Botley. The famous Political Register was 

 simply boiling with controversial matter just now :* 

 the War, Parliamentary Reform, Col. Wardle and Mr. 

 Madocks, and the general Infamy of everybody. Yet 

 Cobbett seemed, at such times, still an agriculturist 

 first of all. It was so now. It would have been an odd 

 thing (and not altogether unprofitable, perhaps), to see 

 Banks and Cobbett as coadjutors in the disposal of this 

 flock. 



But it was not to be. We have no record of the final 

 issue of this affair. As for Cochrane Johnstone, he was 

 an adventurer pure and simple. 



The probability is that a portion of this immense flock 

 of sheep reached England, and that some fell to the King's 

 share ; and, together with the lot of 1808, were being 



1 May- June, 1809. 



