160 



COBBETT AND HIS ADHERENTS. 



private property, are the main barriers against an effectual 

 employment of the working classes at adequate wages. How 

 truly it is said of such men, that a plausible insignificant word 

 in the mouth of an expert demagogue is a dangerous and dread- 

 ful weapon !" 



The question naturally ariseS;, what is a demagogue ? I 

 reply, it is a sort of tumour on the body politic, to reduce which 

 the unskilful physician aj)plies violent repellants, regardless 

 of the seat of the disorder ; but the more prudent practitioner 

 first minutely investigates the cause — there applies the remedy, 

 and the tumour gradually disappears. — The nation at the pre- 

 sent time is overrun with these tumours, the cause of which 

 is the want of employment. To supply this want, I continue to 

 propose the cultivation of flax, &c., according to the plans laid 

 down in my pamphlets, which I intend to enforce in the present 

 series. 



Cobbett was a demagogue. Some 20 or 30 years ago, he 

 paid a visit to the town of Holt, in this county, and sowed the 

 seeds of disafi'ection in the minds of many spirited farmers and 

 tradesmen in that place and neighbourhood. Unhappily the 

 seed fell on ground prepared. It took root and sprang up ; 

 and when on some public occasion I dined at Holt, the fruit 

 was fully ripe, for amongst other revolutionary toasts, that 

 of Mr. Cobbett's health, Avith an appropriate sentiment, was 

 proposed. Upon this announcement I promptly turned down 

 my glass. I was observed and called to order, but I firmly 

 resisted the invitation to cheer the man whose politics I per- 

 ceived were subversive of the best interests even of those who 

 were so eager to propose the toast. A song followed, the chorus 

 to which was ''Fall, tyrants, fall." 



It is a remarkable fact, that every aj^plauding individual of 

 that party, in a very few years, fell one after another, — became 

 bankrupt, and some were reduced to the extreme of indigence 

 and misery. Throughout the kingdom thousands of Cobbett's 

 adherents met a similar fate. These circumstances I would 

 gladly have related at the meeting of the Corn-Law League 

 at Norwich, with the hope that they might serve as a warning 

 to the tenant farmers of the present day not to be deluded by 

 the insidious suggestions and schemes proposed for their relief. 



